History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)

Book Description

Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.

Customer Reviews:

Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03

Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.

Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19

Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.

Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09

There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.

For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.

Very Interesting.......2007-03-07

It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.

History as Science Fiction.......2007-01-10

Anatoly Fomenko has written a very intriguing book, full of pictures, charts, and computer 'proof' of his thesis: backwards of AD900 we don't really know what happened or when. Between AD900 and AD1600 there is more certainty, but there is still a lot of fuzzy ground, and things don't get reliable until we get past the 1600's where the printing press made it very difficult for the perpetrators of this timeline manipulation to change anything that had been committed to print. The Dark Ages did not happen. Books were burned for a reason. One organization has doubled the actual length of its existence by expanding the real chronology. Read why.

I had always wondered why Christ died about AD33 and yet men waited until the 11th century to form the Knights Templar, the Cathars, etc and go after the Holy Land by force. Why the 1000 year gap? Turns out there wasn't more than a 10-12 year gap and he proves it using astronomy. This also implies that the planet is not as old as we have been told, and current Christian and other creationist scientists are already championing that idea without being aware of Fomenko's book. The two groups, creationist scientists and the Russian mathematical analysts corroborate each other. Fascinating.

Of course, all this flies in the face of what we have been told traditionally is the 'proper' chronology of western civilization, and most readers will experience 'cognitive dissonance' in reading this book. It means that our history going backwards from AD1600 becomes progressively more incorrect and unreliable until it cannot be trusted at all... in the space of 700-800 years.

Naturally, the curious, open-minded reader will want to know WHO did this, WHY, and did any of the events we think of as really ancient ever happen?
Dr. Fomenko is a respected scientist/mathematician at Moscow State University who has already answered these questions to the satisfaction of his initially skeptical colleagues. Most of them are now believers, a few still refuse to believe (the usual diehards), and of course the western press has ignored Fomenko's work -- for obvious reasons when you read the book. The ones who perpetrated this chronology ruse have a lot to answer for. They are still with us. That's why this book is a well-kept secret.

I gave the book a 4-star rating because I was unable to check out some of his claims; those I checked were as he said. But if even 1/3 of his claims are true, this punches a big hole in what we think is our history, the meaning of western civilization, our educational process (for repeating the ruse as gospel), and the trustworthiness of the organization that perpetrated this ruse, well-intentioned or not.

This book relates to current research into a Young Earth paradigm, to John Keel's discoveries about our planet, and Fr Malachi Martin's insights (in his now out-of-print books). We are indeed sheep who are manipulated and kept ignorant -- for a reason. While knowing what these men have to say may be the "booby prize" (as in: 'what can you do with this knowledge?'), it will provide interesting reading. Didn't someone say: "...and the Truth will set you free."?? For you to judge if this book contains the truth.

The Iliad (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

Average customer rating:

One of the hard slog classic reads
A great story that anyone would enjoy putting aside all the academic chatter.
A deeply powerful tale told in an equally powerful way by Fagles
Requirement for Western Civilization
Okay translation

The Iliad (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
Homer
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Odyssey (Penguin Classics)
The Three Theban Plays (Penguin Classics)
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The Aeneid
The Oresteia: Agamemnon; The Libation Bearers; The Eumenides (Penguin Classics)

ASIN: 0140275363

Amazon.com

This groundbreaking English version by Robert Fagles is the most important recent translation of Homer's great epic poem. The verse translation has been hailed by scholars as the new standard, providing an Iliad that delights modern sensibility and aesthetic without sacrificing the grandeur and particular genius of Homer's own style and language. The Iliad is one of the two great epics of Homer, and is typically described as one of the greatest war stories of all time, but to say the Iliad is a war story does not begin to describe the emotional sweep of its action and characters: Achilles, Helen, Hector, and other heroes of Greek myth and history in the tenth and final year of the Greek siege of Troy.

Book Description

This timeless poem-more than 2,700 year old-still vividly conveys the horror and heroism of men and gods wrestling with towering emotions and battling amid devastation and destruction as it moves inexorably to its wrenching, tragic conclusion. Readers of this epic poem will be gripped by the finely tuned translation and enlightening introduction.

Translated by Robert Fagles
Introduction and Notes by Bernard

Customer Reviews:

One of the hard slog classic reads.......2007-10-11

No need to review this classic.
Recommendation: If you are buying this to actually read, get a version with larger type. I can barely read this with my reading glasses on. I'm going to have to get another version myself.

A great story that anyone would enjoy putting aside all the academic chatter........2007-08-08

Translation (in my opinion and experience) is not so much about accuracy as it is about hearing or reading something, absorbing it, and telling the same thing in another language in a way that can best be understood or even--we hope in this case--engaging or entertaining to the listener or reader. The Penguin Classic version of the Iliad does this quite well; and the translator has proven himself to be a good teller of the story in English given to us by Homer so long ago.

Don't read the Iliad because it's a classic, or because it's Greek, or because Homer wrote it. Read it for the same reasons and with the same mindset as you would any book written today, because it's good--and in this case outstanding. Put simply, don't analyse it or study it, just read and enjoy.

The Iliad is really that good.

A deeply powerful tale told in an equally powerful way by Fagles.......2007-05-22

The Iliad is certainly a piece of literature that has stood the test of time - and with good reason. War has constantly been a feature of human society and the Iliad tells of all its horrors like few other pieces of literature. But the epic is more than just a war story - it's a story of human limits and mankind's (especially in the West) constant struggle to deal with the realities they create. I suppose one could respond that this epic is more involved with human potential but it is very hard to read either the character of Hector or Achilles as anything but a tragic character - as someone who paid dearly for his role as "hero" of Troy or Greece. This is not a great piece of literature because it projects heroic ideals that should inspire us, though this aspect of the epic has played its own powerfully important role, rather, it is a great piece of literature because just as the epic appears to throw those ideals up for lauding, it problematizes them - it illustrates their often tragic consequences. The heroic individual who can single-handedly make a difference and the ethic of competition the epic oozes have played profoundly important roles in shaping Western history but the Iliad is great because it draws out the ugly consequences these ideals can produce and the price one pays for holding them too close.

Fagles' translation - for all I can tell - is an excellent one. I know no Greek (Sanskrit was my "classical" language) but the power of Fagles' rendering is palpable throughout (especially in the masterful first chapter) and it is difficult, though not impossible, to imagine it being more so in another translator's hands.

Requirement for Western Civilization.......2007-05-12

How can anyone not give The Iliad 5 stars? Not only is it the fountainhead of all Western literature, it's a great story!! READ IT!!

Okay translation.......2007-03-29

I'm not convinced that this translation is an improvement to the Lattimore or Fitzgerald translations. It's readable and slightly more up to date in idiom, but it is somewhat predictable as a translation. It lacks the boldness of the translation by Stanley Lombardo, who has, in my opinion, produced the freshest and most exciting translations of both the Iliad and the Odyssey. The prose renditions of the Odyssey (the updated Rhieu and the Griffin/Hammond) are as readable and more exciting than the translation by Fagles. That said, it is still a fine translation, but if you already have the Lattimore translation (or if you are lucky enough to have the Lombardo translation) there isn't a whole lot to be gained with this translation.

Ancient Greek Warship: 500-322 BC (New Vanguard)

Average customer rating:

Color photos of artifacts and landscape enhance and capture the history.

Ancient Greek Warship: 500-322 BC (New Vanguard)
Nic Fields
Manufacturer: Osprey Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Crusader Castles in Cyprus, Greece and the Aegean 1191-1571 (Fortress)

ASIN: 1846030749
Release Date: 2007-03-27

Book Description

Formidable and sophisticated, triremes were the deadliest battleship of the ancient world, and at the height of their success, the Athenians were the dominant exponents of their devastating power. Primarily longships designed to fight under oar power, the trireme was built for lightness and strength; ship-timber was mostly softwoods such as poplar, pine and fir, while the oars and mast were made out of fir. Their main weapon was a bronze-plated ram situated at the prow.

From the combined Greek naval victory at Salamis (480 BC), through the Peloponnesian War, and up until the terrible defeat by the Macedonians at Amorgos, the Athenian trireme was an object of dread to its enemies.

This book offers a complete analysis and insight into the most potent battleship of its time; the weapon by which Athens achieved, maintained, and ultimately lost its power and prosperity.

Customer Reviews:

Color photos of artifacts and landscape enhance and capture the history........2007-07-08

Nic Fields' ANCIENT GREEK WARSHIP 500-322 BC is for any holding strong in early Greek or military history: it follows the design, development and history of warfare in ancient Greece with a focus analyzing the most potent battleship of its time. Color photos of artifacts and landscape enhance and capture the history.

History: Fiction or Science? Chronology 2 (Chronology)

Average customer rating:

Check and see
Suprise! Suprise!
Prescient St Augustine?
Something of a disappointment
Romulus courts Helen, Paris founds Rome, Moses goes to Troy..

History: Fiction or Science? Chronology 2 (Chronology)
Anatoly T Fomenko
Manufacturer: Delamere Resources LLC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 2913621066

Product Description

`History: Fiction or Science? Chronology 2` is the second volume of the most explosive and astounding tractate on history ever written - however, every theory it contains, no matter how unorthodox, is backed by rock solid scientific data. The book is easy and pleasant to read; it is well-illustrated, contains hundreds of charts, graphs and illustrations, copies of ancient manuscripts, and countless facts attesting to the falsity of the chronology used nowadays. You will be amazed to discover: - That the chronology universally accepted today and taken for granted is simply wrong; - That ALL methods of dating of ancient sources and artefacts known today are erroneous or non-exact; - That there is not a single document that could be reliably dated earlier than the XIth century; The Author refers to the Middle Ages as the Antiquity and proves mutual superimposition of the Second and the Third Roman Empire, both of which become identified as the respective kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Furthermore, he asserts that the famous reform of the Occidental Church in the XI century by Pope Gregory Hildebrand was the reflection of the XII century reforms of Byzantine emperor Andronicus who in his turn identifies with Jesus Christ. The Trojan war counted by Homer happened only as late as of the XIII century A.D. and the great poet actually lived in XIV century A.D. No stone in history of Antiquity is left unturned. Literally. This book is the beginning of a major correction to the chronology we live with.

Customer Reviews:

Check and see.......2007-06-21

I don't care what other people say of this book. Those affirmig it's fake, they hadn't ever read it. Or have some special reasons to do so. "Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see..." This book won't make you feel comfortable. It'll make you feel free. It'll make you feel you're "not the only one" to feel you'd been lied to for centuries.

Suprise! Suprise!.......2007-03-22

Here is a serie of books which turns "the whole world" upside down. I learned a lot of it and I hope that a new book from A.T. Fomenko will follow very quick. A absolute must for everybody who is interested in history or even a little bit from it.

Prescient St Augustine?.......2006-02-05

We can so far divide the New Chronology into the following three parts:

a) The verifiable theory that proves consensual chronology wrong with the aid of astronomy, statistics and mathematics;

b) The new chronology hypothesis based on a new understanding of known historical facts and the most likely logical explanation of the most obvious inconsistencies inherent in the official version of history;

c) The history conjectures, that is experimental historical reconstructions based on assumptions that the authors believe to make sense in the light of their research and linguistic parallels - void of ironclad factual support to date.

Fomenko's theory complies with the most rigid scientific standards as a whole:

It gives a coherent explanation of what we already know.

- It is consistent: independent lines of inquiry all lead to the same conclusion.

- The predictions it makes are confirmed empirically.

Fomenko goes by the following axioms:

- Chronology is the basis of history;

- Human evolution has always been linear, gradual and irreversible;

- The "cyclic" nature of human civilization is a myth, likewise all the gaps, duplicates, "dark ages" and "renaissances" that we know from consensual history;

- The accumulation of geographical knowledge as reflected in cartography is a gradual and irreversible process;

- The chronological distance between a given manuscript and the events described therein is proportional to the amount of distortions it contains;

- There is no "useless" information in authentic ancient sources.

Why the mainstream historians do not shower mathematician Academician Dr.Prof Fomenko with thanks and laurels?

The Russians:

Because Fomenko asserts that there was no such thing as the Tartar and Mongol invasion followed by three centuries of slavery, providing a formidable body of documental evidence to prove his assertion. The so-called "Tartars and Mongols" were the actual ancestors of the modern Russians, living in a bilingual state with Arabic spoken as freely as Russian. The ancient Russian state was governed by a double structure of civil and military authorities. The hordes were actually professional armies with a tradition of lifelong conscription (the recruitment being the so-called "blood tax"). Their "invasions" were punitive operations against the regions that attempted tax evasion. Fomenko proves that Russian history as we know it today is a blatant forgery concocted by a host of German scientists brought to Russia by the usurper dynasty of the Romanovs, whose ascension to the throne was the result of coup d'état, charged with the mission of making their reign look legitimate. Fomenko proves Ivan the Terrible to be a collation of four rulers, no less. They represented the two rival dynasties - the legitimate rulers and the ambitious upstarts. The winner took it all! Over some 30 years of controversy, Russian historians have made a most remarkable transition - they were initially accusing the young mathematician Fomenko of anticommunist dissident activity and attempts to deface the historical legacy of Soviet Russia; nowadays the middle-aged mathematician is accused of adhering to "pro-communist Russian nationalism" and defacing the proud historical legacy of Great Russia.

The Westerners:

Because Fomenko blows consensual Russian history to smithereens, successfully removing a crucial cornerstone from underneath the otherwise impeccable edifice of World History. Fomenko adds insult to injury, wiping out one by one the Ancient Rome (the foundation of Rome in Italy is dated to the XIV century A. D.), the Ancient Greece and its numerous poleis, which he identifies as the mediaeval crusader settlements on the territory of Greece, and the Ancient Egypt (the pyramids of Giza become dated to the XI-XV century A. D. and identified as the royal cemetery of the Global "Mongolian" Empire, no less). The civilization of the Ancient Egypt is irrefutably dated to the XII-XV century A. D. with the aid of the ancient Egyptian horoscopes cut in stone. He was the first one to decipher and date all such horoscopes, coming up with mediaeval dates in every case. English historians rage at the suggestion that the history of Ancient England was de facto a Byzantine import transplanted to the English soil by the fugitive Byzantine nobility. To reward the English historians who consider themselves the true scribes of World History, the cover of the present book portrays Tintoretto's Jesus Christ crucified on the Big Ben.

The Chinese:

Because Fomenko wipes out the Ancient History of China outright. No such thing. Full point. The compilation of the so-called Ancient Chinese History is reliably datable to the XVII-XVIII century only. It is perfectly recognizable as the Ancient European history, reworked and transcribed in hieroglyphs as yet another historical transplantation, this time performed on the Chinese soil by the loving Jesuit hands. The Chinese are the next in line to go berserk. Chinese history is inevitably bound to get both more ancient and more eventful, proportionally to the growing involvement of China in the world affairs. Chinese historians will keep on finding valid proof of prehistoric Chinese spaceflights until the Politburo orders them to shut up.

The Arabs:

Too bad. Islam with all its key figures is datable to XV-XVI century A. D. Arabic historians may find consolation in the crucial historical role of the Ottoman Empire in the XVI-XVII century. The trouble is that this empire was initially a Christian state, with Hagia Sophia identifiable as Temple of Solomon, according to Fomenko! We can only guess if the acquisition of Alexander the Great (a Macedonian and a Christian) as the founder of the Muslim World Empire will make Fomenko's theories more acceptable to the Arabic mainstream. He certainly does not spare any holy cows at all, claiming The Stone of Qa'Aba in Mecca to contain the lost Arch of the Covenant.

The Divinity:

Despite of reiterated statement that his theory is all about chronology and not Religion, Fomenko stirs up a whole condominium of wasp nests. His collection of anathemas, fatwa, and other condemnations from all parties concerned is already considerable. Little wonder, considering that the history of religions à la Fomenko looks as follows: the pre-Christian period (before the XI century and JC), Bacchic Christianity (XI-XII century, before and after JC), JC Christianity (XII-XVI century) and its subsequent mutations into Orthodox Christianity, the Catholicism, Islam, Buddhism, and so on.

According to Fomenko we know strictly NOTHING about the events that predate the X century A. D.

St Augustin was prescient when he spoke unto us: "be wary of mathematicians, particularly when they speak the truth."

Something of a disappointment.......2005-09-09

After having read the first volume of this expected series of 7 volumes I was triggered by the thesis of these authors that ancient Greek and Roman history did in fact take place in the Middle Ages. So I started studying medieval history of the Middle East - also known as Islamic history - to find out if the opponents of the ancient Greeks and Romans - the Acheamenid Persians, Sassanids, Scythians, Egyptians, etc. - also have their duplicates in medieval history. My search was disappointing: none of the many medieval Islamic dynasties seemed to correspond to the ancient middle eastern rulers.

However, I did find a close correspondence between Herodotus' Persian kings and medieval events:

- the defeat and capture of an Anatolian king - the Lydian Croesus - by the Persian conqueror Cyrus is identical to the defeat and capture of another Anatolian king - sultan Bayezid - by the Asian/Mongol conqueror Tamerlane;
- the Persian conquest of Egypt by the cruel tyrant Cambyses reds almost exactly as the Ottoman conquest of Egypt by Selim the Grim (note the nickname!);
- Darius the Lawgiver of the Persian Empire looks very much alike to Sulayman the Magnificent, the Lawgiver in Islamic history;
- Xerxes, whose main claim to fame is to be defeated by the Greeks at the naval battle of Salamis, looks like Selim II (the Sot) whose main claim to fame is to be defeated by a Spanish-Italian alliance at the naval battle of Lepanto.

I should have expected Fomenko et al. to arrive at similar conclusions, however, they claim that the Persian kings are the alter egos of the Angevin kings of Sicily whose biographies do not contain the exploits of the Persian kings.

The similiarities I indicate lead to the conclusion that Herodotus must have written his Histories at the close of the 16th century. But this is extremely late, given that Herodotus is "the Father of History", so therefore all other "ancient" histories must have been fabricated even later. Yet, the founders of modern chronology - Scaliger and Petavius - laid their foundations also at the close of the 16th century and had the full corpus of ancient histories already at their disposal.

It seems to me that Fomenko has to address these inconsistencies, maybe in the forthcoming 5 volumes?

Another critique of their book is that the correspondencies between different rulers are often based on a superficial comparison of the biographies; upon a more thorough comparison many details appear that do not correspond at all.

Finally, the authors rely heavily on the works of Gregorovius (1821-1891!!) - his medieval histories of Rome and Athens - as the source of medieval history; these works are - at least in the West - hoplessly outdated and have been superceded by more up-to-date works (for instance, Julius Norwich's trilogy on Byzantine history is not even cited).

Romulus courts Helen, Paris founds Rome, Moses goes to Troy.........2005-07-30

If you agree with Fomenko that Roman chronology is basically the foundation of the entire edifice of global chronology; you would also certainly agree that despite its numerous gaps and inconsistencies, Roman history is the best-documented field of ancient history, and thus a reference scale. But how well is the actual date of the Eternal City's foundation known?

Firstly, Rome is supposed to have been founded by the Trojans who had to flee after the fall of Troy. Some claim Rome to have been founded by Aeneas and Ulysses shortly after Troy had fallen; others are of the opinion that there was an entire dynasty that ruled for 500 years between the fall of Troy and the foundation of Rome.

Well, that's just an innocent 500 years long misunderstanding compared with what heretic Fomenko says, asserts, proves in his second volume: Second Roman Empire, Third Roman Empire, Biblical Kingdom of Israel, Biblical Kingdom of Judah, Holy Roman Empire are stories about basically same events, written from different points of view at different times. The underlying events have actually taken place during xii-xv cy. These histories have been written and perfected by multitude of highly talented humanist and clerical writers of xiii-xvi cy disguised as "ancients" with glorious names like Homer, Pluto, Thucydides etc..Chronology 2.0 beta..

Historians are kindly invited to report the bugs.

Roman Military Equipment: From The Punic Wars To The Fall Of Rome

Average customer rating:

THE Book to have
My Brother Liked It
THE definitive work on Roman military equipment

Roman Military Equipment: From The Punic Wars To The Fall Of Rome
M. C. Bishop , and J. C. N. Coulston
Manufacturer: Oxbow Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1842171593

Product Description

Rome's rise to empire is often said to have owed much to the efficiency and military skill of her armies and their technological superiority over barbarian enemies. But just how 'advanced' was Roman military equipment? What were its origins and how did it evolve? The authors of this book have gathered a wealth of evidence from all over the Roman Empire - excavated examples as well as pictorial and documentary sources - to present a picture of what range of equipment would be available at any given time, what it would look like and how it would function. They examine how certain pieces were adopted from Rome's enemies and adapted to particular conditions of warfare prevailing in different parts of the Empire. They also investigate in detail the technology of military equipment and the means by which it was produced, and discuss wider questions such as the status of the soldier in Roman society. Both the specially prepared illustrations and the text have been completely revised for the second edition of this detailed and authoritative handbook, bringing it up to date with the very latest research. It illustrates each element in the equipment of the Roman soldier, from his helmet to his boots, his insignia, his tools and his weapons. This book will appeal to archaeologists, ancient and military historians as well as the generally informed and inquisitive reader.

Customer Reviews:

THE Book to have.......2007-04-04

I am a Roman era re-enactor and I absolutely loved this book! Not only did in inform me with details I didn't know, but also informed me with what was wrong with my impression.

This is a must have for any Roman era enthusiast!!

My Brother Liked It.......2007-01-10

My brother is a big history and punic wars buff, and he really enjoyed it. From what I looked at the illustrations were amazing and the book seemed well written.

THE definitive work on Roman military equipment.......2006-09-08

I have both the first and the current editions of this utterly invaluable book. It is undoubtedly the best and most detailed discussion of Roman military equipment available and it is a "must read" for anyone interested in the subject, be he or she an historian, re-enactor, artist or whatever. I would give this book six stars, but there are only five available.

Average customer rating:

A great translation.... not for the meek at heart.
The Speaker's Handbook!
Awkward translation
Excellent English Iliad
The Best English Version

The Iliad of Homer
Homer
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

The Odyssey of Homer
Aeschylus I: Oresteia (The Complete Greek Tragedies)
The Aeneid
The Complete Greek Tragedies: Sophocles I: Oedipus The King, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone
The Histories (Penguin Classics)

ASIN: 0226469409

Book Description

"The finest translation of Homer ever made into the English language."—William Arrowsmith

"Certainly the best modern verse translation."—Gilbert Highet

"This magnificent translation of Homer's epic poem . . . will appeal to admirers of Homer and the classics, and the multitude who always wanted to read the great Iliad but never got around to doing so."—The American Book Collector

"Perhaps closer to Homer in every way than any other version made in English."—Peter Green, The New Republic

"The feat is decisive that it is reasonable to foresee a century or so in which nobody will try again to put the Iliad in English verse."—Robert Fitzgerald

"Each new generation is bound to produce new translations. [Lattimore] has done better with nobility, as well as with accuracy, than any other modern verse translator. In our age we do not often find a fine scholar who is also a genuine poet and who takes the greatest pains over the work of translation."—Hugh Lloyd-Jones, New York Review of Books

"Over the long haul Lattimore's translation is more powerful because its effects are more subtle."—Booklist

"Richmond Lattimore is a fine translator of poetry because he has a poetic voice of his own, authentic and unmistakable and yet capable of remarkable range of modulation. His translations make the English reader aware of the poetry."—Moses Hadas, The New York Times

Customer Reviews:

A great translation.... not for the meek at heart........2007-09-07

The Lattimore translation is, as I was told my my humanities teacher, the closest translation to the Greek to date. This is good in that it keeps true to the intended poetry of the work. This is bad if you are a non-English major college student :P

In this translation, not meant to be easily understood by today's English speakers, there are many sentences that end in the subject of the sentence, which can be confusing. If you don't pay very close attention, you will get lost. There are many similies and metaphors that can be confusing unless followed closely.... it sounds something like, "Then Hektor of the wide arms spoke unto Melos of the flowing hair. Then they two took their swift spears and their shining swords upon those whom the Goddess of the White arms had chosen.... not a direct quote, mind you but the book sounds like this throughout.

I would call this a difficult read. I would suggest it for the English majors, those who are poetry minded, or those who want a better understanding, better translation after having read another, more understandable translation.

Enjoy.

The Speaker's Handbook!.......2007-06-06

What the Iliad REALLY is

By Chris Miller

It is rather unfortunate that very few people today really know what the Iliad is. Upon being asked, most readers would say that the Iliad is about the Trojan War, or about Achilles or about Hector and so on; some might say it is about war or the frailty of human existence. But the plethora of answers indicates that they have not hit upon the one thing that ties all of them together. The Iliad is about speechmaking. It was written at a time when speechmaking meant life and death to the peoples of Greece. Under the oligarchic systems in place in Athens, Sparta, Corinth and other major cities in Archaic Greece, one's skill in speaking in front of the courts, councils, foreign officials, high-ranking dignitaries, armies and even in the market place could spell the differences between death, war, confiscation, banishment, fines, payments, safety, survival and peace. This book filled a demand for a handbook of speechmaking, the speeches of the Ancient heroes of the great united Greek forces who defeated a seemingly undefeatable Asian foe. The tale being set very far back in time, and glorifying all the Greek cities, removed any political or nationalistic barriers to its reception anywhere in Greece. It could therefore display the orator's art to the full, pulling no punches (sometimes literally so!) because it ran no risk of offending anyone. About 50% of the Iliad is speeches, and the other 50% narrative but written in dramatic, emotive, rhetorical fashion. This is not to say that Homer intentionally created a textbook for speechmaking, but rather that his audience craved an epic full of brilliant speeches, since their lives were so involved with this art. The kind of exquisite rhetoric Homer provided his audience befitted the oratory they thought their glorious ancestors possessed, and it in due form became the model for their own speeches and remained so through the democratic period, through the Hellenistic kingdoms, through the Roman empire and even into the Middle Ages. It was the central text for study in Greek schools, and the raw material for speechwriting exercises there. Senators and Emperors read and reread it, even memorizing it. In our own day we seem to have forgotten the Iliad's purpose and have viewed it as a rousing tale of war and adventure; but to do so misses the point. It was not read as a pleasant novel for petty diversion but instead as a study in public speaking. It can safely be said that this text enshrined the democratic tendencies of the Archaic Greeks in the everyday life of the ancient Greek and Roman world, and set the stage for the dialectical development of thought, culture and even science. The Iliad established the debate as a socially acceptable and even necessary thing for arriving at correct ideas. The debate remains the hallmark of Western developments in all areas. This is really what the Iliad is all about and is why it is the central piece of our Western civilization.

Awkward translation.......2007-02-14

The major problem I have with this translation is the awkwardness of its language. There are long, unwieldy sentences with twisted syntax. Sometimes, the translation is obscure. For example: "...and the will of Zeus was accomplished/since that time when first there stood in divison of conflict..." Not every line is as bad as that, however. There are some passages that read fairly smoothly, and the last two lines of the fourth book stand out. The translation as a whole, however, mutilates the English language. There are better options if you would like to read the Iliad.

Excellent English Iliad.......2007-01-28

Richmond Lattimore's translation of The Iliad is the strongest, most resonant version I have yet read. It doesn't have the energy or the high poetry of the Fagles or Fitzgerald translations, but it is nevertheless the most moving and the most rewarding to read.

Lattimore's translation approximates as closely as possible what it would have been like to hear Homer speak for himself, in long, rhythmic lines that leisurely extol the story of Achilles's wrath. One feature that I found helpful was Lattimore's direct transliteration of Greek names into English, rather than using their Latin equivalents. Here, Achilles is Achilleus, Menelaus is Menelaos, Hephaestus is Hephaistos, and so forth. Printing the names so that they can be pronounced as they were in the original Greek helped in separating this reading of Homer from those I had experienced before. And unlike the Fitzgerald translation, these names are not encumbered with accent marks and other distracting apparatus.

Lattimore's introduction is also worthwhile. He spends a few pages examining each of the many major figures--Odysseus, Diomedes, Agamemnon, Paris, Hektor--as well as describing the cultural context of Homer's epic. And index of characters and where in the text they can be found makes this, along with the introduction, an excellent edition for students and beginners.

But the chief attraction is, of course, the story itself. As I said, this is neither the most energetic nor poetic of the English versions, but it is certainly the best and most faithful to the original. Despite having read The Iliad several times before, I found myself moved and excited again and again by the often poignant scenes of war that Homer presents.

If you only read one English version of The Iliad, make this it. Highly recommended.

The Best English Version.......2007-01-22

Aside from Pope's, which sadly is very difficult to locate, Lattimore's Iliad is the best English Iliad ever made for a number of reasons. First, Lattimore translates the poem line by line, so that, if you want to follow the Greek text, you'll be able to do so with much greater facility than, Fagles, for example, who translates in verse "paragraphs" rather than lines. In Lattimore's careful, graceful rendering of Homer's prosody lends the verse authenticity without ever slipping into the pedantic. The line-by-line approach, moreover, most faithfully carries Homer's rhetoric and pace.

Second, Lattimore preserves Homer's formulas. Where a series of lines appears describing some event or passing some message, Homer packages those lines and repeats them virtually verbatim when the subject comes up again. Thus, for example, Agamemnon's speech in which he "tests" the resolve of the Greeks to raze Troy (with unfortunate results), by falsely urging them to drop ship and flee, is repeated almost exactly later in the poem when Agamemmnon really means it (2: 110-141; 9: 17-28). Similarly, each major character has a set of adjectives and adjectival phrases describing the character ("brilliant", "swift-footed" Achilles; Hector "of the shining helm" the "flowing-haired" Achaens, the "deep-benched" ships, etc.) These formulas accompany the characters and objects throughout the poem. Lattimore observes these formulas. (Fagles does too, frequently but not consistently. Fitzgerald generally does not.)

Third, Lattimore's rendering of the dactylic hexameter characteristic of Homer's verse, is amazing, at times bordering on the miraculous. Dactylic meters are generally awkward in English ("higgledy piggledy"). The virtousity, ease and fluidity that Lattimore acheives is something I wouldn't have believed possible before reading it here.

Because Lattimore tries throughout to translate what Homer said, rather than what one wishes he said (see Lattimore's introduction), the English verse is supple and aptly conveys what "makes it great." Moreover, the emotional and dramatic contexts are reliable. The butchering and slaughtering are immediate and terrible; the teeth-chattering fear of the heroes in the face of certain destruction prepares the many remarkable instances when a hero will flee rather than fight; the poignancy of Hector's grim certainty of his fate (as expressed in the famous scene in Book 6 where he "lets go" his heart's dearest treasure because he knows it is his destiny to do so) is dark and heartwrenching. Consider the famous speech of Achilles to Lycaon in Book 21, before Achilles cuts him down with a single stroke of his sword: After acknowledging that in a previous encounter, Achilles agreed to spare Lycaon and sell him into slavery instead, Achilles addresses Lycaon stoically, even calling Lycaon his "friend" before butchering him. Reminding Lycaon that that was then and this is now, Achilles points out that no one can survive his rage over Patroclus' death. "So, friend, you die also. Why all this clamor about it?/ Patroklos also is dead, who was far better than you are./ Do you not see what a man I am, so huge, so splendid/ and born of a great father, and the mother who bore me immortal?/ Yet even I have also my death and my strong destiny,/ and there shall be a dawn or an afternoon or a noontime/when some man in the fighting will take the life of me also,/ either with a spearcast or an arrow flown from the bowstring...." This speech is as moving and strange in English as it is in Greek. Nobody touches Lattimore in lyricism and profundity of diction in passages like this.

These are just a few of the many qualities that put Lattimore at the top of Homer's modern English translators. It is impossible to overstate the virtuosity of Lattimore's line. I hate comparisons of apples and oranges, even where they improbably fall from the same tree. That said, if I could only have one translation, it would be Lattimore's. Fagles' is very fine, and both reveal aspects of Homer's genius with a brilliance unknown before their separate appearances. Lattimore, however, renders the poem's diction, style and thematic exposition more closely than Fagles, and since Homer's poem iw what we want to read when we read it in English, this is the bottom line. (Fitzgerald doesn't compare.) But since we live in times of unprecedented abundance, I don't have to make that choice.

My only quibble: Lattimore tries, inconsistently, to transliterate names more "accurately," than in most versions. Thus, Achilles is "Achilleus;" Ajax is "Aias." Admirable sentiment. Awkward for the verse. I ignore it and "hear" the received versions when I'm reading Lattimore.

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The Persian Wars

The Persian Wars
Herodotus
Manufacturer: Audio Connoisseur
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD

Greece | Ancient | History | Subjects | Books

General | Military | History | Subjects | Books

Nonfiction | Books on CD | Audiobooks | Formats | Books

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Similar Items:

The Peloponnesian War
The History of the Peloponnesian War: Revised Edition (Penguin Classics)
Archaic Times to the End of the Peloponnesian War (Translated Documents of Greece and Rome)
Aristotle and Xenophon on Democracy and Oligarchy
The Age of Alexander: Nine Greek Lives (Penguin Classics, L286)

ASIN: 1929718179

Book Description

2 Volumes on 2 MP3-CDs, Unabridged, With Music and Sound Effects, Running Time: 29 hours THE PERSIAN WARS is unquestionably one of the world's greatest works of literature. But what, precisely, is it? The Persian Wars is part history, part geography, part travelogue, part anthropology...and completely entertaining. It possesses a charm that is legendary. With Herodotus we experience the impact of that great intellectual, moral, and ethical force that set the Greeks apart from the rest of the Ancient World. Herodotus has succeeded for all time in brilliantly expressing the conflict between the ideal of the free man and that of the despot - a magnificent epic of human triumph over the forces of tyranny, of the struggle over two diametrically opposed concepts of government...between which man must still choose today.

Contents of Volume I: The first four books of The Persian Wars serve as an introduction to the actual conflict itself. In this leisurely unwinding of events, people, and places in Volume I, Herodotus provides the listener with a fascinating glimpse of the Ancient World. It is a marvelous journey into an exotic time filled with strange and savage tribes, beautiful cities and monuments, and - as always - borne along on that inimitable charm that is unique to Herodotus.

Contents of Volume II: Starting with Book Five, Volume II of The Persian Wars enters directly into the intrigues between the Greeks and Persians. Darius, infuriated with Athens because of her support for the liberation of the Ionian Greeks, initiates the first invasion of Greece, which ends with the Athenian victory at Marathon in 490 B.C. When Xerxes ascends the Persian throne a few years later, the war is resumed on a vastly greater scale. In some of the most wonderful prose of all time, Herodotus describes the events culminating in the naval battle of Salamis and the clash of armies at Plataea.

Customer Reviews:

The Persian Wars.......2006-08-18

Not being an expert in translations from ancient Greek to English, I can only comment that I got what I wanted out of the MP3 CD. To learn about the Persian Wars. The narrator is easy to understand, and made a worthwhile presentation.

Average customer rating:

The Athenians Win The Paper War Again
A wonderful history, plus lessons for our own time
THE Guide to the Peloponnesian War
Nice, not exceptional
Hellenic version of World War....

The Peloponnesian War
Donald Kagan
Manufacturer: Viking Adult
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Greece | Ancient | History | Subjects | Books

General | Military | History | Subjects | Books

A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War
The Spartans: The World of the Warrior-Heroes of Ancient Greece
Pericles Of Athens And The Birth Of Democracy
The Greco-Persian Wars
Ancient Greece: From Prehistoric to Hellenistic Times (Yale Nota Bene)

ASIN: 0670032115
Release Date: 2003-05-08

Book Description

For almost three decades at the end of the fifth century B.C., Athens and Sparta fought a war that changed the Greek world and its civilization forever. A conflict unprecedented in its brutality, the Peloponnesian War brought a collapse in the institutions, beliefs, and customs that were the foundations of society. Today, scholars in fields ranging from international relations and political and military history to political philosophy continue to study the war for its timeless relevance to the history of our own time.

Now Donald Kagan, classical scholar and historian of international relations, ancient and modern, presents a sweeping new narrative of this epic contest that captures all its drama, action, and tragedy. In describing the rise and fall of a great empire he examines the clash between two disparate societies, the interplay of intelligence and chance in human affairs, the role of great human beings in determining the course of events, and the challenge of leadership and the limits in which it must operate. The result is an engrossing, fresh perspective on a key historical event that will be welcomed by general readers and history buffs alike-and anyone seeking a better understanding of the pivotal events that shaped the world as we know it.

Customer Reviews:

The Athenians Win The Paper War Again.......2007-03-16

Donald Kagan is an acknowledged master-historian of the Peloponnesian War, the great struggle between Athens on one side and Lacedaemon (led by Sparta) and Boeotia (led by Thebes) on the other. The war lasted 29 years (counting only the direct involvement of Athens) and in many ways has the same status for classical Greece that WW2 has for modern history - the world (meaning the Eastern Mediterranean, for the earlier conflict) was never the same afterwards. Kagan has written the currently definitive four-volume scholarly history; this is the lightweight version for general readers - the main text is a mere 490 pages. I bought it hoping to get a fresh slant on a subject I first touched about 45 years ago. That was perhaps optimistic; this is a field that has been ploughed over by historians for over 2,400 years, starting even before the dust had settled on the battlefields. In short, I was disappointed; there is little here that one could not have got from Grote a hundred and fifty years ago (he was a little before my time, but we had him in the school library). To be fair, the material is comprehensive (at that length it ought to be) and lucidly presented; anyone simply wanting a narrative in one volume and modern English could hardly do better.

What it does not do is challenge in any way the long-standing presupposition that, overall, the Athenians were the White Hats and the Lacedaemonians and Boeotians were the Baddies. This bias goes all the way back to the time of the War itself, and stems fundamentally from the fact that Athens had all the best writers - indeed, nearly all the writers, full stop. Above all, Athens had Thucydides, an only moderately successful general but a historian of genius and a participant in the events, on whom all subsequent generations (Kagan included) have drawn greedily. It is in some ways a satisfactory irony that, even once, history was written by the defeated, but that is not necessarily preferable to having it written by the victors, as the ongoing controversy over Japanese history of WW2 demonstrates. What is surprising, though, is that even at this late date western historians should buy wholesale into the Athenian version. We graduates of the 20th century should have learned a little scepticism by now, for the claim of Athens to be the fount of freedom really does look a little thin on dispassionate examination. There's the matter of democracy, for example. To be sure, Athens was one of the most democratic states in Greece, which means probably in the world - but the claim rests on an enfranchised percentage that was about the same as apartheid South Africa's, and with about as much benevolence towards the under-classes. That probably looked excitingly radical to many 18th- and even 19th-century westerners (the ones who really fell in love with the Athens thing), but I believe we can set the bar a little higher these days. That was Athens at home; Athens abroad looks a lot worse. The USA has been much vilified since 1945, often with justice, but it never tried to convert NATO into a tribute-paying empire, nor did it nuke, say, Finland for refusing to sign up. The Athenians did the exact parallel of both these things when they turned the Delian League into a hegemony (using their former allies' taxes to aggrandise and beautify their own city) and massacred and enslaved the Melians when they declined to contribute. Alongside that, the Athenians' catastrophic adventurism in Sicily and their judicial murder of their own (victorious) generals after Arginusae are almost peccadillos.

Kagan does not pull any punches when describing Athenian actions, but he still resolutely refuses to draw any new conclusions (in this book, at least) about the nature of the Athenian state or the Athenians' view of, and actions towards, their fellow Greeks. I guess it's too late (by a couple of millennia) to hope for the discovery of writings from Sparta or Thebes that would tell the story from the other side, far less from any of the smaller states that were trampled as the elephants fought. I believe, though, that the time is over-ripe to critically review the notion that the Athenians were the Greeks par excellence, and that their downfall merits a furtive (or any) tear. They had it coming.

A wonderful history, plus lessons for our own time.......2006-11-16

Donald Kagan has taken 2500-year-old accounts written by Thucydides and others and produced a book that succeeds on two levels. First, it provides an excellent if slightly dry history of the war that led to the collapse of the Athenian empire. We learned a lot about Athens in school, and in Western world we view it as the birthplace of democracy. Kagan explains why Athens and Sparta went to war and stayed at war long past the point of exhaustion. He also explains how the various Greek cities grasped for power when the two Greek superpowers locked horns. He even manages to explain the budget issues facing Athens -- as in how many talents of silver it took to keep a war galley at sea for a year.

We also learn a great deal about how Sparta and other Greek cities worked, and how they managed to stumble into a 10-year conflict that emptied Athens' treasury. The history is written in a very matter-of-fact style that some make think is a too dry, but adding emotion to a 2500-year-old story would seem artificial to me.

The book succeeds in a second valuable way. It explains diplomacy as few historians do, largely by example. Kagan provides explanations for each of the major decisions made by the cities of Greece during (and before) the war. Countries don't always behave logically, and the logic that does exist in often hidden from an outsider's view. In the process of explaining what Athens and Sparta did, Kagan illustrates the mechanism by which decisions were arrived at. In the process and without mentioning it himself, he tells us a great deal about how foreign policy is arrived at today.

Democracy is supposed to work better than any other form of government, and it probably does. So it's not particularly reassuring to see that an ancient proto-democracy blundered so many times because of the influence of individual leaders with their own agendas. But it sure is educational.

So... read it for the history of ancient Greece, and come away with a better understanding of our own times.

THE Guide to the Peloponnesian War.......2006-10-31

Kagan has written a concise easy to read history of the Peloponnesian War. While I decided not to read Kagan's 4 volume History I don't in away way feel confused about any part of the war. The book reads like a good fiction novel where you just keep on reading to find out what happens next. Every character is this true to life drama is given in detail but not so much that is slows the book down, or so little to leave the reader wanting more. Anyone who wants a better understanding of this turbulent history of the Ancient Greeks needs to read this book. The major themes of this book and of this civil war still ring true today and will into the future.

Anyone considering reading Tides of War By Steven Pressfield take note, this is REQUIRED reading before you read Pressfield's book.

Nice, not exceptional.......2006-08-06

I had high hopes for Donald Kagan's history of the Peloponnesian War. My anticipation was fueled by my interest in the topic, the author's reputation and the reviews written by other readers. Unfortunately, the last two points failed me.

Professor Kagan does a nice job moving through the events leading to the war and the chronology of the war. What frustrated me was the uneven analysis, from excellent (the Peace of Nicias) to trite (the irrationality of Pericles' entering the war based honor instead of reason - Kagan treats these as if they are wholly separate; bad philosophy from the good professor) in topics that he is the expert.

Overall, I have found other books on similar topics (ie. J.F.C. Fuller's "Alexander the Great") more interesting and informative.

Hellenic version of World War...........2005-12-28

I have read Donald Kagan's previous four volume book set on the Peloponnesian War which set the standard of that war for many years to come. So when I read his one volume book on the subject, I did wondered what more can I get.

This one book treatment of the Peloponnesian War proves to be superbly well written for almost any reader. Unlike his four volume series which was academically rich and complex, this one book treatment scaled down the narrative into an easy to read, easy to understand and yet complete enough to make any reader understand what, how and why of the Peloponnesian War. Added by nice maps, almost anyone can tackle this book and come out wiser on the subject. The author's ability to reduced the complex nature of this conflict into an easier format is a clear example of his knowledge and total command of the subject matter.

This book come highly recommended for anyone who have an initial interest on the matter and even for experienced readers as well.

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An epic translation
Great in print, even better on CD
Kudos for Lombardo
Lombardo's Defense
Effortless Homer

Iliad
Homer
Manufacturer: Hackett Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Similar Items:

Odyssey
Aeneid
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Works and Days and Theogony
On Justice, Power, and Human Nature: The Essence of Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War

ASIN: 0872203530

Amazon.com

So great is the impact of ancient Greek literature on Western culture that even people who have never read Homer's Iliad or The Odyssey know a lot about them. The Trojan Horse, Achilles' heel, the Sirens' call, Scylla and Charybdis--all have entered popular mythology, becoming metaphors for the less heroic situations we face in our own lives. Ever since these oral poems were committed to paper (probably in the 8th century B.C.E.), people have been translating them. The version of Iliad translated by Stanley Lombardo is a brave departure from previous translations; Lombardo attempts to adapt the text to the needs of readers rather than the listeners for whom the work was originally intended. To this end, he has streamlined the poem, removing many of the stock repetitions such as the infamous "rosy-fingered dawn," or rewriting them in ways dependent on their context. What emerges is a vivid, lively rendition of one of the world's great stories of men and war.

But classicists, beware: This Iliad has something of a '90s sensibility, from the cover art (a photograph of the D-Day Normandy landing) to Achilles' Rambo-like diction. It might well outrage the purists, but for those who remember their musty high-school reading of Homer's great epic with a barely suppressed yawn, Lombardo's energetic translation is just the version to change their minds.

Customer Reviews:

An epic translation.......2007-05-22

"Sprung out of bitterness, the philosophy of the Iliad excludes resentment." Thus Rachel Bespaloff, stating the seemingly impossible. Years ago I read the Iliad in Fitzgerald's fine translation, but every page had the heavy cadence of a "classic." Now I'm reading Fagles' and Lombardo's translations back to back, and am surprised how much I'm enjoying the poem. I don't dispute those who judge Fagles the superior translator, but for me the Lombardo version is far more stirring.

Consider the opening lines. Fagles translates:

Rage--Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles,
murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,
hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,
great fighters' souls, but made their bodies carrion,
feasts for the dogs and birds,
and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end.

Lombardo captures the rage and waste in way Fagles does not:

Rage:
Sing, Goddess, Achilles' rage,
Black and murderous, that cost the Greeks
Incalculable pain, pitched countless souls
Of heroes into Hades' dark,
And left their bodies to rot as feasts
For dogs and birds, as Zeus' will was done.

This is bitterness on the edge of blasphemy. It sounds like the war we're reading about every morning, where soldiers' bodies are blown to shreds and the bloody will of God is invoked by each side. Lombardo also brings an unexpected poetry to the brutality of the poem, reminding me of the best of Logue's ongoing masterpiece. For example, in Book 6, Hector returns to Troy for a rushed moment and is met by the wives of men dying on the plain.

He told them all,
Each woman in turn, to pray to the gods.
Sorrow clung to their heads like mist.

Again, more bitterness -- the gods regard the heroes as little more than chess pieces to be sacrificed in the course of their game. The final line evokes not only grief but the blind futility of faith. (Fagles translates the line, inertly, as "Hard sorrows were hanging over many.")

Whether this is your first go at the Iliad or if you're ready to re-read it, I recommend Lombardo's performance version, with its "heroes more godlike than the gods, and more human than men." (Bespaloff again -- from her essay "On the Iliad." NYRB recently republished it, along with Simone Weil's magnificent "The Iliad, or the Poem of Force" under the title "War and the Iliad," a slim volume which page for page beats any commentary on the Iliad I've ever read.)

Great in print, even better on CD.......2006-11-25

What a treat!

First of all, when the Iliad is inflicted on kids in school, this is the translation that should be used. It is hands down the most accessible translation I have ever seen. Nice introduction, too.

But more to the point, do not buy this book at all in hard copy form. Instead, search Amazon & you will find a marvelous reading on cd by Stanley Lombardo. On the cd, each "book" of the Iliad is prefaced with a brief summary of what you are about to hear. And then, with a minimalist bit of drums & fiddle, Lombardo delivers one of the best readings of anything I have heard. When your kid has to read the Iliad for class, let him download the cd onto his iPod or other mp3 player. Tell him to listen while he walks the dog.

I confess that I bought both the cd & the book. And after listening to it, I bought Lombardo's cd & book of the Odyssey. I am just a few books into the Odyssey, and I am already annoyed that Lombardo does not seem to have a reading of his translation of the Aeneid. (Get on with it, will you, Stan?)

Check out Jacket Magazine number 21 on the internet for an interview by Michael Leddy of Lombardo concerning his translations. And for a real treat, look for Wired For Books on the internet. They have some mp3 files of Lombardo reading the Iliad in Greek. Even if you don't know Greek, listening can give you a sense of the rhythm and fluidity of the original.

Kudos for Lombardo.......2006-09-13

The Lombardo translation of the Iliad has made this awesome epic much more accessible to me with its use of colloquial modern English, though he doesn't overdo it. Earlier translations have put me to sleep, Lombardo keeps me awake and turning pages. Occasionally he goes a bit overboard with colloquialisms - his use of the word "bitch" I found somewhat jarring yet forgivable. Lombardo claims his translation is poetry, with which I would take mild exception. His translation, true enough, is typeset in verse fashion, but there is no sense of traditional verse to it. Hence I find it reads more like prose than poetry, but I don't fault it for that. I understand Lombardo has given public recitations of his translation. Perhaps if I heard him declaiming it aloud I would revise my opinion. In fact, knowing he has done so has expanded my appreciation of his translation: it is meant to be recited, not just silently read. Useful are his appendices, which catalog the principal and many minor actors in the epic with brief life-stories, and which offer a guide to pronouncing the names (I was amazed at how many names I have heard mispronounced!). There is also an appendix of major speeches. All in all this is a great book. I am reading it side by side with the Chapman translation and each one complements the other.

Lombardo's Defense.......2006-07-26

Those critics who consider Lombardo's translation anti-Classical (or even "low-brow" and "simplistic") would do well to read Lombardo's own explanation:
------
[Taken from an interview in 2002 between Mr. Lombardo and Michael Leddy]

Leddy: Your Iliad and Odyssey have met with great praise from classicists. But they're also `controversial' -- a characterization that seems to come only from Greekless readers. What expectations are such readers bringing to Homer?

Lombardo: That because it's a classical work, it should sound like Elizabethan English, or at least have some element of archaic diction -- I think those are the expectations. I suspect that these expectations come, ultimately, from the King James Version of the Bible, and from Shakespeare. If Milton were read more, I would blame Milton.

I don't know of any classicist who has said anything negative about my translations. [...] I think you're right, that it's Greekless readers who see them as controversial. Their only basis for comparison is other translations, which except for Fitzgerald and maybe T.E. Shaw, do have some of that archaic quality. So they think that must be the way Homer is. But for Homer's audience, there's no doubt that the poetry was an immediate, direct, vital experience, or it wouldn't have survived, much less had the reputation that it had.
------

As has been frequently repeated in these reviews, literature does not exist to be archaic, boring, and alien. Instead, great literature has power because of its relevance and impact on the reader. In this regard Lombardo has succeeded.

Again, in Lombardo's own words:
"One could argue that Homer's poetic dialect is artificial, and that therefore we should use an artificial dialect in translating. But Homer goes the other way around: he takes a poetic dialect and makes it into natural speech. In my translations I take natural speech and make it into poetry. The processes mirror each other."

Effortless Homer.......2005-10-04

Having become immersed in Greek History over the past few months, reading Herodotus and then Thucidydes, I realized that I really needed to read Homer to have a better understanding of Greek thought. It was not something I looked forward to, however. Generally, long poems leave me very cold and are very difficult to enjoy. (I was an English major and an inveterate reader, so difficulty doesn't phase me, just obscurity!)

Lombardo achieves what I would have thought impossible. Producing a translation of Homer, that while straightforward, still soars to poetic heights. The deeper you read into the work, the better it gets. With no footnotes to bog you down, and very few unfamiliar words at all for anyone with a basic knowledge of Greek history, Lombardo's Iliad reads like a modern thriller. You simply cannot put it down.

Lombardo performed his version live for many years before publishing this translation, and I have to feel that reading his version may be as close as one can come to what Homer's original listeners felt. I feel like a new world has been opened to me, and filled with light so that I can understand it.

The great thing is that this is a work that will bear re-reading. I already have copies of some of the older translations, which now that I am familiar with the story, will no doubt feel less obscure and reveal their own rewards. It should be a great experience to re-read a great work, but see it from different translators' points of view.

Now I'm on to Lombardo's Odyssey and Aeneid.

International Relations in Political Thought: Texts from the Ancient Greeks to the First World War

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International Relations in Political Thought: Texts from the Ancient Greeks to the First World War

Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0521575702

Book Description

This unique collection presents texts in international relations that range from Ancient Greece to the First World War. It is the largest anthology currently available and includes extracts from works by fifty thinkers, including Thucydides, Augustine, Aquinas, Machiavelli, and John Stuart Mill. The texts are organized into broadly chronological sections, each headed by an introduction placing the work in its historical and philosophical context. Ideal for students and scholars, the volume also includes biographies and guides to further reading.

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