Cameos showcase Tiberius in private and Augustus in court, with Pompey the Great on campaign and Phaedrus himself struggling against prejudice and persecution, and tales feature all sorts - a toadying slave, wicked servant, vain musician, effeminate soldier, sexy poet, and rogue quack. These forgotten tales tell short and clear Roman parables of power and powerlessness. Humorous and acute, they explain, and protest at, the Caesars, and they sit perfectly among Aesop's sadistic lions, murderous wolves, and apes in purple."--Jacket.
As Emperor Nero casts his madness over Rome, a loyal soldier is caught in a conspiracy that threatens the empire in this historical epic. Rome, 68 AD: The tyrant emperor Nero has no heir, and whispers of rebellion are spreading fast. As Rome faces the possibility of becoming a republic once more, the ambitions of a few are about to bring untold corruption, chaos, and bloodshed. Aulus Caecina Severus, hero of the campaign against Boudica, has become part of a conspiracy to overthrow Caesar’s dynasty. But is it really all for the good of Rome? The boundary between service and self-preservation is far from clear, and navigating this dangerous path requires all Severus’ skills: as a cunning soldier and, increasingly, a deft politician. As the Year of the Four Emperors unfolds, the mighty Roman empire will be plunged into anarchy and civil war . . .
The Guardian's Best Science Book of 2017: the fascinating science and history of the air we breathe. It's invisible. It's ever-present. Without it, you would die in minutes. And it has an epic story to tell. In Caesar's Last Breath, New York Times bestselling author Sam Kean takes us on a journey through the periodic table, around the globe, and across time to tell the story of the air we breathe, which, it turns out, is also the story of earth and our existence on it. With every breath, you literally inhale the history of the world. On the ides of March, 44 BC, Julius Caesar died of stab wounds on the Senate floor, but the story of his last breath is still unfolding; in fact, you're probably inhaling some of it now. Of the sextillions of molecules entering or leaving your lungs at this moment, some might well bear traces of Cleopatra's perfumes, German mustard gas, particles exhaled by dinosaurs or emitted by atomic bombs, even remnants of stardust from the universe's creation. Tracing the origins and ingredients of our atmosphere, Kean reveals how the alchemy of air reshaped our continents, steered human progress, powered revolutions, and continues to influence everything we do. Along the way, we'll swim with radioactive pigs, witness the most important chemical reactions humans have discovered, and join the crowd at the Moulin Rouge for some of the crudest performance art of all time. Lively, witty, and filled with the astounding science of ordinary life, Caesar's Last Breath illuminates the science stories swirling around us every second.
Julius Caesar, a powerful and respected Roman, is warned by a fortune-teller that danger is ahead. Caesar's enemies are conspiring against him! The omens look bad in this tragic tale of power, war and ambition. Combining modern-day English with stunning illustrations, QEB's Tales from Shakespeare bring the Bard's popular plays to life. Lively and easy-to-read, they are sure to capture your imagination!
This “captivating biography” of the great Roman general “puts Caesar’s war exploits on full display, along with his literary genius” and more (The New York Times) Tracing the extraordinary trajectory of the Julius Caesar’s life, Adrian Goldsworthy not only chronicles his accomplishments as charismatic orator, conquering general, and powerful dictator but also lesser-known chapters during which he was high priest of an exotic cult and captive of pirates, and rebel condemned by his own country. Goldsworthy also reveals much about Caesar’s intimate life, as husband and father, and as seducer not only of Cleopatra but also of the wives of his two main political rivals. This landmark biography examines Caesar in all of these roles and places its subject firmly within the context of Roman society in the first century B.C. Goldsworthy realizes the full complexity of Caesar’s character and shows why his political and military leadership continues to resonate thousands of years later.
Many men killed Julius Caesar. Only one man was determined to kill the killers. From the spring of 44 BC through one of the most dramatic and influential periods in history, Caesar's adopted son, Octavian, the future Emperor Augustus, exacted vengeance on the assassins of the Ides of March, not only on Brutus and Cassius, immortalized by Shakespeare, but all the others too, each with his own individual story. The last assassin left alive was one of the lesser-known: Cassius Parmensis was a poet and sailor who chose every side in the dying Republic's civil wars except the winning one, a playwright whose work was said to have been stolen and published by the man sent to kill him. Parmensis was in the back row of the plotters, many of them Caesar's friends, who killed for reasons of the highest political principles and lowest personal piques. For fourteen years he was the most successful at evading his hunters but has been barely a historical foot note--until now. The Last Assassin dazzlingly charts an epic turn of history through the eyes of an unheralded man. It is a history of a hunt that an emperor wanted to hide, of torture and terror, politics and poetry, of ideas and their consequences, a gripping story of fear, revenge, and survival.
"O'Brian was only 15 when [Caesar] was published, but he already possessed an instinct for deft plotting and uncomplicated narrative."—The New York Times A stark tale encompassing the cruelty and beauty of the natural world, and a clear demonstration of the storytelling gift that would later flower in the Aubrey/Maturin series. When he was fourteen years old and beset by chronic ill health, Patrick O'Brian began creating his first fictional character. "I did it in my bedroom, and a little when I should have been doing my homework," he confessed in a note on the original dust-jacket. Caesar tells the picaresque, enchanting, and quite bloodthirsty story of a creature whose father is a giant panda and whose mother is a snow leopard. Through the eyes and voice of this fabulous creature, we learn of his life as a cub, his first hunting exploits, his first encounters with man, his capture and taming. Caesar was published in 1930, three months after O'Brian's fifteenth birthday, but the dry wit and unsentimental precision O'Brian readers savor in the Aubrey/Maturin series is already in evidence. The book combines Stephen Maturin's fascination and encyclopedic knowledge of natural history with the narrative charm of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book. It was published in England and the United States, and in translation in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Japan. Reviews hailed the author as the "boy-Thoreau." "We can see here a true storyteller in the making....a gripping narrative, which holds the reader's attention and never flags."—The Spectator
How was the Roman emperor viewed by his subjects? How strongly did their perception of his role shape his behaviour? Adopting a fresh approach, Panayiotis Christoforou focuses on the emperor from the perspective of his subjects across the Roman Empire. Stress lies on the imagination: the emperor was who he seemed, or was imagined, to be. Through various vignettes employing a wide range of sources, he analyses the emperor through the concerns and expectations of his subjects, which range from intercessory justice to fears of the monstrosities associated with absolute power. The book posits that mythical and fictional stories about the Roman emperor form the substance of what people thought about him, which underlines their importance for the historical and political discourse that formed around him as a figure. The emperor emerges as an ambiguous figure. Loved and hated, feared and revered, he was an object of contradiction and curiosity.
Diana Spencer, known for her scholarly focus on how ancient Romans conceptualized themselves as a people and how they responded to and helped shape the world they lived in, brings her expertise to an examination of the Roman scholar Varro and his treatise De Lingua Latina. This commentary on the origin and relationships of Latin words is an intriguing, but often puzzling, fragmentary work for classicists. Since Varro was engaged in defining how Romans saw themselves and how they talked about their world, Spencer reads along with Varro, following his themes and arcs, his poetic sparks, his political and cultural seams. Few scholars have accepted the challenge of tackling Varro and his work, and in this pioneering volume, Spencer provides a roadmap for considering these topics more thoroughly.
