Dividing the Spoils

Dividing the Spoils PDF

Author: Robin Waterfield

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2012-10-11

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 0199931526

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The story of the wars that led to the break-up of Alexander the Great's vast empire after his death in 323 BC and the brilliant cultural developments which accompanied this birth of a new world.

Dividing the Spoils

Dividing the Spoils PDF

Author: Robin Waterfield

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2011-05-04

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 9780199831838

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Alexander the Great conquered an enormous empire--stretching from Greece to the Indian subcontinent--and his death triggered forty bloody years of world-changing events. These were years filled with high adventure, intrigue, passion, assassinations, dynastic marriages, treachery, shifting alliances, and mass slaughter on battlefield after battlefield. And while the men fought on the field, the women, such as Alexander's mother Olympias, schemed from their palaces and pavilions. Dividing the Spoils serves up a fast-paced narrative that captures this turbulent time as it revives the memory of the Successors of Alexander and their great contest for his empire. The Successors, Robin Waterfield shows, were no mere plunderers. Indeed, Alexander left things in great disarray at the time of his death, with no guaranteed succession, no administration in place suitable for such a large realm, and huge untamed areas both bordering and within his empire. It was the Successors--battle-tested companions of Alexander such as Ptolemy, Perdiccas, Seleucus, and Antigonus the One-Eyed--who consolidated Alexander's gains. Their competing ambitions, however, eventually led to the break-up of the empire. To tell their story in full, Waterfield draws upon a wide range of historical materials, providing the first account that makes complete sense of this highly complex period. Astonishingly, this period of brutal, cynical warfare was also characterized by brilliant cultural achievements, especially in the fields of philosophy, literature, and art. A new world emerged from the dust and haze of battle, and, in addition to chronicling political and military events, Waterfield provides ample discussion of the amazing cultural flowering of the early Hellenistic Age.

Dividing the Spoils

Dividing the Spoils PDF

Author: Robin Waterfield

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2012-08-02

Total Pages: 303

ISBN-13: 0199647003

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Everyone has heard of Alexander the Great, the famous conqueror. But what happened after his death to the lands he had conquered? It took forty years of world-changing warfare for his successors to carve up the empire. This thrilling period of unremitting warfare, treachery, assassination, passion, shifting alliances, and mass slaughter, has been neglected. Dividing the Spoils resurrects the fascinating story of this period - both the warfare and theworld-changing cultural developments that were taking place at the same time.

Taken at the Flood

Taken at the Flood PDF

Author: Robin Waterfield

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0199916896

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Addressing a marginalized era of Greek and Roman history, Taken at the Flood offers a compelling narrative of Rome's conquest of Greece.

Dividing the Spoils

Dividing the Spoils PDF

Author: Henrietta Lidchi

Publisher:

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781526139207

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

As museums across Europe reckon with the post-colonial legacies of their collections, this volume combines approaches from material anthropology, imperial and military history to shed light on the acquisition and appropriation of objects during British colonial warfare. The authors offer a nuanced view of how the amassing of objects was governed and understood within military culture.

Ghost on the Throne

Ghost on the Throne PDF

Author: James Romm

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2012-11-13

Total Pages: 418

ISBN-13: 0307456609

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

When Alexander the Great died at the age of thirty-two, his empire stretched from the Adriatic Sea in the west all the way to modern-day India in the east. In an unusual compromise, his two heirs—a mentally damaged half brother, Philip III, and an infant son, Alexander IV, born after his death—were jointly granted the kingship. But six of Alexander’s Macedonian generals, spurred by their own thirst for power and the legend that Alexander bequeathed his rule “to the strongest,” fought to gain supremacy. Perhaps their most fascinating and conniving adversary was Alexander’s former Greek secretary, Eumenes, now a general himself, who would be the determining factor in the precarious fortunes of the royal family. James Romm, professor of classics at Bard College, brings to life the cutthroat competition and the struggle for control of the Greek world’s greatest empire.

Alexander to Actium

Alexander to Actium PDF

Author: Peter Green

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 1990-09-24

Total Pages: 999

ISBN-13: 0520914147

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The Hellenistic Age, the three extraordinary centuries from the death of Alexander in 323 B. C. to Octavian's final defeat of Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium, has offered a rich and variegated field of exploration for historians, philosophers, economists, and literary critics. Yet few scholars have attempted the daunting task of seeing the period whole, of refracting its achievements and reception through the lens of a single critical mind. Alexander to Actium was conceived and written to fill that gap. In this monumental work, Peter Green—noted scholar, writer, and critic—breaks with the traditional practice of dividing the Hellenistic world into discrete, repetitious studies of Seleucids, Ptolemies, Antigonids, and Attalids. He instead treats these successor kingdoms as a single, evolving, interrelated continuum. The result clarifies the political picture as never before. With the help of over 200 illustrations, Green surveys every significant aspect of Hellenistic cultural development, from mathematics to medicine, from philosophy to religion, from literature to the visual arts. Green offers a particularly trenchant analysis of what has been seen as the conscious dissemination in the East of Hellenistic culture, and finds it largely a myth fueled by Victorian scholars seeking justification for a no longer morally respectable imperialism. His work leaves us with a final impression of the Hellenistic Age as a world with haunting and disturbing resemblances to our own. This lively, personal survey of a period as colorful as it is complex will fascinate the general reader no less than students and scholars.

A Division of Spoils

A Division of Spoils PDF

Author: Paul Scott

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2012-10-25

Total Pages: 608

ISBN-13: 022603464X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The conclusion of the “majestic” quartet about the waning days of the British empire in India, “a commanding achievement” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). After exploiting India’s divisions for years, the British are departing in such haste that no one is prepared for the Hindu-Muslim riots of 1947. The twilight of the raj turns bloody. Against the backdrop of the violent partition of India and Pakistan, A Division of the Spoils illuminates one last bittersweet romance, revealing the divided loyalties of the British as they flee, retreat from, or cling to India. “[These] novels are a spectacular explosion of history set off within the lives of a dozen or so Britons and Indians on the edges of vast change . . . If you want to know where the political world we now live in began, Paul Scott’s novels are a place to start.” —The New York Times Book Review “A rich novel of manners . . . Politics, cultism, police and military interrogation—all moving toward inevitable murder and violence—are integral parts of a carefully crafted, complex novel.” —Library Journal

The Making of a King

The Making of a King PDF

Author: Robin Waterfield

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 0198853017

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The Making of a King is the first book in more than a century to tell the gripping story of the rule of Antigonus Gonatas: how he gained the Macedonian throne, how he held it, the nature of his court, the measures he took towards the Greeks, and their responses.

The Treasures of Alexander the Great

The Treasures of Alexander the Great PDF

Author: Frank Lee Holt

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0199950962

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

War, the most profitable economic activity in the ancient world, transferred wealth violently from the vanquished to the victor. Invasions, massacres, confiscations, deportations, the sacking of cities, and the selling of survivors into slavery all redistributed property with epic consequences for kings and commoners alike. The most notable example occurred in the late fourth century BC, when Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire. For all of its savagery, this invasion has generally been heralded as a positive economic event for all concerned. Even those harshly critical of the king today tend to praise his plundering of Persia as a means of liberating the moribund resources of the East. To test that popular interpretation, this book investigates the kinds and quantities of treasure seized by the Macedonian king, from gold and silver to land and slaves. It reveals what became of the king's wealth, and what Alexander's redistribution of these vast resources can tell us about his much-disputed policies and personality.