Ancient Europe

Tacitus, who condemns the depravity of these rulers, which he saw as proof of the corrupting force of absolute power, writes caustically of the brutal and lecherous Tiberius, the weak and cuckolded Claudius, and "the artist" Nero. In particular, his account of the bloody reigns of Tiberius and Nero brims with plots, murder, poisoning, suicide, uprisings, death, and destruction. The Annals also provides a vivid account of the violent suppression of the revolt led by Boudicca in Britain, the great fire of Rome under Nero, and the subsequent bloody persecution of the Christians.

We speak English today because the Anglo-Saxons took over most of post-Roman Britain. How did that happen? There is little evidence: not much archaeology, and even less written history. There is, however, a huge amount of speculation. King Arthur's Wars brings an entirely new approach to the subject - the answers are out there, in the British countryside, waiting to be found. Months of field work and map study allow us to understand, for the first time, how the Anglo-Saxons conquered England, county by county and decade by decade.

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.

Viaje cientos de miles de años atrás, a cuando los hombres de las cavernas vagaban por la Tierra. Descubra cómo era la vida de los primeros europeos de la Edad de Piedra. A continuación, avance rápidamente hasta las Edades de Bronce y de Hierro, cuando surgieron en Europa las primeras civilizaciones avanzadas. Descubrirá también cosas sobre las antiguas civilizaciones de Grecia, Roma y los bárbaros del norte de Europa.

This year Christians worldwide will celebrate the 1700th anniversary of Constantine's conversion and victory at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. No Roman emperor had a greater impact on the modern world than did Constantine. The reason is not simply that he converted to Christianity but that he did so in a way that brought his subjects along after him. Indeed, this major new biography argues that Constantine's conversion is but one feature of a unique administrative style that enabled him to take control of an empire beset by internal rebellions and external threats by Persians and Goths.

The period between the end of the eighth century CE and the middle of the 11th is often called the “Viking Age” because this is the period in which Scandinavian people expanded their contacts with the outside world through trade, raiding, exploration, and colonization. This volume presents a version of Ragnar’s saga compiled from different modern sources, along with information providing additional historical and documentary context, followed by a discussion of some aspects of modern appropriations and representations of ancient Norse culture.

The Picts were an ancient nation who ruled most of northern and eastern Scotland during the Dark Ages. Despite their historical importance, they remain shrouded in myth and misconception. Absorbed by the kingdom of the Scots in the ninth century, they lost their unique identity, their language, and their vibrant artistic culture. Among their few surviving traces are standing stones decorated with incredible skill and covered with enigmatic symbols.

Naples: The History and Legacy of the Prominent Italian City-State from Antiquity to Today dives into the city's origin story, how it became one of the most important places in Europe, and its winding history. You will learn about Naples like never before.

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.

Como culminación de cincuenta años de estudio e investigación sobre la antigua Roma, Mary Beard, profesora de la Universidad de Cambridge, nos ofrece una magistral visión de conjunto de su historia: una historia que, nos dice, «al cabo de dos mil años, sigue siendo la base de nuestra cultura y nuestra política, de cómo vemos el mundo y nuestro lugar en él».

Get to know the Greek gods and goddesses, from the mighty Zeus, to the temperamental Poseidon, the beautiful Aphrodite, and every character from A to Z. Who wouldn’t want to hear about Zeus and his command of lightning, Hades and how he found his bride, the wisdom of Athena, and so many other stories that capture the imagination. These stories can do more than just entertain; they can also inspire and teach us lessons that were penned by the Greeks themselves.

For centuries much of Europe was in the hands of the very peculiar Habsburg family. An unstable mixture of wizards, obsessives, melancholics, bores, musicians and warriors, they saw off – through luck, guile and sheer mulishness – any number of rivals, until finally packing up in 1918. From their principal lairs along the Danube they ruled most of Central Europe and Germany and interfered everywhere – indeed the history of Europe hardly makes sense without them.

This is the story of the greatest empire the world has ever known. Simon Baker charts the rise and fall of the world's first superpower, focusing on six momentous turning points that shaped Roman history. Welcome to Rome as you've never seen it before - awesome and splendid, gritty and squalid. From the conquest of the Mediterranean beginning in the third century BC to the destruction of the Roman Empire at the hands of barbarian invaders some seven centuries later, we discover the most critical episodes in Roman history.

It would be hard if not outright impossible to overstate the impact Roman Emperor Constantine I had on the history of Christianity, Ancient Rome, and Europe as a whole. Constantine remains an influential and controversial figure to this day. It was Constantine who first decided that Rome, exposed and vulnerable near the gathering masses of barbarians moving into Germania and Gaul, was a strategically unsafe base for the Empire, and thus expanded the city of New Rome on the Dardanelles straits, creating what eventually became Constantinople.

In exploring how the Christian religion became such a defining feature of the European landscape, and how a small sect of isolated congregations was transformed into a mass movement centrally directed from Rome, Heather shows how Christendom constantly battled against both so-called 'heresies' and other forms of belief. From the crisis that followed the collapse of the Roman Empire, which left the religion teetering on the edge of extinction, to the astonishing revolution in which the Papacy emerged as the head of a vast international corporation.

The illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages are among the greatest works of European art and literature. We are dazzled by them and recognize their crucial role in the transmission of knowledge. However, we generally think much less about the countless men and women who made, collected and preserved them through the centuries, and to whom they owe their existence. This entrancing book describes some of the extraordinary people who have spent their lives among illuminated manuscripts over the last thousand years.

Unquestionably, Herodotus has left mankind one of the world's greatest works of literature. The Persian Wars is part history, part geography, part anthropology...and completely entertaining. It possesses a charm that is legendary. But, over and above this, Herodotus has succeeded for all time in brilliantly expressing the conflict between the ideal of the free man defending his liberty within a state based on the rule of law, and that of the despot who bases his rule on brute force and whose subjects are considered slaves.

Journey on the Silk Road, and discover trade, cultures, and adventures from the ancient world! Step onto the fabled Silk Road, an epic network of ancient trade routes that spanned thousands of miles and linked the East and West for centuries. In The Silk Road, embark on a captivating voyage through time and terrain, where cultures converged, goods flowed, and history unfolded.

Set in the northeastern corner of Spain and nestled next to France is the autonomous region of Catalonia. More than seeing themselves as Spaniards, Catalonian people see themselves as Catalan first and foremost, and they all are natively fluent in the language, Catalan. After a tumultuous history during which it bounced back and forth in terms of its political status and relationship to Spain’s central government, Catalonia was granted its autonomy on December 18, 1979. In 2006, it came close to acquiring its total independence, but that status is still being hotly contested.

The Acropolis, which literally means "a city on the heights", is a citadel whose currently surviving structures were mostly built during the fifth century BC in honor of Athena, the patron goddess of Athens. It functioned as a sacred precinct that contained the city's most important religious and municipal structures, many of which have remained relatively intact for over 2,000 years.