One of Western history's greatest books springs to life in Tom Holland's vibrant new translation
Herodotus of Halicarnassus--who was hailed by Cicero as "the father of history"--wrote his histories around 440 BC. It is the earliest surviving work of nonfiction and a thrilling narrative account of (among other things) the war between the Persian Empire and the Greek city-states in the fifth century BC.
With a wealth of information about ancient geography, ethnography, zoology, comparative anthropology, and much else, "The Histories" is also filled with bizarre and fanciful stories, which award-winning historian Tom Holland vividly captures in this major new translation--highlighting Herodotus's superb storytelling gifts and displaying his delightful curiosity alongside his flair for riveting epic drama. Featuring an introduction and notes by Professor Paul Cartledge, a translator's preface, an index of significant persons and places, maps, and a supplementary index, this translation makes Herodotus irresistible reading once more.

Comprising relevant selections from the four ancient writers whose portraits of Alexander the Great still survive--Arrian, Diodorus, Plutarch, and Quintus Curtius--this volume provides a complete narrative of the important events in Alexander's life. The Introduction sets these works in historical context, stretching from the conclusion of the Peloponnesian War through Alexander's conquest of Asia, and provides an assessment of Alexander's historical importance as well as a survey of the central controversies surrounding his personality, aims and intentions. This edition includes a timeline, maps, a bibliography, a glossary, and an index.

Major figures in the civil wars that ended the Roman Republic, the names Pompey, Caesar, Cicero, Brutus and Antony haunt us with questions of character and authority. Plutarch's rich, vivid profiles show character-shaping history through grand scale events and intimate details. The creator and master of the biographical form, Plutarch locates character in small gestures such as Brutus's punctilious use of money or Caesar's plainspoken discourse. In this reader's edition, the translation lends a straightforward clarity to the prose and the notes identify people, places and events in the text. The substantial introduction and foreword explore Plutarch as an historical figure and the history of the Republic's fall.

Lives and the Eminent Philosophers of Diogenes Laertius is a crucial source for much of what we know about the origins of philosophy in Greece. The work covers a larger number of figures and a longer period of time than any other extant ancient source, from the Presocratic Thales to Epicurus. Despite its importance, a complete translation of the work has not appeared in English since 1925. Working from the new, authoritative Greek text established by Tiziano Dorandi (CUP, 2013), translator Pamela Mensch's goal has been to render Diogenes into an English prose that is fluent yet faithful to the original Greek. The annotations are aimed at the general reader rather than the specialist, and explain the various references to people, places, practices, and countless mythological characters as they occur. The translation is accompanied by dozens of artworks to illustrate the ongoing influence of many of the philosophical anecdotes compiled by Diogenes, and by newly commissioned essays by James Allen, Anthony Grafton, Ingrid Rowland, and others to shed light on Diogenes' historical and intellectual contexts as well as his rich reception history.

Everyone wants to live a meaningful life. Long before our own day of self-help books offering twelve-step programs and other guides to attain happiness, the philosophers of ancient Greece explored the riddle of what makes a life worth living, producing a wide variety of ideas and examples to follow. This rich tradition was recast by Diogenes Laertius into an anthology, a miscellany of maxims and anecdotes, that generations of Western readers have consulted for edification as well as entertainment ever since the Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, first compiled in the third century AD, came to prominence in Renaissance Italy. To this day, it remains a crucial source for much of what we know about the origins and practice of philosophy in ancient Greece, covering a longer period of time and a larger number of figures-from Pythagoras and Socrates to Aristotle and Epicurus-than any other ancient source.

Although Plutarch did not intend his Lives as a historical record, they sometimes furnish the best account we have of events in classical Greece. In many instances they are the only account available to those exploring ancient history through primary sources. In this compilation from Plutarch's Greek Lives , James Romm gathers the material of greatest historical significance from fifteen biographies, ranging from Theseus in earliest times to Phocion in the late fourth century BCE. While preserving the outlines of Plutarch's character portraits, Romm focuses on the central stories of classical Greece: the rivalry between Athens, Sparta, and Thebes, the rise of Macedon, andthe conflicts between these European states and the Achaemenid Persian empire. Bridging Plutarch's gaps with concise summaries, Romm creates a coherent narrative of the classical Greek world. This edition features the elegant new translation of Pamela Mensch. Footnotes provide the historical context often omitted by Plutarch and plentiful and detailed cross-references. Also included are a bibliography, maps, a chronological chart, a glossary, and an index.

Comprising relevant selections from the four ancient writers whose portraits of Alexander the Great still survive--Arrian, Diodorus, Plutarch, and Quintus Curtius--this volume provides a complete narrative of the important events in Alexander's life. The Introduction sets these works in historical context, stretching from the conclusion of the Peloponnesian War through Alexander's conquest of Asia, and provides an assessment of Alexander's historical importance as well as a survey of the central controversies surrounding his personality, aims and intentions. This edition includes a timeline, maps, a bibliography, a glossary, and an index.

Major figures in the civil wars that ended the Roman Republic, the names Pompey, Caesar, Cicero, Brutus and Antony haunt us with questions of character and authority. Plutarch's rich, vivid profiles show character-shaping history through grand scale events and intimate details. The creator and master of the biographical form, Plutarch locates character in small gestures such as Brutus's punctilious use of money or Caesar's plainspoken discourse. In this reader's edition, the translation lends a straightforward clarity to the prose and the notes identify people, places and events in the text. The substantial introduction and foreword explore Plutarch as an historical figure and the history of the Republic's fall.

Although Plutarch did not intend his Lives as a historical record, they sometimes furnish the best account we have of events in classical Greece. In many instances they are the only account available to those exploring ancient history through primary sources. In this compilation from Plutarch's Greek Lives , James Romm gathers the material of greatest historical significance from fifteen biographies, ranging from Theseus in earliest times to Phocion in the late fourth century BCE. While preserving the outlines of Plutarch's character portraits, Romm focuses on the central stories of classical Greece: the rivalry between Athens, Sparta, and Thebes, the rise of Macedon, andthe conflicts between these European states and the Achaemenid Persian empire. Bridging Plutarch's gaps with concise summaries, Romm creates a coherent narrative of the classical Greek world. This edition features the elegant new translation of Pamela Mensch. Footnotes provide the historical context often omitted by Plutarch and plentiful and detailed cross-references. Also included are a bibliography, maps, a chronological chart, a glossary, and an index.

"These Characters are people we know-they're our quirky neighbors, our creepy bosses, our blind dates from hell. Sharp-tongued Theophrastus, made sharper than ever in this fresh new edition, reminds us that Athenian weirdness is as ageless as Athenian wisdom." -Mary Beard, Professor of Classics at Cambridge University, presenter of BBC's Civilisations The more things change, the more they stay the same: Theophrastus' Characters, a classical Greek text newly translated for a modern audience, is a joyful festival of fault-finding. The book outlines 30 characters, each crystallizing a human flaw all readers will immediately recognize, and is a humorous survey of failings, follies, and bad behavior taken straight off the streets of Athens and brought into our everyday fraught and divisive social and political scene. Brilliantly illustrated by acclaimed artist Andre Carrilho, this is an irresistible treasure of a book. WHEN ARISTOTLE WROTE that "comedy is about people worse than ourselves," he may have been recalling a hard-edged gem of a treatise written by his favorite student, Theophrastus. Theophrastus' Characters is a joyous festival of fault-finding: a collection of thirty closely observed personality portraits, defining the full spectrum of human flaws, failings, and follies. With piquant details of speech and behavior taken straight off the streets of ancient Athens, Theophrastus gives us sketches of the mean, vile, and annoying that are comically distorted yet vividly real. Enlivened by Pamela Mensch's fresh translation-the first widely available English version in over half a century-Theophrastus' Characters transports us to a world populated by figures of flesh and blood, not bronze and marble. The wry, inventive drawings help envoke the cankered wit of this most modern of ancient texts. Lightly but helpfully annotated by classicist James Romm, these thirty thumbnail portraits are startlingly recognizable twenty-three centuries later. The characters of Theophrastus are archetypes of human nature that remain insightful, caustic, and relevant.