'With icy remorselessness, it puts paid to any notion that the horrors of modern history might be an aberration - for it tells of universal war, of terrorism, revolution and genocide' Tom HollandThe long life-and-death struggle between Athens and Sparta plunged the ancient Greek world into decades of war. Thucydides was an Athenian and achieved the rank of general in the earlier stages of the war, and in this detailed, first-hand contemporary account he writes as both a soldier and...

In The Persian Expedition, Xenophon, a young Athenian noble who sought his destiny abroad, provides an enthralling eyewitness account of the attempt by a Greek mercenary army - the Ten Thousand - to help Prince Cyrus overthrow his brother and take the Persian throne. When the Greeks were then betrayed by their Persian employers, they were forced to march home through hundreds of miles of difficult terrain - adrift in a hostile country and under constant attack from the unforgiving Persians...

Xenophon's History recounts nearly fifty turbulent years of warfare in Greece between 411 and 362 BC. Continuing the story of the Peloponnesian War at the point where Thucydides finished his magisterial history, this is a fascinating chronicle of the conflicts that ultimately led to the decline of Greece, and the wars with both Thebes and the might of Persia. An Athenian by birth, Xenophon became a firm supporter of the Spartan cause, and fought against the Athenians in the battle of Coron...

Julius Caesar combines in one volume two of Rex Warner's most acclaimed historical novels: The Young Caesar and Imperial Caesar. The latter won the 1960 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. Together these two novels create one of the most compelling and substantial portraits in modern fiction of Caesar's remarkable life and times.'A very brilliant analysis of the emotional disciplines, the political subtlety and the moral r...

Dramatic artist, natural scientist and philosopher, Plutarch is widely regarded as the most significant historian of his era, writing sharp and succinct accounts of the greatest politicians and statesman of the classical period. Taken from the Lives, a series of biographies spanning the Graeco-Roman age, this collection illuminates the twilight of the old Roman Republic from 157-43 bc. Whether describing the would-be dictators Marius and Sulla, the battle between Crassus and Spartacus, the...

The Professor was Rex Warner's second novel, published in 1938, only a year after his groundbreaking first novel, The Wild Goose Chase. It is one of the most extraordinary and enduring political novels from the 1930s and further confirmed Warner's status as a major writer.A Professor of Classics is appointed Chancellor of his (unnamed) country, under threat from both the government of a neighbouring country and its own fascist party. The Professor ...

Xenophon, after being exiled from Athens, spent the last years of his life hunting, writing, and recalling in his books the great days of the Persian expedition. This record of one of the most famous marches in history contains an account of the day-to-day life of ordinary men and soldiers. It demonstrates how Greek theories of government and morality worked out in practice—for with his admiration for the great, Xenophon had a rare ability to understand and describe the outlook of lesser m...

Medieval history from a rising star in the field, this is a biography of one of the most important figures of the age, John of Gaunt.John Gaunt was the son of Edward III, brother to the Black Prince, father to Henry IV, and the sire of all those Tudors. He has had pretty bad press: supposed usurper of Richard II’s crown and the focus of hatred in the Peasants’ Revolt, as they torched his home, the Savoy Palace.Helen Carr paints a complex portrait of a man w...

This new edition, which is reproduced from a first printing of the book, is introduced by the author Martin Edwards, archivist of the Detection Club, and includes a never-before-published Preface by Agatha Christie, ‘Detective Writers in England’, in which she discusses her fellow writers in the Detection Club.Lord Comstock is a barbarous newspaper tycoon with enemies in high places. His murder in the study of his country houseposes a dilemma for the Home Secretary. In the hours be...

'Suetonius, in holding up a mirror to those Caesars of diverting legend, reflects not only them but ourselves: half-tempted creatures, whose great moral task is to hold in balance the angel and the monster within' GORE VIDALAs private secretary to the Emperor Hadrian, the scholar Suetonius had access to the imperial archives and used them (along with eyewitness accounts) to produce one of the most colourful biographical works in history. The Twelve Caesars...

The biographies collected in this volume bring together Plutarch's Lives of those great men who established the city of Rome and consolidated its supremacy, and his Comparisons with their notable Greek counterparts. Here he pairs Romulus, mythical founder of Rome, with Theseus, who brought Athens to power, and compares the admirable Numa and Lycurgus for bringing order to their communities, while Titus Flamininus and Philopoemen are portrayed as champions of freedom. As well as pr...

Plutarch's vivid and engaging portraits of the Spartans and their customs are a major source of our knowledge about the rise and fall of this remarkable Greek city-state between the sixth and third centuries BC. Through his Lives of Sparta's leaders and his recording of memorable Spartan Sayings he depicts a people who lived frugally and mastered their emotions in all aspects of life, who also disposed of unhealthy babies in a deep chasm, introduced a gruelling regime of military training ...