Download or read book The Curse of Babylon written by Richard Blake and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2022-02-20 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 615 AD. A vengeful Persian tyrant prepares the final blow that will annihilate the Byzantine Empire. Back in Constantinople, though, Aelric of England - now the Lord Senator Alaric - has it made. He is almost as powerful as the Emperor. Seemingly without opposition, he dominates the vast and morally bankrupt capital. If, within his fortified palace, he revels in his books, his mood-altering substances, and the various delights of his serving girls and dancing boys, he alone is able to conceive and to push forward reforms that are the Empire's only hope of survival, and perhaps of restoration to wealth and greatness. But his domestic enemies are waiting for their moment to strike back. And the world's most terrifying military machine is assembling in secret beyond the mountains of the eastern frontier. What is the Horn of Babylon? Is it really accursed? Who is Antonia? What is Shahin, the bestial Persian admiral, doing on a ship within sight of the Imperial City? What exactly does Chosroes, the still more bestial Great King of Persia, want from Aelric? Is Rado a barbarian thug or a military genius? Will Priscus, the vile and disgraced former Commander of the East, get his place in the history books? Must it be written in Aelric's blood? In this sixth novel in the series, can Aelric rise to his greatest challenge yet? Intrigue, sex, black comedy, spectacular crowd scenes and extreme violence - you will find it all here in luxuriant abundance. Praise for the Novels of Richard Blake 'Fascinating to read, very well written, an intriguing plot and I enjoyed it very much.' - Derek Jacobi, star of I Claudius and Gladiator 'Vivid characters, devious plotting and buckets of gore are enhanced by his unfamiliar choice of period.... Nasty, fun and educational.' - The Daily Telegraph 'He knows how to deliver a fast-paced story and his grasp of the period is impressively detailed.' - The Mail on Sunday 'A rollicking and raunchy read . . . Anyone who enjoys their history with large dollops of action, sex, intrigue and, above all, fun will absolutely love this novel.' - Historical Novels 'It would be hard to over-praise this extraordinary series, a near-perfect blend of historical detail and atmosphere with the plot of a conspiracy thriller, vivid characters, high philosophy and vulgar comedy.' - The Morning Star Richard Blake is a pseudonym for Sean Gabb, who is an historian, writer and university lecturer. He lives in Kent with his wife and daughter.
Download or read book The Ancient Curse written by Valerio Massimo Manfredi and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2010-07-02 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Valerio Massimo Manfredi's The Ancient Curse is a thrilling archaeological mystery with a supernatural twist. In the darkest hours of the night at the Museum of Volterra, young archaeologist Fabrizio Castellani is immersed in his work. He has discovered that the famous Etruscan statue known as the 'shade of twilight' contains a mysterious object, seemingly enclosed within the sculpture itself. He is suddenly interrupted by the phone ringing – on the other end of the line an icy female voice warns him to abandon his research at once. A series of gruesome killings follow. The victims, who have all been involved in the desecration of an unexplored tomb, seem to have been torn to pieces by a beast of unimaginable size. Meanwhile, as Fabrizio excavates the Etruscan tomb he discovers something extraordinary, and chilling . . . Will Fabrizio manage to unravel these secrets without being sucked into the spiral of violence himself?
Download or read book The Rise of Rome written by Anthony Everitt and published by Random House. This book was released on 2012-08-07 with total page 521 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE KANSAS CITY STAR From Anthony Everitt, the bestselling author of acclaimed biographies of Cicero, Augustus, and Hadrian, comes a riveting, magisterial account of Rome and its remarkable ascent from an obscure agrarian backwater to the greatest empire the world has ever known. Emerging as a market town from a cluster of hill villages in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C., Rome grew to become the ancient world’s preeminent power. Everitt fashions the story of Rome’s rise to glory into an erudite page-turner filled with lasting lessons for our time. He chronicles the clash between patricians and plebeians that defined the politics of the Republic. He shows how Rome’s shrewd strategy of offering citizenship to her defeated subjects was instrumental in expanding the reach of her burgeoning empire. And he outlines the corrosion of constitutional norms that accompanied Rome’s imperial expansion, as old habits of political compromise gave way, leading to violence and civil war. In the end, unimaginable wealth and power corrupted the traditional virtues of the Republic, and Rome was left triumphant everywhere except within its own borders. Everitt paints indelible portraits of the great Romans—and non-Romans—who left their mark on the world out of which the mighty empire grew: Cincinnatus, Rome’s George Washington, the very model of the patrician warrior/aristocrat; the brilliant general Scipio Africanus, who turned back a challenge from the Carthaginian legend Hannibal; and Alexander the Great, the invincible Macedonian conqueror who became a role model for generations of would-be Roman rulers. Here also are the intellectual and philosophical leaders whose observations on the art of government and “the good life” have inspired every Western power from antiquity to the present: Cato the Elder, the famously incorruptible statesman who spoke out against the decadence of his times, and Cicero, the consummate orator whose championing of republican institutions put him on a collision course with Julius Caesar and whose writings on justice and liberty continue to inform our political discourse today. Rome’s decline and fall have long fascinated historians, but the story of how the empire was won is every bit as compelling. With The Rise of Rome, one of our most revered chroniclers of the ancient world tells that tale in a way that will galvanize, inform, and enlighten modern readers. Praise for The Rise of Rome “Fascinating history and a great read.”—Chicago Sun-Times “An engrossing history of a relentlessly pugnacious city’s 500-year rise to empire.”—Kirkus Reviews “Rome’s history abounds with remarkable figures. . . . Everitt writes for the informed and the uninformed general reader alike, in a brisk, conversational style, with a modern attitude of skepticism and realism.”—The Dallas Morning News “[A] lively and readable account . . . Roman history has an uncanny ability to resonate with contemporary events.”—Maclean’s “Elegant, swift and faultless as an introduction to his subject.”—The Spectator “[An] engaging work that will captivate and inform from beginning to end.”—Booklist
Download or read book The Curse of the Crocodile God written by Stewart Ross and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2007-03-05 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Watch the past come to life in this gripping comic-book tale, The Curse of the Crocodile God. Travel back in time to Ancient Egypt and meet Methen, a young boy whose father is a priest at the temple of the crocodile god, Sobek.Join him on his travels as he and a young servant girl get entangled in a terrible tale of deceit as they discover evidence of tomb robbing, and are determined to expose the villain. But will they lose their heads before they prove their case? Combining the excellent content of DK Readers with the excitement of a graphic novel, these thrilling books use rich, historically accurate settings-such as Ancient Egypt and Ancient Rome-as the backdrops for tales of murder, betrayal, and revenge. Reference section provides nonfiction context, including timeline, maps, and glossary.
Download or read book Magical Practice in the Latin West written by Richard Lindsay Gordon and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2010 with total page 737 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most studies of Graeco-Roman magic focus on the Greek texts. Stimulated by important recent finds of Latin curse-tablets, this collection of essays for the first time tries to define the nature and extent of the originality of magical practice in the Latin West
Download or read book Tales of the Barbarians written by Greg Woolf and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2010-12-01 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tales of the Barbarians traces the creation of new mythologies in the wake of Roman expansion westward to the Atlantic, and offers the first application of modern ethnographic theory to ancient material. Investigates the connections between empire and knowledge at the turn of the millennia, and the creation of new histories in the Roman West Explores how ancient geography, local histories and the stories of wandering heroes were woven together by Greek scholars and local experts Offers a fresh perspective by examining passages from ancient writers in a new light
Download or read book From Document to History written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-06-17 with total page 495 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In From Document to History: Epigraphic Insights into the Greco-Roman World, editors Carlos Noreña and Nikolaos Papazarkadas gather together an exciting set of original studies on Greek and Roman epigraphy, first presented at the Second North American Congress of Greek and Latin Epigraphy (Berkeley 2016). Chapters range chronologically from the sixth century BCE to the fifth century CE, and geographically from Egypt and Asia Minor to the west European continent and British isles. Key themes include Greek and Roman epigraphies of time, space, and public display, with texts featuring individuals and social groups ranging from Roman emperors, imperial elites, and artists to gladiators, immigrants, laborers, and slaves. Several papers highlight the new technologies that are transforming our understanding of ancient inscriptions, and a number of major new texts are published here for the first time.
Download or read book X Treme Latin written by Henry Beard and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2005-03-03 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In staff meetings and singles bars, on freeways and fairways, there are aggravating people lurking everywhere these days. But bestselling humorist Henry Beard has the perfect comeback for all prickly situations, offering a slew of quips your nemesis won't soon forget . . . or even understand. Beard's gift is his ability to make fun of popular culture and the current zeitgeist. In X-Treme Latin he provides Latin with an attitude, an indispensable phrasebook that taps the secret power of Latin to deliver, in total safety, hundreds of impeccable put-downs, comebacks, and wisecracks. Within its pages you will learn how to insult or fire coworkers; blame corporate scandals on someone else; cheer at a World Wrestling Entertainment match; talk back to your computer, TV, or Game Boy; deal with your road rage; evade threatening situations; snowboard in style; talk like Tony Soprano; and much more. With dozens more zingers for quashing e-mail pranks, psyching out your golf opponent, giving backhanded compliments, and evading awkward questions, X-Treme Latin is destined for magnus popularity and will have readers cheering, “Celebremus!”
Download or read book The Latin Sexual Vocabulary written by J. N. Adams and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 1990-10 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: LIke other languages, Latin contained certain words its speakers considered obscene as well as a rich stock of sexual euphemism and metaphor. Our sources for this information range from surviving graffiti to literary works with a marked sexual content. Yet despite its manifest literary and linguistic interest, the sexual vocabulary of Latin has remained uninvestigated by scholars. J. A. Adams's pioneering and unique reference work collects for the first time evidence of Latin obscenities and sexual euphemisms drawn from both literary and nonliterary sources from the early Republic to about he fouth century A.D. Separate chaptes treat each of the sexual pasrts of the body and the terminology used to describe sexual acts. General topics include the influence of Greek language on Latin, changes in the Latin vocabulary over time (including the evolution of sexual words into general terms of abuse), and lexical differences among various literary genres.
Download or read book Magic in Ancient Greece and Rome written by Lindsay C. Watson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-05-02 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Parting company with the trend in recent scholarship to treat the subject in abstract, highly theoretical terms, Magic in Ancient Greece and Rome proposes that the magic-working of antiquity was in reality a highly pragmatic business, with very clearly formulated aims - often of an exceedingly malignant kind. In seven chapters, each addressed to an important arm of Greco-Roman magic, the volume discusses the history of the rediscovery and publication of the so-called Greek Magical Papyri, a key source for our understanding of ancient magic; the startling violence of ancient erotic spells and the use of these by women as well as men; the alteration in the landscape of defixio (curse tablet) studies by major new finds and the confirmation these provide that the frequently lethal intent of such tablets must not be downplayed; the use of herbs in magic, considered from numerous perspectives but with an especial focus on the bizarre-seeming rituals and protocols attendant upon their collection; the employment of animals in magic, the factors determining the choice of animal, the uses to which they were put, and the procuring and storage of animal parts, conceivably in a sorcerer's workshop; the witch as a literary construct, the clear homologies between the magical procedures of fictional witches and those documented for real spells, the gendering of the witch-figure and the reductive presentation of sorceresses as old, risible and ineffectual; the issue of whether ancient magicians practised human sacrifice and the illuminating parallels between such accusations and late 20th century accounts of child-murder in the context of perverted Satanic rituals. By challenging a number of orthodoxies and opening up some underexamined aspects of the subject, this wide-ranging study stakes out important new territory in the field of magical studies.
Download or read book Curses and Smoke A Novel of Pompeii written by Vicky Alvear Shecter and published by Scholastic Inc.. This book was released on 2014-05-27 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When your world blows apart, what will you hold onto? TAG is a medical slave, doomed to spend his life healing his master's injured gladiators. But his warrior's heart yearns to fight in the gladiator ring himself and earn enough money to win his freedom.LUCIA is the daughter of Tag's owner, doomed by her father's greed to marry a much older Roman man. But she loves studying the natural world around her home in Pompeii, and lately she's been noticing some odd occurrences in the landscape: small lakes disappearing; a sulfurous smell in the air. . . . When the two childhood friends reconnect, each with their own longings, they fall passionately in love. But as they plot their escape from the city, a patrician fighter reveals his own plans for them -- to Lucia's father, who imprisons Tag as punishment. Then an earthquake shakes Pompeii, in the first sign of the chaos to come. Will they be able to find each other again before the volcano destroys their whole world?
Download or read book Latin Curse Tablets of the Roman Empire written by Daniela Urbanová and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 557 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The aim of this work is to map and analyse the extant Latin 'defixiones' whose production within the Roman Empire is attested from the 2nd cent. BCE to the end of the 4th/beginning of the 5th cent. CE. There are altogether five hundred Latin curse texts most of which are inscribed on lead tablets. These were intended to affect the actions or health of people/animals against their will and with the help of supernatural powers. As such, they provide the epigraphical evidence of magical practices which were widespread throughout the whole Mediterranean of antiquity. They are often aimed at rivals e.g. in circus or in love, opponents in lawsuits, or enemies, in general. Additionally, there is a special category of so-called 'prayers for justice' which are traditionally classified among 'defixiones' and share several characteristics with them. They are predominantly used against thieves, and are meant to harm or eliminate the culprit. At the same time, their aim is to achieve justice: returning the stolen property, a ?just? punishment, or revenge for the damage suffered (usually a theft, treachery, or fraud).
Download or read book The Last King of Rome written by Laura Dowers and published by Blue Laurel Press. This book was released on 2019 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Before dictators and emperors, Rome was a land of kings. On the verge of losing his right to inherit the throne, Lucius Tarquin embarks on a murderous plan to depose his uncle the king and take the throne for himself. But a man who rules by fear must also live in fear, and a prophecy that foretold the end of his dynasty's right to rule troubles Lucius greatly. He must know where the danger to him and his family lies and stop them before they can act against him. But who is his greatest enemy? The gods who can withdraw their favour on a whim? Or the people of Rome who refuse to be oppressed by him any longer?
Download or read book Bar Kokhba written by Lindsay Powell and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2021-11-24 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This biography of the ancient Jewish military leader examines how he mounted a years-long revolt against Rome that changed the course of history. In AD 132, a bloody struggle began between two determined leaders over who would rule Judea. One was the powerful Roman Emperor Hadrian, who some regarded as divine. The other was Shim’on—known today as Bar Kokhba—a Jewish military commander in a district of a minor province, who some believed to be the ‘King Messiah’. In Bar Kokhba, ancient historian Lindsay Powell examines the clash between these two men, and the two ancient cultures they represented. In the ensuing conflict, the Jewish militia resisted the onslaught of the professional Roman army for three-and-a-half years. They established an independent nation with its own administration, headed by Shim’on as its president. The outcome of that David and Goliath contest was of great consequence, both for the people of Judaea and for Judaism itself. Drawing on archaeology, art, coins, inscriptions, militaria, as well as secular and religious documents, Lindsay Powell sheds light on Bar Kokhba’s singular life and legacy. She also describes her personal journey across three continents to establish the facts.
Download or read book Arae written by Lindsay Watson and published by Francis Cairns Publications. This book was released on 1991 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fundamental study of curses from a literary point of view. First the author differentiates the various types of curses found in ancient poetry; this is followed by a chronological examination of the curses, from archaic and classical Greece to Hellenistic and Roman times. The rich Hellenistic material is treated in particular detail, by placing it in its literary context and in relation to defixiones .
Download or read book Apollo s Raven written by Linnea Tanner and published by Bublish, Inc.. This book was released on 2020-01-10 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: PenCraft 2019 Best Book of the Year Award A Celtic warrior princess is torn between her forbidden love for the enemy and duty to her people. AWARD-WINNING APOLLO'S RAVEN sweeps you into an epic Celtic tale of forbidden love, mythological adventure, and political intrigue in Ancient Rome and Britannia. In 24 AD British kings hand-picked by Rome to rule are fighting each other for power. King Amren's former queen, a powerful Druid, has cast a curse that Blood Wolf and the Raven will rise and destroy him. The king's daughter, Catrin, learns to her dismay that she is the Raven and her banished half-brother is Blood Wolf. Trained as a warrior, Catrin must find a way to break the curse, but she is torn between her forbidden love for her father's enemy, Marcellus, and loyalty to her people. She must summon the magic of the Ancient Druids to alter the dark prophecy that threatens the fates of everyone in her kingdom. Will Catrin overcome and eradicate the ancient curse. Will she be able to embrace her forbidden love for Marcellus? Will she cease the war between Blood Wolf and King Amren and save her kingdom?
Download or read book Invisible Romans written by Robert Knapp and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2011-10-24 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What survives from the Roman Empire is largely the words and lives of the rich and powerful: emperors, philosophers, senators. Yet the privilege and decadence often associated with the Roman elite was underpinned by the toils and tribulations of the common citizens. Here, the eminent historian Robert Knapp brings those invisible inhabitants of Rome and its vast empire to light. He seeks out the ordinary folk—laboring men, housewives, prostitutes, freedmen, slaves, soldiers, and gladiators—who formed the backbone of the ancient Roman world, and the outlaws and pirates who lay beyond it. He finds their traces in the nooks and crannies of the histories, treatises, plays, and poetry created by the elite. Everyday people come alive through original sources as varied as graffiti, incantations, magical texts, proverbs, fables, astrological writings, and even the New Testament. Knapp offers a glimpse into a world far removed from our own, but one that resonates through history. Invisible Romans allows us to see how Romans sought on a daily basis to survive and thrive under the afflictions of disease, war, and violence, and to control their fates before powers that variously oppressed and ignored them.
