Ancient English History

What made the Romans laugh? Was ancient Rome a carnival, filled with practical jokes and hearty chuckles? Or was it a carefully regulated culture in which the uncontrollable excess of laughter was a force to fear-a world of wit, irony, and knowing smiles? How did Romans make sense of laughter? What role did it play in the world of the law courts, the imperial palace, or the spectacles of the arena?

Rome, the Eternal City. Today visitors can stand on bridges that Julius Caesar and Cicero crossed; walk around temples in the footsteps of emperors; visit churches from the earliest days of Christianity. This is all the more remarkable considering what the city has endured. It has been ravaged by fires, floods, earthquakes, and - most of all - by roving armies. Matthew Kneale uses seven of these crisis moments to create a powerful and captivating account of Rome’s extraordinary history. He paints portraits of the city before each assault, describing how Romans, both rich and poor, lived their everyday lives.

Katherine Pangonis explores five forgotten cities of the Mediterranean: Syracuse, Antioch, Ravenna, Tyre and Carthage. Each of these of these ancient cities has a claim to have been the centre of the world in its own time. Their fascinating entwined history takes in Alexander the Great, the Byzantine general Maniakes, and the Roman, Byzantine, Arab and Norman conquests. All were once major power centres that have declined into relative obscurity - but their glory still lingers for those who seek it out.

The story of the Roman Republic is the greatest epic in human history. Seen in the long perspective of time, it seems too fantastic to be real. From its modest beginnings as a convenient fording place on the Tiber to its eventual destiny as the mistress of the Mediterranean, Rome offers a strange tale of fate, sacrifice, and indomitable willpower. The stern realities of war shaped its policies from the very beginning.

The final dynasty of pharaonic Egypt was born with the death of one of the most famous men in the ancient world – Alexander the Great – and died with the dramatic suicide of one of antiquity’s most famous women – Cleopatra. The Ptolemies ruled over Egypt for almost three hundred years and ushered in the final period of Egyptian greatness by establishing the most powerful empire in the eastern Mediterranean. But they were Greek, not Egyptian, and attempted to justify their rule by merging Greek and Egyptian culture and embracing pharaonic traditions.

In Four Lost Cities, acclaimed science journalist Annalee Newitz takes listeners on an entertaining and mind-bending adventure into the deep history of urban life. Investigating across the centuries and around the world, Newitz explores the rise and fall of four ancient cities, each the center of a sophisticated civilization: the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in Central Turkey, the Roman vacation town of Pompeii in Italy, the medieval megacity of Angkor in Cambodia, and the indigenous metropolis Cahokia, which stood beside the Mississippi River where East St. Louis is today.

How did we get here, to this time and place in history? Are we repeating history's mistakes because we did not learn about the pivotal events that shaped the modern world? This three-book history course helps you quickly understand the nuances and the impact of three crucial periods portrayed in countless films: the Crusades and of the rise and fall of two great empires, the Roman and British.

This compelling book reveals a remarkable truth: Indigenous peoples across the globe—from the Native Americans to the Māori of New Zealand, and from the Aztecs to ancient Africans—communicated in ancient German. It challenges the narrative of mainstream history, suggesting that what we've been taught is merely a facade, masking a rich and profound heritage that has been hidden from us for too long. By examining the clues woven into language and culture, here we can piece together the captivating story of our true history.

The late republic (from about 133BCE) was characterized by civil discontent, with three Servile Wars, two attempted coups, a Social War between Rome and Italian allies, and endless conflict. We begin in 110-106BCE with two speeches railing against the fixed social order and corruption of the highborn, as well as the scorn poured on those of lower birth.

In the hands of Sophocles, the master dramatist, the anguished tale of a man fated to kill his father and marry his mother retains its power to shock and move beyond any Freudian reference.

Through archaeological remains, ancient texts, and work by a new generation of historians, a picture can today be built of this remarkable civilization and their capital city. Although the city had been destroyed, the legacy of the Persians survived, even as they mostly remain an enigma to the West and are not nearly as well understood as the Greeks, Romans, or Egyptians. In a sense, the Achaemenid Persian Empire holds some of the most enduring mysteries of ancient civilization.

Frenzied crowds, talking ravens, the stench of the Tiber River: life in ancient Rome was stimulating, dynamic, and often downright dangerous. The Romans relaxed and gossiped in baths, stole precious water from aqueducts, and partied and dined to excess. From the smells of fragrant cookshops and religious sacrifices to the cries of public executions and murderous electoral mobs, Guy de la Bedoyere's Populus draws on a host of historical and literary sources to transport us into the intensity of daily life at the height of ancient Rome.

Few people have had as many words written about them down through the centuries as Julius Caesar—the brilliant general who made Queen Cleopatra of Egypt his mistress. He has captured the imagination of playwrights, historians, soldiers, and emperors. Little has been written about his ally, son-in-law, and eventual enemy Pompey the Great, who crashed onto the Roman scene as a victorious twenty-three-year-old general and who, at the height of his career, was arguably more famous, more popular, and more successful than Caesar.

At the end of the fourth century, as the power of Rome faded and Constantinople became the seat of empire, a new capital city was rising in the West. Here, in Ravenna on the coast of Italy, Arian Goths and Catholic Romans competed to produce an unrivaled concentration of buildings and astonishing mosaics. For three centuries, the city attracted scholars, lawyers, craftsmen, and religious luminaries, becoming a true cultural and political capital.

The Annals, written by Gaius Cornelius Tacitus (56c-120 CE), is regarded as one of the great literary works of history in the Roman world. Tacitus is considered by many to be the greatest of Roman historians, and The Annals is his’ outstanding achievement. Originally comprising 18 volumes, books 7 to 10 and parts of books 5, 6, 11 and 16 have been lost, but those that remain, read here by Martyn Swain, tell the fascinating tale of the Julio Claudian emperors and their times.

As the most celebrated European to explore Asia, Marco Polo was the original global traveler and the earliest bridge between East and West. A universal icon of adventure and discovery, he has inspired six centuries of popular fascination and spurious mythology. Now, from acclaimed author Laurence Bergreen, comes the first fully authoritative biography of one of the most enchanting figures in world history.

In Decoding the Heavens, Jo Marchant tells for the first time the full story of the 100-year quest to decipher the ancient Greek computer known as the Antikythera Mechanism. Along the way she unearths a diverse cast of remarkable characters and explores the deep roots of modern technology in ancient Greece and the medieval European and Islamic worlds. At its heart, this is an epic adventure and mystery, a book that challenges our assumptions about technology through the ages.

This volume presents in new English translations the scattered fragments and testimonies regarding Hermes Thrice Great that complete Brian Copenhaver's translation of the Hermetica (Cambridge, 1992).

Many ancient civilizations have influenced and inspired people in the 21st century. The Greeks and Romans continue to fascinate the West today. But of all the world's civilizations, none have intrigued people more than the Mayans, whose culture, astronomy, language, and mysterious disappearance all continue to captivate people. In 2012 especially, there was a renewed focus on the Mayans, whose advanced calendar led many to speculate the world would end on the same date the Mayan calendar ends.

Until the publication of this captivating biography, no such volume on Trajan's life has been tailored to the general listener. The unique book illuminates a neglected period of ancient Roman history. Trajan rose from fairly obscure beginnings to become the emperor of Rome. He was born in Italica, an Italic settlement close to modern Seville in present-day Spain, and is the first Roman Emperor to be born outside of Rome. His remarkable rise from officer to general and then to emperor in just over twenty years reveals a shrewd politician who maintained absolute power.