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Shortly before his death in 1645, the undefeated swordsman Miyamoto Musashi retreated to a cave to live as a hermit. There he wrote five scrolls describing the "true principles" required for victory in the martial arts and on the battlefield. Instead of relying on religion or theory, Musashi based his writings on his own experience, observation, and reason.

Britannia, 58 AD. Fergus MacAmergin is a man out of place. An Irish Celt, he passes as a Gaul and rides with the Roman cavalry, affirming Nero's control over the province. Fergus dreams of escaping the fetters ofhis birth and living freely as a citizen of Rome. When Fergus's commander makes a battlefield error, Fergus is blamed. He and his men are given a thankless task: a quest that spells danger, despair, and near-certain death. The mission: to find the Holy Lance, the spear that wounded Christ on the Cross.

A new age has dawned for Rome. Following the brief reign of Emperor Nerva, Marcus Ulpius Trajan inherits the mantle of Caesar. A revered general and statesman, the senate a people of Rome greet his rise with an optimism not seen since the reign of Vespasian.

Mastering the West offers a thoroughly engrossing narrative of this century of battle in the western Mediterranean, while treating a full range of themes: the antagonists' military, naval, economic, and demographic resources; the political structures of both republics; and the postwar impact of the conflicts on the participants and victims.

In 431 BC, the long simmering rivalry between the city-states of Athens and Sparta erupted into open warfare, and for more than a generation the two were locked in a life-and-death struggle. The war embroiled the entire Greek world, provoking years of butchery previously unparalleled in ancient Greece. Whole cities were exterminated, their men killed, their women and children enslaved.

Power does not survive by force alone. It survives by meaning, structure, and habit. When Constantine rose to power, Rome was collapsing under the weight of its own instability. Emperors came and went through civil war. Authority was temporary. Violence had become the empire's method of succession. Victory solved nothing—because nothing lasted.

The year 146 BC marked the brutal end to the Roman Republic's 118-year struggle for the western Mediterranean. Breaching the walls of their great enemy, Carthage, Roman troops slaughtered countless citizens, enslaved those who survived, and leveled the 700-year-old city. That same year in the east, Rome destroyed Corinth and subdued Greece. Over little more than a century, Rome's triumphant armies of citizen-soldiers had shocked the world by conquering all of its neighbors.  

Many of the city-states of Ancient Greece gave the world a legacy rich in art, literature, poetry, philosophy, and science. But one such state distinguished itself by embracing something very different: a warrior lifestyle, a denial of luxury and wealth, and a focus on the collective rather than the individual. While most other Ancient Greek city-states have been forgotten, the name of that city remains in use in the English language today, meaning austere or rigorous: Spartan.

In the Roman Empire, beneath crowded streets and busy markets, there were hidden rooms carved into stone. No windows. Low ceilings. Oil lamps flickering against carved reliefs. Here, men gathered in silence. They called their god Mithras. This audiobook takes you inside one of the most mysterious religious movements of the ancient world. Not through lectures or abstract theology, but through lived experience. Through the daily routines of soldiers on distant frontiers. Through whispered initiations. Through shared meals eaten in the glow of underground firelight. You will enter the mithraeum.

The son of a former slave, Pertinax was the Roman Emperor who proved that no matter how lowly your birth, you could rise to the very top through hard work, grit and determination. This previously untold story brings a fascinating and important figure out of the shadows. A self-made everyman, a man of principle and ambition, a role model respected by his contemporaries, Pertinax's remarkable story offers a unique and panoramic insight into the late 2nd century AD Principate Empire.

Bloomsbury presents Caesar's Gallic Wars by Kate Gilliver, read by Joan Walker. A detailed overview of Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars, one of the most important conflicts of the ancient world. Julius Caesar was one of the most ambitious and successful politicians of the late Roman Republic and his...

The Mediterranean has always been a leading stage for world history, and it is also visited each year by tens of millions of tourists. Jeremy Black provides an account in which the experience of travel is foremost: travel for tourism, trade, war, migration, culture, or, as so often, a variety of reasons. Throughout the audiobook the emphasis is on the sea, on coastal regions and on port cities visited by cruise liners, but it also looks beyond, notably to the other waters that flow into the Mediterranean.

Discover the remarkable history of the Fall of the Roman Empire... At its height, the Roman Empire was the largest and most powerful empire ever seen in the Western world. It covered 2 million square miles (5 million square kilometers) of territory, where a population of over 80 million was protected by a disciplined, well-trained army of almost half a million troops. By the third century, the empire had become so vast that it was effectively divided into two parts: the Western Empire, including the city of Rome, and an Eastern Empire governed from the city of Nicomedia in present-day Turkey.

For twelve years a disgraceful pall has hung over the Roman Empire. Trouble along the Germanic frontier forced an abrupt end to Emperor Domitian’s war against King Decebalus of Dacia. The terms were an embarrassment to Rome and a drain on the imperial coffers, with two million denarii paid to the Dacians every year. Now, a new Caesar is firmly ensconced upon the imperial throne. Emperor Trajan vows to subjugate the Dacians, humble their king, and restore honour to the Empire.

The greatest controversy in the history of the US Navy of the early American Republic was the revelation that the son of the Secretary of War had seemingly plotted a bloody mutiny that would have turned the US brig Somers into a pirate ship. The plot discovered, he and his coconspirators were hastily condemned and hanged at sea.

In The History of Mesopotamia: The Untold Stories of Sumer, Akkad, Babylon, and Assyria, you’ll journey across more than three thousand years of innovation, war, and wonder. Discover how cuneiform writing transformed human thought, how towering ziggurats touched the heavens, and how ancient kings shaped the destiny of millions.

From the thunder of legionary boots on marble roads to the whisper of incense in sprawling basilicas, this book brings to life the cities, battles, emperors, and philosophies that shaped Rome’s eastern frontier. Explore the rise of Ephesus, Pergamon, and Antioch under Roman rule. Witness how Roman engineering, law, and military precision fused with the cultural soul of ancient Anatolia.

Rome’s Greatest Generals: From Republic to Empire brings together three sweeping biographies of the men who shaped Rome’s destiny across nearly seven centuries. From the battlefields of the Punic Wars to the height of imperial expansion and the empire’s final struggle for survival, these generals did more than win wars; they defined what Roman power meant. Scipio Africanus: Rome’s first true military genius, the man who dared to challenge Hannibal and saved the Republic from annihilation.

In the century since Rome's defeat of the Seleucid Empire in the 180s BC, the East was dominated by the rise of new empires: Parthia, Armenia, and Pontus, each vying to recreate the glories of the Persian Empire. By the 80s BC, the Pontic Empire of Mithridates had grown so bold that it invaded and annexed the whole of Rome's eastern empire and occupied Greece itself. But as Rome emerged from the devastating effects of the First Civil War, a new breed of general emerged with it, eager to re-assert Roman military dominance and carve out a fresh empire in the east.

By the middle of the second century BCE, after nearly one hundred years of warfare, Rome had exerted its control over the entire Mediterranean world, forcing the other great powers of the region—Carthage, Macedonia, Egypt, and the Seleucid empire—to submit militarily and financially. But how, despite its relative poverty and its frequent numerical disadvantage in decisive battles, did Rome prevail? Michael J. Taylor explains this surprising outcome by examining the role that manpower and finances played.