Ancient

A New York Times-bestselling historian charts how and why societies from ancient Greece to the modern era chose to utterly destroy their foes, and warns that similar wars of obliteration are possible in our time....

In this, the first prose history in European civilization, Herodotus describes the growth of the Persian Empire with force, authority, and style....

A stunning portrait of Rome’s glory days, this is the definitive history of the Pax Romana—an ultimate superpower at the pinnacle of its greatness....

Telling the story of a man who stood against the overwhelming power of the mighty Roman empire, Hannibal is the biography of a man who, against all odds, dared to change the course of history....

In the year 493, the leader of a vast confederation of Gothic warriors, their wives, and children personally cut down Odoacer, the man famous for deposing the last Roman emperor in 476. That leader became Theoderic the Great (454-526)....

Aurelian saved the Roman Empire from foreign invasion and collapse, earning him the title Restorer of the World from a grateful Senate. This is his story as restorer of the world....

The Gallic War is Julius Caesar's autobiographical diary of the wars in what is now France, Belgium, and parts of Britain, Germany, and Switzerland, in which he describes the battles that took place from 58 to 51 BCE when he fought the Germanic and Celtic peoples....

The Achaemenid Persian kings ruled over the largest empire of antiquity, stretching from Libya to the steppes of Asia and from Ethiopia to Pakistan. In Persians, historian Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones tells the epic story of this dynasty and the world it ruled....

By 330 B.C.E., Alexander the Great had reached the pinnacle of success. Or so it seemed. He had defeated the Persian ruler Darius III and seized the capital city of Persepolis. His exhausted and traumatized soldiers were ready to return home to Macedonia.

The Roads to Rome is a journey into a past that remains intimately connected to our present. Traveling from Scotland to Cádiz to Istanbul and back to Rome, the listener meanders through nations and empires that have risen and fallen.

A new age has dawned for Rome. Following the brief reign of Emperor Nerva, Marcus Ulpius Trajan inherits the mantle of Caesar. A revered general and statesman, the senate a people of Rome greet his rise with an optimism not seen since the reign of Vespasian.

Award-winning historian of ancient Rome Adrian Goldsworthy presents a concise and comprehensive history of the fighting forces that created the Roman Empire....

Epic in scope, tracing seven centuries of conflict between two great powers, historian Adrian Goldsworthy completely reshapes our understanding of one of the greatest rivalries of world history....

In Mortal Republic, prize-winning historian Edward J. Watts offers a new history of the fall of the Roman Republic that explains why Rome exchanged freedom for autocracy. Listen to learn more....

A riveting account of ancient Rome's imperial bodyguard, the select band of soldiers who wielded the power to make - or destroy - the emperors they served....

The Spartans of ancient Greece were a powerful and unique people, radically different from any civilization before or since....

Shortly before his death in 1645, the undefeated swordsman Miyamoto Musashi retreated to a cave to live as a hermit. There he wrote five scrolls describing the "true principles" required for victory in the martial arts and on the battlefield....

Genghis Khan built a formidable land empire, but he never crossed the sea. Yet by the time his grandson Kublai Khan had defeated the last vestiges of the Song empire and established the Yuan dynasty in 1279, the Mongols controlled the most powerful navy in the world.

Julius Caesar is one of the most famous figures of the ancient Roman world. A skillful general and leading politician of the late Roman Republic, he secured a 10-year proconsular command in the province of Gaul, during which he accumulated both wealth and power....

Covering Sparta's full classical history, The Bronze Lie examines the myth of Spartan warrior supremacy against the historical record, delving into the minutiae of Spartan warfare from arms and armor to tactics and strategy....

More than 2,500 years ago, a confederation of small Greek city-states defeated the invading armies of Persia, the most powerful empire in the world....

Stretching 80 miles from coast to coast across northern England, Hadrian's Wall is the largest Roman artifact known today. It is commonly viewed as a defiant barrier, the end of the empire, a place where civilization stopped and barbarism began....

This book is a narrative history of a dozen years of turmoil that begins with Rome's millennium celebrations of 248 CE and ends with the capture of the emperor Valerian by the Persians in 260....

The myths surrounding Sparta are as old as the city itself. Even in antiquity, Sparta was a unique society, considered an enigma. The Spartans' often bizarre rules and practices have the capacity to horrify as much they do to fascinate us today....

The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China presents us with an Eastern tradition of strategic thought....