Ancient

Minimus Pupil's Book: Starting out in Latin (Minimus)

This elementary Latin course for 7-10 year olds combines a basic introduction to the Latin language with material on the history and culture of Roman Britain. Highly illustrated, the book contains a mixture of stories and myths, grammar explanations and exercises, and background cultural information. Pupils are drawn into the material as they read about the lives of a family living in a community at Vindolanda; the adventures of the children and the family cat and mouse provide interest throughout. As well as offering a lively introduction to Latin and classical studies, Minimus also has cross-curricular relevance. The material on the community at Vindolanda can be used to supplement studies of the Romans at KS2. The grammatical content helps to develop language awareness, and provides a solid foundation from which learners can progress to further English or foreign language studies. The Teacher's Resource Book provides support, particularly for non-Classicists. It includes teaching guidelines, English translations of the Latin passages, and additional background information, plus photocopiable worksheets.

A lively introduction to Latin for children aged 7 and over.

Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Penguin Classics)

The History of the Kings of Britain (Penguin Classics)

"The History of the Kings of Britain" is a mythical hiistorical account of British history, written around 1136 by Geoffrey of Monmouth. It chronicles the lives of the kings of the Britons in a chronological narrative spanning a time of two thousand years, beginning with the Trojans of Homer's Iliad founding the British nation and continuing until the Anglo-Saxons assumed control of Britain around the 7th century.

Very intertaining and believed to be the source of at least two Shakespeare plays, "King Lear" and "Cymbeline." There is also an account of Julius Caesar's invasion of Britain. And the story of Merlin and King Arthur.

Wars of the Irish Kings: A Thousand Years of Struggle, from the Age of Myth through the Reign of Queen Elizabeth I

For the first thousand years of its history, Ireland was shaped by its wars. Beginning with the legends of ancient battles and warriors, Wars of the Irish Kings moves through a time when history and storytelling were equally prized, into the age when history was as much propaganda as fact. This remarkable book tells of tribal battles, foreign invasions, Viking raids, family feuds, wars between rival Irish kingdoms, and wars of rebellion against the English. While the battles formed the legends of the land, it was the people fighting the battles—Cuchulain, Finn MacCool, Brian Boru, Robert the Bruce, Elizabeth I, and Hugh O’Donnell—who shaped the destiny and identity of the Irish nation.

This is the real story of how Ireland came to be, told through eyewitness accounts from a thousand years of struggle, brought together for the first time in one volume. It’s a surprisingly immediate and stunning portrait of an all-but-forgotten time that forged the Ireland of today.

The Lantern Bearers

The Gallic War (Oxford World's Classics)

The Gallic War, published on the eve of the civil war which led to the end of the Roman Republic, is an autobiographical account written by one of the most famous figures of European history. This new translation reflects the purity of Caesar's Latin while preserving the pace and flow of his momentous narrative of the conquest of Gaul and the first Roman invasions of Britain and Germany. Detailed notes, maps, a table of dates, and glossary make this the most useful edition available.

The Silver Branch

The Making of England to 1399 (History of England, vol. 1)

This text, which is the first volume in the best-selling History of England series, tells how a small and insignificant outpost of the Roman empire evolved into a nation that has produced and disseminated so many significant ideas and institutions.

Solving Stonehenge: The Key to an Ancient Enigma

A completely new and convincing solution to the key puzzles of Stonehenge.

As Anthony Johnson reveals in this astonishing book, patient detective work and detailed computer analysis of clues hidden within this famous monument can be made to yield remarkable new insights into how the earthwork and stone circle were conceived and laid out.

The story begins with a reappraisal of over 250 years of fieldwork, excavation, and speculation, including John Wood's highly accurate but often overlooked survey of 1740. It is the most important record of Stonehenge ever made, and the only reliable plan of the monumentbefore the fall of several major stones and their subsequent re-erection in the twentieth century.

The prehistoric engineering skills involved in the construction of Stonehenge have long been recognized, but Johnson presents for the first time tangible evidence to show that locked within the symmetry of the stones are precise formulae that determined their numbers, spacing, and relationships. He explains how the Neolithic surveyors set out the fifty-six Aubrey Holes, four Station Stones, and the thirty stones in the Sarsen Circle; and the significance of the horseshoe arrangement of massive trilithons at the heart of the monument. The implications are far reaching, demonstrating that the people who designed Stonehenge in all its phases of construction, spanning over 1,000 years, employed simple and elegant geometric rules.

Elaborate sightline theories, alignments, and astronomical computations are questioned, allowing the rationale behind Stonehenge and other prehistoric sites, some of which conformed to the same model, to be reassessed. 135 illustrations, 35 in color.

The Anglo-Saxons (Penguin History)