Miracula

by Paul Chrystal

Both humorous and shocking, Miracula is filled with astonishing facts and stories drawn from ancient Greece and Rome that have rarely been retold in English. It explores ‘the incredible’ as presented by little-known classical writers like Callimachus and Phlegon of Tralles. However, it offers much familiar authors such as Herodotus and Cicero often couldn’t resist relating sensational, tabloid-worthy tales. The book also tackles ancient examples of topics still relevant today, such as racism, slavery and misogyny. The pieces are by turns absorbing, enchanting, curious, unbelievable, comical, astonishing, disturbing, and occasionally just plain daft.
An entertaining and sometimes lurid collection, this book is perfect for all those fascinated by the stranger aspects of the classical world, history enthusiasts, and anyone interested in classical history, society and culture.

554 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 1, 2025

About the author

Paul Chrystal attended the Universities of Hull and Southampton where he took degrees in Classics. For the next thirty-five years he worked in medical publishing, much of the time as an international sales director for one market or another while latterly creating medical educational programmes for the pharmaceutical industry. He worked for companies such as Churchill Livingstone, Wiley-Blackwell, CRC Press, Academic Press and Elsevier.