King Oedipus/Oedipus at Colonus/AntigoneThree towering works of Greek tragedy depicting the inexorable downfall of a doomed royal dynastyThe legends surrounding the house of Thebes inspired Sophocles to create this powerful trilogy about humanity's struggle against fate.
Tacitus' Annals of Imperial Rome recount the major historical events from the years shortly before the death of Augustus up to the death of Nero in AD 68.
Written towards the end of the second century AD, The Golden Ass tells the story of the many adventures of a young man whose fascination with witchcraft leads him to be transformed into a donkey.
Composed in the early thirteenth century, Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival is the re-creation and completion of the story left unfinished by its initiator Chr tien de Troyes.
Taking the legends surrounding King Arthur and weaving in new psychological elements of personal desire and courtly manner, Chr tien de Troyes fashioned a new form of medieval Romance.
'The most truthful translation ever, conveying as many nuances and whispers as are possible from the original' The TimesAfter a century of civil strife in Rome and Italy, Virgil wrote the Aeneid to honour the emperor Augustus by praising his legendary ancestor Aeneas.
Part of a new series Legends from the Ancient North, The Elder Edda is one of the classic books that influenced JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings'So the company of men led a careless life,All was well with them: until One beganTo encompass evil, an enemy from hell.
Tom Holland's 'stirring new translation' (Telegraph) of Herodotus' Histories, one of the great books in Western history - now in paperbackThe Histories of Herodotus, completed in the second half of the 5th century BC, is generally regarded as the first work of history and the first great masterpiece of non-fiction writing.
Einhard's Life of Charlemagne is an absorbing chronicle of one of the most powerful and dynamic of all medieval rulers, written by a close friend and adviser.
Once upon a time, the name Baghdad conjured up visions of the most magical, romantic city on earth, where flying carpets carried noble thieves off on wonderful adventures, and vicious viziers and beautiful princesses mingled with wily peasants and powerful genies.
One of the most important philosophical works of all time, in a new Penguin Classics translation by Adam Beresford'Right and wrong is a human thing' What does it mean to be a good person?
The great work of Welsh literature, translated in full for the first time in over 100 years by two of its country's foremost poetsTennyson portrayed him, and wrote at least one poem under his name.
Taking the form of a discussion between the hedonist Philebus, his na ve disciple Protarchus and Socrates, Philebus is a compelling consideration of the popular belief that pleasure is the greatest attainable good.
Composed during the fourteenth century in the English Midlands, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight describes the events that follow when a mysterious green-coloured knight rides into King Arthur's Camelot in deep mid-winter.
Lawyer, philosopher, statesman and defender of Rome's Republic, Cicero was a master of eloquence, and his pure literary and oratorical style and strict sense of morality have been a powerful influence on European literature and thought for over two thousand years in matters of politics, philosophy, and faith.
One of the greatest poems of the classical world, Virgil's Georgics is a glorious celebration of the eternal beauty of the natural world, now brought vividly to life in a powerful new translation.
The first anthology ever to present the entire range of ancient Greek and Roman stories-from myths and fairy tales to jokesCaptured centaurs and satyrs, talking animals, people who suddenly change sex, men who give birth, the temporarily insane and the permanently thick-witted, delicate sensualists, incompetent seers, a woman who remembers too much, a man who cannot laugh-these are just some of the colorful characters who feature in the unforgettable stories that ancient Greeks and Romans told in their daily lives.
Contemporary translations and adaptations of ancient Greek poet Callimachus by noted writer and critic Stephanie BurtCallimachus may be the best-kept secret in all of ancient poetry.
This book is an interdisciplinary synthesis and interpretation about the experience of light as revealed in a wide range of art and literature from Paleolithic to Roman times.
Find out what happened when King Midas was granted his wish, how Icarus flew too close to the sun, and relive the adventures of Jason and the Argonauts in these stories of love, betrayal, infatuation and punishment.
This book explores the theological significance of horror elements in the works of Hesiod and in the Homeric Hymns for the characters within these poems, the mortal audience consuming them, and the poet responsible for mythopoesis.
A masterful new translation of Suetonius' renowned biography of the twelve Caesars, bringing to life a portrait of the first Roman emperors in stunning detailThe ancient Roman empire was the supreme arena, where emperors had no choice but to fight, to thrill, to dazzle.
In 2021, a previously unknown treatise by Porphyry of Tyre, which has been preserved in a Syriac translation, was made available to historians of philosophy: Porphyry, On Principles and Matter (De Gruyter, 2021).
The Dark Ages is a historical periodization traditionally referring to the Middle Ages, that asserts that a demographic, cultural, and economic deterioration occurred in Western Europe following the decline of the Roman Empire.
A high-stakes wager placed on a woman's virtue; men who spy on bathing women; tell-tale birthmarks; cross-dressing; dragons; tournaments; and aristocrats bursting into song--these features and more appear in the three stories translated here, all versions of the folktale known as "e;the wager tale.
During the sixteenth century, antiquarian studies (the study of the material past, comprising modern archaeology, epigraphy, and numismatics) rose in Europe in parallel to the technical development of the printing press.
This interdisciplinary volume explores the ancient Greek myth of Medea and its global analogues found in other mythic and folk tales of deadly, exiled women, such as those of La Malinche and La Llorona, examining the connections between these figures and their depictions from antiquity to modernity.
