Showing titles in Greece

If you’ve ever wondered how an idea born in a crumbling Athens marketplace came to influence emperors, generals, civil rights leaders, and modern thinkers alike… this audiobook will show you. Stoicism isn’t just a set of quotes or life hacks. It’s one of the most resilient philosophies in history—because it evolved. It adapted to war, exile, politics, hardship, and religion. And despite being over 2,000 years old, its message is more relevant than ever.

The ancient Greeks believed there were a great number of gods and goddesses. These gods had control over many different aspects of life on earth. In many ways they were very human. They could be kind or mean, angry or pleasant, cruel or loving. They fell in love with each other, argued with each other and even stole from each other.

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.

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 religion of the ancient Greeks has lain dormant for too long. In Hellenismos, Tony Mierzwicki shows how to bring it back in all of its primal glory. Learn how to forge personal relationships with the ancient Greek deities. Recreate the practices of the Greeks and enjoy the richness of their spiritual practices.

Many people know about the glories of ancient Greece: the Acropolis, the Parthenon, the sculptures, the writings of Homer, and the adventures of Achilles and Jason and the Argonauts. They know about the Greek gods and goddesses, of Zeus, Athena, Apollo, Hermes, Aphrodite, Poseidon, and many others. Even the term “Trojan Horse", named after the trick that the Greeks played on the inhabitants of Troy, has made it into our language. Ancient Greece gave us philosophy, math, medicine, the roots of many languages, and so much more.

In 432 BCE the powerful city-state of Sparta on the peninsula of the Peloponnesus in southwestern Greece declared war on Athens, head of a mighty naval coalition. The war would last until Sparta finally brought Athens to its knees in 404. The Athenian aristocrat Thucydides, suspecting the magnitude of the conflict that was unfolding before his eyes, at once undertook to record its history, exploring the causes and course of the war in the context of his great interest: human nature.

There is not just one story of silk. In silk is science, history and mythology. In silk is the future. Aarathi Prasad’s Silk is a gorgeous new history weaving together the story of a unique material that has fascinated the world for millennia. Through the scientists who have studied silk, and...

The culture and events of Greece were so influential they have a significant effect on modern-day people all over the world. The ancient Greeks gave birth to democracy, a political system frequently used and considered by some as the best form of government. Great minds from Greece also made incredible and vital discoveries such as the water mill, the basics of geometry and using medicine to cure illness. The ancient Greek philosophers laid the groundwork for a whole new field of thought and study.

The Neolithic period came before the Bronze Age and is generally regarded as the final subdivision of the Stone Age. During this time, communities domesticated plants and certain animals but still relied on hunting and gathering to a considerable extent, and beginning sometime around 7000 BCE, handmade pottery was developed, along with more advanced stone axes that enabled people to clear vast forests.

This book offers a fresh insight into the conquests of Alexander the Great by attempting to view the events of 336-323 BCE from the vantage point of the defeated.  

What is commonly called the kingdom of Pontos flourished for over 200 years in the coastal regions of the Black Sea. At its peak in the early first century BC, it included much of the southern, eastern, and northern littoral, becoming one of the most important Hellenistic dynasties not founded by a successor of Alexander the Great. Previous histories of Pontos have focused almost exclusively on the career of its last ruler. Setting that famous reign in its wide historical context, Empire of the Black Sea is an engaging account of a powerful yet little-known ancient dynasty. 

‘An astonishingly readable and informative history of the greatest mathematical bestseller of all time … The writing is vivid and the stories are gripping. Highly recommended ’ IAN STEWART, AUTHOR OF SIGNIFICANT FIGURES Euclid’s Elements of Geometry was a book that changed the world. In...

If you want to discover the captivating history of the Peloponnesian War, then pay attention. The Peloponnesian War enveloped the entire Greek world, from Syracuse on the island of Sicily to the shores of western Turkey. It ravaged the Greek population and produced great hardships, and it led to the eventual downfall of the Athenian Empire and the rise of the Spartan Empire.

Before medical schools. Before clinical science. There were sanctuaries. Across the hills of ancient Greece, the sick traveled to quiet marble precincts dedicated to Asclepius — god of healing, son of Apollo, student of a centaur, and himself a figure both mortal and divine. They came not only for remedies, but for dreams.

Book two of Theodore Mommsen's history begins in 509 BC, when the last Roman king was expelled and a republican form of government was formed. Starting here, we trace Rome's political and cultural development under an aristocracy whose puritan fanaticism is legendary. But security from surrounding hostile tribes was of uppermost concern, and the city was constantly at war with one tribe or another. During the fifth century BC, the Republic's energies were directed toward uniting or subduing her neighbors.

In this course, Prof. Anthony Esolen will examine ancient Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome and Israel, seeing the disappointment and Messianic longing in the pagan Roman poet Virgil, and the fulfilled Messianic longing among the prophets and the inspired authors of the Old Testament. You will discover the ways in which the fulfillment of the person of Jesus Christ never ceases to surprise mankind, because it never ceases to contradict what fallen man accepts as great.

More than 2,500 years ago, a confederation of small Greek city-states defeated the invading armies of Persia, the most powerful empire in the world. In this meticulously researched study, historian Paul Rahe argues that Sparta was responsible for the initial establishment of the Hellenic defensive coalition and was, in fact, the most essential player in its ultimate victory.

Book 5 of Mommsen's history of the Roman Republic brings to a conclusion this most magnificent of historical narratives. It begins with the death of Sulla and ends with the accession to power of the greatest and most fascinating Roman of them all, Gaius Julius Caesar.

‘Popular history at its very best, thought-provoking and accessible. Underpinned by serious research, and written with panache, it summons up a vanished world’ SUNDAY TELEGRAPH This is an astonishing new account of Alexander the Great – one of the most important figures of the ancient...