Ammianus Marcellinus
Ammianus Marcellinus (c. 330 - after 391) is the preeminent historian of the Late Roman Empire, whose extant work forms the most important narrative we possess on the Fourth Century A.D. Born of genteel extraction in a Greek-speaking part of the empire, Ammianus served in the army in campaigns ranging form Gaul to Persia before settling in Rome and beginning his literary carreer. Besides shedding light on many events from the reign of Constantius to the calamitous defeat at Adrianople - including striking portraits of emperors Julian and Valentinian - his work offers as well a compelling description of Late Roman society.
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Plutarch
Plutarch (later named, upon becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus; AD 46–AD 120) was a Greek historian, biographer, and essayist, known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia. He is classified as a Middle Platonist. Plutarch's surviving works were written in Greek, but intended for both Greek and Roman readers.
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Stephen Mitchell
Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads data base.
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"I was Leverhulme Professor of Hellenistic Culture from 2002 in 2011 and am now emeritus during an active retirement. I was made a Fellow of the British Academy in 2002 and served for some years on its Council. Most of my published work has been concerned with Asia Minor in antiquity, explored through texts, inscriptions and archaeology, with a particular emphasis in recent years on religious and cultural history. The bench-mark publication of my earlier career was Anatolia. Land, Men, and Gods in Asia Minor (2 vols. OUP 1993). During my time at Exeter I directed an AHRC-funded research project on Pagan Monotheism in the Roman Empire, which led to two impo -
Tacitus
born perhaps 55
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died perhaps 120
From the death of Augustus in 14 Histories and Annals , greatest works of Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Roman public official, concern the period to Domitian in 96.
Publius Cornelius Tacitus served as a senator of the empire. The major portions examine the reigns of Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those four emperors, who reigned in the year. They span the empire to the years of the first Jewish war in 70. One enormous four-books long lacuna survives in the texts.
Publius Cornelius Tacitus discusses oratory in dialogue format in Dialogus de oratoribus , Germania in De origine et situ Germanorum , and biographical notes about Gnaeus Julius Agricola, his father-in-law, primarily during his campaign in Brit -
Michael Psellus
Michael Psellos or Psellus (Greek: Μιχαήλ Ψελλός, Mikhaēl Psellos) was an eleventh century Byzantine monk, writer, philosopher, politician and historian.
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Anna Comnena
The Byzantine historian Anna Komnene, Latinized as Comnena (December 1, 1083 – 1153) was the eldest child of the Emperor Alexios I Komnenos and Irene Doukaina, and is considered the first female historian. From earliest childhood Anna was in daily contact with the leading figures of the Empire. Through her social position and own interest, she obtained an education in literature and philosophy given to few women in the Middle Ages.
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Disappointed in her hopes to be named heir to her father instead of her brother John, and again by not having her husband Nikephoros Bryennios named as Emperor, Anna conspired with her mother against her brother to gain her husband the throne but ultimately failed after her husband's refusal to cooperate. After B -
Sallust
Gaius Sallustius Crispus (86 BC-34 BC), better known as 'Sallust' was a Roman politician and historian who supported Populares party of Julius Caesar.
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His historical works included romanticized views of events, which served as polemics against his moral opponents, including Cicero. It was a style which set him apart from the dry historians who proceeded him.
Sallust joined Caesar in the African wars, and after their victory, was placed as governor of Roman Africa. He eventually retired to private life, when he composed his histories and funded an extensive personal garden. -
Procopius
Procopius of Caesarea was born in the latter years of the fifth century at Caesarea in Palestine. He originated from the land-owning provincial upper class and, like Zosimus, became a civil servant. As early as A.D. 527, before the emperor Justin's death, Procopius became counsellor, assessor, and secretary to Belisarius, whose fortunes and campaigns he followed for the next twelve or fifteen years. Small wonder he became very knowledgeable of military affairs through this service. He has long been respected as a historian of the emperor Justinian’s wars, and is reckoned the greatest of the later Greek historians. Procopius was finally raised to the dignity of an illustrius, and died not earlier than A.D. 562.
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Philip Freeman
I teach Classics and Celtic studies at Luther College in the beautiful little town of Decorah, Iowa. I did my doctoral work at Harvard and taught at Boston University and Washington University in St. Louis before coming to Luther to help run the Classics department. I love teaching and see my writing as an extension of my work in the classroom. I hope you enjoy the books as much as I enjoyed writing them.
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Peter Brown
Peter Robert Lamont Brown FBA is an Irish historian. He is the Rollins Professor of History Emeritus at Princeton University. Brown is credited with having brought coherence to the field of Late Antiquity, and is often regarded as the inventor of said field. His work has concerned, in particular, the religious culture of the later Roman Empire and early medieval Europe, and the relation between religion and society.
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Harry Turtledove
Dr Harry Norman Turtledove is an American novelist, who has produced a sizeable number of works in several genres including alternate history, historical fiction, fantasy and science fiction.
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Harry Turtledove attended UCLA, where he received a Ph.D. in Byzantine history in 1977.
Turtledove has been dubbed "The Master of Alternate History". Within this genre he is known both for creating original scenarios: such as survival of the Byzantine Empire; an alien invasion in the middle of the World War II; and for giving a fresh and original treatment to themes previously dealt with by other authors, such as the victory of the South in the American Civil War; and of Nazi Germany in the Second World War.
His novels have been credited with bringing al -
Suetonius
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, commonly known as Suetonius (ca. 69/75 - after 130), was a Roman historian belonging to the equestrian order in the early Imperial era. His most important surviving work is a set of biographies of twelve successive Roman rulers, from Julius Caesar until Domitian, entitled De Vita Caesarum. Other works by Suetonius concern the daily life of Rome, politics, oratory, and the lives of famous writers, including poets, historians, and grammarians. A few of these books have partially survived, but many are entirely lost.
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Gore Vidal
Works of American writer Eugene Luther Gore Vidal, noted for his cynical humor and his numerous accounts of society in decline, include the play The Best Man (1960) and the novel Myra Breckinridge (1968) .
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People know his essays, screenplays, and Broadway.
They also knew his patrician manner, transatlantic accent, and witty aphorisms. Vidal came from a distinguished political lineage; his grandfather was the senator Thomas Gore, and he later became a relation (through marriage) to Jacqueline Kennedy.
Vidal, a longtime political critic, ran twice for political office. He was a lifelong isolationist Democrat. The Nation, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The New York Review of Books, and Esquire published his essays.
Essays and media appear -
John Julius Norwich
John Julius Norwich was an English historian, writer, and broadcaster known for his engaging books on European history and culture. The son of diplomat and politician Duff Cooper and socialite Lady Diana Manners, he received an elite education at Eton, Strasbourg, and Oxford, and served in the Foreign Service before dedicating himself to writing full-time.
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He authored acclaimed works on Norman Sicily, Venice, Byzantium, the Mediterranean, and the Papacy, as well as popular anthologies like Christmas Crackers. He was also a familiar voice and face in British media, presenting numerous television documentaries and radio programs. A champion of cultural heritage, he supported causes such as the Venice in Peril Fund and the World Monuments Fund -
Thucydides
Thucydides (c. 460 B.C. – c. 400 B.C.) (Greek Θουκυδίδης ) was an Athenian historian and general. His History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of "scientific history" by those who accept his claims to have applied strict standards of impartiality and evidence-gathering and analysis of cause and effect, without reference to intervention by the gods, as outlined in his introduction to his work.
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He also has been called the father of the school of political realism, which views the political behavior of individuals and the subsequent outcomes of relations between states as ultimately mediated by, and constructed upon, fear and self -
Herodotus
Herodotus (Greek: Ηρόδοτος) (c. 484 – c. 425 BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He is known for having written the Histories – a detailed account of the Greco-Persian Wars. Herodotus was the first writer to perform systematic investigation of historical events. He has been described as "The Father of History", a title conferred on him by the ancient Roman orator Marcus Tullius Cicero.
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The Histories primarily cover the lives of prominent kings and famous battles such as Marathon, Thermopylae, Artemisium, Salamis, Plataea, and Mycale. His work deviates from the main topics to provide a cultural, -
Chris Wickham
"Chris Wickham is Chichele Professor of Medieval History, and Faculty Board Chair 2009-12.
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I have been at Oxford since 2005. Previously, I was Lecturer (1977), Senior Lecturer (1987), Reader (1988), and from 1995 Professor of Early Medieval History, University of Birmingham; and I was an undergraduate and postgraduate at Keble College, Oxford, from 1968 to 1975.
I am a Fellow of the British Academy, a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales, and a socio of the Accademia dei Lincei." -
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Gaius Julius Caesar
born 12 July 100 BC
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died 15 March 44 BC
Statesman and historian Julius Caesar, fully named Gaius Julius Caesar, general, invaded Britain in 55 BC, crushed the army of the politician Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus in 48 BC, pursued other enemies to Egypt, installed Cleopatra as queen in 47 BC, and returned to Rome, and the people in 45 BC gave him a mandate to rule as dictator for life; Gaius Cassius Longinus and Marcus Junius Brutus feared that he intended to establish a monarchy and led a group of republicans, who on 15 March 44 BC murdered him.
Marcus Licinius Crassus joined Caesar and Pompey in the first triumvirate to challenge the power of the senate in 60 BC.
Pompey with Caesar and Crassus formed a ruling triumvirate from 60 BC to 53 BC, but Ca -
Jean de Joinville
Jean de Joinville (c. May 1, 1224 – 24 December 1317) was one of the great chroniclers of medieval France. He is most famous for writing Life of St. Louis, a biography of Louis IX of France that chronicled the Seventh Crusade.
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He is the grandfather of Sir Geoffroi De Charny, distaff side. -
Serhii Plokhy
Serhii Plokhy is a Ukrainian and American historian. Plokhy is currently the Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of Ukrainian History and Director of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University, where he was also named Walter Channing Cabot Fellow in 2013. A leading authority on Eastern Europe, he has lived and taught in Ukraine, Canada, and the United States. He has published extensively in English, Ukrainian, and Russian. For three successive years (2002-2005) his books won first prize of the American Association for Ukrainian Studies.
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For his Ukrainian-language profile, please see: Сергій Плохій -
Richard Atwater
Richard Tupper Atwater (1892-1948) was a Chicago journalist. He wrote for a number of newspapers including the Chicago Evening Post, the Chicago Daily News, the Chicago Tribune, and the Herald-Examiner. He contributed to the literary and arts magazine The Chicagoan. He also taught Greek at the University of Chicago. In 1932, after watching a documentary about Richard E. Byrd's Antarctic expedition, he began writing the first part of the book but was forced to stop due to a stroke he suffered in 1934. Other books by Richard Atwater include Rickety Rhymes of Riq (published in 1925) and Doris and the Trolls (published in 1931)
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Peter Heather
Peter Heather is currently Professor of Medieval History at King's College London. He has held appointments at University College London and Yale University and was Fellow and Tutor in Medieval History at Worcester College, Oxford until December 2007.
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John Bagnell Bury
John Bagnell Bury (often published as J.B. Bury) was a classical scholar, historian, and philologist. He held the chair in Modern History at Trinity College, Dublin, for nine years, and also was appointed Regius Professor of Greek at Trinity, and Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University.
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John Webster
John Webster (c.1580 – c.1634) was an English Jacobean dramatist best known for his tragedies The White Devil (1612) and The Duchess of Malfi (1613), which are often regarded as masterpieces of the early 17th-century English stage. He was a contemporary of William Shakespeare.
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Librarian’s note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. -
Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri, or simply Dante (May 14/June 13 1265 – September 13/14, 1321), is one of the greatest poets in the Italian language; with the comic story-teller, Boccaccio, and the poet, Petrarch, he forms the classic trio of Italian authors. Dante Alighieri was born in the city-state Florence in 1265. He first saw the woman, or rather the child, who was to become the poetic love of his life when he was almost nine years old and she was some months younger. In fact, Beatrice married another man, Simone di' Bardi, and died when Dante was 25, so their relationship existed almost entirely in Dante's imagination, but she nonetheless plays an extremely important role in his poetry. Dante attributed all the heavenly virtues to her soul and imagi
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Seneca
Lucius Annaeus Seneca (often known simply as Seneca or Seneca the Younger); ca. 4 BC – 65 AD) was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist of the Silver Age of Latin literature. He was tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero, who later forced him to commit suicide for alleged complicity in the Pisonian conspiracy to have him assassinated.
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Halil İnalcık
He was born in Istanbul to a Crimean Tatar family, which left Crimea for Constantinople in 1905. His birthday is unknown but İnalcık chose 26 May 1916 for his birthday. He attended Balıkesir Teacher Training School, and then Ankara University, Faculty of Language, History and Geography, Department of History where he graduated from in 1940. He completed his PhD in 1943 in the same department. His PhD thesis was on the Bulgarian question in the late Ottoman Empire.
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He entered the same school as an assistant, then he became assistant professor in 1946 and after his return from lecturing in the University of London for a while, he became a professor in the same department in 1952. He lectured in various universities in the United States as a gu -
Publius Cornelius Tacitus
born perhaps 55
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died perhaps 120
From the death of Augustus in 14 Histories and Annals , greatest works of Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Roman public official, concern the period to Domitian in 96.
Publius Cornelius Tacitus served as a senator of the empire. The major portions examine the reigns of Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those four emperors, who reigned in the year. They span the empire to the years of the first Jewish war in 70. One enormous four-books long lacuna survives in the texts.
Publius Cornelius Tacitus discusses oratory in dialogue format in Dialogus de oratoribus , Germania in De origine et situ Germanorum , and biographical notes about Gnaeus Julius Agricola, his father-in-law, primarily during his campaign in Brit -
Anna Comnena
The Byzantine historian Anna Komnene, Latinized as Comnena (December 1, 1083 – 1153) was the eldest child of the Emperor Alexios I Komnenos and Irene Doukaina, and is considered the first female historian. From earliest childhood Anna was in daily contact with the leading figures of the Empire. Through her social position and own interest, she obtained an education in literature and philosophy given to few women in the Middle Ages.
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Disappointed in her hopes to be named heir to her father instead of her brother John, and again by not having her husband Nikephoros Bryennios named as Emperor, Anna conspired with her mother against her brother to gain her husband the throne but ultimately failed after her husband's refusal to cooperate. After B -
Jordanes
Jordanes- also referred as Jordanis or Jornandes- was a 6th century Roman bureaucrat, notarius or secretary to Gunthigis Baza, a magister militum.
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Of Alan origins, his grandfather Paria is believed to have been secretary to Candac, a leader of the Alans. -
John Bagnell Bury
John Bagnell Bury (often published as J.B. Bury) was a classical scholar, historian, and philologist. He held the chair in Modern History at Trinity College, Dublin, for nine years, and also was appointed Regius Professor of Greek at Trinity, and Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University.
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Stephen Mitchell
Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads data base.
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"I was Leverhulme Professor of Hellenistic Culture from 2002 in 2011 and am now emeritus during an active retirement. I was made a Fellow of the British Academy in 2002 and served for some years on its Council. Most of my published work has been concerned with Asia Minor in antiquity, explored through texts, inscriptions and archaeology, with a particular emphasis in recent years on religious and cultural history. The bench-mark publication of my earlier career was Anatolia. Land, Men, and Gods in Asia Minor (2 vols. OUP 1993). During my time at Exeter I directed an AHRC-funded research project on Pagan Monotheism in the Roman Empire, which led to two impo -