Ancient

Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is performed by Richard Armitage, star of Peter Jackson'sThe Hobbit trilogy and also known for his roles in Ocean's 8 and Spooks. This definitive recording includes an Introduction by Diskin Clay. Originally written only for his personal...

Do you know how many wives Zeus had? Or how the famous Trojan War was caused by one beautiful lady? Or how Thor got his hammer? Give your imagination a real treat. This Mega Mythology Collection of eight audiobooks is for you....

Although the historicity of Sun Tzu is today in dispute, his short treatise on the art of war has remained a pre-eminent classic of military philosophy and practice....

The past truly comes alive as you take a series of imaginative leaps into the world of history's anonymous citizens....

Learn how a single tongue spoken 150,000 years ago evolved into the estimated 6,000 languages used around the world today....

Even after deciphering its hieroglyphs, and marveling at its scarabs, mummies, obelisks, and sphinxes, Egyptian civilization remains one of history's most mysterious....

Marcus Aurelius's Meditations offers a remarkable series of challenging spiritual reflections and exercises....

For eons, the wisdom cultivated by the Egyptian people has been extolled time and time again. These timeless myths are fountains of insight and, many would argue, beacons of light that can shatter the darkness of ignorance. Listen to learn more....

Here, anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom: He shows that before there was money, there was debt....

Here Durant tells the whole story of Greece from the days of Crete's vast Aegean empire to the final extirpation of the last remnants of Greek liberty, crushed under the heel of forward-marching Rome....

A lively and engaging narrative history showing the common threads in the cultures that gave birth to our own....

Twenty-four captivating lectures from The Roman Empire: From Augustus to the Fall of Rome traces the breathtaking history from the empire’s foundation by Augustus to its Golden Age in the 2nd century CE through a series of ever-worsening crises until its ultimate disintegration....

From Graham Hancock, best-selling author of Fingerprints of the Gods, comes a mesmerizing book that takes us on a captivating underwater voyage to find the ruins of a lost civilization that's been hidden for thousands of years beneath the world's oceans....

Today's view of history cannot account for ancient anomalies, such as the Pyramids and advanced knowledge contained in India's Vedas. But in 1894, an Indian sage gave us an explanation not only for our hidden past but for the trends of today and for our future enlightenment....

Procopius appeared to be a loyal part of the Byzantine establishment, his official writing glorifying the deeds of the Emperor Justinian (d. AD 565). However, he also produced a work that he knew could never be published within the Emperor’s lifetime: The Secret History....

No understanding of human life, individual or collective, could be complete without factoring in the role and contribution of these history-shaping teachers....

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...

This audiobook narrated by acclaimed archaeologist and best-selling author Eric Cline offers a breathtaking account of how the collapse of an ancient civilized world ushered in the first Dark Ages....

Now updated with a new preface by Michael Pollan and an exclusive bonus chapter. This audiobook also includes a foreword written and read by Graham Hancock, the New York Times bestselling author of America Before: The Key to Earth's Lost Civilization. THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER As seen on The...

Learn what the scrolls are, what they contain, and how the insights they offered into religious and ancient history came into focus....

These 36 eye-opening lectures deliver a comprehensive political and historical overview of one of the most fascinating and complex countries in world history....

Why did humans abandon hunting and gathering for sedentary communities dependent on livestock and cereal grains and governed by precursors of today's states? Find out....

This riveting narrative explores the lives of six remarkable female pharaohs, from Hatshepsut to Cleopatra - women who ruled with real power - and shines a piercing light on our own perceptions of women in power today....

What is our species' greatest invention? Medicine, computers, space travel? Not even close. The innovation that underlies each of our past achievements and those we still aspire to is language....

Dive into the timeless tales of gods and heroes in this bestselling A-to-Z encyclopedia detailing classic myths and legends—perfect for curious readers and academics alike. Edith Hamilton's mythology succeeds like no other book in bringing to life for the modern reader the Greek, Roman and...

死の床に就いた桓武天皇．安定した皇位継承を願う彼の“遺言”は，歴史を大きく動かした．ポスト桓武の時代，血なまぐさい事件が起こるなか，藤原北家は幸運を引きつけ，類い稀な才覚と政治的嗅覚を持つ者たちが，天皇家との関係を深めてゆく．

La lágrima de Jantipa es un estudio de la Grecia clásica a partir de la palabra de los filósofos y su concepción de lo femenino, un ensayo histórico sobre la configuración de un pensamiento que suponía que las mujeres no debían ser educadas más allá de la labor matronalis y los deberes conyugales.

Savage and bloodthirsty, or civilized and peaceable? The Celts have long been a subject of enormous fascination, speculation, and misunderstanding. From the ancient Romans to the present day, their real nature has been obscured by a tangled web of preconceived ideas and stereotypes.

Radical Antiquity takes you on a unique journey in search of anarchy, statelessness, and social experimentation in the Graeco-Roman world. Sweeping across the Mediterranean from the time of the first Olympic Games in 776 BCE until the emergence of Islam in 610 CE, Christopher B. Zeichmann introduces the listener to communities of escaped enslaved people, pirates, and religious sects—all of whom sought a more egalitarian way of life that avoided the coercion, hierarchy, and exploitation of the state.

“A journey as epic, and varying, as the Silk Road itself...[The Fabric of Civilization is] like a swatch of a Florentine Renaissance brocade: carefully woven, the technique precise, the colors a mix of shade and shine and an accurate representation of the whole cloth” (The New York Times)...

"By connecting our modern heroes to the archetypes of ancient myth, Peter Meineck's marvelous book bestows thrilling contemporary resonance upon those bygone legends." —Christopher Markus, coscreenwriter of Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame What connects Dionysus, the ancient Greek...

El Continuo Persa rastrea cómo el genio administrativo, el pragmatismo religioso y la visión infraestructural del Imperio Aqueménida dieron forma a un vasto mundo que se extendía desde el Egeo hasta el Indo—y cómo las conquistas relámpago de Alejandro interrumpieron pero no borraron ese orden.

The struggle between Rome and Carthage in the Punic Wars was arguably the greatest and most desperate conflict of antiquity. The forces involved and the casualties suffered by both sides were far greater than in any wars fought before the modern era, while the eventual outcome had far-reaching...

Desde las llanuras barridas por el viento de Anshan hasta los palacios escalonados de Persépolis, Fundando un Imperio relata cómo un conjunto de ambiciones reales se convirtió en el superestado más sofisticado del mundo antiguo. Comenzando con las audaces conquistas de Ciro el Grande y su política radical de legitimidad —liberación, autonomía local y clemencia mesurada—, la narrativa avanza por la campaña egipcia de Cambises II en los límites del mundo conocido y se adentra en la turbulencia sucesoria que casi fracturó el joven imperio.

يتناول الكتاب مصر وتاريخها القديم منذ حصن بابليون وفتح مصر والقاهرة الخديوية والطراز المعماري لها من رحابة الميادين، وما فيها من تماثيل، إلى الكباري والعمارات وتصميمها مثل عمارات ميدان طلعت حرب.. ومرورًا بمقاهي القاهرة وتاريخها منذ بداية ظهورها، ومرورًا بملاكها وأثر تلك المقاهي وروادها على الحركة الأدبية والسياسية لمصر، وخاصة مقهى ريش الذى هو جزء من ذاكرة مصر وحكاية مكان.

Immaginate di partire assieme a Giulio Cesare e alle sue legioni. È il 58 a.C., la Gallia è una terra lontana, abitata da popolazioni bellicose, mai domate, che hanno già inflitto dolorose sconfitte ai Romani. Ma è anche una terra ricca e prospera. Giulio Cesare vuole conquistarla, per sé e per Roma, e per farlo è disposto ad affrontare ogni avversità: estenuanti marce nella neve e battaglie sanguinose, intrighi di palazzo e tradimenti, ponti da costruire e flotte da creare da zero, foreste che si dicono stregate e santuari con scheletri decapitati.

Discourses on Livy, written in 1531, is as essential to understanding Machiavelli as his famous treatise, The Prince. Equally controversial, it reveals his fundamental preference for a republican state. Comparing the practice of the ancient Romans with that of his contemporaries provided Machiavelli with a consistent point of view in all his works. Machiavelli's close analysis of Livy's history of Rome led him to advance his most original and outspoken view of politics--the belief that a healthy political body was characterized by social friction and conflict rather than by rigid stability.

For six hundred years, the city of Carthage dominated the western Mediterranean. Founded in the ninth century BCE as a small colonial outpost, by the third, it had grown into the area's largest, richest empire. When, inevitably, it clashed with Rome for supremacy over the region, the conflict spanned over one century, three wars, and forty-three years of active fighting. After Carthage fell, the city was razed, and the tale of its defeat became a mere foundation stone in Rome's legend.

Explore the legends, gods, and cosmic cycles that defined one of the most powerful civilizations in the Americas. Far from a dry academic text, Myths, Gods, and Rituals of Aztec Mythology brings these ancient stories to life with vivid detail and cultural insight. Listeners are introduced to the core beliefs of the Aztec people, including their view of the cosmos, the importance of rituals, and their reverence for nature's forces. Through simple yet powerful storytelling, Matthew Torres offers a beginner-friendly entry point into one of history's most fascinating mythologies.

Discover timeless wisdom and profound reflections in Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor and stoic philosopher. Written as a personal journal, this masterpiece offers an intimate glimpse into the mind of a leader striving to live virtuously amidst life's challenges.