Kategoria BISAC: History >> Ancient - Greece

This edition of Homer 's Iliad, retold with authority and grace by the incomparable Robert Graves, takes a revered classic back to its roots as popular entertainment. War is raging between the Greeks and the Trojans. Achilles, the great warrior champion of the Greek army, is angrily sulking in his tent and refusing to fight, after an argument with his leader, Agamemnon. But when the Trojan warrior Hector kills Achilles' beloved friend Patroclus, Achilles plunges back into battle to seek his bloody revenge-even...

Ancient Minoan culture has been typically viewed as an ancestor of classical Greek civilization, but this book shows that Minoan Crete was on the periphery of a powerfully dynamic cultural interchange with its neighbors. Rather than viewing Crete as the autochthonous ancestor of Greece's glory, Nanno Marinatos considers ancient Crete in the context of its powerful competitors to the east and south.

Analyzing the symbols of the Minoan theocratic system and their similarities to those of Syria, Anatolia, and Egypt, Marinatos unlocks many Minoan visual riddles and establishes what she calls...

How did the city-state of Athens defeat the invaders from Persia, the first world empire, on the plain of Marathon in 490 BCE? Clever scholars skeptical of our earliest surviving source, Herodotus, have produced one ingenious theory after another. In this stimulating new book, bound to provoke controversy, Peter Krentz argues that Herodotus was right after all.

Beginning his analysis with the Athenians' first formal contact with the Persians in 507 BCE, Krentz weaves together ancient evidence with travelers' descriptions, archaeological discoveries, geological surveys, and the...

The Greek architectural orders--Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian--lie at the heart of the classical traditions of building, and yet satisfying accounts for their origins have proved elusive. In contrast with conventional theories that would see the orders originating over the course of a long evolution, this book stresses the suddenness of the phenomenon and its dependence on historical context, human agency, and artistic inspiration. Casting new light on a subject that has preoccupied architects since the Renaissance, Mark Wilson Jones shows how construction, influence, appearance, and...