Download or read book The Novel in the Ancient World written by Gareth L. Schmeling and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-12-28 with total page 920 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From classics and history to Jewish rabbinic narratives and the canonical and noncanonical gospels of earliest Christianity, the relevance of studying the novel of the later classical periods of Greek and Rome is widely endorsed. Ancient novels contain insights beyond literary theories and philosophical musings to new sources for understanding the popular culture of antiquity. Some scholars, in fact, refer to ancient novels as “alternative histories,” for they tell history implicitly rather than with the intentional biases of the historian. The Novel in the Ancient World surveys the new approaches and insights to the ancient novel and wrestles with issues such as the development, transformation, and christianization of the novel (Spirit-inspired versus inspired by the Muses). This publication has also been published in hardback, please click here for details.

Download or read book The Last Will and Testament of Alexander the Great written by David Grant and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2021-09-30 with total page 525 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A re-assessment of Alexander the Great's death, exposing a conspiracy by Alexander's generals after his death to undermine his empire. Alexander the Great conquered the largest empire the world had ever seen while still in his twenties but fell fatally ill in Babylon before reaching 33 years old. His wife Roxanne was still pregnant with what would be his only legitimate son, so there was no clear-cut heir. The surviving accounts of his dying days differ on crucial detail, with the most popular version claiming Alexander uttered ‘to the strongest’ when asked to nominate a successor on his deathbed. Decades of ‘civil war’ ensued as Alexander’s hard-won empire was torn asunder by generals in the bloody ‘funeral games’ his alleged final words heralded in. The fighting for supremacy inevitably led to the extermination of his bloodline. But was Alexander really so short-sighted and irresponsible? Finally, after 2,340 years, the mystery is unravelled. In a forensic first, David Grant presents a compelling case for what he terms the ‘greatest succession cover up of all time’. Alexander’s lost Last Will and Testament is given new credibility and Grant deciphers events that led to its erasure from history by the generals who wanted to carve up the empire for themselves.

Download or read book In Search Of The Lost Testament of Alexander the Great written by David Grant and published by Troubador Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2017-01-28 with total page 896 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A unique ‘backstory’ of Alexander and his successors: the biased historians, deceits, wars, generals, and the tale of the literature that preserved them. ‘Babylon, mid-June 323 BCE, the gateway of the gods; prostrated in the Summer Palace of Nebuchadrezzar II on the east bank of the Euphrates, wracked by fever and having barely survived another night, King Alexander III, the rule of Macedonia for 12 years and 7 months, had his senior officers congregate at his bedside. Abandoned by Fortune and the healing god Asclepius, he finally acknowledged he was dying. Some 2,340 years on, five barely intact accounts survive to tell a hardly coherent story. At times in close accord, though more often contradictory, they conclude with a melee of death-scene rehashes, all of them suspicious: the first portrayed Alexander dying silent and intestate; he was Homeric and vocal in the second; the third detailed his Last Will and Testament though it is attached to the stuff of romance. Which account do we trust?’ In Search Of The Lost Testament Of Alexander The Great is the result of a ‘decade of contemplations on Alexander’ presented as a rich thematic narrative Grant describes as the ‘backstory behind the history’ of the great Macedonian and his generals. Taking an uncompromising investigative perspective, Grant delves into the challenges faced by Alexander’s unique tale: the forgeries and biased historians, the influences of rhetoric, romance, philosophy and religion on what was written and how. Alexander’s own mercurial personality is vividly dissected and the careers and the wars of his successors are presented with a unique eye. But the book never loses sight of central aim: to unravel the mystery behind Alexander’s ‘unconvincingly reported’ intestate death. And out of Grant’s research emerges one unavoidable verdict: after 2,340 years, the Last Will and Testament of Alexander III of Macedonia needs to be extracted from ‘romance’ and reinstated to its rightful place in mainstream history: Babylon in June 323 BCE. Although the result a decade of academic research, In Search Of The Lost Testament Of Alexander The Great is written in an entertaining and engaging style that opens the subject to both scholars and the casual reader of history looking to learn more about the Macedonian king and the men who ‘made’ his story. It concludes with a wholly new interpretation of the death of Alexander the Great and the mechanism behind the wars of succession that followed.

Download or read book The Symposion in Ancient Greek Society and Thought written by Fiona Hobden and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-02-21 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides insights into the symposion's importance in Greek culture by tracing the discursive power of its representations.

Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Alexander the Great written by Daniel Ogden and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2023-12-31 with total page 611 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Has any ancient figure captivated the imagination of people over the centuries so much as Alexander the Great? In less than a decade he created an empire stretching across much of the Near East as far as India, which led to Greek culture becoming dominant in much of this region for a millennium. Here, an international team of experts clearly explains the life and career of one of the most significant figures in world history. They introduce key themes of his campaign as well as describing aspects of his court and government and exploring the very different natures of his engagements with the various peoples he encountered and their responses to him. The reader is also introduced to the key sources, including the more important fragmentary historians, especially Ptolemy, Aristobulus and Clitarchus, with their different perspectives. The book closes by considering how Alexander's image was manipulated in antiquity itself.

Download or read book Ptolemy I Soter written by Edward M. Anson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-06-15 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ptolemy I, whose epithet was Savior, was in many respects the most successful of all of Alexander the Great's successors. He created the longest lasting of the Hellenistic kingdoms that rose in the aftermath of the great conqueror's death, ending with the death of Cleopatra VII and Egypt's incorporation into the Roman Empire. This book is not a standard biography, but rather an examination of the major issues surrounding Ptolemy's reign, the major controversies and questions surrounding his career and legacy. What were his ultimate ambitions? How did he administer his kingdom? What was his role in the demise of the unified empire created by Alexander? Ptolemy's administration of this foreign land, although privileging colonists from Greece and Macedonia over native Egyptians, maintained a level of political stability in a land with a long history of resisting foreign rule. Each of the key themes discussed in the chapters follows a chronological order so that readers unfamiliar with the life of Ptolemy can follow the narrative. Each chapter includes a discussion of the major academic positions on each issue and an evaluation of the primary historical and archaeological evidence. Ptolemy I Soter: Themes and Issues brings new clarity to the history of one of the chief architects of the Hellenistic Age.

Download or read book Curtius Rufus Histories of Alexander the Great Book 10 written by Quintus Curtius Rufus and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-03-12 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A translation, with detailed commentary, of Book 10 of Curtius Rufus' Histories, a major Roman source on the end of the reign of Alexander the Great. The Introduction establishes a profile of Curtius, and his agenda as a historian. Both translation and commentary are designed for the reader without Latin.

Download or read book House of War written by Hamilton Wende and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2012-10-02 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What drove one man to set out to conquer the known world? What madness? What unquenchable desire? What love? Sebastian Burke, a British academic, has spent his whole life trying to understand the secret life of Alexander the Great and his slave bride Roxane. Now, with the Taliban forced underground, he finally has the opportunity to undertake the journey he has dreamed of for almost his entire adult life, a journey into the heart of Alexander's world, a journey to the lost city of Ay Khanoum in northern Afghanistan. Here, with the help of Claire Finch - a fiercely independent American documentary producer - he hopes to find and expose to the world the contents of the Royal Diaries of Alexander - the last copies of which were kept in the city before its destruction by barbarian invaders from the East. However, from the moment two American servicemen are murdered by Al Qaeda terrorists in the bar of their hotel in Tashkent it becomes clear that there is far more at stake than just Sebastian's reputation as a historian, and what started out as a quest to validate a lifetime of academic study quickly turns into a journey of discovery that will bring Sebastian face to face with his Rhodesian past - a past he has run from for more than thirty years.

Download or read book THE MURDER OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT BOOK 2 THE SECRET WAR written by Ajith Kumar and published by Argead Star llc. This book was released on 2019-12-15 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seventy-two stunning findings about Alexander the Great and the assassin of Alexander the Great is finally identified. Who killed Alexander the Great? After over two thousand years of speculation, the assassin of Alexander is finally identified. To verify the truth, this historical narrative searches through a mass of conflicting records, including Indian and Greek classical texts. By assimilating new information from multiple sources, Ajith Kumar stitches together this scattered history with 72 pieces of fresh evidence to solve the perplexing murder mystery. Alexander’s destiny, it seems, was determined the moment he stepped into Taxila in India in 326 BC, as he was helplessly trapped in a different world, where an invisible enemy was leading a secret war against him. The Arthasastra of Chanakya, an epic treatise on statecraft and warfare, presents the multiple strategies of the 'secret war' which diverted and decimated the Greek army, and killed its supreme commander. In The Murder of Alexander the Great, Book 2: The Secret war, Ajith Kumar presents a new version of ancient history that still remains hidden in ancient Indian texts. The puzzling mystery behind Alexander's premature death is documented in Chanakya's 'Arthasastra,' a military manual of ancient India, which reveals devastating effects of the Secret War strategy employed by the Indians during the Greek invasion in 326 BC. The exotic weapon that killed Alexander is named as the 'Destroyer of time' in the Arthashastra, a military manual, and the Sanskrit Puranas. The Puranas also hold untold chapters of hidden history, which reveal how the Indians decisively destroyed the worldwide empire of Alexander the Great and changed the world for ever. The two-millennium-old murder mystery takes us back in time to the farthest corners of the primitive world, only to end in a stunning climax that lays bare the elusive assassin of Alexander.

Download or read book In the Path of Conquest written by Waldemar Heckel and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-29 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a fresh insight into the conquests of Alexander the Great by attempting to view the events of 336-323 BCE from the vantage point of the defeated. The extent and form of the resistance of the populations he confronted varied according to their previous relationships with either the Macedonian invaders or their own Achaemenid rulers. The internal political situations of many states--particularly the Greek cities of Asia Minor--were also a factor. In the vast Persian Empire that stretched from the Aegean to the Indus, some states surrendered voluntarily and others offered fierce resistance. Not all regions were subdued through military actions. Indeed, as the author argues, the excessive use of force on Alexander's part was often ineffective and counterproductive. In the Path of Conquest examines the reasons for these varied responses, giving more emphasis to the defeated and less to the conqueror and his Macedonian army. In the process, it debunks many long-held views concerning Alexander's motives, including the idea that his aim was to march to the eastern limits of the world. It also provides a fresh reevaluation of Darius III's successes and failures as a commander. Such a study involves rigorous analysis of the ancient sources, and their testimony is presented throughout the book in the form of newly translated passages. A unique portrait of a well-known age, In the Path of Conquest will significantly alter our understanding of Alexander's career.

Download or read book Alexander the Great written by Elizabeth Baynham and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The literary tradition surrounding the Macedonian conqueror is rich, contradictory and complex. Much of what we know comes from the history of Quintus Curtius, who wrote a history of Alexander in the first century AD. Baynham explores Curtius' historical style and his presentation of the legendary king. She examines his use of ancient sources, and discusses why Curtius chose to preserve the information about Alexander that he did. She demonstrates that his work was a carefully planned narrative, and that he was not only interested in presenting Alexander as a clever ruler and accomplished tactician, but also as a human subject to the whims of chance, of fortuna .

Download or read book Alexander s Veterans and the Early Wars of the Successors written by Joseph Roisman and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2012-08-24 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From antiquity until now, most writers who have chronicled the events following the death of Alexander the Great have viewed this history through the careers, ambitions, and perspectives of Alexander’s elite successors. Few historians have probed the experiences and attitudes of the ordinary soldiers who followed Alexander on his campaigns and who were divided among his successors as they fought for control of his empire after his death. Yet the veterans played an important role in helping to shape the character and contours of the Hellenistic world. This pathfinding book offers the first in-depth investigation of the Macedonian veterans’ experience during a crucial turning point in Greek history (323–316 BCE). Joseph Roisman discusses the military, social, and political circumstances that shaped the history of Alexander’s veterans, giving special attention to issues such as the soldiers’ conduct on and off the battlefield, the army assemblies, the volatile relationship between the troops and their generals, and other related themes, all from the perspective of the rank-and-file. Roisman also reexamines the biases of the ancient sources and how they affected ancient and modern depictions of Alexander’s veterans, as well as Alexander’s conflicts with his army, the veterans’ motives and goals, and their political contributions to Hellenistic history. He pays special attention to the Silver Shields, a group of Macedonian veterans famous for their invincibility and martial prowess, and assesses whether or not they deserved their formidable reputation.

Download or read book Faces of Power written by Andrew Stewart and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 632 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During his reign and following his death, the physiognomy of Alexander the Great was one of the most famous in history, adorning numerous works of art. This study demonstrates how the various portraits transmit not so much a likeness of Alexander as a set of cliches that symbolized the ruler

Download or read book Women in Ancient Greece written by Paul Chrystal and published by Fonthill Media. This book was released on 2017-06-29 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines women whose influence was positive, as well as those whose reputations were more notoriousSupremely well researched from many different historical sourcesSuperbly illustrated with photographs and drawings Women in Ancient Greece is a much-needed analysis of how women behaved in Greek society, how they were regarded, and the restrictions imposed on their actions. Given that ancient Greece was very much a man’s world, most books on ancient Greek society tend to focus on men; this book redresses the imbalance by shining the spotlight on that neglected other half. Women had significant roles to play in Greek society and culture – this book illuminates those roles. Women in Ancient Greece asks the controversial question: how far is the assumption that women were secluded and excluded just an illusion? It answers it by exploring the treatment of women in Greek myth and epic; their treatment by playwrights, poets and philosophers; and the actions of liberated women in Minoan Crete, Sparta and the Hellenistic era when some elite women were politically prominent. It covers women in Athens, Sparta and in other city states; describes women writers, philosophers, artists and scientists; it explores love, marriage and adultery, the virtuous and the meretricious; and the roles women played in death and religion. Crucially, the book is people-based, drawing much of its evidence and many of its conclusions from lives lived by historical Greek women.

Download or read book Alexander the Great written by Anthony Everitt and published by Random House. This book was released on 2019-08-27 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What can we learn from the stunning rise and mysterious death of the ancient world’s greatest conqueror? An acclaimed biographer reconstructs the life of Alexander the Great in this magisterial revisionist portrait. “[An] infectious sense of narrative momentum . . . Its energy is unflagging, including the verve with which it tackles that teased final mystery about the specific cause of Alexander’s death.”—The Christian Science Monitor More than two millennia have passed since Alexander the Great built an empire that stretched to every corner of the ancient world, from the backwater kingdom of Macedonia to the Hellenic world, Persia, and ultimately to India—all before his untimely death at age thirty-three. Alexander believed that his empire would stop only when he reached the Pacific Ocean. But stories of both real and legendary events from his life have kept him evergreen in our imaginations with a legacy that has meant something different to every era: in the Middle Ages he became an exemplar of knightly chivalry, he was a star of Renaissance paintings, and by the early twentieth century he’d even come to resemble an English gentleman. But who was he in his own time? In Alexander the Great, Anthony Everitt judges Alexander’s life against the criteria of his own age and considers all his contradictions. We meet the Macedonian prince who was naturally inquisitive and fascinated by science and exploration, as well as the man who enjoyed the arts and used Homer’s great epic the Iliad as a bible. As his empire grew, Alexander exhibited respect for the traditions of his new subjects and careful judgment in administering rule over his vast territory. But his career also had a dark side. An inveterate conqueror who in his short life built the largest empire up to that point in history, Alexander glorified war and was known to commit acts of remarkable cruelty. As debate continues about the meaning of his life, Alexander's death remains a mystery. Did he die of natural causes—felled by a fever—or did his marshals, angered by his tyrannical behavior, kill him? An explanation of his death can lie only in what we know of his life, and Everitt ventures to solve that puzzle, offering an ending to Alexander’s story that has eluded so many for so long.

Download or read book In Bed with the Ancient Greeks written by Paul Chrystal and published by Amberley Publishing Limited. This book was released on 2016-05-15 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Spartans to Alexander the Great, Paul Chrystal brings the murky world of sex with the Ancient Greeks to life.

Download or read book Alexander the Great and Propaganda written by John Walsh and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-03-28 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alexander the Great and Propaganda explores the use of propaganda - whether literature, coinage, or iconography – in the court of Alexander the Great, as well as those of his Successors, demonstrating that it was as integral to Hellenistic courts as it was to Imperial Rome. This volume brings together ten essays from leading international scholars in Alexander studies. There is currently no equivalent collection which has a specialist focus of themes or issues relating to the use of propaganda in the courts of Alexander or his Successors. This book will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars of Alexander studies, as well as those studying the use of propaganda across the ancient world, and to the more general reader with an interest in Alexander the Great and his reign.