Published in hardback and trade paperback in Great Britain in 2012 by Atlantic Books, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.
Copyright Selina OGrady, 2012.
The moral right of Selina OGrady to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Hardback ISBN: 978 1 84354 696 2
Trade paperback ISBN: 978 1 84887 430 5
eISBN: 978 0 85789 876 0
Printed in Great Britain.
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Acknowledgements
Thanks to my ebullient and constantly helpful agent, Ivan Mulcahy; to Toby Mundy, who got me thinking about this book; to all those who read and commented Claudia Fitzherbert, Daniel Jeffreys, Lucy Lethbridge, Kathy OShaughnessy, Graeme and Terrence Mitchison and Oliver Ramsbotham; to my academic readers Dr Lindsay Allen, Nell Aubrey, Professor Timothy Barrett, Dr Tadeusz Skorupski, and William Fitzgerald who saved me from at least some of the oversimplifications which drives experts mad; to Rebecca Fraser, Anthony Grayling and Malise Ruthven for their incredibly generous comments; to my brother Jeremy for his titles and masterly editorial eye; to my ever-supportive sister Jane; to Caroline Law; to my daughters; to Richard Milbank for being a learned and wonderful editor; to Sarah Norman and Margaret Stead, who were my editors for all too short a time; to my copyeditor Helen Gray; and above all, to Tony Curzon Price.
Illustrations
Frontispiece: Isis and Horus. Wellcome Library, London
1. Apollonius. 2006 Alinari / TopFoto
2. Livia. Giovanni DallOrto / Wikimedia Commons
3. House in Marib. Prisma Bildagentur AG / Alamy
4. Maecenas. 2006 Alinari / TopFoto
5. Agrippa. akg-images
6. Tiberius. akg-images
7. Josephus. akg-images
8. The Kiosk at Naqa. Nigel Pavitt/JAI/Corbis
9. Suren. Aytakin / Wikimedia Commons
10. Banqueters, Palmyra. Lessing Photo Archive
11. Temple of Bel. De Agostini / Getty
12. Kushan prince. akg-images / RIA Novosti
13. King Juba. De Agostini / Getty
14. St Paul. Leemage / Getty
15. Coin of Varus. INTERFOTO / Sammlung Rauch / Mary Evans
16. Coin of Gondophares. World Imaging / Wikimedia Commons
17. Antonia fortress. deror avi / Wikimedia Commons
18. Augustus. Alinari via Getty Images
19. Seated Buddha. akg-images
20. Queen Mother of the West. The Granger Collection / TopFoto
Timeline
Note: Many of these dates are approximate
BC
15001000 Aryan (Indo-Iranian) tribesmen from the steppes of southern Russia move into the Indus Valley in present-day Pakistan and north-west India and begin to compile the hymns of the Rig Veda, the oldest sacred text of Hinduism
1200 The Aryan priest Zoroaster has a vision of the first supreme god Ahura Mazda and begins preaching in ancient Iran
1070 Egypt loses control of Meroe present-day southern Egypt and Sudan and it becomes an independent kingdom
1070AD 350 EMPIRE OF MEROE
Legendary date for the founding of the city of Rome by Romulus and Remus
744609 Assyrian (NEO-ASSYRIAN) EMPIRE
Originally a kingdom of northern Mesopotamia modern-day northern Iraq Assyria acquires a vast territory and has its capital at Nineveh on the banks of the Tigris River
Meroite King Pye invades Egypt and founds the twenty-fifth dynasty of pharaohs which rules Egypt 727653
727653 Twenty-fifth dynasty of Egypt
Assyria conquers northern Israel and Jews are deported
Construction of Marib Dam in South Arabia
Towards the end of the 7th century Rome becomes an organized city-state
The kingdom of Babylonia in southern Mesopotamia part of modern Iraq defeats Assyria
626539 BABYLONIAN (NEO-BABYLONIAN) EMPIRE
587537 Captivity of the Jews in the city of Babylon near present-day Baghdad under Nebuchadnezzar
Babylonia conquers southern Israel (the kingdom of Judah)
563483 The life of Siddhrtha Gautama, the Buddha
558479 The life of Confucius
Babylonian (Neo-Babylonian) Empire falls to the Persian King Cyrus
540331 PERSIAN (ACHAEMENID) EMPIRE
Cyrus allows the Jews to return home
The last king of Rome is expelled; Etruscan rule ends and the Republic is established at Rome
51027 Roman Republic
497425 Vardhamana Mahavira, the son of a chieftain in the Indian kingdom of Magadha, in north-east India, establishes the central tenets of Jainism
Rome begins its conquest of Italy
341270 Life of Epicurus, founder of Epicureanism
335263 Life of Zeno, founder of Stoicism
334328 Alexander of Macedonia defeats Darius and conquers the Persian Empire
334328 EMPIRE OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT
At Alexanders death his general Seleucus inherits the eastern part of the Persian Empire
312204 SELEUCID EMPIRE
Chandragupta Maurya founds Indias first and greatest empire; his chief minister Kautilya writes the Arthashastra
321185 BC MAURYAN EMPIRE
269232 Reign of Ashoka Maurya, first Buddhist emperor of the Indian subcontinent
The first of the Punic Wars between Carthage in present-day Tunisia and Rome; Romes conquest of Sicily signals the beginning of its imperial expansion beyond the borders of peninsular Italy