The Secret History
10 best books like The Secret History (Procopius): The Twelve Caesars, The Annals of Imperial Rome, Count Belisarius, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, The History of the Franks, A History of My Times, The Later Roman Empire (A.D. 354-378), The Campaigns of Alexander, The Rise of the Roman Empire, The Civil War
| Author | Suetonius |
| ISBN | 0140449213 |
As private secretary to the Emperor Hadrian, Suetonius gained access to the imperial archives and used them (along with eye-witness accounts) to produce one of the most colorful biographical works in history. The Twelve Caesars chronicles the public careers and private lives of the men who wielded...
The Annals of Imperial Rome
In "The Annals of Imperial Rome", his last and greatest work, Tacitus (AD c.55-c.117) covers the period from AD 14, just before the death of Augustus, to the death of Nero in AD 68. Not all the passages have survived, but in those that have the depth and diversity of genius are manifest. From a vicious, vituperative...
| Author | Robert Graves |
| ISBN | 0374517398 |
Robert Graves's sources for Count Belisarius include some of the great historical works of classical antiquity: Livy, Thucydides, Herodotus, and certainly Xenophon in the Persian war sections. The novel is set in the sixth century of our era. Belisarius is perhaps the last loyal general the Roman...
One night a group of monks from Durham cathedral seized Bede's remains and took them back to Durham for reburial there, making Bede one of those people who have ended up travelling further in death than they ever did while alive.
The give away fact about this book is it's title. What Bede wants...
| Author | Gregory of Tours |
| ISBN | 0140442952 |
Written following the collapse of Rome's secular control over western Europe, the History of Gregory (c. AD 539-594) is a fascinating exploration of the events that shaped sixth-century France. This volume contains all ten books from the work, the last seven of which provide an in-depth description...
| Author | Xenophon |
| ISBN | 0140441751 |
Thucydides' magisterial history told of the unhappy conflict of Greeks against the Greeks in the Peloponnesian War, but his narrative broke off in 411 B.C., seven years before the end, and Greeks were to continue fighting one another for many more years. Xenophon continues the account to 362 B.C. These...
| Author | Ammianus Marcellinus |
| ISBN | 0140444068 |
He was not a professional man of letters but an army officer of Greek origin born at Antioch and contemporary with the events described in what remains of his work. He set himself the task of continuing the histories of Tacitus from A.D. 96 down to his own day. The first thirteen of his thirty-one books are...
| Author | Arrian |
| ISBN | 0140442537 |
'His passion was for glory only, and in that he was insatiable'Although written over four hundred years after Alexander’s death, Arrian’s Campaigns of Alexander is the most reliable account of the man and his achievements we have. Arrian’s own experience as a military commander gave him unique...
| Author | Polybius |
| ISBN | 0140443622 |
Polybius, himself a Greek and an active contemporary participant in political relations with Rome, wrote the forty books of his Universal History primarily to chronicle and account for the Roman conquest of Greece between 200 and 167 B.C. He saw that Mediterranean history, under Rome's influence,...
| Author | Gaius Julius Caesar |
| ISBN | 0140441875 |
A military leader of legendary genius, Caesar was also a great writer, recording the events of his life with incomparable immediacy and power. The Civil War is a tense and gripping depiction of his struggle with Pompey over the leadership of Republican Rome - a conflict that spanned the entire Roman...
| Author | Plutarch |
| ISBN | 0140442863 |
Spengler once wrote that Mozart would cease to be heard not when his music was no longer played, but when its meaning was no longer understood. Something of this fate is also shared by Plutarch in an age where the study of history remains distorted by positivist ideology (see some other reviews on this...
| Author | Einhard |
| ISBN | 0140442138 |
Two revealingly different accounts of the life of the most important figure of the Roman Empire
Charlemage, known as the father of Europe, was one of the most powerful and dynamic of all medieval rulers. The biographies brought together here provide a rich and varied portrait of the king from...
| Author | Tacitus |
| ISBN | 0140441506 |
In AD 68, Nero's suicide marked the end of the first dynasty of imperial Rome. The following year was one of drama and danger, with four emperors—Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian—emerging in succession. Based on authoritative sources, The Histories vividly recounts the details of the "long...
| Author | Sallust |
| ISBN | 0140441328 |
"The Conspiracy of Catiline" (his first published work) contains the history of the memorable year 63. Sallust adopts the usually accepted view of Catiline, and describes him as the deliberate foe of law, order and morality, and does not give a comprehensive explanation of his views and intentions....
| Author | Flavius Josephus |
| ISBN | 0140444203 |
Josephus’ account of a war marked by treachery and atrocity is a superbly detailed and evocative record of the Jewish rebellion against Rome between AD 66 and 70. Originally a rebel leader, Josephus changed sides after he was captured to become a Rome-appointed negotiator, and so was uniquely placed...
