Author Description

For five years, the fate of the last Jewish polity of the ancient world hung on the outcome of a romanceA 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 --the 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 etc. 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