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Short, informative chapters cover subjects as diverse as the Greek alphabet, the Olympic Games, Minoan, Mycenae and Homeric Greece, the Oracle of Delfi, the lyric poetry of Lesbos, Greek philosophy, the Persian wars, Greek philosophy and theatre, Alexander the Great, Pergamon, Hellenistic art, the Etruscans, Roman dress the Punic wars, the rise of Julius Caesar, women in the Roman empire, the generalship of Pompey, Roman portraiture, Roman roads and glassware the army and Fort childhood, dining, mystery cults, the city of Constantine, Ravenna, and many other subjects. This book stands out among the many histories of Ancient Greece and Rome for its highly readable style and confident understanding of the larger picture as civilisations rise and fall, communities migrate and potentates wheel, deal and stab each other in the back. The Palace culture of the Minoans, centred round Knossos, operated through local administrative and trading centres, and their original language, linear A, has yet to be deciphered. The palace gave way around the 8th century to the city state, whose most famous example Athens was a democracy. In the 4th century, Macedonia under Alexander the Great emerged as dominant, absorbing distant lands such as Afghanistan into a vast empire. Meanwhile in central Italy a very different civilisation was emerging, influenced by Greek culture and institutions but military and aggressively expansionist, and finally collapsing under the pressure of peoples from beyond the empire. The author covers Rome's ambitious public works including monuments, aqueducts and sewers, a sophisticated road network, as well as the personal stories of the line of emperors that started with Augustus, who was granted extraordinary powers following the assassination of Julius Caesar. His successors included megalomaniacs like Nero and Caligula, expansionists such as Trajan, and intelligent realists like Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius. 303pp, paperback, photos.