To the heroes of the Trojan War, their fathers, the heroes of the Theban War, were peerless and unattainable role models. Diomedes, son of Tydeus, so prayed to his goddess Athena:
Hear me, o daughter of Zeus! Stand by me, as you had once stood by my father, divine Tydeus when he went against Thebes!
And King Agamemnon jeered him:
Woe to thee, son of brave Tydeus, the horse-tamer! Why do you tremble with fear? Why do you glance around, looking for a route of escape? Your father Tydeus was not wont to retreat in fear when he led bronze-clad Argives against the walls of Thebes!

Who fought the Theban War and why? How did the memory of their exploits survive the Dorian Dark Age? What did their works mean to the Classical Age? Why do they, and the Classical Age, matter to us?

A profound yet accessible look at the passage of time, memory, and the meaning of myth.

A turning point in history, the six years 389-395 AD saw many dramatic historical developments in the Roman Empire: the destruction of the temple of Serapis in Alexandria, the first excommunication of an emperor ever, the first murder of an emperor at the hands of his Germanic bodyguards, an imperial edict prohibiting all practice of any and all pagan religion, and the last significant rebellion of pagans against Christian rule. While Rome burns, intellectuals debate demon possession and bathing, Christians riot, burn, and murder for Christ,  pagans bemoan the end of their religion in rousing periods, and the dyspeptic Marcellinus Ammianus complains about the nasty character of the residents of the Eternal City.

Meet Apuleius, Europe’s first best-selling author—the author, as it happened, of a soft-porn adventure romance, The Golden Ass (yes, the golden ass!). Meet him in Oea, today’s Tripoli in Libya, as he breaks his journey to Egypt (to investigate the mysteries of Egyptian religion) in order to recover from illness, write commentaries on the works of Plato, and scheme to marry a wealthy widow.

A zany, quirky, and caustic look at Plato, a portrait of the intellectual life of the Roman Empire circa 200 AD, and a literary delight in its own right.

Herod was an Idumean, a half-Jew at best; a monster; a killer; a ruthless political operator. He was also his people’s great benefactor and the last Jew to rule all of Palestine in antiquity.

No other biography of Herod situates him within the Graeco-Roman milieu like this book does. It gives us the global perspective we need to understand the man, his country, his mindset, his intellectual milieu, his values, and his works. And it explains how and why what happened in provincial little Palestine impacted the grand politics of Rome.

In 1670, Henriette d’Anglaterre, daughter of the lamented Charles I of England, staged a bloodless fight in Paris: France’s two greatest dramatists were to write and stage within a week two competing plays on the subject of a Jewish queen and her love affair with the son of the pretender to the Roman imperial throne. The event sparked tens of thousands of European works: drama, painting, poetry, sculpture. But who was Berenice, and who was Titus? What world did they inhabit? What values guided them, what dilemmas troubled them?

See the panorama of the ancient world at the time of the destruction of the Second Temple.

All things fall apart. Old religions end in a conflagration, old kingdoms fall, not to rise again for thousands of years, old world view ends, love ends. And out of their ashes arises a new world: a new dynasty, a new religion, a new world order.
One of Krawczuk’s most extraordinary works, a collage picture of the world at the time of the fall of the Second Temple, leaving us both enriched and dazed by the wonderful variety of creation. An open-ended work inviting you to make your own sense out of the history you read.

A highly readable account of the life and career of Constantine the Great—one of the most influential Roman Emperors.
The book traces the emperor's political career as well as his religious development from a worshipper of Sol Invictus-Apollo to an avid Christian. It does so against a rich tapestry of the economic realities and intellectual trends of the age. Full of lively quotations—sometimes very moving—from ancient authors [see emperor Maximinus Daza's pean in praise of the pagan gods], inscriptions, imperial edicts that let you hear the voices of the emperors and laudatory speeches, the story debunks many myths concerning the time of the emperor's conversion, the supposed Edict of Milan, and the relationship between the emperor and the early Christian Church; and it traces the roots of Middle Ages feudalism.

“Constantius approached his father’s catafalque ceremonially, in mournful concentration. He carefully lifted the purple cloak to take one last look at his father’s face, and at that moment, he saw with astonishment that the dead man’s hand was clutching a papyrus scroll. He took it out gently and read it:
I die poisoned by my brothers. I command you to avenge my death!
The massacre began that night.”
Like mad dogs, the sons of Constantine duke it out while, in their shadow, unnoticed, rises the last hope of pagan Rome, a boy named Julian, whom the posterity will call the Apostate.