Ancient History

Ancient history is the aggregate of past events from the beginning of recorded human history and extending as far as the Early Middle Ages or the Post-classical Era. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with Sumerian Cuneiform script, the oldest discovered form of coherent writing from the proto-literate period around the 30th century BC.

The term classical antiquity is often used to refer to history in the Old World from the beginning of recorded Greek history in 776 BC (First Olympiad). This roughly coincides with the traditional date of the founding of Rome in 753 B ...more

New Releases Tagged "Ancient History"

The Lost Voices of Pompeii: Life and Death on Pompeii's Final Day

Lost Worlds: How Humans Tried, Failed, Succeeded, and Built Our World

Servus: How Slavery Made the Roman World

Athens and Sparta: The Rivalry That Shaped Ancient Greece

Babylon: The Mother of All Cities, from the critically acclaimed ancient historian and author of The Persians 'Remarkable' WILLIAM DALRYMPLE, author of THE GOLDEN ROAD

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The House with the Golden Door (Wolf Den Trilogy, #2)

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Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient Roman World

Peak Human: What We Can Learn from History's Greatest Civilisations

Mythica: A New History of Homer’s World, Through the Women Written Out of It

After 1177 B.C.: The Survival of Civilizations

Lists

The Memoirs of Cleopatra by Margaret George

Cleopatra's Moon by Vicky Alvear Shecter

Books about Cleopatra (fiction and nonfiction)

70 books — 155 voters

Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome by Apicius

The Little House Cookbook by Barbara M. Walker

Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management by Isabella Beeton

Historical Cookery

320 books — 82 voters

How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill

Mysteries of the Middle Ages by Thomas Cahill

Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea by Thomas Cahill

Best of Thomas Cahill

18 books — 4 voters

Mara, Daughter of the Nile by Eloise Jarvis McGraw

Daughter of the Gods by Stephanie Marie Thornton

The Woman Who Would Be King by Kara Cooney

Books about Hatshepsut

19 books — 12 voters

History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

Best Books on Ancient Greek History and Literature

364 books — 202 voters

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown

A People's History of the World by Chris Harman

The Bitter Road to Freedom by William I. Hitchcock

The Independent's "The Ten Best History Books"

12 books — 27 voters

Ancient History Books

Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic

1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed

Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome

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Indian History
Roman History
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Greek History
Egyptian History
Post Classical History
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Quotes Tagged “Ancient History”

“ We have a predator that came from the depths of the cosmos and took over the rule of our lives. Human beings are its prisoners. The Predator is our lord and master. It has rendered us docile, helpless. If we want to protest, it suppresses our protest. If we want to act independently, it demands that we don't do so... I have been beating around the bush all this time, insinuating to you that something is holding us prisoner. Indeed we are held prisoner! "This was an energetic fact for the sorcere We have a predator that came from the depths of the cosmos and took over the rule of our lives. Human beings are its prisoners. The Predator is our lord and master. It has rendered us docile, helpless. If we want to protest, it suppresses our protest. If we want to act independently, it demands that we don't do so... I have been beating around the bush all this time, insinuating to you that something is holding us prisoner. Indeed we are held prisoner! "This was an energetic fact for the sorcerers of ancient Mexico ... They took us over because we are food for them, and they squeeze us mercilessly because we are their sustenance. just as we rear chickens in chicken coops, the predators rear us in human coops, humaneros. Therefore, their food is always available to them." "No, no, no, no," [Carlos replies] "This is absurd don Juan. What you're saying is something monstrous. It simply can't be true, for sorcerers or for average men, or for anyone." "Why not?" don Juan asked calmly. "Why not? Because it infuriates you? ... You haven't heard all the claims yet. I want to appeal to your analytical mind. Think for a moment, and tell me how you would explain the contradictions between the intelligence of man the engineer and the stupidity of his systems of beliefs, or the stupidity of his contradictory behaviour. Sorcerers believe that the predators have given us our systems of belief, our ideas of good and evil, our social mores. They are the ones who set up our hopes and expectations and dreams of success or failure. They have given us covetousness, greed, and cowardice. It is the predators who make us complacent, routinary, and egomaniacal." "'But how can they do this, don Juan? [Carlos] asked, somehow angered further by what [don Juan] was saying. "'Do they whisper all that in our ears while we are asleep?" "'No, they don't do it that way. That's idiotic!" don Juan said, smiling. "They are infinitely more efficient and organized than that. In order to keep us obedient and meek and weak, the predators engaged themselves in a stupendous manoeuvre stupendous, of course, from the point of view of a fighting strategist. A horrendous manoeuvre from the point of view of those who suffer it. They gave us their mind! Do you hear me? The predators give us their mind, which becomes our mind. The predators' mind is baroque, contradictory, morose, filled with the fear of being discovered any minute now." "I know that even though you have never suffered hunger... you have food anxiety, which is none other than the anxiety of the predator who fears that any moment now its manoeuvre is going to be uncovered and food is going to be denied. Through the mind, which, after all, is their mind, the predators inject into the lives of human beings whatever is convenient for them. And they ensure, in this manner, a degree of security to act as a buffer against their fear." "The sorcerers of ancient Mexico were quite ill at ease with the idea of when [the predator] made its appearance on Earth. They reasoned that man must have been a complete being at one point, with stupendous insights, feats of awareness that are mythological legends nowadays. And then, everything seems to disappear, and we have now a sedated man. What I'm saying is that what we have against us is not a simple predator. It is very smart, and organized. It follows a methodical system to render us useless. Man, the magical being that he is destined to be, is no longer magical. He's an average piece of meat." "There are no more dreams for man but the dreams of an animal who is being raised to become a piece of meat: trite, conventional, imbecilic. ...more ”
― Carlos Castaneda, The Active Side of Infinity

34 likes

“ I came to the Greeks early, and I found answers in them. Greece's great men let all their acts turn on the immortality of the soul. We don't really act as if we believed in the soul's immortality and that's why we are where we are today. ...more ”
― Edith Hamilton

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