Reviews of books on topics related to ancient History, Classics, Mythology, ancient relgions, ancient languages (Latin and Greek, in particular), and historical fiction based on ancient history.
These are the main Ancient/Classical History books reviewed in the year 2009.
Some books on this list go into the rationale for linking magic and religion, but for the purposes of this introduction, it's enough to say they weren't completely separate in ancient life. You'll find material on curses, love spells, priestesses rituals, and related topics. What you won't find here is the ancient myths except as they exemplify the use of magic. This covers a large field.
In Rebecca East's historical fiction time travel story, the heroine lands in Pompeii right before a devastating earthquake, but several years before the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. She is able to use her modern knowledge of events in history to work her way up the ancient social ladder.
Elizabeth Cook's little story (barely over 100 pages for the story itself) gets to the heart of Achilles' participation in the Trojan War.
Nicholas Ostler tells the story of the Latin language from its emergence to its near death.
Ted Hughes easy to read, poetic translation of Aeschylus' trilogy about the curse of the House of Atreus.
Peter Green's biography of Alexander of Macedon tells a rich, colorful story of the life of Alexander the Great, noting his acts of egomania and growing contempt for mere mortals no less than his military brilliance. If you're looking for a single comprehensive, easy to read, if long, work on Alexander, this should be it.
An engaging story, which breathes life into the Roman Empire of the first century and the story of the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, while showing the conflicts inherent in period social customs.
Review of W. Jeffrey Tatum's Always I Am Caesar.
Review of Sarah Iles Johnston's Ancient Greek Divination.
The agape or philia of the Greeks included affection, and also the sexual passion felt towards our mates, according to the University of Chicago's Christopher A. Faraone. Eros, however, was new, disorienting passion, conceived of as an attack of unwelcome lust, aptly represented as inflicted by the arrow-wielding god of love.
Margaret Malamud shows how America has used the history of ancient Rome to mirror its self-image.
Madeleine Henry studies the original liberated woman, a fifth century Athenian metic, Aspasia of Miletus.
The Battle of Salamis was fought by Greek city-states against the Persian Empire led by Xerxes. It was a battle of a rich, giant empire against small, impoverished, disjointed, feuding political entities. It looked like a sure bet for the Persians, but, as Barry Strauss shows, it was precisely the strengths of the Persian Empire and its fleet that worked against it in the Battle of Salamis.
If you're trying to understand what we know of the Teutoberg Forest disaster in A.D. 9, when three Roman legions were annihilated by German tribes, or you are looking for background on the opening scene of the movie Gladiator, Peter S. Wells' very clearly written The Battle That Stopped Rome - Emperor Augustus, Arminius, and the Slaughter of the Legions in the Teutoberg Forest will be invaluable.
Irene Hahn reviews the novel "Belisarius: The First Shall Be Last," by Paolo Belzoni.
Review of Benita Kane Jaro's Betray the Night, a novel about the exile of Ovid.
Review of "Caesar's Legion The Epic Saga of Julius Caesar's Elite Tenth Legion and the Armies of Rome," by Stephen Dando-Collins.
How the Athenians' myth justified differential treatment of men and women.
Irene Hahn reviews Adrian Goldsworthy's Caesar Life of a Colossus.
In "Cicero," Anthony Everitt deftly weaves Roman hoodlums, generals, and moralists of the first century B.C. into his story of the life and tragedy of Marcus Tullius Cicero.
Book Review of Judith Weingarten's Chronicle of Zenobia: The Rebel Queen by Irene Hahn.
As its title suggests,
Classical Mythology and More - A Reader Workbook is both a workbook and reader of the myths of ancient Greece and Rome. The workbook requires outside research and reasoning, and also supplies bits of lore and, occasionally, simple recipes.
Eleven essays on the changing images of Cleopatra and a catalogue of artifacts from an internetional exhibit on Cleopatra and her world leave many unanswered questions.
Irene Hahn reviews "Cleopatra's Heir," an alternative historical fiction by Gillian Bradshaw about the son of Caesar and Cleopatra -- Caesarion.
If you are teaching Cicero's First Oration Against Catiline, whether to a family, a class, or yourself, this is the perfect tool. Absolutely everything is explained and in case that's not enough, Maclardy provides a translation in the margin. Originally written in the nineteenth century, "Completely Parsed Cicero" is like a review course in Latin.
Irene Hahn reviews "Daughter of Lazarus," a work of historical fiction, by Albert A. Bell, Jr., which takes place during the reign of Domitian.
The Day of the Barbarians: The Battle That Led to the Fall of the Roman Empire, by Alessandro Barbero.
The 1st chapter explains that Athenian democracy was unlike modern democracy for one main reason: modern democracy "willfully ignores popular sources of useful knowledge."
"Disease," by Joyce Flier is an accessible look at Egyptian disease and medicine.
Beckwith wrote Empires of the Silk Road to counter the "barbarian" image and to fill a void, since there is no other work that covers the same area and expanse of time so sympathetically.
Engineering in the Ancient World, by J. G. Landels. Review of Landels' Engineering in the Ancient World.
Etruscan Life and Afterlife is a collection of monographs on Etruscan topics from 1986.
Two heroes emerge from this modern adaptation, by Ted Hughes, of Euripides' drama, Heracles and the best of women, Alcestis, wife of Admetos.
The role of women in a homosocial Greek world.
Archaeologist Barry Cunliffe takes anachronistic liberties with his portrayal of ancient travel writer Pyheas the Greek.
The subtitle of Mary's Beard's the Fires of Vesuvius catches the essence of her book. Beard tells us about what we can see in the remains of Pompeii and what lies behind it in Roman history.
Historical Fiction for young adults, by Judith Geary, dealing with the son of a Celtic chieftain captured by Romans in the time of Sulla and Marius.
Jordanes is the main source of information on the Goths, but Michael Kulikowsky says he is unreliable, even if he is the only source on the origins of the Goths.
Biography of the greatest man ever, according to some.
Greco-Roman World of the New Testament Era.
In "Greek Fire, Poison Arrows & Scorpion Bombs - Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World," Adrienne Mayor does a masterful job of showing how everything modern in the areas of terrorism and warfare has ancient antecedents.
Review of Greek Tragedy, by Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz.
We have to accept that we don't know what happened to Hannibal Barca in his famous crossing of the Alps, but given our ignorance, Prevas has done an admirable job interpreting events and trying to show why his recreated routes through the Alps work best.
This isn't the place to turn to for a look at economic theory, but for a fast paced history of the world through the lens of money, this is an excellent choice.
Review of Susan Wise Bauer's The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome.
Review of Household and Family Religion in Antiquity, edited by John Bodel and Saul M. Olyan.
Review of E.A. Thompson's 1948 text on the nomadic people led by Attila.
Review of Maria Dzielska's book on the truth behind the legend of the woman described as the body of Aphrodite and the spirit of Plato.
Review of Imperial Exits, by Julius Cicatrix and Martin Rowson.
Book Review of Robert Harris' novel about Cicero, Imperium, by Irene Hahn.
Review of the Science fiction thriller In the Courts of the Sun, by Brian D'Amato.
How could Oedipus marry his mother? Surely he could see how much older she was than he? And how did she not know he was her son? These are issues Victoria Grossack and Alice Underwood address in this work of historical fiction.
Review of Island of Ghosts by Gillian Bradshaw, an historical fiction novel about Sarmatians in Roman Britain at Hadrian's Wall, during the reign of Marcus Aurelius.
Gore Vidal's fictional memoirs of Emperor Julian the Apostate.
When Cleopatra died Octavian destroyed favorable histories of the pharaoh. Karen Essex' fictional biography looks at what the remarkable woman must have been like.
Review of Adrian Murdoch's The Last Pagan: Julian the Apostate and the Death of the Ancient World.
Peter Green constructs a biography based on the few known facts of Sappho's life.
Review of Lionel Casson's Libraries in the Ancient World.
Learn about Ancient Rome while you color.
Product summary and review of Lives of the Caesars, edited by Anthony A. Barrett.
Product summary and review of The Lock - an historical novel about Cicero by Benita Kane Jaro. In The Lock Benita Kane Jaro writes about Cicero and other major figures in Rome of the time - Clodius Pulcher - Pompey - Milo.
"Why study classics?" is such an open-ended question that to get 321 pages that actually stick to the point -- more or less -- is pretty impressive. That Simon Goldhill does that while providing a survey of the classics and its impact on history, laced with many fascinating facts and truly illustrative photos is quite a feat.
Andrew Callimach's "Lovers' Legends - The Gay Greek Myths" puts together the major stories about Greek heroes' and gods' love affairs with other men.
Review of Morgan J. Roberts' Myths of the World - Norse Gods and Heroes.
A review of Derek Collins' Magic in the Ancient Greek World.
Joyce Tyldesley attempts to unravel the many mysteries surrounding the fourteenth century B.C. Egyptian queen by looking at archaeological evidence, religious and mortuary art, and architecture from the late 18th dynasty.
In The Night Attila Died - Solving the Murder of Attila the Hun Michael A. Babcock explains how philological evidence supports his theory that Attila the Hun did not die on his wedding night of a nosebleed or an alcoholism-induced esophageal rupture.
Irene Hahn reviews the last in the Masters of Rome series, by Colleen McCullough, "The October Horse."
Product review of "Party Politics in the Age of Caesar," by Lily Ross Taylor, a close examination of the political system of personal favoritism, bribery, religious machinations, and such Roman favorites as coitiones and bringing one's troops in to scare people into voting.
In Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood rewrote the story of Odysseus from the viewpoint of his wife for a 21st century series retelling the ancient myths.
Irene Hahn reviews "Pharaoh," the conclusion to the fictional biography of Cleopatra, written by Karen Essex.
The Poison King - The Life and Legend of Mithradates, by Adrienne Mayor is an exploration of the life of Rome's deadliest enemy.
A.J. Bollet reports on diseases that have created epidemics among human populations. Plagues and Poxes is a series of essays on individual diseases.
Pompeii, by Robert Harris, is a retelling of the volcanic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius from the perspective of an ancient aqueduct engineer.
Portrait of a Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece, by Joan Breton Connelly, uses photographs of artifacts and written texts to challenge the assumption that women in ancient Greece were truly as secluded and repressed as Victorian and feminist scholarship have suggested. Connelly's material covers a wide geographic area and a long period of time
Pride of Carthage, by David Anthony Durham, is an historical fiction story of Hannibal and Carthage which Irene Hahn reviews.
Irene Hahn's review of The Quest for the Lost Roman Legions, by Tony Clunn, a book about the Roman disaster in the Teutoberg Forest.
Review of the fictional biography of the long-lived pharaoh Ramses of Egypt, "Ramses : The Son of Light, by Christian Jacq. Ramses is thought to have been "the" pharaoh whom Moses encountered in the Bible.
Review of Christian Jacq's The Eternal Temple (or The Temple of a Million Years).
Mingling the religions and customs of the Canaanites, the followers of Abraham, and the Egyptians, "The Red Tent," by Anita Diamant, is a story of generations of a gifted, but dysfunctional family.
My review of The Return of Ulysses, by Edith Hall.
Instead of a conflict between family values and the values of the state, Republican Romans steeped their children in morality so they would become fit members of the body politic.
Review of Adrian Goldsworthy's
Roman Warfare.
Roman Woodworking is an amply b&w illustrated reference work for those students and scholars interested in ancient trees and wood crafts. It should share shelf space with books on ancient ships and architecture and would be an especially handy companion for Vergil and Pliny.
Review of Thomas Cahill's overview of ancient Greece, Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea - Why the Greeks Matter.
Irene Hahn's review of Sand of the Arena (A Gladiator of the Empire Novel).
Origins of the Roman genre and review of Dominik and Wehrle's book on Roman Satire.
The Secundus Papyrus is a mystery constructed in the 5th century A.D. and largely taking place in the imperial city of Ravenna, in the Western Empire. Book review by Irene Hahn
A recent translation of Seneca's tragedy, adapted by Michael Rutenberg, makes Oedipus accessible to modern audiences.
Reader review of The Serpent Grail, by Philip Gardiner with Gary Osborn.
Review of Angela Elwell Hunt's "The Shadow Women." In "The Shadow Women," Hunt tells the Exodus story of Moses from the perpective of his sister, mother, and wife.
Historical romance puts flesh back on the ancient city.
A review of sport historian Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World by Donald G. Kyle.
To Be a Roman, by Margaret A. Brucia and Gregory N. Daugherty, is designed for young students, especially those beginning Latin, so that they will have the background for what they will soon be translating. It's better than that, though, since it provides a thorough overview of those aspects of Roman daily life that anyone would be interested in.
Between Rose Williams' easy-to-read Latin translation of the story of the "Three Little Pigs," and James Hillyer Estes' toga-clad line drawings of the main characters, Tres Porculi is great fun to read aloud.
A novel about Troy, by Adele Geras, for young adults, tells the story about the Trojan War from the perspective of those inside the walls of Troy.
Review of Debra Hamel's "Trying Neaira - The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece."
Review of Christine El Mahdy's Biography of Tutankhamen and Akhenaten, the Amarna pharaohs.
In Vergil's Aeneid, Hero, War, Humanity, G.B. Cobbold has translated Vergil's Aeneid for the modern reader who has no knowledge of Latin and only a limited knowledge of Classics.
Probably because it is written by two people, "Warrior Women" has one serious flaw: It seems disjointed. The first part of the book contains a fascinating look at the archaeological remains of the Amazons, an explanation of what they mean, and an intimate look at the life of an archaeologist. The second part floats around the world.
"Words and Ideas," by William J. Dominik, combines word building and etymology with Greco-Roman culture. It even explains the oddities of spelling conventions and why a name like Aeschylus is also spelled Aischylos.
A vital, classic work on Homer and the Odyssey that should be required reading for anyone studying Homer, plus it's short and easy to read.
A Pocket Guide to Writing in History, by Mary Lynn Rampolla, is a great modern companion to Strunk and White's 1918 gem, Elements of Style, for all students who have to write papers. It is particularly useful, as the title implies, for students of history.
Reviews of books on Ancient History, Classics, mythology, and historical fiction set in ancient times.
Fiction about Julius Caesar and Cleopatra of Egypt.
Irene Hahn reviews books on ancient Rome.
Historical fiction about Roman Britain, by young adult writer Rosemary Sutcliff.
Readers review books by such books authors as L. Sprague deCamp, Raymond Selkirk, Ross Leckie, Karen Essex, Gillian Bradshaw, Allan Massie, Anne Rice and Anita Diamant.
