Secondhand Ancient History & Classical Literature Bargain Book Box SP2726

Secondhand History & Culture Bargain Book Box SP2726

Few boxes cover as much ground — from the Greek theatre to the Roman Senate, from Egyptian archaeology to Hindu epic and the world of the Aztecs. Nineteen volumes in primary sources and the best scholarship: you will not emerge for some time.

1. The Pyramids of Egypt — I.E.S. Edwards (Pelican Original) — the standard popular account of pyramid construction, purpose, and archaeology, by the pre-eminent Egyptologist of his generation.
2. The Koran (Penguin Classics) — a clear and readable English translation of the foundational text of Islam.
3. Medea and Other Plays — Euripides (Penguin Classics) — four plays including Medea, Hecabe, Electra, and Heracles in Philip Vellacott's translation.
4. English Society in the Early Middle Ages — Doris Mary Stenton (Pelican History of England 3) — the third volume of the landmark Pelican series, covering 1066 to 1307.
5. Roman Britain — I.A. Richmond (Pelican History of England) — the authoritative survey of Roman Britain from the invasion to the withdrawal.
6. The Histories — Herodotus (Penguin Classics) — the first work of history in the Western tradition, covering the Persian Wars with insatiable curiosity.
7. The Invention of Power: Popes, Kings, and the Birth of the West — Bruce Bueno de Mesquita — a political scientist's bold reinterpretation of the medieval struggle between church and state as the origin of modern governance.
8. The Oresteia — Aeschylus (Penguin Classics, trans. Robert Fagles) — Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and The Eumenides in Fagles's celebrated translation: the trilogy that invented tragedy.
9. The Twelve Caesars — Suetonius (Penguin Classics) — the scandalous and indispensable biographies of the first twelve Roman emperors, from Julius Caesar to Domitian.
10. The Three Theban Plays — Sophocles (Penguin Classics, trans. Robert Fagles) — Antigone, Oedipus the King, and Oedipus at Colonus in Fagles's landmark translation.
11. The Aztecs — Nigel Davies (Abacus) — a comprehensive account of Aztec history, society, religion, and the conquest that ended it.
12. The Age of Alexander — Plutarch (Penguin Classics) — nine Lives including Alexander, Julius Caesar, Demosthenes, and Cicero, in Ian Scott-Kilvert's translation.
13. The Greek Myths: 1 — Robert Graves (Penguin) — the first volume of Graves's exhaustive and idiosyncratic retelling and interpretation of the complete Greek mythological canon.
14. The Greeks — H.D.F. Kitto (Penguin) — Kitto's classic introduction to the Greek mind, culture, and achievement, widely regarded as the best single-volume account.
15. The Greek Myths: 2 — Robert Graves (Penguin) — the second volume completing Graves's monumental survey of Greek mythology.
16. The Annals of Imperial Rome — Tacitus (Penguin Classics) — Tacitus's incomparable account of Rome under the early emperors, from Tiberius to Nero.
17. Ramayana — retold by William Buck, intro. B.A. van Nooten, illus. Sam Dass — a magnificent prose retelling of the Sanskrit epic, one of the great foundational texts of Hindu civilisation.
18. Meditations — Marcus Aurelius — the private philosophical notebook of a Roman emperor, written for no one but himself. One of the most read books in the world.
19. Archaic Egypt — W.B. Emery (Pelican) — the archaeology of Egypt's earliest dynasties, from the pre-dynastic period through the reign of the first pharaohs.