Catalog Search Results
Author
Publisher
Open Book Publishers
Pub. Date
2013-
Language
English
Formats
Description
"The emperor Nero is etched into the Western imagination as one of ancient Rome's most infamous villains, and Tacitus' Annals have played a central role in shaping the mainstream historiographical understanding of this flamboyant autocrat. This section of the text plunges us straight into the moral cesspool that Rome had apparently become in the later years of Nero's reign, chronicling the emperor's fledgling stage career including his plans for a...
Author
Series
Publisher
Open Book Publishers
Pub. Date
2014-
Language
English
Formats
Description
"In republican times, one of Rome's deadliest enemies was King Mithridates of Pontus. In 66 BCE, after decades of inconclusive struggle, the tribune Manilius proposed a bill that would give supreme command in the war against Mithridates to Pompey the Great, who had just swept the Mediterranean clean of another menace: the pirates. While powerful aristocrats objected to the proposal, which would endow Pompey with unprecedented powers, the bill proved...
Author
Series
Publisher
Open Book Publishers
Pub. Date
Ã2016-
Language
English
Formats
Description
"From Catullus to Horace, the tradition of Latin erotic poetry produced works of literature which are still read throughout the world. Ovid's Amores, written in the first century BC, is arguably the best-known and most popular collection in this tradition. Born in 43 BC, Ovid was educated in Rome in preparation for a career in public services before finding his calling as a poet. He may have begun writing his Amores as early as 25 BC. Although influenced...
Author
Series
Publisher
Open Book Publishers
Pub. Date
[2016]-
Language
English
Formats
Description
"This extract from Ovid's 'Theban History' recounts the confrontation of Pentheus, king of Thebes, with his divine cousin, Bacchus, the god of wine. Notwithstanding the warnings of the seer Tiresias and the cautionary tale of a character Acoetes (perhaps Bacchus in disguise), who tells of how the god once transformed a group of blasphemous sailors into dolphins, Pentheus refuses to acknowledge the divinity of Bacchus or allow his worship at Thebes....