Showing titles in Greece

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.

For 32 days, they were chased across the mountains as they headed for the coast and a rendezvous with a Royal Navy launch waiting to spirit the general to Cairo. Rick Stroud, whose Phantom Army of Alamein won plaudits for its meticulous research and its lightness of touch in the telling, brings these same gifts to bear in this new project.

Author, broadcaster and 'rock star classicist' Natalie Haynes is a little bit obsessive about Ancient Greece and Rome. In these four series, she explores some of the most prominent historical and mythological figures from the classical world, telling their stories through a mix of stand-up comedy and conversation.

Argonautika is the story of Jason and the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece. This epic story of gods and goddesses, mythical beasts, thrilling adventures, and narrow escapes may be the oldest surviving Greek myth, which Homer referred to as something "familiar to all." Listen to this masterpiece of classical literature in an all-new translation that captures the timeless magic and quiet humor of this ancient legend.

The stars and constellations are among the few remaining objects that appear to us just as they appeared to our distant ancestors. From anywhere on Earth, a person may view the celestial panorama simply by stepping outside at night and gazing upward. This nonfiction narrative presents the tales of the 48 classical constellations, compiled from literature spanning a thousand years from Homer to Claudius Ptolemy. These age-old tales have captured the human imagination from ancient times to the present.

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.

Since the dawn of the Classical Era up to World War II, thousands have lost their lives fighting over the pass at Thermopylae. Historians Cole and Livingston provide an exciting account of each of the 27 battles and holding actions that took place. The Killing Ground details the background and history of each conflict, the personalities and decision making of the commanders, the arms and tactics of the troops, and how each battle played out.

In Homer, Barbara Graziosi considers Homer's famous works and their impact on readers throughout the centuries. She shows how The Iliad and The Odyssey benefit from a tradition of reading that spans well over two millennia, stemming from ancient scholars at the library of Alexandria, in the third and second centuries BCE, who wrote some of the first commentaries on the Homeric epics. Summaries of these scholars' notes made their way into the margins of Byzantine manuscripts; from Byzantium the annotated manuscripts traveled to Italy.

The definitive translation of Plato's Republic, the most influential text in the history of Western philosophy “No one else has even come close to balancing Bloom’s fidelity to Greek with intelligible English prose.”—National Review Long regarded as the most accurate rendering of Plato's...

This anthology is a miscellany of maxims and anecdotes that generations of Western readers have consulted for edification as well as entertainment ever since Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, first compiled in the AD third century, came to prominence in Renaissance Italy. To this day, it remains a crucial source for much of what we know about the origins and practice of philosophy in ancient Greece.

As the celebrated political philosopher Patrick Deneen explains in this eye-opening book, the Odyssey is also the most American of ancient texts. Like Odysseus, Americans have two fundamental impulses: we are a people simultaneously animated by commitments to being at home and leaving home. Deneen shows us that the deep ambivalence at the heart of the Odyssey is also our own—as some of our greatest books and films attest, from Huckleberry Finn to The Wizard of Oz to Field of Dreams.

If you want to discover the captivating history of Spartacus, then pay attention.... Almost 2,100 years ago, a gladiator walked out of the arena. And he never walked back into it. Spartacus, a Thracian whose early life is hidden in the mists of history, is one of the most infamous figures of antiquity. Perhaps the most famous gladiator of all, parts of Spartacus’ story inspired elements of the award-winning film Gladiator (2000).

The period covered in this book is well known for its epic battles and grand campaigns of territorial conquest, but Hellenistic monarchies, Carthaginians, and the rapacious Roman Republic were scarcely less active at sea. Huge resources were poured into maintaining fleets not only as symbols of prestige but as means of projecting real military power across the Mediterranean arena.

A History of Greece is the thrilling story of the rise and decline of the greatest civilization the world has ever known. As Cyril Robinson's exquisite narrative unfolds, we find ourselves plunged into mankind's greatest and most magnificent adventure.

In this Very Short Introduction audiobook, Christopher Taylor explores the life of Socrates and his philosophical activity, before looking to the responses his philosophical doctrines have evoked in the centuries since his betrayal and execution at fellow Athenian hands.

Many have believed that Atlantis was a fiction created by Plato. Well Plato was not the first to write about it. We have found a very much earlier document. It was written in 9619 BC, about 9,250 years before Plato's writing. Further, we have assembled enough evidence in terms of archeological finds and scientific facts to provide convincing proof that Atlantis really did exist. And we have found the remains. We structure the evidence to answers three basic questions: how was it created; did it leave evidence; how was it destroyed?

A History of Greece is the thrilling story of the rise to power and influence of the greatest civilization the world has ever known. As Cyril Robinson's exquisite narrative unfolds, we find ourselves plunged into mankind's greatest and most magnificent adventure. Also, listen to A History of Greece, Volume 2.

In Cypria, named after a lost Cypriot epic which was the prequel to The Odyssey, British Cypriot writer Alex Christofi writes a deeply personal, lyrical history of the island of Cyprus, from the era of goddesses and mythical beasts to the present day. This sprawling, evocative and poetic book begins with the legend of the cyclops and the storytelling at the heart of the Mediterranean culture. Christofi travels to salt lakes, crusader castles, mosques and the eerie town deserted at the start of the 1974 war.

In the thirteenth century BC, a quarter of a century before the Trojan War, seven Greek warrior heroes went against the Greek city of Thebes to restore one of their number to the throne of his father, the famous King Oedipus. Several children of those seven heroes would later take part in the siege of Troy. This adventure was equal in the minds of Greeks and Romans with the siege of Troy as told in Homer’s epic The Iliad, an event which it predated by a generation.

The Greco-Persian Wars are often portrayed as a battle between good and evil. This is simultaneously an exaggeration and an oversimplification, but there is no doubt that this war, or series of wars, fought between some of the most powerful civilizations of the ancient era helped to plot the course of human history that we have been following up until this very day.