A history of ancient literary culture told through the quantitative facts of canon, geography, and scale.

Out of a lifetime of study of the ancient Near East, Professor Olmstead has gathered previously unknown material into the story of the life, times, and thought of the Persians, told for the first time from the Persian rather than the traditional Greek point of view. "The fullest and most reliable presentation of the history of the Persian Empire in existence."—M. Rostovtzeff

The Book of Judith tells the story of a fictitious Jewish woman beheading the general of the most powerful imaginable army to free her people. The parabolic story was set as an example of how God will help the righteous. Judith's heroic action not only became a validating charter myth of Judaism itself but has also been appropriated by many Christian and secular groupings, and has been an inspiration for numerous literary texts and works of art. It continues to exercise its power over artists, authors and academics and is becoming a major field of research in its own right. The Sword of Judith is the first multidisciplinary collection of essays to discuss representations of Judith throughout the centuries. It transforms our understanding across a wide range of disciplines. The collection includes new archival source studies, the translation of unpublished manuscripts, the translation of texts unavailable in English, and Judith images and music.

The real history of the Amazons in war and love Amazons—fierce warrior women dwelling on the fringes of the known world—were the mythic archenemies of the ancient Greeks. Heracles and Achilles displayed their valor in duels with Amazon queens, and the Athenians reveled in their victory over a powerful Amazon army. In historical times, Cyrus of Persia, Alexander the Great, and the Roman general Pompey tangled with Amazons. But just who were these bold barbarian archers on horseback who gloried in fighting, hunting, and sexual freedom? Were Amazons real? In this deeply researched, wide-ranging, and lavishly illustrated book, National Book Award finalist Adrienne Mayor presents the Amazons as they have never been seen before. This is the first comprehensive account of warrior women in myth and history across the ancient world, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Great Wall of China. Mayor tells how amazing new archaeological discoveries of battle-scarred female skeletons buried with their weapons prove that women warriors were not merely figments of the Greek imagination. Combining classical myth and art, nomad traditions, and scientific archaeology, she reveals intimate, surprising details and original insights about the lives and legends of the women known as Amazons. Provocatively arguing that a timeless search for a balance between the sexes explains the allure of the Amazons, Mayor reminds us that there were as many Amazon love stories as there were war stories. The Greeks were not the only people enchanted by Amazons—Mayor shows that warlike women of nomadic cultures inspired exciting tales in ancient Egypt, Persia, India, Central Asia, and China. Driven by a detective's curiosity, Mayor unearths long-buried evidence and sifts fact from fiction to show how flesh-and-blood women of the Eurasian steppes were mythologized as Amazons, the equals of men. The result is likely to become a classic.

This classic portrait of the ancient Persian king is “still the best book on leadership” (Peter F. Drucker). Cyrus, a great Persian leader, was so widely and memorably respected that a hundred years later, Xenophon of Athens wrote this admiring book about the greatest leader of his era. Among his many achievements, this great leader of wisdom and virtue founded and extended the Persian Empire; conquered Babylon; freed 40,000 Jews from captivity; wrote mankind’s first human rights charter; and ruled over those he had conquered with respect and benevolence. According to historian Will Durant, Cyrus the Great’s military enemies knew that he was lenient, and they did not fight him with that desperate courage which men show when their only choice is “to kill or die.” As a result the Iranians regarded him as “The Father,” the Babylonians as “The Liberator,” the Greeks as the “Law-Giver,” and the Jews as the “Anointed of the Lord.” By freshening the leader’s voice, style, and diction, Larry Hedrick has created a more contemporary Cyrus, and also contributes an introduction describing him and his times. A new generation of readers, including business executives and managers, military officers, and government officials, can now learn about and benefit from Cyrus the Great’s extraordinary achievements, which exceeded all other leaders’ throughout antiquity.

The Companion to Historiography is an original analysis of the moods and trends in historical writing throughout its phases of development and explores the assumptions and procedures that have formed the creation of historical perspectives. Contributed by a distinguished panel of academics, each essay conveys in direct, jargon-free language a genuinely international, wide-angled view of the ideas, traditions and institutions that lie behind the contemporary urgency of world history.

Likely to become a standard work for students of the ancient Near East, and for those interested in the high cultures of the region, this account is also a highly accessible repository of information valuable to archaeologists, anthropologists, etc

A "fresh...thrilling" (The Guardian) account of the Graeco-Persian Wars. In the fifth century B.C., a global superpower was determined to bring truth and order to what it regarded as two terrorist states. The superpower was Persia, incomparably rich in ambition, gold, and men. The terrorist states were Athens and Sparta, eccentric cities in a poor and mountainous backwater: Greece. The story of how their citizens took on the Great King of Persia, and thereby saved not only themselves but Western civilization as well, is as heart-stopping and fateful as any episode in history. Tom Holland’s brilliant study of these critical Persian Wars skillfully examines a conflict of critical importance to both ancient and modern history.