Ctesias' 'History of Persia'

Ctesias' 'History of Persia' PDF

Author: Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2009-12-04

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 1134220464

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Towards the end of the fifth century BC Ctesias of Cnidus wrote his 23 book History of Persia. Ctesias is a remarkable figure: he lived and worked in the Persian court and, as a doctor, tended to the world’s most powerful kings and queens. His position gave him special insight into the workings of Persian court life and access to the gossip and scandal surrounding Persian history and court politics, past and present. His History of Persia was completed at a time when the Greeks were fascinated by Persia and seems very much to cater to contemporary interest in Persian wealth and opulence, powerful Persian women, the institution of the harem, kings and queens, eunuchs and secret plots. Presented here in English translation for the first time with commentaries, Ctesias offers a fascinating insight into Persia in the fifth century BC.

Ctesias' History of Persia

Ctesias' History of Persia PDF

Author: Ctesias

Publisher:

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 253

ISBN-13: 0415364116

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Towards the end of the fifth century BC Ctesias of Cnidus wrote his 23 book History of Persia. Ctesias is a remarkable figure: he lived and worked in the Persian court and, as a doctor, tended to the world's most powerful kings and queens. His position gave him special insight into the workings of Persian court life and access to the gossip and scandal surrounding Persian history and court politics, past and present. His History of Persia was completed at a time when the Greeks were fascinated by Persia and seems very much to cater to contemporary interest in Persian wealth and opulence, powerful Persian women, the institution of the harem, kings and queens, eunuchs and secret plots. Presented here in English translation for the first time with commentaries, Ctesias offers a fascinating insight into Persia in the fifth century BC.

King and Court in Ancient Persia 559 to 331 BCE

King and Court in Ancient Persia 559 to 331 BCE PDF

Author: Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Published: 2014-02-14

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 0748677119

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This book explores the representation of Persian monarchy and the court of the Achaemenid Great Kings from the point of view of the ancient Iranians themselves and through the sometimes distorted prism of Classical authors.

Ancient Persia

Ancient Persia PDF

Author: Matt Waters

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2014-01-20

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1107652723

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The Achaemenid Persian Empire, at its greatest territorial extent under Darius I (r.522–486 BCE), held sway over territory stretching from the Indus River Valley to southeastern Europe and from the western Himalayas to northeast Africa. In this book, Matt Waters gives a detailed historical overview of the Achaemenid period while considering the manifold interpretive problems historians face in constructing and understanding its history. This book offers a Persian perspective even when relying on Greek textual sources and archaeological evidence. Waters situates the story of the Achaemenid Persians in the context of their predecessors in the mid-first millennium BCE and through their successors after the Macedonian conquest, constructing a compelling narrative of how the empire retained its vitality for more than two hundred years (c.550–330 BCE) and left a massive imprint on Middle Eastern as well as Greek and European history.

Plutarch and the Persica

Plutarch and the Persica PDF

Author: Eran Almagor

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Published: 2018-07-16

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 074864556X

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Explores the experiences spectators have when they watch a film collectively in a cinema.

Ctesias’ Persica in Its Near Eastern Context

Ctesias’ Persica in Its Near Eastern Context PDF

Author: Matt Waters

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press

Published: 2020-01-21

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780299310943

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The Persica is an extensive history of Assyria and Persia from around 400 BCE. It was written by the Greek historian Ctesias, who served as a doctor to the Persian king Artaxerxes II. In this volume, Matt Waters offers a fresh interdisciplinary analysis of the text. He shows in detail how Ctesias' history, though written in a Greek literary style, was infused with two millennia of Mesopotamian and Persian motifs, legends, and traditions. Waters' revealing study contributes significantly to knowledge of ancient historiography, Persian dynastic traditions and culture, and the influence of Near Eastern texts and oral tradition on Greek literature.

Ctesias: On India

Ctesias: On India PDF

Author: Andrew Nichols

Publisher: Bristol Classical Press

Published: 2011-09-22

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 9781853997426

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A Greek doctor serving at the court of the Persian king Artaxerxes II in the fifth century BC, Ctesias met travellers and visitors from the far eastern reaches of the Persian Empire, merchants from along the Silk Road and Indians from near the Indus Valley. His Indika (On India), was the first monograph ever written on India by a western author, introducing its readers to such fantastic creatures as the unicorn and the martichora, along with real life subjects such as the parrot and the art of falconry. Confirming pre-existing conceptions of what were considered to be the edges of the earth, Ctesias' Indika helped shape the Greek view of India.

History of the Persian Empire

History of the Persian Empire PDF

Author: A. T. Olmstead

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2022-08-29

Total Pages: 671

ISBN-13: 0226826333

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Out of a lifetime of study of the ancient Near East, Professor Olmstead has gathered previously unknown material into the story of the life, times, and thought of the Persians, told for the first time from the Persian rather than the traditional Greek point of view. "The fullest and most reliable presentation of the history of the Persian Empire in existence."—M. Rostovtzeff

Women in Ancient Persia, 559-331 BC

Women in Ancient Persia, 559-331 BC PDF

Author: Maria Brosius

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13:

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Ancient Greek writers on Persian history give us a glimpse of the influential role played by some individual women at these courts, but these are sporadic and hardly reliable accounts of a few colourful femme fatales in the royal family, designed to show up the scandalous machinations of barbarian women gaining political control and causing the decline and effeminacy of the Persian kings. This book is the first to demonstrate the true importance of not only royal but non-royal women in Persia, with the benefit of contemporary Persian and Babylonian sources.