Showing results by narrator "Andrea Giordani" in All Categories

Conon the Athenian (not the Barbarian of a similar name) was the general who set Greece free. March along the shores of the Peloponese and launch attacks at sea with him as Nepos regales the life of this famed hero. Here is the man who would see the great walls of Athens rebuilt but find his own life finished in prison.

Cornelius Nepos greatly admired Timoleon, a man of wisdom and patience who knew evil when he saw it. He was ready and willing to do right by his homeland of Corinth, even when it meant betraying his own brother, the dictator. Timoleon stands through time as a model citizen and leader who, in his old age, became blind just like true justice.

Walk in the steps of King Aegesilus, leader of Sparta and conquerer of Corinth. Cornelius Nepos recounts the life of a man who was loyal when it suited him and merciful when the mood struck him. He was one of the greatest kings Sparta ever had, yet he almost lost the title to another.

Aristides was the one true enemy of Themosticles the Great. His story is almost like that of Icarus, seeking to fly higher than his skill or status would allow. Listen as he climbs and falls and somehow - despite dying in charge of the treasury of Greece - does so in poverty.

The tumultuous time that followed Nero’s suicide is known as The Year of the Four Emperors. In rapid succession, the Roman empire was ruled briefly by Galba, Otho, and Vitellius. Vespasian was a military commander, and with the help of his loyal soldiers and military allies, he defeated Vitellius and lay claim to his rule. Vespasian’s assumption of the empire, chronicled in this short biography by Suetonius, marked the start of the Flavian dynasty.

Domitian succeeded his older brother Titus as Roman emperor. In “The Life of Domitian,” Suetonius remarks on the emperor’s innovative approach to governing that granted the empire safety and peace. As an individual, he preferred to go it alone and was naturally suspicious of others, a trait which inevitably led to his downfall. The final of three Flavian emperors, Domitian is also the last entry in Suetonius’ The Twelve Caesars.

The Life of Otho tells a story of ambition, betrayal, and power. After Nero’s suicide, Otho expected to assume the role of emperor, but his old ally Galba became Nero’s successor. Rather than give up, Otho murdered Galba and took his place as emperor, though not for long. Suetonius’ account of Otho’s brief rule during the Year of the Four Emperors is an excerpt from his work The Twelve Caesars.

A brutal winter storm sweeps through the mountains of New England, forcing a young man to seek shelter. A kind family welcomes him into their humble home, tucked away in a remote mountain pass. The traveler is the story’s eponymous “Ambitious Guest”, as he tells the family about his aspiration to make a mark on the world. The evening takes an ironic turn, however, when an avalanche heads straight for the house in this story based on the real-life Willey family tragedy.

Creative Behaviourz Part 1 is an audio collection of 25 inspirational poems taken from The Behaviourz Series, written with a view to addressing certain behavioral issues, attitudes, and notions that are faced in our day-to-day lives. Whether you have an interest in poetry or you are a teacher, mentor, parent, role model, etc., I am sure you will find these poems both interesting, fun, and dynamic.

Poetical Behaviourz is part one of a collection, including 25 inspirational poems taken from The Behaviourz Series, written with a view to addressing certain behavioral issues, attitudes, and notions that are faced in our day to day lives. Whether you have an interest in poetry or you are a teacher, mentor, parent, role model, etc., I am sure you will find these poems both interesting, fun and dynamic.

Agesilaus was a notable king of Sparta prior to the Athens-Spartan war. Although he won and lost many battles for the city, his legacy lived on. He was a short-statured, lame man who managed to rule an entire city-state - and many looked up to him after his death. 

Though Sparta and Greece were once bitter rivals, this did not stop Plutarch from writing about Spartan figureheads in his book, Parallel Lives. Cleomenes was one of these Spartan figureheads - and was the King of Sparta for many years. From involvement in many wars to his effort to maintain the Spartan state, Cleomenes was still not free from drama. His life ended tragically at his own hands after one final Spartan defeat, but his legacy lived on through the works of Plutarch and others.

Smart, resourceful, and cruel - three words that might describe Titus Quinctius Flamininus, the subject of Plutarch’s The Life of Flaminius. Brother to the later-to-be-exiled Senator Lucius Quinctius Flamininus, the former Flamininus was a well-known general and state politician. As a general, he occupied many overthrown Greek and Macedonian lands, becoming quite well-known. Although his political prowess was well known, he became cruel during his latter life - even being pivotal in the death of a harmless citizen.

The Life of Cimon is just one of many notable biographies in Plutarch’s informative Parallel Lives series. Cimon, an Athenian Statesman, was the son of the general who won Greece’s battle of Marathon. Battling and defeating the Persian Empire on water, Cimon was crucial in the construction of the Athenian Maritime Empire. However, like so many others in the series, Cimon was eventually ostracized from the empire when his political views took a radical turn.

Emerton discusses Eastern Europe in the later Middle Ages with reference to the fall of Kievan Rus to the Mongols, and the rise of the Grand Duchy of Moscow. After the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, the Russian princes started to see themselves as the heirs of the Byzantine Empire. They took on the imperial title of Tsar, and Moscow was described as the Third Rome.

The era of absolutism as exemplified by the "Sun King" Louis XIV of France marks the rise of rulers throughout Europe who had absolute power over their nations. Mercantilism became the primary form of economy and gave rise to a middle class.

How could a man be reviled, even assassinated, during his own life, and yet have people's opinion of him change after his death? Explore the life of Dion, a wealthy Syracusian aristocrat of great learning whose life brutally ended on a feast-day. How could a man of acclaimed courteous temperment be accused of such horrible crimes?

Taking place in ancient South America, The Kurupi's Curse tells the story of a Princess that was cursed by a mythical deity called a Kurupi and cast into a time portal until someone worthy comes along to break the curse.

This decidedly unusual book gives an excellent account of what its title purports. Rendering fresh views, not only of the poet and engraver William Blake and the radical democratic pamphleteer Thomas Paine, but of the entirety of that cavalcade of events encompassed under the rubric of revolution in the 18th century—in America, in France, and in the Caribbean island known today as Haiti, as well as of the reform and radical movements contemporaneous in Britain with the rise of empire and “industrialism”.