Novedades del último mes en eBooks de Historia antigua universal

Como historiador, Polibio puede mirar frente a frente a los grandes autores griegos clásicos, y está muy por encima de cualquiera de sus contemporáneos del siglo II a. C. Comprendió como nadie el glorioso futuro que le esperaba a Roma y tanto su tecnica narrativa, alejada de artificios innecesarios, como su metodo historiografico convierten sus Historias en una obra clave para la evolucion del genero.Gredos pone a disposicion de los lectores la unica traduccion moderna completa de la obra conservada de Polibio. El tercer y ultimo volumen de Historias reune los textos conservados del resto de la obra (libros XVI a XXXIX), que contribuyen a ofrecer una vision global del talento del autor para describir y analizar una epoca critica de la historia antigua.

Una fascinante historia del mundo antiguo desde sus márgenes, más allá de Grecia y Roma. Una fascinante historia del mundo antiguo desde sus márgenes, más allá de Grecia y Roma. ¿Cómo era vivir en los margenes de los antiguos imperios, en los limites del mundo conocido? Muchos griegos y romanos pensaban que las fronteras de su mundo marcaban el final de la civilizacion. Gracias a las excavaciones arqueologicas, hoy sabemos que en las fronteras de lo que consideramos el corazon de la civilizacion existieron culturas vibrantes y complejas. Owen Rees explora los poderosos imperios y pueblos diversos de Europa, Asia y Africa, mas alla del alcance de Grecia y Roma, y el resultado es una mirada sorprendentemente rica y reveladora sobre el mundo antiguo.

LEITURA ESSENCIAL PARA CONHECER AS RAINHAS ESQUECIDAS DO EGITOCleópatra: amante, sedutora e a maior rainha do Egito. Uma figura mais mito do que história, imortalizada na poesia, no drama, na música, na arte e no cinema. Ela cativou Julio Cesar e Marco Antonio, os dois maiores lideres romanos de sua epoca, e morreu em um claro de gloria, com uma vibora pressionada contra o peito ou pelo menos e o que diz a lenda.Mas a historia real de Cleopatra VII e ainda mais fascinante. Ela foi a ultima das sete Cleopatras que governaram o Egito antes de sua absorço pelo Imperio Romano. Essas sete Cleopatras foram as poderosas lideres da dinastia ptolemaica, a familia macedonia que governou o Egito apos Alexandre, o Grande. Seguindo os costumes dos deuses, as Cleopatras casavam-se com seus irmos de sangue e dominavam o mundo normalmente patriarcal da politica e da guerra. Essas mulheres extraordinarias mantinham um controle firme sobre o pais mais rico do mundo antigo.Neste livro, o historiador Lloyd Llwellyn-Jones, autor do best-seller Os persas, mostra como cada uma das sete Cleopatras detinha poder absoluto. Sua obsesso implacavel pelo dominio geraço apos geraço resultou em atos extraordinarios de traiço, violencia e assassinato na familia mais dinfuncional da historia.

These opening volumes of The Geography of Strabo present an ambitious synthesis: a survey of the known world that joins mathematical cartography to ethnographic narrative. Strabo expounds method, critiques Homer, Eratosthenes, Polybius, and Hipparchus, and proceeds through the western Mediterranean and Italy, recording topography, resources, myths, and routes. His style, poised between periegesis and historiography, favors sober evaluation over marvels, yet preserves travel lore and local memory. Framed by Augustan rule, the work measures distance, climate, and custom against new imperial networks. Strabo of Amasia (c. 64 BCEafter 24 CE) studied grammar, rhetoric, and Stoic thought, and traveled from Asia Minor and the Black Sea to Egypt and Rome. Drawing on a scholars library and eyewitness itineraries, he blends Hellenistic criticism with Augustan pragmatism, insisting on measured distances, trustworthy authorities, and geographys civic uses. These volumes suit classicists, historians of science, and readers of travel writing alike, illuminating ancient spatial thought at the hinge of Hellenistic and Roman worlds. Read it for its clear method, disciplined curiosity, and enduring claim that geography is knowledge for action.Quickie Classics summarizes timeless works with precision, preserving the authors voice and keeping the prose clear, fast, and readabledistilled, never diluted. Enriched Edition extras: Introduction · Synopsis · Historical Context · Author Biography · Brief Analysis · 4 Reflection Q&As · Editorial Footnotes.

The Histories of Herodotus recounts the origins and course of the Greco-Persian Wars while ranging to Egypt, Lydia, Scythia, and beyond. Written in Ionic Greek, its episodic logoi, speeches, and ring composition bind inquiry (historia) to storytelling, balancing autopsy with reported tales and source critique. Herodotus probes causeshuman motives, political institutions, and divine retributiontesting boundaries between myth and reason in a fifthcentury culture of public recitation and emergent history. Born in Halicarnassus under Persian sway, Herodotus traveled widely, consulting priests, interpreters, and monuments; time in Athens and Thurii sharpened his panhellenic vantage. His proem vows to preserve great deeds from oblivion and to explain the wars aitiai; Homeric poetics, Ionian inquiry, and civic debate shape his method. Praised by Cicero and rebuked by Thucydides, he remains a selfaware investigator who flags uncertainty. Readers of classics, history, political thought, and anthropology will find a model of narrative analysis and crosscultural curiosity. Treat the digressions as experiments in comparison and the speeches as laboratories of reasoning; they teach how to weigh testimony and infer causes. For anyone seeking the earliest sustained Western meditation on why events happenand how we can knowThe Histories is both an archive of wonders and an indispensable argument.Quickie Classics summarizes timeless works with precision, preserving the authors voice and keeping the prose clear, fast, and readabledistilled, never diluted. Enriched Edition extras: Introduction · Synopsis · Historical Context · Author Biography · Brief Analysis · 4 Reflection Q&As · Editorial Footnotes.

Persian Empire surveys Achaemenid history from the rise of Cyrus to the defeat of Darius III, blending political narrative with chapters on administration, religion, warfare, and court life. Rawlinson juxtaposes Herodotus, Xenophon, and Ctesias with the newly read Behistun inscription, yielding a lucid, source-aware account. In measured Victorian prose, he favors clear chronology, typological comparison, and careful notes on disputed episodes. George Rawlinson, Camden Professor of Ancient History at Oxford, wrote at the junction of classical philology and the emergent Assyriology advanced by his brother, Sir Henry. His translation of Herodotus and his studies of the great Eastern monarchies trained him to reconcile literary tradition with epigraphic data. A churchman as well as scholar, he brings ethical seriousness and institutional focus to antiquity. Readers of ancient history and Persian studies will value this volume as both introduction and reference. Though Victorian perspectives occasionally surface, its organization, command of sources, and vivid portraits of rulers and regions endure. For students and curious generalists alike, Persian Empire remains a rewarding guide.Quickie Classics summarizes timeless works with precision, preserving the authors voice and keeping the prose clear, fast, and readabledistilled, never diluted. Enriched Edition extras: Introduction · Synopsis · Historical Context · Brief Analysis · 4 Reflection Q&As · Editorial Footnotes.

Arrians Anabasis of Alexander is a lucid, classicizing chronicle of the Macedonians campaigns from the Hellespont to the Hyphasis. In measured, Xenophontic prose, it marries crisp battle narrativesGranicus, Issus, Gaugamelato analyses of logistics, siegecraft, and provincial settlement, with ethnographic asides and sparing speeches. Rejecting the sensational Cleitarchan stream, Arrian foregrounds Ptolemy and Aristobulus to craft a sober, administratively minded history within the Second Sophistic milieu. Lucius Flavius Arrianus of NicomediaGreek litterateur and Roman senatorstudied under Epictetus, later serving as consul and governor of Cappadocia, where he directed campaigns against the Alans. This administrative and military experience, coupled with Stoic moral training, shaped his preference for disciplined generalship and verifiable testimony. Modeling his work on Xenophon, he aimed to rescue Alexander from gossip by rigorous source criticism. Readers of ancient history, military studies, and leadership will find here the most reliable classical portrait of Alexanders campaigns. Begin with Arrian for sobriety and operational clarity, then compare with Curtius, Diodorus, and Plutarch; but as a study in strategy, statecraft, and evidence, this remains first choice.Quickie Classics summarizes timeless works with precision, preserving the authors voice and keeping the prose clear, fast, and readabledistilled, never diluted. Enriched Edition extras: Introduction · Synopsis · Historical Context · Brief Analysis · 4 Reflection Q&As · Editorial Footnotes.

The History of Rome (Volumes 15) surveys Rome from legendary beginnings to the reorganized provinces of the early Empire. Volumes IIII trace the Republics institutions, Italian expansion, and the crises of Gracchi, Marius, Sulla, Pompey, and Caesar; IVV anatomize provincial administration, fiscal regimes, and regional societies from Gaul to Syria up to Diocletian. With philological rigor and brisk, lapidary prose, Mommsen marries constitutional analysis to vivid portraits, an interpretive history poised between Rankean method and political argument. Jurist, epigrapher, and parliamentarian, Theodor Mommsen cofounded the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum; his command of inscriptions, law, and numismatics grounds every page. Shaped by 1848 liberalism and Prussian nationbuilding, he read the late Republic as a failure of oligarchic institutions requiring decisive reformhence his famous, contested admiration for Caesar. Awarded the 1902 Nobel Prize in Literature for this work, he wrote as a scholarcitizen, aligning erudition with civic purpose. For readers of classical history, political theory, or imperial studies, this set remains indispensable: a bracing synthesis, methodologically exact yet passionately argued, that illuminates institutions, economies, and provincial life while provoking debate about power, citizenship, and statecraft.Quickie Classics summarizes timeless works with precision, preserving the authors voice and keeping the prose clear, fast, and readabledistilled, never diluted. Enriched Edition extras: Introduction · Synopsis · Historical Context · Author Biography · Brief Analysis · 4 Reflection Q&As · Editorial Footnotes.

The Histories chronicles the upheavals of 6970 CE, the Year of the Four Emperors, as Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian vie for the principate. In four surviving books and a fragment of a fifth, Tacitus traces provincial armies leverage, the Batavian revolt under Civilis, and the early Judaean campaign, framed by a sharp ethnography of the Jews. Rapid annalistic narration alternates with speeches, portents, and caustic portraits; the compressed, ironic Silver Latin recalls Sallust while surpassing him in tragic intensity. Publius Cornelius Tacitus, a senator hardened by Domitians reign and consul under Nerva, writes with an insiders access and a survivors moral urgency. Marriage into Agricolas family, administrative service, and rigorous rhetorical training furnished sources and method. Composed in the early second century, after Agricola and Germania and before the Annals, the work inaugurates his sustained critique of autocracy and civil war. Essential for students of Roman history, political thought, and civilmilitary relations, The Histories rewards both specialists and general readers. Its unsparing analysis of legitimacy, propaganda, and chance illuminates any age in crisis; in an authoritative translation, it is an indispensable companion to understanding how empires fracture and refashion themselves.Quickie Classics summarizes timeless works with precision, preserving the authors voice and keeping the prose clear, fast, and readabledistilled, never diluted. Enriched Edition extras: Introduction · Synopsis · Historical Context · Author Biography · Brief Analysis · 4 Reflection Q&As · Editorial Footnotes.

The Histories is Herodotus wideranging inquiry into the causes of the GrecoPersian Wars, framed by vivid ethnographies from Egypt, Scythia, Lydia, and beyond. In supple Ionic prose he blends eyewitness report and hearsay, digression and analysis, balancing marvels with skepticism while invoking nomos, divine retribution, and human hybris as engines of history. As the earliest surviving Greek prose masterpiece, it sits between epic song and rational inquiry, an apodeixis that preserves deeds and explains why Greeks and "barbarians" collided. Born in Persianruled Halicarnassus and later connected with Athens and Thurii, Herodotus traveled widely, gathering stories in temples, courts, and markets. His cosmopolitan vantage and the living memory of Xerxes invasion shaped a method that compares customs, tests reports, and reflects on power. Between empire and polis, his migrations honed sympathy and skepticism. Recommended to readers of history, literature, and anthropology, this book rewards patient attention to sources and narrative art alike. Read it for the drama of empire and the craft of explanation; it enlarges the world and models curiosity disciplined by critique.Quickie Classics summarizes timeless works with precision, preserving the authors voice and keeping the prose clear, fast, and readabledistilled, never diluted. Enriched Edition extras: Introduction · Synopsis · Historical Context · Author Biography · Brief Analysis · 4 Reflection Q&As · Editorial Footnotes.

Composed c. 1136, Geoffrey of Monmouths Historia regum Britanniae narrates Britains kings from the Trojan Brutus to Cadwaladr, with its fulcrum the rise and eclipse of Arthur and the oracles of Merlin. In ornate Latin that fuses annal, epic episode, and rhetorical speeches, Geoffrey adapts learned historiography to legend, reworking Gildas, Bede, and Nennius while claiming a British source, inaugurating Europes durable Arthurian myth-history. Of Geoffrey himself we know little: a cleric from the WelshNorman marches, later bishop of St Asaph (1152), active in the Oxford milieu and author also of Prophetiae Merlini and Vita Merlini. Writing under patrons such as Robert, earl of Gloucester, and amid the Anarchy, he fashioned a usable antiquity to reconcile British memory with Anglo-Norman power. This is essential reading for students of medieval historiography, Arthurian literature, and the politics of origin. Read it as literature and program, not archive: attend to Geoffreys source-play, his set-piece rhetoric, and his vision of empire. A reliable critical translation with notes will richly reward close, comparative study.Quickie Classics summarizes timeless works with precision, preserving the authors voice and keeping the prose clear, fast, and readabledistilled, never diluted. Enriched Edition extras: Introduction · Synopsis · Historical Context · Brief Analysis · 4 Reflection Q&As · Editorial Footnotes.

Anabasis: The March of the Ten Thousand narrates Xenophons service in Cyrus the Youngers bid for the Persian throne and the mercenaries retreat from Cunaxa to the Black Sea. In lucid Attic prose, it blends battlefield reportage, logistics, and set speeches with ethnographic and geographic observation. Its thirdperson self-portrait, ritual markers, councils, and the cry Thalatta! place it between memoir and historiography in the postPeloponnesian War world. An Athenian gentleman-soldier and pupil of Socrates, Xenophon joined at a friends urging after consulting Apollo at Delphi. When the Greek generals were seized, he was elected to help lead the retreat. Experience of command, piety, and improvisationlater deepened in Spartan exile at Scillusshapes the works pragmatic tone and aligns it with his Hellenica, Cyropaedia, and Socratic writings on authority and self-discipline. Essential for students of classical history, military studies, and leadership, this brisk, unfussy narrative rewards attention to tactics, morale, and persuasion. It suits courses on Greek prose and empire and general readers seeking an adventure whose intelligence matches its drama. With clean architecture and unshowy wisdom, Anabasis remains a guide to surviving crisis and finding a way home.Quickie Classics summarizes timeless works with precision, preserving the authors voice and keeping the prose clear, fast, and readabledistilled, never diluted. Enriched Edition extras: Introduction · Synopsis · Historical Context · Author Biography · Brief Analysis · 4 Reflection Q&As · Editorial Footnotes.

The History of Babylon traces the citys rise from Amorite beginnings to its Neo-Babylonian zenith, interlacing political chronicle with religion, economy, and material culture. Using classical testimonies alongside newly deciphered cuneiform, Rawlinson reconstructs dynasties, diplomacy, and scribal learning, with attention to Marduks cult and monumental building. The style is measured, documentary Victorian prose, yet alert to comparative vistas across the Ancient Near East. George Rawlinson (18121902), Camden Professor of Ancient History at Oxford and an Anglican cleric, wrote at the dawn of Assyriology. Brother to Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, a pioneer of cuneiform decipherment, he enjoyed privileged access to inscriptions and museum holdings. His studies of the great monarchies and his annotated Herodotus shaped a philological, source-critical, and biblically conversant method. Readers seeking a rigorous, foundational account of Babylon will find this study both lucid and durable. Though later archaeology refines details of chronology and urban form, the books synthesis, citation habits, and attention to interregional exchange make it essential for students of the ancient Near East, biblical studies, and imperial historiography.Quickie Classics summarizes timeless works with precision, preserving the authors voice and keeping the prose clear, fast, and readabledistilled, never diluted. Enriched Edition extras: Introduction · Synopsis · Historical Context · Brief Analysis · 4 Reflection Q&As · Editorial Footnotes.

In The History of Rome: Rise and Fall of the Empire, John Bagnell Bury surveys Rome from republican ascent to late antique transformation. Drawing on Livy, Tacitus, Ammianus, inscriptions, papyri, and coinage, he reconstructs institutions, economy, army, and civic culture. The prose is lucid and analytic, wary of moralized "decline," and attentive to structures and causality. Situated within a Rankean, source-critical tradition yet alive to religious and intellectual change, the book marries brisk narrative to a carefully argued synthesis. An Irish classicist and Cambridge historian, Bury promoted history as a science, grounded in philology and administrative analysis. His engagement with Gibbon and his own studies of late Rome shape this project: reassessing decay as transformation, weighing imperial personalities against institutions, and privileging verifiable evidence over legend. This volume will reward advanced students and general readers seeking a reliable, unromantic survey. It provides orientation across complex chronology, models rigorous source criticism, and stages the major debates on expansion, governance, and collapse. For breadth joined to precision and calm judgment, Bury remains an indispensable guide.Quickie Classics summarizes timeless works with precision, preserving the authors voice and keeping the prose clear, fast, and readabledistilled, never diluted. Enriched Edition extras: Introduction · Synopsis · Historical Context · Brief Analysis · 4 Reflection Q&As · Editorial Footnotes.

The Gallic War is Caesars spare, commanding narrative of the campaigns in Gaul (5850 BCE), composed in the Commentarii mode. Written in taut, paratactic Latin and the third person, it interweaves precise logistics, topography, Alesias siegecraft, and battle order with ethnographic sketches of Gauls, Germans, and Britons, and set-piece speeches that guide interpretation. At once field report and crafted literature, it stands at the hinge of late Republican historiography, balancing annalistic clarity with authorial self-fashioning, and establishing a model for military prose. As proconsul, Gaius Julius Caesar indebted aristocrat, consummate politician, and innovator of coalition-building needed victories and narrative control. These Commentaries circulated rapidly in Rome to influence Senate and people, legitimating unprecedented command extensions and overshadowing rivals like Pompey. The third-person stance feigns impartiality, while selective emphasis, casualty accounting, and moral contrasts advance a persuasive defense of conquest. This book repays close reading by historians, classicists, and strategists alike. Approach it as both source and argument, ideally alongside Ciceros correspondence, Plutarch, and modern commentaries, to triangulate its claims. For lucid tactics, statecraft under pressure, and the rhetoric of empire, few ancient works are more instructive.Quickie Classics summarizes timeless works with precision, preserving the authors voice and keeping the prose clear, fast, and readabledistilled, never diluted. Enriched Edition extras: Introduction · Synopsis · Historical Context · Author Biography · Brief Analysis · 4 Reflection Q&As · Editorial Footnotes.

What happened to the civilizations that once ruled the worldand why did they disappear? Vanished Worlds takes readers on a thrilling journey through historys greatest enigmas, from Atlantis and the Indus Valley to the Maya and the Ancestral Puebloans. Blending cutting-edge archaeological discoveries with historical analysis, this book reveals the real reasons these societies rose to greatness and collapsed into silence. Were they undone by nature, war, or something deeper within human ambition? Through gripping narratives and vivid reconstructions, Vanished Worlds uncovers the lessons these fallen empires hold for our modern agereminding us that even historys giants can fade into dust.