The Plague of War: Athens, Sparta, and the Struggle for Ancient Greece
Ancient Warfare and Civilization Series
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Narrated by:
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Anne Flosnik
About this listen
In 431 BC, the long simmering rivalry between the city-states of Athens and Sparta erupted into open warfare, and for more than a generation the two were locked in a life-and-death struggle. The war embroiled the entire Greek world, provoking years of butchery previously unparalleled in ancient Greece. Whole cities were exterminated, their men killed, their women and children enslaved. While the war is commonly believed to have ended with the capture of the Athenian navy in 405 and the subsequent starvation of Athens, fighting in Greece would continue for several decades. The war did not truly end until, in 371, Thebes' crack infantry resoundingly defeated Sparta at Leuctra.
Jennifer Roberts' rich narrative of this famous conflict is the first general history to tell the whole story, from the war's origins down to Sparta's defeat at Leuctra. In her masterful account, this long and bloody war affected every area of life in Athens, exacerbated divisions between rich and poor in Sparta, and sparked civil strife throughout the Greek world. Yet despite the biting sorrows the fighting occasioned, it remains a gripping saga of plots and counter-plots, murders and lies, missed opportunities and last-minute reprieves, and, as the war's first historian Thucydides had hoped, lessons for a less bellicose future.
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When the Jews revolted against Rome in 66 CE, Josephus, a Jerusalem aristocrat, was made a general in his nation’s army. Captured by the Romans, he saved his skin by finding favor with the emperor Vespasian. He then served as an adviser to the Roman legions, running a network of spies inside Jerusalem, in the belief that the Jews’ only hope of survival lay in surrender to Rome.
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A retelling of Josephus's "The Jewish War"
- By DAG on 10-09-16
By: Desmond Seward
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The Rise of Rome
- The Making of the World's Greatest Empire
- By: Anthony Everitt
- Narrated by: Clive Chafer
- Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Emerging as a market town from a cluster of hill villages in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C., Rome grew to become the ancient world's preeminent power. Everitt fashions the story of Rome's rise to glory into an erudite book filled with lasting lessons for our time. He chronicles the clash between patricians and plebeians that defined the politics of the Republic. He shows how Rome's shrewd strategy of offering citizenship to her defeated subjects was instrumental in expanding the reach of her burgeoning empire.
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Rome from the fall of Troy through Julius Caesar
- By Mike From Mesa on 12-11-12
By: Anthony Everitt
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Carthage Must Be Destroyed
- The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Civilization
- By: Richard Miles
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 14 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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An epic history of a doomed civilization and a lost empire. The devastating struggle to the death between the Carthaginians and the Romans was one of the defining dramas of the ancient world. In an epic series of land and sea battles, both sides came close to victory before the Carthaginians finally succumbed and their capital city, history, and culture were almost utterly erased.
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Outstanding! This is THE book on Carthage.
- By Haakon B. Dahl on 01-21-13
By: Richard Miles
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Pax Romana
- War, Peace, and Conquest in the Roman World
- By: Adrian Goldsworthy
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 15 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Pax Romana examines how the Romans came to control so much of the world and asks whether traditionally favorable images of the Roman peace are true. Goldsworthy vividly recounts the rebellions of the conquered and examines why they broke out, why most failed, and how they became exceedingly rare. He reveals that hostility was just one reaction to the arrival of Rome and that from the outset, conquered peoples collaborated, formed alliances, and joined invaders, causing resistance movements to fade away.
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2 stars if youve read goldsworthy; 2.5 or 3 if not
- By fm2 on 10-21-16
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By the Spear
- Philip II, Alexander the Great, and the Rise and Fall of the Macedonian Empire
- By: Ian Worthington
- Narrated by: Phil Holland
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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For the first time, By the Spear offers an exhilarating military narrative of the reigns of these two larger-than-life figures in one volume. Ian Worthington gives full breadth to the careers of father and son, showing how Philip was the architect of the Macedonian empire, which reached its zenith under Alexander, only to disintegrate upon his death.
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Bueller..... Bueller...... Bueller...... Monotone
- By Jonathan Allen Beard on 02-15-15
By: Ian Worthington
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A History of the Roman Republic
- By: Cyril Edward Robinson
- Narrated by: Charlton Griffin
- Length: 19 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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The story of the Roman Republic is the greatest epic in human history. Seen in the long perspective of time, it seems too fantastic to be real. From her modest beginnings as a convenient fording place on the Tiber to her eventual destiny as the mistress of the Mediterranean, Rome offers a strange tale of fate, sacrifice, and indomitable willpower. The stern realities of war shaped Rome's policies from the very beginning.
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Excellent overview
- By jaime on 05-14-15
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Masters of Command
- Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, and the Genius of Leadership
- By: Barry Strauss
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar: Each was a master of war. Each had to look beyond the battlefield to decide whom to fight and why; to know what victory was and when to end the war; to determine how to bring stability to the lands he conquered. Alexander, Hannibal, and Caesar had to be not only generals but statesmen. And yet each was a battlefield commander, a strategist, a leader of men - in short, a warrior.
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Too much jumping around
- By Nick on 03-12-17
By: Barry Strauss
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Last Stands
- Why Men Fight When All Is Lost
- By: Michael Walsh
- Narrated by: Michael Walsh
- Length: 13 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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What is heroism? What are its moral components - altruism, love, self-sacrifice? Why was it once celebrated, and now often dismissed as anachronistic? In this dramatic and readable account of last stands in history - famous or otherwise - Walsh explores the stakes that led men at very different times and places to face overwhelming odds and certain death for the sake of family, home and country.
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Excellent historical facts
- By Mark Twain on 02-18-21
By: Michael Walsh
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The War That Made the Roman Empire
- Antony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium
- By: Barry Strauss
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Following Caesar’s assassination and Mark Antony’s defeat of the conspirators who killed Caesar, two powerful men remained in Rome—Antony and Caesar’s chosen heir, young Octavian, the future Augustus. When Antony fell in love with the most powerful woman in the world, Egypt’s ruler Cleopatra, and thwarted Octavian’s ambition to rule the empire, another civil war broke out. In 31 BC one of the largest naval battles in the ancient world took place—more than 600 ships, almost 200,000 men, and one woman—the Battle of Actium.
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Highly detailed accounts
- By LEE on 03-28-22
By: Barry Strauss
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disappointing
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The period covered in this book is well known for its epic battles and grand campaigns of territorial conquest, but Hellenistic monarchies, Carthaginians, and the rapacious Roman Republic were scarcely less active at sea. Huge resources were poured into maintaining fleets not only as symbols of prestige but as means of projecting real military power across the Mediterranean arena.
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Not what I expected--Returned
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Sparta
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The Spartans of ancient Greece are typically portrayed as macho heroes: noble, laconic, totally fearless. But life was not as simple as this image suggests. In truth, ancient Sparta was a city of contrasts. We might admire their physical toughness, but Spartans also systematically abused their children. They gave rights to female citizens that were unmatched in Europe until the modern era, meanwhile subjecting their conquered subject peoples to a murderous reign of terror.
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Learn the rest of the story B4 idolizing Sparta
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By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean
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By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean is nothing less than the story of how humans first started building the globalized world we know today. Set on a huge continental stage, from Europe to China, it is a tale covering more than 10,000 years, from the origins of farming around 9000 BC to the expansion of the Mongols in the 13th century AD.
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Remarkable research!
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What listeners say about The Plague of War: Athens, Sparta, and the Struggle for Ancient Greece
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Ben
- 06-21-21
Gripping Historical Narrative
This is a full and cohesive retelling of the events in Greece between the Persian Wars and the rise of Macedon. It's a difficult period to wrap your head around, with 150 years of constantly churning governments and shuffling alliances, but it rewards you with an incredible panorama of human drama.
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Performance
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- Jeff Lacy
- 06-22-20
Performance was like listening to a reporter from the BBC
“Reporting from 5th century Greece and Persia, this is Anne Flosnik with the BBC.” Flosnik has a pleasant reading voice and does a fine job narrating Jennifer Roberts’, Plague of War, but after a while her voice evolves or devolves into a reportage tone. It isn’t all that bad, it didn’t interfere with the comprehension of the text, I just found it to my ear quirky. Perhaps others won’t find this so.
Roberts is a fine writer. She does a fine job following Thucydides’ text of The Peloponnesian War. Expository writing is her strength here. Additionally, she supports her analysis with explanatory footnotes and references. This book is addressed to a general to moderate audience, one that should have read Thucydides first, but I guess might have gotten away without (what a shame for this isn’t Cliff Notes). Roberts’ Epilogue is where she ties everything together, but I will admit, after reading the book, and reading a couple of pages of it, I skimmed it, finding it a regurgitation with nothing new (or perhaps I was tired).
In comparison, I like Victor Davis Hanson’s, A War Like No Other a little better.
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