Ancient Politics

The life of Demetrius (337-283 BCE) serves as a through-line to the forty years following the death of Alexander (323-282 BCE), a time of unparalleled turbulence and instability in the ancient world. With no monarch able to take Alexander’s place, his empire fragmented into five pieces. Capitalizing on good looks, youth, and sexual prowess, Demetrius sought to weld those pieces together and recover the dream of a single world-state, with a new Alexander—himself—at its head.

Way of the Ancient Healer provides an overview of the rich tradition of Filipino healing practices, discussing their origins, world influences, and role in daily life. The book combines years of historical research with detailed descriptions of the spiritual belief system that forms the foundation of these practices. Giving listeners a rare look at modern-day Filipino healing rituals, the book also includes personal examples from author Virgil Mayor Apostol's own experiences with shamanic healing and dream interpretation.

From Aristotle to Ada Lovelace: a brief history of the mathematical ideas that have forever changed the world and the everyday people and pioneers behind them. The story of our best invention yet. From our ability to calculate the passing of time to the algorithms that control computers and much else in our lives, numbers are everywhere. They are so indispensable that we forget how fundamental they are to our way of life.

If you read a standard history of magic, you learn that it begins in ancient Egypt with the resurrection of a goose in front of the Pharaoh. You discover how magicians were tortured and killed during the age of witchcraft. You are told how conjuring tricks were used to quell rebellious colonial natives. The history of magic is full of such stories, which turn out not to be true. Behind the smoke and mirrors, however, lies the real story of magic.

In 1895, archaeologists excavating a villa outside Pompeii unearthed a hoard of Roman silverware. Among the treasures was a bowl featuring a female figure with thick, curly hair, deep-set eyes, a slightly hooked nose and a strong jaw, and sporting an elephant scalp headdress. Modern scholars believe this woman to be a depiction of Cleopatra Selene, daughter of the infamous Cleopatra and Mark Antony. Using this discovery as her starting point, Jane Draycott recreates the life and times of a remarkable woman.

Few personalities from classical antiquity are more famous - yet more poorly understood - than Cleopatra VII, queen of Egypt. In this major biography, Duane Roller reveals that Cleopatra was in fact a learned and visionary leader whose overarching goal was always the preservation of her dynasty and kingdom. Roller's authoritative account is the first to be based solely on primary materials from the Greco-Roman period: literary sources, Egyptian documents (Cleopatra's own writings), and representations in art and coinage produced while she was alive.

What are the secrets to a contented life? One of Rome's greatest and most influential poets, Horace (65-8 BCE) has been cherished for more than 2,000 years not only for his wit, style, and reflections on Roman society, but also for his wisdom about how to live a good life - above all else, a life of contentment in a world of materialistic excess and personal pressures. In How to Be Content, Stephen Harrison provides fresh, contemporary translations of poems from across Horace's works that continue to offer important lessons about the good life, friendship, love, and death.

The Three Sisters is Anton Chekhov's 1901 play about the Prosorov family, who are stuck in a provincial Russian town. The sisters - Olga, Masha, and Irina - fantasize about one day returning to Moscow. Meanwhile, their brother Andrey courts village girl Natasha, and the family socializes with the soldiers stationed nearby. Dreams, longing, and illicit love drive the action of Chekhov's comic drama.

Ancient Greece has laid way for some of the most influential people, systems and stories of our civilization. It is hard to believe on one hand because technology-wise the Greeks were very primitive, yet on the other hand they were essentially on of the earliest roots of Western civilization.

In this exciting new audio, Peter L. Bernstein tells the story of history's most coveted, celebrated, and inglorious asset: gold.

Hadrian's Wall is the largest and one of the most enigmatic historical monuments in Britain. Nothing else approaches its vast scale: a land wall running seventy-three miles from east to west and a sea wall stretching at least twenty-six miles down the Cumbrian coast. Many of its forts are as large as Britain's most formidable medieval castles, and the wide ditch dug to the south of the Wall, the vallum, is larger than any surviving prehistoric earthwork.

Cette édition traduite en français explique le principe divin féminin comme source de la création à la fois physique et métaphysique, la double nature féminine d’Isis avec Nephtys, la relation (et l’une-ité) des principes féminin et masculin, la numérologie d’Isis et d’Osiris, le rôle d’Isis en tant que Mère Vierge, l’explication d’une vingtaine de divinités féminines en tant que manifestations des attributs féminins, le rôle du culte d’Isis à travers le monde, l’allégorie d’Isis, Osiris et Horus, et bien plus encore.

One of the most profound studies of warfare ever written, The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China presents us with an Eastern tradition of strategic thought that emphasizes outwitting one's opponent through speed, stealth, flexibility, and a minimum of force - an approach very different from that stressed in the West, where the advantages of brute strength have overshadowed more subtle methods.

Ancient cultures around the world spoke of a vast cycle of time with alternating dark and golden ages; Plato called it the Great Year. Most of us were taught in school that the dark ages were real but the golden age was just a universal myth. But new scientific evidence suggest this cycle of high and low ages may have some basis in fact. Now that the astronomical community has discovered that something massive is tugging on our solar system the stage is set for discovering the motion that moves us from high ages of enlightenment to low ages of darkness.

Amazons - fierce warrior women dwelling on the fringes of the known world - were the mythic archenemies of the ancient Greeks. Heracles and Achilles displayed their valor in duels with Amazon queens, and the Athenians reveled in their victory over a powerful Amazon army. In historical times, Cyrus of Persia, Alexander the Great, and the Roman general Pompey tangled with Amazons.

If you're into self-help and personal development, you've most likely come across the terms stoicism and stoic philosophy a lot these days. Unlike a fancy-sounding pop psychology trend or personal development quick fix, stoicism is a powerful ancient Greek philosophy concept.

Sulla had become renowned in Rome as a general during the Jugurthine, Social, and Mithridatic Wars, but naturally he is now remembered for the gruesome acts committed during his tenure as Rome’s first lifelong dictator. Sulla’s unprecedented period of one-man rule is viewed by many historians as a means of re-establishing peace and order in Roman politics while safeguarding the Republican system from abuse by powerful individuals.

Jessica Carew Kraft, an urban wife and mom of two, was rooted in the modern world, complete with a high-powered career in tech and the sneaking suspicion that her lifestyle was preventing her and her family from truly thriving. Determined to find a better way, Jessica quit her job and set out to learn about "rewilding" from people who reject the comforts and convenience of civilization by using ancient tools and skills to survive. Along the way, she found an entire community walking the path back from our technology-focused, anxiety-ridden way of life to a simpler, more human experience.

Francine Prose delves into ancient Greek and Roman literary sources, as well as modern representations of Cleopatra in art, theater, and film. She challenges the common narratives driven by orientalism and misogyny and offers a new interpretation of Cleopatra’s history from the lens of our own era.

The Annals, Part 2 picks up in the year A.D. 32 with the increasingly menacing and tyrannical behavior of Tiberius. With hundreds murdered or driven to suicide and many more in exile, Tiberius descends steadily into growing lust and debauchery on his private estate on the isle of Capri. Overseas, Rome is victorious in her struggle with Parthia, and as Tiberius is being smothered to death in A.D. 37 by Macro, peace at last comes to the eastern frontier.