The unforgettable sequel to By Dawn's Early Light. A tale of faith, love, terror- and hope. It seems like a dream come true. Especially to a world ravaged by war and exhausted by drought. Especially to a society grown fearful from widespread crime and mystified by mass disappearances and unprovoked animal attacks. And especially to a young Israeli couple devastated by their own, very personal loss and unable to reach out to each other in their private pain. After centuries of war and decades of crime, the prospect of international harmony is tantalizing the tiny nation of Israel. After millennia of waiting, the prospect of a rebuilt Temple on Jerusalem's holy mount seems a miraculous gift. And to Israeli Major Isaac Ben-David, disillusioned by loss and hungry for meaning, the opportunity to work for peace is all but irresistible. Isaac's opportunity lies with Adrian Romulus, the president of the European Union Council of Ministers. He's a charismatic, visionary world leader with a workable plan for solving the world's problems. Tall, handsome, and deeply spiritual, he is also personally interested in the nation of Israel. Everyone agrees he's a man who can bring peace to a troubled world. But why do thoughts of Romulus trouble Isaac's wife, Sarah, an Israeli security officer? How can Romulus know Isaac and Sarah's most private secrets? And why is he so obsessed with an ancient spearhead in an Austrian museum? Just who is Adrian Romulus, anyway? And what are his plans for Isaac Ben-David-and the world?

Neither debunking nor worshiping, Smith pierces the veil of myth and mystery around the Holy Lance--the spear that pierced the side of Jesus Christ on the cross. Illustrations.

Tyrants and tyranny are more than the antithesis of democracy and the mark of political failure: they are a dynamic response to social and political pressures.This book examines the autocratic rulers and dynasties of classical Greece and Rome and the changing concepts of tyranny in political thought and culture. It brings together historians, political theorists and philosophers, all offering new perspectives on the autocratic governments of the ancient world.The volume is divided into four parts. Part I looks at the ways in which the term 'tyranny' was used and understood, and the kinds of individual who were called tyrants. Part II focuses on the genesis of tyranny and the social and political circumstances in which tyrants arose. The chapters in Part III examine the presentation of tyrants by themselves and in literature and history. Part IV discusses the achievements of episodic tyranny within the non-autocratic regimes of Sparta and Rome and of autocratic regimes in Persia and the western Mediterranean world.Written by a wide range of leading experts in their field, Ancient Tyranny offers a new and comparative study of tyranny within Greek, Roman and Persian society.

The period when the tyrants dominated Athens is a very intriguing one. The historiographical evidence is of a late date and often of a puzzling nature. Connections between historiography and the archaeological evidence are not unproblematic. Is the traditional interpretation of the Peisistratids as sponsors of the arts sufficiently documented in our sources? What was the nature of the resistance they met with? What did the Athenian army look like in the second half of the sixth century? What was the level of institutional organisation of the Athenian state in this period? How does the tyranny compare to anthropological theory? These are the questions addressed in this volume by a group of Dutch archaeologists and ancient historians.

This book presents a powerful new argument for how and why the Greek city-states, including their distinctive society and culture, came to be - and why they had the highly unusual and influential form they took. After reviewing early city-state formation, and the economic underpinnings of city-state society, three key chapters examine the way the Greeks developed their unique society. The spear, scroll and pebble encapsulate the book's core ideas. The Spear: city-state Greeks developed a citizen-militia military system that gave relatively equal importance to each citizen-warrior, thereby emboldening the citizen-warriors to demand political rights. The Pebble: the resultant growth of collective political systems of oligarchy and democracy led to thousands of citizens forming the sovereign element of the state; they made political decisions through communal debate and voting. The Scroll: in order for such systems to function, a shared information base had to be created, and this was done by setting up public notices of laws, proposed policies, public meeting agendas, and a host of other information. To access this information, these military and political citizens had to be able to read. Billows examines the spread of schools and literacy throughout the Greek world, showing that the male city-state Greeks formed the world's first-known mass literate society. He concludes by showing that it was the mass-literate nature of the Greek city-state society that explains the remarkable and influential culture the classical Greeks produced.

The seven deadly sins are pride, envy, anger, sloth, gluttony, greed, and lust. The seven virtues are prudence, fortitude, temperance, justice, faith, hope, and love. 'The Virtues and Vices in the Arts' brings all of them together and for the first time lays out their history in a collection of the most important philosophical, religious, literary, and art-historical works. Starting with the Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian antecedents, this anthology of source documents traces the tradition ofvirtues and vices through its cultural apex during the medieval era and then into their continued development and transformation from the Renaissance to the present. This anthology includes excerpts of Plato's 'Republic', the Bible, Dante's 'Purgatorio', and the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche and C.S. Lewis. Also included are works of art from medieval manuscripts; paintings by Giotto, Veronese, and Paul Cadmus; prints by Brueghel; and a photograph by Oscar Rejlander. What these works show is the vitality and richness of the virtues and vices in the arts from their origins to the present.

The spear used by Longinus, the Roman centurion, to pierce the side of Christ as he hung on the cross has long been believed to be an object of great supernatural and occult power, with the capacity for good or evil. It has been sought by the most powerful figures in history, who have believed that its power, as the Spear of Destiny, can change history. The spear's history from the Dark Ages to the Twentieth century is a dark one, of mystery and death. Alec Maclellan tracks the spear from mention in the Bible through sagas of the Middle Ages to its last known resting place, as a prized possession of Adolf Hitler

Xenophon of Athens was a pupil of Socrates and a philosopher in his own right. He wrote two of the texts included in this volume, the Hiero (On Tyranny) and the Constitution of the Spartans. The third, the Constitution of the Athenians, is found under Xenophon's name alongside the other two in the manuscripts. The works represent three distinct types of government (the rule of one man in tyranny and kingship, the rule of law in the mixed constitution of the Spartans, and the rule of the masses in the Athenian democracy), but there are common features throughout. This volume presents an introduction discussing Xenophon's views on government in the context of his general political thought, drawing particularly on his Socratic work Memorabilia, and a commentary on the Greek text of each work aimed primarily at advanced undergraduates and graduate students.

The Eiffel Tower—this symbol of industrial development and the French Republic is now associated with a romantic vacation in Paris. Nelson Mandela—the hero of the struggle against apartheid was featured in a British Airways magazine article called “The Power of Brand Mandela.” This book explores these and other contemporary cultural icons that, over time, have been endowed with a complex and powerful layering of meanings. The authors analyze the way in which such icons, whether objects or persons, living or mythical, are constructed and disseminated. They also critically investigate the implications, in semiotic and cultural terms, of the accretion of meaning and popular recognition attached to them, their moral and aesthetic ambiguity, and their enduring appeal to a fascinated public. This slim and provocative volume is ideal for courses in and related to cultural studies.