Sarpedon

Seutonius' "Lives of the Caesars" is a classic, and very readable.

Julian

Although both volumes are excellent, the first one addresses much of the time and area you specified:

HISTORY, CULTURE, AND RELIGION OF THE HELLENISTIC AGE [Introduction to the New Testament, Vol. I.] by Helmut Koester (or via: amazon.co.uk)

The second volume deals specifically with christianity in that same period and area.

Julian

Clivedurdle

Barbarians and Persian Fire!

spin

I'll second the suggestion for the Cambridge Ancient History, but it ain't that easily accessible, so let me try a few others. It's hard these days to get books with a wide enough lens.

• Nicholas Grimal, A History of Ancient Egypt, Blackwell
• Donald Redford, Egypt,Canaan and Israel in Ancient Times, Princeton
• HH Scullard, From the Gracchi to Nero, Routledge (great for understanding what happened to make Rome from the start of the social struggle to the end of the first principate)
• JB Bury, A History of Greece (to the Age of Alexander), (very old, but venerable)
• Leo Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia, U. Chicago (old)
• Polybius (for Greece and Rome after Bury) (even older)

Julian's suggest of Koester is good, though one could also look for Elias Bickerman or Tcherikower for a more historical rather than literary cultural analysis. There's also E.M.Smallwood "The Jews under Roman Rule", Brill.

The Roman provinces are hardly done by. One shudders to think of Gibbon. :frown: It's not good to palm the gamut of Mesopotamia off to Oppenheim, and I don't think it's a wonderful book, but Mesopotamia is not really given much interest in English speaking countries to warrant the maintenance of a more recent more meaty job.


spin