Ancient Civilizations Audiobooks | History

How to Fit All of Ancient Greece in an Elevator

Theodore Papakostas (Author), John Moraitis, TBD, Tom Babbage (Narrator)

Audiobook

Brought to you by Penguin. A masterful new translation of Suetonius' renowned biography of the twelve Caesars, bringing to life a portrait of the first Roman emperors in stunning detail The ancient Roman empire was the supreme arena, where emperors had no choice but to fight, to thrill, to dazzle. To rule as a Caesar was to stand as an actor upon the great stage of the world. No biography invites us into the lives of the Caesars more vividly or intimately than that by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, written from the centre of Rome and power, in AD 121. Placing each Caesar in the context of the generations that had gone before, and connecting personality with policy, Suetonius injected flesh and blood into their stories, which continue to inform how we understand the drama of power today. Their shortfalls, foreign policy crises and sex scandals are laid bare; we are shown their tastes, their foibles, their eccentricities; and we sit at their tables and enter their bedrooms, resulting in a series of biographies mediated through the lives of the Caesars themselves. That Rome lives more vividly in people's imagination than any other ancient empire owes an inordinate amount to Suetonius, and now award-winning author and translator Tom Holland brings us even closer in a new, spellbinding translation. Giving a deeper understanding of the personal lives of the Caesars and of how they inevitably informed what happened across the vast expanse of empire, The Lives of the Caesars is an astonishing, immersive experience of a time and culture at once familiar and utterly alien to our own. ©2024 Suetonius (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Suetonius (Author), TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

Bad Girls of Ancient Greece

THE guide to the baddies that started it all… Bad Girls of Ancient Greece contains profiles of wayward wives, mad mothers, scandalous sisters and damsels, that quite frankly, caused others A LOT of stress in the ancient world. With the ever-growing popularity of mythological retellings, Lauren McInnes has written THE guide to all of the baddies of ancient Greece. This book stands as a reminder that us women really have been badasses since the start. Written with humour and sass, Lauren profiles the women in Greek myth and legend covering: mortals, goddesses, titans, nymphs (you name it, she’s done it). Here you’ll find the weird and wonderful escapades of the women we’re often lead to believe were minor characters. Bad Girls of Ancient Greece is an accessible, intelligent, hilarious (sometimes spicy) guide to the women we love and know – Athena, Medusa, Aphrodite – and also those we may not, like Polyphonte, who was cursed with burning hot lust for a wild bear… imagine! So dive into the stories you thought you knew with Bad Girls of Ancient Greece as your illuminating guide…

Lizzy Tiffin (Author), Madeleine Leslay, TBD (Narrator)

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The Roman Revolution: Crisis and Christianity in Ancient Rome

It was a time of revolution. The Roman Revolution describes the little known 'crisis of the third century', and how it led to a revolutionary new Roman Empire. Long before the more famous collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century, in the years between AD 235-275, barbarian invasions, civil war, and plague devastated ancient Rome. Out of this ordeal came new leaders, new government, new armies, and a new vision of what it was to be Roman. Best remembered today is the rapid rise of Christianity in this period, as Rome's pagan gods were rejected, and the emperor Constantine converted to this new religion. Less well remembered is the plethora of other changes that conspired to provide an environment well suited to a religious revolution. Drawing on the latest research, Nick Holmes looks for new answers to old questions. He charts the rise of the Roman Republic and the classical Roman Empire, examining the roles played by sheer good luck and the benign climate. Focusing on the reigns of the critically important but under-researched emperors in the third century, such as Aurelian, Diocletian, and Constantine, he vividly brings to life how Rome just escaped catastrophe in the third century, and embarked on a journey that would take it into a brave new world-one which provided the foundations for modern Europe and America.

Nick Holmes (Author), Nigel Patterson (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Fall of Rome: End of a Superpower

A skilled storyteller, Holmes presents a riveting account of the wars, intrigues and personalities that contributed to Rome's decline, with entire chapters devoted to single battles.' Kirkus Reviews Why did Rome Fall? 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. Civil war, religious unrest, and political incompetence compounded a worsening situation. The result was one of the greatest disasters in the ancient world-the sack of Rome by the Goths in AD 410.

Nick Holmes (Author), Nigel Patterson (Narrator)

Audiobook

Moneta: The Rise and Fall of Ancient Rome in Twelve Coins

Brought to you by Penguin. The extraordinary story of Rome, the ancient world's greatest superpower, as told through mankind's most ordinary object: the coin. When Gareth Harney was first handed a Roman coin by his father as a child, he became entranced: by its beauty, its hardiness and its power to tell stories and connect us with the ancient past. He realised that coins, more than being simply markers of exchange, are metal canvases upon which societies could immortalise their ideas, cultures, personalities, tragedies and triumphs. His small tarnished coin, then, actually told the epic story of Rome. From a few huts on an Italian hilltop to an all-conquering empire spanning three continents, Heads or Tails traces the dramatic rise and fall of the Romans through the fascinating lives of twelve remarkable coins. Through them we witness Caesar's assassination, experience everyday life in the heart of the city, journey into the Colosseum and meet the barbarians at the gate. This is the glory, and infamy, of ancient Rome in the palm of your hand. ©2024 Gareth Harney (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Gareth Harney (Author), Piers Hampton, TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Muse of History: The Ancient Greeks from the Enlightenment to the Present

Brought to you by Penguin. How the modern world has understood the ancient Greeks and why they matter today The study of ancient Greek history has been central to the western conception of history since the Renaissance. The Muse of History traces the shifting patterns of this preoccupation in the last three centuries, in which each generation has reinterpreted the Greeks in the light of their contemporary world, through times of revolution, conflicting ideologies and warfare. It aims to offer a new history of Greek historiography from the Enlightenment to the present, and to acknowledge the continuing spiritual importance of the ancient Greeks for European culture in the twentieth century under totalitarian persecutions. Through the study of different historians, many of them unjustly forgotten, it shows the problematic nature of the Anglo-Saxon tradition and the importance of ideas from the continent of Europe, the ambiguities of democracy, and the impossibility of understanding the past or the present outside our common European heritage. It ends by offering suggestions for the future of the study of the Greeks in the context of world history. ©2024 Oswyn Murray (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Oswyn Murray (Author), Justin Avoth, TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

Out of One, Many: Ancient Greek Ways of Thought and Culture

Covering the whole of the ancient Greek experience from its beginnings late in the third millennium BCE to the Roman conquest in 30 BCE, Out of One, Many is an accessible and lively introduction to the Greeks and their ways of living and thinking. In this fresh and witty exploration of the thought, culture, society, and history of the Greeks, Jennifer Roberts traces not only the common values that united them across the seas and the centuries, but also the enormous diversity in their ideas and beliefs. Examining the importance to the Greeks of religion, mythology, the Homeric epics, tragic and comic drama, philosophy, and the city-state, the book offers shifting perspectives on an extraordinary and astonishingly creative people. Century after century, in one medium after another, the Greeks addressed big questions, many of which are still very much with us. Yet for all their virtues, Greek men set themselves apart from women and foreigners and profited from the unpaid labor of enslaved workers, and the book also looks at the mixed legacy of the ancient Greeks today. The result is a rich, wide-ranging, and compelling history of a fascinating and profoundly influential culture in all its complexity-and the myriad ways, good and bad, it continues to shape us today.

Jennifer T. Roberts (Author), Petrea Burchard (Narrator)

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The Shortest History of Italy: From the Rise and Fall of Rome to Unification and Modernization— A Re

A concise, star-studded retelling of Italy's past, from Caesar and Augustus to da Vinci and Michelangelo, tracing the story of a country with prodigious global influence-from a foremost author of historic Italy. The calendar. The Senate. The university. The piano, the heliocentric model, and the pizzeria. It's hard to imagine a world without Italian influence-and easy to assume that inventions like these could only come from a strong, stable peninsula, sure of its place in the world. In this breakneck history, bestselling author Ross King dismantles this assumption, uncovering the story of a land rife with inner uncertainty even as its influence spread. As the Italian tale unfolds, prosperity and power fluctuate like the elevation in the Dolomites. If Rome's seven hills could talk, they might speak of the glorious time of Trajan-or bemoan the era of conquest and the Bubonic Plague that decimated Rome's population. Episodes of wealth like the First Triumvirate and the time of the Medicis are given fresh life alongside descriptions the Middle Ages, the early days of Venice, the invasion of Napoleon, and the long struggle for unification. King paints a colorful, fascinating portrait of a country that remains compelling not just to tens of millions of Italian Americans, but to the millions of Americans who visit Italy every year.

Ross King (Author), Liam Gerrard (Narrator)

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Julian: Rome's Last Pagan Emperor

'When we think of ancient Rome, it's impossible not to think of Christianity, one of its most notable exports-but what if it hadn't been? This is the question provoked by classicist Philip Freeman in Julian, an appealing new entry in Yale's Ancient Lives series, which tells the story of the old faith's last imperial torchbearer.'-Anna Heyward, New York Times Book Review Flavius Claudius Julianus, or Julian the Apostate, ruled Rome as sole emperor for just a year and a half, from 361 to 363, but during that time he turned the world upside down. Although a nephew of Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor of Rome, Julian fought to return Rome to the old gods who had led his ancestors to build their vast empire. As emperor, Julian set about reforming the administration, conquering new territories, and reviving ancient religions. He was scorned in his time for repudiating Christianity and demonized as an apostate for willfully rejecting Christ. Through the centuries, Julian has been viewed by many as a tragic figure who sought to save Rome from its enemies and the corrupting influence of Christianity. Christian writers and historians have seen Julian much differently: as a traitor to God and violent oppressor of Christians. Had Julian not been killed by a random Persian spear, he might well have changed all of history.

Philip Freeman (Author), Jonathan Johns (Narrator)

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Strange Religion: How the First Christians Were Weird, Dangerous, and Compelling

The first Christians were weird. Just how weird is often lost on today's believers. Within Roman society, the earliest Christians stood out for the oddness of their beliefs and practices. They believed unusual things, worshiped God in strange ways, and lived a unique lifestyle. They practiced a whole new way of thinking about and doing religion that would have been seen as bizarre and dangerous when compared to Roman religion and most other religions of the ancient world. Award-winning author, blogger, speaker, and New Testament teacher Nijay Gupta traces the emerging Christian faith in its Roman context in this accessible and engaging book. Christianity would have been seen as radical in the Roman world, but some found this new religion attractive and compelling. The first Christians dared to be different, pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable, transformed how people thought about religion, and started a movement that grew like wildfire. This book shows how the example of the earliest Christians can offer today's believers encouragement and hope.

Nijay K. Gupta (Author), Nijay K. Gupta (Narrator)

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A Mystery from the Mummy-Pits: The Amazing Journey of Ankh-Hap

As the world recently commemorated the hundredth anniversary of the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun, our fascination with the pharaoh begs for a balanced view. Most recovered mummies have not escaped the modern trafficking in ancient bodies and body parts. The story of Ankh-Hap, a Ptolemaic-era mummy seized in the nineteenth century from the infamous mummy-pits of Egypt, provides a salutary example of what most mummies have endured. Frank Holt makes use of a robust combination of scientific tools and archival research to tell the story of Ankh-Hap's life, death, and his mummified remains, which ended up in the back of an American college classroom. A Mystery from the Mummy-Pits takes the listener into a forgotten world of mummy trafficking by an American entrepreneur named Henry Augustus Ward. His company's shelves were stocked with mummies, coffins, and even ancient body parts. Customers could piece together their own 'Frankenmummy' with authentic wrappings and amulets. A Mystery from the Mummy-Pits contextualizes this information by surveying the history of similar mummies from antiquity to the twentieth century, moving from ancient tomb robbers and medieval apothecaries to modern dime museums, traveling shows, pulp fiction, films, and pop culture. The book offers listeners a glimpse inside a dark chapter of mummy history.

Frank L. Holt (Author), Nigel Patterson (Narrator)

Audiobook

Ancient Civilizations Audiobooks in History