'no one else in our times has attempted to write a universal history' Polybius' ambitious goal was to describe how Rome conquered the Mediterranean world in less than fifty-three years. This great study of imperialism takes the reader back to Rome's first encounter with Carthage in 264 and forward to her destruction of that renowned city in 146. Polybius, himself a leading Greek politician of the time, emphasizes the importance of practical experience for the writing of po...

Herodotus is not only known as the `father of history', as Cicero called him, but also the father of ethnography; as well as charting the historical background to the Persian Wars, his curiosity also prompts frequent digression on the cultures of the peoples he introduces. While much of the information he gives has proved to be astonishingly accurate, he also entertains us with delightful tales of one-eyed men and gold-digging ants. This readable new translation is supplemented with expans...

Assisted by his brother Hasdrubal, Hannibal rose to command the people of Carthage in 221 BC.Drawing on the accounts of Livy and Polybius, Ernle Bradford documents the Punic War between Carthage and Rome. After gaining the support of the Gauls Hannibal made his way over the Alps with 37 elephants and attacked Italy, winning important battles at Trebia, Lake Trasimene and Cannae, where the Roman forces lost over 50,000 men. He was finally defeated in Africa at Zama ...

More than three hundred years before the birth of Christ, a traveller from the Greek colony of Marseilles, named Pytheas, made known to the civilized world the existence of a people called Guttones, who lived near the Frische Haff, in the country since known as East Prussia, and traded in the amber that was gathered on the Baltic shores. For four whole centuries these amber merchants of the Baltic are heard of no more. The elder Pliny, a Roman writer who died in the year 79 after Christ, t...

The Gallic War, published on the eve of the civil war which led to the end of the Roman Republic, is an autobiographical account written by one of the most famous figures of European history. On one level a straightforward narrative of the campaigns Caesar fought against the Gauls, Germans and Britons, it also serves a deeper political purpose, revealing him as a commander of breathtaking flair, courage and persistence - a man of the people, a man without rival. This new translati...

THE FIRST MSB (music soundtrack book) WITH ORIGINAL MUSIC SOUNDTRACK, ABOUT THE ASTONISHING NINTH LEGION. The book narrates the beginning of Hadrianus Domitius Martius’s military career. As a mere boy, and a citizen of the Roman Empire, he enlisted in the Roman army like many others in the year 811 Ab Urbe Condita and became a legionnaire ready to fight to death for the honour and strength of Rome. Throughout the story, he transforms into a fierce warrior...

This fourth book in Dando-Collins’s definitive history of Rome’s legions tells the story of Rome’s 3rd Gallica Legion, which put Vespasian on the throne and saved the life of the Christian apostle Paul. Named for their leader, Mark Antony, these common Roman soldiers, through their gallantry on the battlefield, reshaped the Roman Empire and aided the spread of Christianity throughout Europe.

At its height the Roman Empire stretched across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, maintained by an army of modest size but great diversity.In popular culture these soldiers are often portrayed in a generic fashion, but continuing research indicates significant variations in Roman armour and equipment not only between different legions and the provincially-raised auxiliary cohorts that made up half of the army, but also between different regions within the e...

The Roman World 44 BC – AD 180 deals with the transformation of the Mediterranean regions, northern Europe and the Near East by the military autocrats who ruled Rome during this period. The book traces the impact of imperial politics on life in the city of Rome itself and in the rest of the empire, arguing that, despite long periods of apparent peace, this was a society controlled as much by fear of state violence as by consent.Martin Goodman examines the reliance of Roman...

52 BC is the key year of the Gallic Revolt, with the near-disastrous Roman defeat at Gergovia followed by the climactic victory over the Gallic chieftain Vercingetorix at Alesia.In 52, BC Caesar's continued strategy of annihilation had engendered a spirit of desperation, which detonated into a revolt of Gallic tribes under the leadership of the charismatic young Arvernian noble Vercingetorix. Major engagements were fought at Noviodunum, Avaricum, and Gergovia, with...

A Short History of Rome traces the rise and fall of Rome, its conquests, cruelty and excess, its myths and stories - from Romulus and Remus to the Rape of Lucretia.

The biography of the Roman scholar Ibidus (486-587) by the master of horror fiction H.P.Lovecraft first published in 1938 on O-Wash-Ta-Nong