Can any of you recommend good history books to inspire me with ancients?

I’m interested in ancient coins, but I only have a few. I find the whole area endlessly interesting and enjoyable.

However, the endlessness and variety is part of my problem. I haven’t read a lot of history, and I’m far from being even modestly knowledgeable regarding collecting ancient coins.

My collecting budget is also extremely small; however, I’m very inspired by the collectors here who have assembled fun and interesting collections and who state that many or most of their coins were under $30.

However, I really feel like I need some advice from some of you on reading material. I’ve seen—and love looking at—various ancient coin-related Web sites, and do some reading on historical figures on Wikipedia.

The recommendations I’m looking for books you’ve enjoyed on ancient history. I want something I can read in bed at night, on lunch break, etc. The book store has plenty of books that look pretty good, but it’s hard to tell what will be really good reading.

Do you have favorite history books regarding ancient Rome? Ancient Greece? What about lesser-studied (and collected) things like the Sasanians or the Nabateans?

I figured I’d ask here, since coin collectors might have similar tastes in literature to mine. I’d love to hear your opinions.

 

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I usually like to go primary with what I read. Suetonius' Twelve Caesars is probably one of the most accessible works from the ancient world, so it's probably a good starting point. It's a collection of biographies about Julius Caesar and the first 11 emperors of Rome. It has some pretty good information, but Suetonius quite liked colorful anecdotes, and it can come off a bit tabloid-esque at times. Honestly, I think that's part of why he's so enjoyable to read.

I also rather like Herodian's History of the Roman Empire since the Death of Marcus Aurelius. It's not the most accurate or thorough history, but Herodian knows how to tell a good story, and it's often compared to a novel. It covers the late second and early third century, so you'll get the history surrounding some rather affordable coins. Unfortunately, this work is obscure enough where you might have trouble finding a physical copy anywhere, but it is available online in its entirety for free at the site I linked to.

My favorite ancient historical text is Herodotus' Histories. It's long and dense, and it will take work to fully appreciate it, but if you put in the effort, you will get a lot out of it. It's not so much a straight history like most other sources, as Herodotus spent a lot of time describing all the cultures that were remotely relevant (he even takes the entire second book to describe Egypt even though they only had a small part in the war that the Histories is about), and he says himself that a lot of his sources are of dubious quality, so a large portion of it is legend and folk tale. However, it does cover one of the most important periods of European history, it gives great insight into the Greek mind, and this work along with that of Thucydides is the foundation of the study that we call "history".

 

For the money, I consider Michael Grant a first choice. The book is not recent but neither is the material covered and there are many used copies available:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0760700915/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used

Chris Scarre is good as well and has more pictures.
http://www.amazon.com/Chronicle-Roman-Emperors-Reign-Reign/dp/0500050775/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_a

His book is part off a series with a volume on the Republic which I have not seen.

Both are Roman Empire only but that is where most coin collectors begin.

Greece is harder because many beginner level books really emphasize Athens and Sparta to the exclusion of other important regions. Since Sparta did not issue coins, it would seem nice to have a book that had more on Corinth, Syracuse etc. From the standpoint of collectors, much of Greek coinage comes after much of the popular history covered. I don't have an easy suggestion for the early period. For years after Alexander the Great, I enjoyed the rather expensive:
http://www.amazon.com/Alexander-Act...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278606125&sr=1-1

Non-Classical is harder and some of the interesting coin producers did not do a lot of writing about themselves. I'd like to see an ancient history overview that leaves out Greece and Rome on the theory that folks already know that material but would introduce things like Persian, Parthian, Sasanian, Indian and a hundred other interesting places (many of which issued coins). I don't know this book.

I know you specified 'book' but much of this material is available on Wikipedia. For example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurya_Empire

You can click on blue links in the article and wander all over the place. If you know nothing about ancient history, the following page has a timeline that might prove interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_history

A mistake I made in the early days was to fail to recognize the links and relationships of various civilizations. It is great to study Greece, Rome, Persia, China and India separately but while in one of those places, pay attention to what was happening in the others at the same time.

 

I have been researching ancient roman coins and just have been using wikipedia.org to read up on the ceasars/emperors, etc.. There is good info in there about them..its amazing that they had so many richies and power, and yet so many of them pushed it too far, and ended up getting murdered, forced suicide, etc..

Also "Rome, Inc." was an interesting, accurate and funny book about the history of Rome.

 

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Santayana

In some cases Emperors probably realized that being Emperor was not something they could avoid and live. Pertinax refused honors and titles for his family and they lived after he died. That was in itself unusual. In some cases you may be better off taking a job than having to live under the rule of the other candidate. In most, however, I'm sure the driving force was greed for power an a feeling that it couldn't happen to them.

 

I like Suetonius' Twelve Caesars too. I enjoyed reading The Conquest of Gaul (gallic wars) and The Civil War by Julius Caesar. I have Selected works of Cicero and Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, but havent read more than a third of either yet but I like them both so far. I'd like to pick up some Josephus eventualy too. I also enjoyed Caesars Legion but Stephen Dando-Collins

 

It is interesting this thread because from my perspective Rome marks the modern period of human history. I'm used of thinking of world history as starting well before 2000BCE. What is fortunate for coin collectors is that coins are generally a modern invention. You would just go crazy chasing all the Egyptian Pharoh's from the three main epochs.

 

http://www.learner.org/resources/series58.html

 

Rome has been touched on, so I will go over some resources for other regimes. For Byzantine and Venice, I like the books from John Julius Norwich. He has a volume on Venice, and a three volume work on Byzantium, (a one volume work on Byzantium is the abridged version). For eastern cultures, I would look at the bibliography at:

http://www.grifterrec.com/coins/coins.html

Tom Mallon is a great guy and resource, and his website got me interested in these coins. Collon has a book on history on Central Asia which is the standard.

For Chinese, go to:

www.coincoin.com

Scott Semans has great books on Chinese and Ethnographic money. He has others as well. Another great guy.

Overall, if you like coins and history, do not forget how great coin books are for history too! Many coin books specializing in a certain period or civilization will contain a great deal of history related to the coins. It may sound stupid, but I have had many collectors ask me where to find history related to their coins, and it turns out they already own great books! READ coin books, don't just study the pictures and try to find matches. Many, especially older, coin books are really about the history more than the coins themselves.

If you have specific questions on specific civilizations or periods, feel free to ask them here. I can dig up better answers from my library if I know what area you are interested in.

Chris

 

Thank you all for your recommendations. I'll be writing all of these down for the next time I'm at the library or at the used book store.

Thanks for the links, too!

 

There's also some great historical novels out there. I, Claudius and Claudius the God by Robert Graves are absolutely phenomenal, as well as his short stories. Other than that, my favorite ancient authors are Petronius and Apuleius. Most of the things they write can't be posted on this forum.