Showing results by publisher "Tantor Media" in Ancient

The ancient Sibylline prophecies had foretold that the Roman Empire would last for 1000 years. As the time for the expected dissolution approached in the middle of the third century AD, the empire was lapsing into chaos, with seemingly interminable civil wars over the imperial succession. The western empire had seceded under a rebel emperor and the eastern empire was controlled by another usurper. Barbarians took advantage of the anarchy to kill and plunder all over the provinces.

The sixth-century AD witnessed a remarkable turn-around in the Roman Empire's fortunes. Justinian's general, Belisarius, recovered North Africa and Italy from the barbarians. An impressive new law code was inaugurated that would endure to this day. Astonishing building projects rivalled the great monuments of Old Rome.

In this gripping retelling of one of the most momentous chapters in history, Nick Holmes presents a new interpretation of an old story. The fate of Rome was decided not just by emperors, soldiers, and barbarians but also by an environmental disaster. A catastrophic megadrought on the Asian steppes in the fourth century AD forced the migration of entire peoples—Huns, Goths, Vandals, and others—west into the Roman Empire. They met an empire weakened from war with Persia. Rome's misfortunes multiplied as it made tactical errors on the battlefield.

The island city of Tyre along the coast of Lebanon was for centuries an impregnable fortress and key to unlocking Phoenician and Persian power in the Near East. Its fall was first prophesied in the Book of Ezekiel; but it would not be Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, who would take the city as the Bible foretold, but a Macedonian warrior king, Alexander. Alexander's siege of 332 BC was one of the most remarkable events in the classical world. The Siege of Tyre is the first book-length treatment of this critical and fascinating campaign

Putting the games in the context of Rome's rise and dramatic fall, Mannix captures all the history, planning, and savage pageantry that went into creating the first spectator sports. But as Rome begin to fall in the fifth century, so did the games, devolving into nothing more than pointless massacres. In the end, millions of humans and animals were sacrificed in barbaric displays. What were once ceremonies given in honor of gods met an inglorious fate, yet they still captivate the imagination of people today.

Themistocles (524–459 BC) came of age just as a newly democratic and empowered Athens was emerging. He would become an instrumental political and military figure, fighting in the Battle of Marathon; persuading Athenians to expand their fleet; and engineering the Athenians' defeat of the...

Holy Wars describes three thousand years of war in the Holy Land with the unique approach of focusing on pivotal battles or campaigns, beginning with the Israelites' capture of Jericho and ending with Israel's last full-fledged assault against Lebanon.

This book is a narrative history of a dozen years of turmoil that begins with Rome's millennium celebrations of 248 CE and ends with the capture of the emperor Valerian by the Persians in 260. It was a period of almost unremitting disaster for Rome, involving a series of civil wars, several major invasions by Goths and Persians, economic crisis, and an empire-wide pandemic, the 'plague of Cyprian'.

The son of a former slave, Pertinax was the Roman Emperor who proved that no matter how lowly your birth, you could rise to the very top through hard work, grit and determination. This previously untold story brings a fascinating and important figure out of the shadows. A self-made everyman, a man of principle and ambition, a role model respected by his contemporaries, Pertinax's remarkable story offers a unique and panoramic insight into the late 2nd century AD Principate Empire.

Until the publication of this captivating biography, no such volume on Trajan's life has been tailored to the general listener. The unique book illuminates a neglected period of ancient Roman history. Trajan rose from fairly obscure beginnings to become the emperor of Rome. He was born in Italica, an Italic settlement close to modern Seville in present-day Spain, and is the first Roman Emperor to be born outside of Rome. His remarkable rise from officer to general and then to emperor in just over twenty years reveals a shrewd politician who maintained absolute power. 

The greatest controversy in the history of the US Navy of the early American Republic was the revelation that the son of the Secretary of War had seemingly plotted a bloody mutiny that would have turned the US brig Somers into a pirate ship. The plot discovered, he and his coconspirators were hastily condemned and hanged at sea.

Towards the middle of the third century BC, the Hellenistic kingdoms were near their peak. In terms of population, economy, and military power, each was vastly superior to Rome, not to mention in fields such as medicine, architecture, science, philosophy, and literature. But over the next two and a half centuries, Rome would eventually conquer these kingdoms while adopting so much of Hellenistic culture that the resultant hybrid is known as "Graeco-Roman." In Greece Against Rome, Philip Matyszak relates this epic tale from the Hellenistic perspective.

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.

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. But the truth behind these stories of the exotic other can be hard to discover, lost amongst the legend of Sparta which was even perpetuated by later Spartans, who ran a thriving tourist industry that exaggerated the famed brutality of their ancestors. As Andrew Bayliss explores in this book, there was also much to admire in ancient Sparta.

Before the Romans could become masters of the Mediterranean, they had to first conquer the people of their own peninsula. This book explores the origins of Roman imperialism and the creation of Rome's early Italian empire, bringing new light and interpretations to this important but problematic period in Roman history. It explains how and why the Romans were able to expand their influence within Italy, often through the use of armed conflict, laying the foundations for their great imperial project.

In the century since Rome's defeat of the Seleucid Empire in the 180s BC, the East was dominated by the rise of new empires: Parthia, Armenia, and Pontus, each vying to recreate the glories of the Persian Empire. By the 80s BC, the Pontic Empire of Mithridates had grown so bold that it invaded and annexed the whole of Rome's eastern empire and occupied Greece itself. But as Rome emerged from the devastating effects of the First Civil War, a new breed of general emerged with it, eager to re-assert Roman military dominance and carve out a fresh empire in the east.

Few people have had as many words written about them down through the centuries as Julius Caesar—the brilliant general who made Queen Cleopatra of Egypt his mistress. He has captured the imagination of playwrights, historians, soldiers, and emperors. Little has been written about his ally, son-in-law, and eventual enemy Pompey the Great, who crashed onto the Roman scene as a victorious twenty-three-year-old general and who, at the height of his career, was arguably more famous, more popular, and more successful than Caesar.

By the middle of the second century BCE, after nearly one hundred years of warfare, Rome had exerted its control over the entire Mediterranean world, forcing the other great powers of the region—Carthage, Macedonia, Egypt, and the Seleucid empire—to submit militarily and financially. But how, despite its relative poverty and its frequent numerical disadvantage in decisive battles, did Rome prevail? Michael J. Taylor explains this surprising outcome by examining the role that manpower and finances played.