Ancient

From the creator of the award-winning podcast series The History of Rome and Revolutions comes the "remarkably engaging" (Washington Post) history of the bloody battles, political machinations, and human drama that set the stage for the fall of the Roman Republic. The Roman Republic was one of...

From classicist James Romm comes a “striking…fascinating” (Booklist) deep dive into the last decades of ancient Greek freedom leading up to Alexander the Great’s destruction of Thebes—and the saga of the greatest military corps of the time, the Theban Sacred Band, a unit composed of...

Four years after their departure for the east, the armies of Rome are bloodied and exhausted. Their victories against the Parthian Empire came at great cost.

A New York Times–bestselling historian charts how and why societies from ancient Greece to the modern era chose to utterly destroy their foes, and warns that similar wars of obliteration are possible in our time War can settle disputes, topple tyrants, and bend the trajectory of...

A Brief History of China tells of the development of a rich, complex civilization where the use of paper, writing, money, and gunpowder were widespread in ancient times and where silk, ceramics, tea, metal implements, and other products were produced and exported around the globe....

The Spartans of ancient Greece are typically portrayed as macho heroes: noble, laconic, totally fearless, and impervious to pain. And indeed, they often lived up to this image. But life was not as simple as this image suggests. In truth, ancient Sparta was a city of contrasts....

In this, the first prose history in European civilization, Herodotus describes the growth of the Persian Empire with force, authority, and style....

The last and longest war of classical antiquity was fought in the early seventh century. It was ideologically charged and fought along the full length of the Persian-Roman frontier, drawing in all the available resources and great powers of the steppe world....

The year 146 BC marked the brutal end to the Roman Republic's 118-year struggle for the western Mediterranean. Breaching the walls of their great enemy, Carthage, Roman troops slaughtered countless citizens, enslaved those who survived, and leveled the 700-year-old city....

In 89 A.D., following a failed insurrection by the governor of Upper Germania, the disgraced Legio XXI Rapax is dispatched to Pannonia, on the River Danube.

This compelling reference presents the history of ancient Greece - the culture that brought us democracy, the Olympics, Socrates, and Alexander the Great....

Genghis Khan built a formidable land empire, but he never crossed the sea. Yet by the time his grandson Kublai Khan had defeated the last vestiges of the Song empire and established the Yuan dynasty in 1279, the Mongols controlled the most powerful navy in the world.

Aurelian saved the Roman Empire from foreign invasion and collapse, earning him the title Restorer of the World from a grateful Senate. This is his story as restorer of the world....

Two works by the Roman historian, Tacitus. Agricola is a portrait of Julius Agricola, a governor of Roman Britain, and the German tribes of Northern Europe are discussed in Germania....

Julius Caesar is one of the most famous figures of the ancient Roman world. A skillful general and leading politician of the late Roman Republic, he secured a 10-year proconsular command in the province of Gaul, during which he accumulated both wealth and power....

The leading scholars behind The Greek Plays present a collection of the best translations of the foremost Greek historians, presenting a sweeping history of ancient Greece as recorded by its first chroniclers....

The acclaimed ancient world historian examines the centuries-long decline of Greek powers in the face of the growing Roman threat....

Get to know one of history’s most impressive generals from the political and military conflicts that defined his adolescence to the battles that made him famous. These 15 lectures will paint a portrait of not only Hannibal, but also his enemies and allies....

A riveting account of ancient Rome's imperial bodyguard, the select band of soldiers who wielded the power to make - or destroy - the emperors they served....

The myths surrounding Sparta are as old as the city itself. Even in antiquity, Sparta was a unique society, considered an enigma. The Spartans' often bizarre rules and practices have the capacity to horrify as much they do to fascinate us today....

A Noble Ruin delivers a complex and captivating portrait of Mark Antony that offers a fresh perspective on the fall of the Roman Republic.

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....

Before the Romans could become masters of the Mediterranean, they had to first conquer the people of their own peninsula.

Shortly before his death in 1645, the undefeated swordsman Miyamoto Musashi retreated to a cave to live as a hermit. There he wrote five scrolls describing the "true principles" required for victory in the martial arts and on the battlefield....

Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great were two of the greatest generals Rome had ever produced....