For five years, the fate of the last Jewish polity of the ancient world hung on the outcome of a romance: A romance between the middle-aged, thrice-divorced Jewish queen, Berenice, and the youthful son of the first emperor of the Flavian dynasty.
This volume, the first in a series of three on the subject of the Herodian Dynasty, describes the events of AD 66-69:
--the outbreak of the First Jewish War
--Nero's artistic tour of Greece
--his overthrow and death by suicide
--the outbreak of the Roman Civil War
It couches the narrative in a broad intellectual and spiritual panorama of the times featuring many fascinating developments:
--the strange Jewish sect of the Essenes
--another strange Jewish sect: Christians
--its most dangerous opponent, the charismatic Simon the Magus whose followers worshipped a prostitute
--other wonderfully zany erotic religious practices of the Middle East of the period
--the pagan prophet Apollonius of Tyana--the "pagan Jesus"
--the powerful temple of Aphrodite in Paphos, Cyprus--the main clearinghouse of secrets in the East and a "business rival" of the Temple of Jerusalem
and more!
And among those events and within that milieu, the book situates the love between the middle-aged queen and her youthful Roman prince, the future destroyer of the Temple; a romance which will go on to inspire hundreds of dramatic, operatic, poetic, and graphic works in the European culture for the next two thousand years.
Give yourself a thrilling sojourn to a strange, zany place. Pick up your copy today.
Aleksander Krawczuk (1922-2023), was a scholar, professor a the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, minister of culture of Poland (1986-1989), and author of over 30 immensely popular books on Graeco-Roman antiquity. His delightful books, written in an accessible, conversational, highly readable style, address complex topics in an approachable manner without ever dumbing them down. International best-sellers in Europe, his books have shaped three generations of antique lovers, but, as a consequence of Soviet cultural policies, they appear in English only now. We are publishing a new title every 4-6 weeks.
