Presents a history of ancient Greece and Rome as well as information about the literature and daily life of these early civilizations.

This Very Short Introduction to Classics links a haunting temple on a lonely mountainside to the glory of ancient Greece and the grandeur of Rome, and to Classics within modern culture-from Jefferson and Byron to Asterix and Ben-Hur. We are all Classicists - we come into touch with the Classics daily: in our culture, politics, medicine, architecture, language, and literature. What are the true roots of these influences, however, and how do our interpretations...

Chronicles the history and development of the classical civilizations of Greece and Rome, exploring each group's art, architecture, literature, philosophy, and politics and explaining the role they played in the creating the foundations of Western civilization.

This book illustrates how algebraic equations can be solved through a focus on the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome. Students will simultaneously learn about the culture and history of these ancient world powers while also solving historical-founded questions such as "How many people could fit in the Colosseum?" and "How many gallons of water a Roman aqueduct could carry in a given day?"

The Devil Knows Latin is a provocative and illuminating examination of contemporary American culture. Its range is broad and fascinating. Whether discussing the importance of Greek and Latin syntax to our society, examining current trends in literary theory, education, and politics, or applying a classical perspective to contemporary films, Christian Kopff (Professor of Classics at the University of Colorado) is at home and on the mark. He outlines...

We may regard celebrities as deities, but that does not mean we worship them with deference. From prehistory to the present, humanity has possessed a primal urge first to exalt the famous but then to cut them down (Michael Jackson, anyone?). Why do we treat the ones we love like burnt offerings in a ritual of human sacrifice? Perhaps because that is exactly what they are. From Greek mythology to the stories of the Christian martyrs and Dr. Faustus,...

"Hard to believe but true: - The Passover Seder is a Greco-Roman symposium banquet - The Talmud rabbis presented themselves as Stoic philosophers - Synagogue buildings were Roman basilicas - Hellenistic rhetoric professors educated sons of well-to-do Jews - Zeus-Helios is depicted in synagogue mosaics across ancient Israel - The Jewish courts were named after the Roman political institution, the Sanhedrin - In Israel there were synagogues where the...

"The history of the Earth, all living beings, and human civilizations comprises a series of stops and starts, in which equilibrium abruptly ends during a sudden severe catastrophe ... [This history] has obscured and obliterated evidence of lost civilizations."--Jackets.