Ancient Classics

Julius Caesar is one of Shakespeare’s most compelling Roman plays. The plot against Caesar and the infamous assassination scene make for unforgettable listening. Brutus, the true protagonist of the play, is mesmerizing in his psychological state of anguish, forced to choose between the bonds of friendship and his desire for patriotic justice.

Covering the whole of the ancient Greek experience from its beginnings late in the third millennium BCE to the Roman conquest in 30 BCE, Out of One, Many is an accessible and lively introduction to the Greeks and their ways of living and thinking. In this fresh and witty exploration of the thought, culture, society, and history of the Greeks, Jennifer Roberts traces not only the common values that united them across the seas and the centuries, but also the enormous diversity in their ideas and beliefs.

1599 was an epochal year for Shakespeare and England. During that year, Shakespeare wrote four of his most famous plays: Henry the Fifth, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and, most remarkably, Hamlet; Elizabethans sent off an army to crush an Irish rebellion, weathered an Armada threat from Spain, gambled on a fledgling East India Company, and waited to see who would succeed their aging and childless queen.

One of the supreme masterpieces of world literature, the Homeric saga of the shipwrecks, wanderings, and homecoming of the master tactician Odysseus encompasses a virtual inventory of the themes and attitudes that have shaped Western culture. The tale of Odysseus' encounters with such obstacles as Calypso, Circe, Scylla and Charybdis, the Sirens, and the lotus-eaters, and his dramatic return to Ithaca and his patient wife, Penelope, forms a prototype for all subsequent Western epics.

Pindar was one of the greatest lyric poets of ancient Greece. He is best known today for his odes to the victors of athletic contests, including those at famed Olympia. These odes, the only complete surviving pieces by Pindar, are marvels of sustained imagination, packed with dense parallels between the athletic victor, his illustrious aristocratic ancestors, and the myths of Olympian gods and heroes like Jason, Heracles, and Perseus.

Sophisticated wit and intense emotion, religious fervor and erotic sensuality, delight in life’s pleasures and fascination with death, are all to be found in the paradoxical poetry of John Donne. One of the foremost metaphysical poets, Donne’s ingenious metaphors and inspired use of language has earned him affection and reverence in near equal measure to Shakespeare.

I first read Edward Fitzgerald’s celebrated, if controversial, version of Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat when I happened upon it in my father’s extensive library when I was a sophomore at Notre Dame High School. While there is much debate about Omar Khayyam’s philosophical outlook (is his message Sufi-oriented or existentially hedonistic?), there is no doubting its beauty and its profundity of thought.

The Meditations are a series of private reflections written in Greek by a Roman emperor immersed in the administration of an empire beset by wars on its frontiers and natural disasters in its interior. It is the work of a great man seeking philosophical and spiritual solace in the midst of human chaos and uncertainty. This beautiful piece of ancient literature has been the companion of many leaders over the centuries who turned to inner reflection in times of unrest. Its Stoic philosophy has been much admired and emulated.

The exemplary life of a noble soldier/statesman, a description of ancient Germany, and a discussion of oratory are the subjects of three short masterpieces by the brilliant Roman historian, Tacitus.

This captivating audiobook will take you on a beautiful journey through the fascinating world of Greek mythology. From the beginning of the cosmos to the Odyssey, be ready to venture into an exciting world of love, loyalty, infidelity, vengeance, deception, and intrigue!

A long time ago, in a suburban high school not so far away, a closeted nerd (me) and a closeted soccer star (Hutch) fell in love and planned to make their public debut at prom. Until Hutch bailed at the last minute, leaving me with a broken heart and unworn tuxedo. Tale as old as time, right? I spent the past ten years working to forget Hutch, returning to our old high school to teach and make new memories that could erase ones of him. I thought Hutch was ancient history, off living his professional athlete life.

In Homer, Barbara Graziosi considers Homer's famous works and their impact on readers throughout the centuries. She shows how The Iliad and The Odyssey benefit from a tradition of reading that spans well over two millennia, stemming from ancient scholars at the library of Alexandria, in the third and second centuries BCE, who wrote some of the first commentaries on the Homeric epics. Summaries of these scholars' notes made their way into the margins of Byzantine manuscripts; from Byzantium the annotated manuscripts traveled to Italy.

Unlock the Secrets of Ancient Philosophy with Two Timeless Thinkers Imagine holding in your hands the keys to understanding the forces that have shaped human thought for millennia. Now, with Empedocles and Antisthenes: Love, Strife, and Cynicism, you can do just that. This powerful volume brings together the profound insights of two of ancient Greece’s most influential philosophers, offering you a journey into the heart of wisdom itself. Empedocles reveals a universe governed by the eternal dance of Love and Strife—forces that pull everything together and tear it apart. His vision ...

Edipo Rey es una obra de Sófocles. Es una tragédia clásica que todos se necesitan oir. Esta narración de la obra es distinguida por la calidad excelente del audio y profesionalismo del actor talentoso. Editado laboriosamente para proveer una calidad de audio que no se puede encontrar en ninguna parte fuera de aquí. Somos dedicados a su placer. Aquí se puede encontrar la obra completa.

Veteran cavalry commander Marcus Flavius Victor sets out with his regiment to make what may be his final tour of the forts along Hadrian's Wall. Through a combination of military prowess, brutality and bribery, Marcus has spent 20 years keeping the savage Picts at bay. Feared by his enemies and hated by his superiors, his strength of will is the only thing that has held the disgruntled, poorly paid garrisons of the Wall in place as the failing Roman Empire's grip on Britannia weakened.

En este bellísimo relato se narran las aventuras que vive Ulises navegando por el mar Mediterráneo. Enormes tempestades azotan su nave porque el dios del mar, Poseidón, no le quiere nada. Sin embargo, le protege la diosa de la sabiduría, Atenea. Mientras tanto, en su tierra, la isla Ítaca, le están esperando su fiel esposa, Penélope, y su hijo Telémaco, que irá en busca de noticias suyas.

Gibbon's masterpiece on Rome is a monument of literature and a model of modern historical research. There has never been anything quite like it since its publication between 1776 and 1788. Although some of Gibbon's views are considered controversial today, there is no doubt that his research and patient devotion to scholarship produced one of the most valuable and renowned histories of all time.

The Apology of Socrates, written by Plato, is a Socratic dialogue of the speech of legal self-defense which Socrates spoke at his trial for impiety and corruption in 399 BC. Specifically, the Apology of Socrates is a defense against the charges of "corrupting the youth" and "not believing in the gods in whom the city believes, but in other daimonia that are novel" to Athens.

Enheduanna, also known as En-hedu-ana or Enheduana, is widely regarded as the world's first known author and poet, as well as one of the earliest recorded female figures in history. She lived in ancient Mesopotamia during the 23rd century BCE, and held the esteemed position of high priestess in the city of Ur, which was a thriving center of Sumerian civilization.

One of the world's leading historians provides a revolutionary tour of the Ancient World, dusting off the classics for the twenty-first century. Mary Beard, drawing on thirty years of teaching and writing about Greek and Roman history, provides a panoramic portrait of the classical world, a book in which we encounter not only Cleopatra and Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and Hannibal, but also the common people - the millions of inhabitants of the Roman Empire, the slaves, soldiers, and women.