Showing results by publisher "----RM Alexander" in Ancient

Like most young women in ancient Israel, Mary has little control over her own destiny. When Enos, a rising Pharisee, sees her one day in the market―the most beautiful woman he has ever laid eyes on―and determines to make her his wife, Mary’s fate is quickly sealed. His exorbitant bride price is the only hope her parents have of escaping abject poverty, but surely the fact that such a devout and esteemed man has chosen a girl of her station must be a sign of blessing.

After the bloody Battle of Jelling, Denmark’s throne lies empty and chaos reigns as Jarls jostle for power. Sven survives the bloodshed only to return home to find Ribe sacked by those he trusted and Charles, a pawn in a much bigger political game, kidnapped. Consumed by the loss of Charles, Sven is shocked by the arrival of the Abbess Hildegard, daughter of his nemesis King Louis of East Francia, who seeks the whereabouts of Charles, her son, and also the cross of Charlemagne.

It is 48 BC, and Caesar is master of Rome, but Pompey is at large in the huge recruiting grounds of the east with a core of powerful officers, nominally representing the senate in absentia. As the general deals with matters in the city, his army gathers at the coast, waiting to cross the sea and fight that worst of all conflicts: civil war.

Medusa is the only mortal in a family of gods. Growing up with her sisters, she quickly realises that she is the only one who gets older, experiences change, feels weakness. Her mortal lifespan gives her an urgency that her family will never know. When, in Athene’s temple, desire pushes Poseidon to commit the unforgivable, Medusa’s mortal life is changed forever. Athene, furious at the sacrilege committed, directs her revenge on Medusa. The punishment is that she is turned into a Gorgon: sharp teeth, snakes for hair and a gaze that will turn any living creature to stone.

In The Children of Jocasta, Natalie Haynes retells the Oedipus and Antigone myths to reveal a new side of an ancient story.... My siblings and I have grown up in a cursed house, children of cursed parents.... Jocasta is just 15 when she is told that she must marry the King of Thebes, an old man she has never met. Her life has never been her own, and nor will it be unless she outlives her strange, absent husband.

The death of Alexander the Great was the signal to begin the greatest war in human history - a war that swept like a firestorm from one end of the known world to the other, as his former generals fought like jackals to make his vast empire their own. By 305 BC, the most powerful players in this deadly game faced each other across the Mediterranean: Ptolemy, the master of Egypt, and Antigonus One-Eye, master of Asia. And between them, the island of Rhodes, a strategic fortress city that neither could afford to cede to the enemy.

Jerusalem and the Sinai desert, AD 55. In the turbulent aftermath of the crucifixion of Jesus, agents of the Roman Empire receive information about a pilgrim bearing an incendiary letter from a religious fanatic calling himself Paul the Apostle to insurrectionists in Corinth. What's in the letter could bring down an empire. The Romans hire a former legionary, a solitary man-at-arms named Telamon to intercept the letter and destroy the courier. But once he meets the courier, Telamon experiences an extraordinary conversion.

The Dacian kingdom and Rome are at peace, but no one thinks that it will last. Sent to command an isolated fort beyond the Danube, centurion Flavius Ferox can sense that war is coming but also knows that enemies may be closer to home. Many of the Brigantes under his command are former rebels and convicts, as likely to kill him as obey an order. And then there is Hadrian, the emperor's cousin, and a man with plans of his own.

58 AD, Rome. Agricola, teenage son of an impoverished yet distinguished noble family, has staked all his resources and reputation on a military career. His reward? A posting as tribune in the far-off northern province of Britannia. Serving under renowned general Suetonius Paulinus, Agricola soon learns the brutality of life on the very edges of the empire, for the Celtic tribes of Britannia are far from vanquished. To take control of the province, the Romans must defeat the ancient might of the druids.

When the dust settled and the blood dried after the Battle of Plataea, Greeks might have thought that their freedom was secured. But before the corpse of the Great King's general was cold, Athens and Sparta began to bicker over dividing up the spoils. After an autumn of victory, it's a long cold winter among the burned cities and destroyed shrines of Greece, and a hungry spring. And when Arimnestos goes to sea to cruise the Persian-held coasts, he finds that Persia is still not beaten...and that old alliances are now fraying.

Tras perderse en el mar, el inglés John Blackthorne despierta en un lugar que pocos europeos conocen y menos aún han visto: Japón. Inmerso en la hermética sociedad nipona del siglo XVII, una tierra en la que la línea que separa la vida de la muerte es muy fina, Blackthorne debe enfrentarse no sólo a un pueblo extranjero, con costumbres e idioma desconocidos, sino también a sus propias definiciones de moralidad, verdad y libertad.

While the rest of Greece mourns for the war that has taken their husbands away, Clytemnestra fears the day it will bring hers back. When her husband willingly sacrifices their eldest daughter to appease the Gods, Clytemnestra vows to do whatever it takes to protect her remaining children. But in doing so she faces losing them altogether.

In the third volume of the critically acclaimed Marching with Caesar series, Titus Pullus and his friends in the 10th Legion are called on to serve as the agents of change as their general, Gaius Julius Caesar singlehandedly changes the Roman Republic to Empire.

In Ancient Greece, a skilled marble sculptor has been blessed by a goddess who has given his masterpiece – the most beautiful woman the town has ever seen – the gift of life. Now his wife, he expects Galatea to please him, to be obedience and humility personified. But she has desires of her own, and yearns for independence. In a desperate bid by her obsessive husband to keep her under control, she is locked away under the constant supervision of doctors and nurses. But with a daughter to rescue, she is determined to break free, whatever the cost.

Nine BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramas by Mike Walker, chronicling Rome’s greatest rulers. Drawing on historical sources including Suetonius’ ‘Lives of the Caesars’, Mike Walker’s compelling drama cycle follows the story of the leaders of Rome, from Julius Caesar’s ascension to power to the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West in AD 475.

On the island of Ithaca, queen Penelope maintains a delicate balance of power. Many years ago, her husband Odysseus sailed to war with Troy and never returned. In his absence, Penelope uses all her cunning to keep the peace - but this is shattered with the arrival of Orestes, King of Mycenae. Orestes, son of Agamemnon, is mad. Wracked with guilt for putting his own mother to death, he grows ever more unhinged. But a king cannot be seen to be weak. To keep him safe from the ambitious men of Mycenae, his sister Elektra brings him to Ithaca to recover under the protection of Penelope.

A new civil war has begun: with the emperor Pertinax's murder Marcus and his protector Scaurus have escaped Rome, seeking sanctuary for their familia in the East. But they are soon pressed back into service by Septimius Severus, the ruthless commander who has seized the imperial capital and who holds the military balance of power over his two rivals. Niger, the would-be emperor in the East is on the march with six legions, and Scaurus's legion is ordered to Thrace as a sacrificial advance guard, tasked with delaying them. Whatever the cost.

Full-cast BBC Radio 4 dramatisations of the first five Falco novels by Lindsey Davis, starring Anton Lesser as Marcus Didius Falco.

The war in Africa is over and the rebel cause hangs by a thread. With opposition to Caesar now led by Labienus and by Pompey’s sons in Hispania, Caesar is one step from ending the civil war that has plagued Rome for years. Before the war can be pursued, though, Caesar has matters to attend to in Rome. And against a backdrop of glorious triumphs and civil friction, the general’s old warhorse Marcus Falerius Fronto begins to uncover a series of events that may have a cause in common.

The Book of God reads like a novel, dramatizing the sweep of biblical events, bringing to life the men and women of this ancient book in vivid detail and dialogue. From Abraham wandering in the desert to Jesus teaching the multitudes on a Judean hillside, this award-winning bestseller follows the biblical story from start to finish.