'Man perishes; his corpse turns to dust; all his relatives pass away. But writings make him remembered'In ancient Egypt, words had magical power. Inscribed on tombs and temple …
'Suetonius, in holding up a mirror to those Caesars of diverting legend, reflects not only them but ourselves: half-tempted creatures, whose great moral task is to hold in balance …
A trusted member of the Byzantine establishment, Procopius was the Empire's official chronicler, and his History of the Wars of Justinian proclaimed the strength and wisdom of the …
Augustus Caesar, the first emperor of Rome (27 BC-AD 14), brought peace and prosperity to his city after decades of savage civil war. This selection from Cassius Dio's Roman …
The Greek statesman Polybius (c.200–118 BC) wrote his account of the relentless growth of the Roman Empire in order to help his fellow countrymen understand how their world came to …
The biographies collected in this volume bring together Plutarch's Lives of those great men who established the city of Rome and consolidated its supremacy, and his Comparisons …
In The Persian Expedition, Xenophon, a young Athenian noble who sought his destiny abroad, provides an enthralling eyewitness account of the attempt by a Greek mercenary army - the …
These nine biographies illuminate the careers, personalities and military campaigns of some of Rome's greatest statesmen, whose lives span the earliest days of the Republic to the …
'Do you see your son, standing over there, in the antechamber? Well, I am going to shoot him.'The story of the great and mad Cambyses, King of Persia, told by part-historian, …
Providing a series of fascinating views of Imperial Rome, The Letters of the Younger Pliny also offer one of the fullest self-portraits to survive from classical times. This …
