The History of the Ancient World Quotes

“The only men ruthless enough to fight against tyranny were themselves inclined to it.”
― Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome

“Civilization began in the Fertile Crescent, not because it was an Edenic place overflowing with natural resources, but because it was so hostile to settlement that a village of any size needed careful management to survive.”
― Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome

“The good general not only deceives the enemy himself, but assumes that his enemy is always deceiving him:”
― Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome

“deceit became a way of life:”
― Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome

“In fact, far from being phonetic, hieroglyphs were designed to be indecipherable unless you possessed the key to their meaning. The Egyptian priests, who were guardians of this information, patrolled the borders of their knowledge in order to keep this tool in their own hands. Ever since, the mastery of writing and reading has been an act of power”
― Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome

“Anthropologists can speculate about human behavior; archaeologists, about patterns of settlement; philosophers and theologians, about the motivations of “humanity” as an undifferentiated mass. But the historian’s task is different: to look for particular human lives that give flesh and spirit to abstract assertions about human behavior.”
― Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome

“A most marvelous sign appeared to him from heaven,”
― Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome

“THE LAND where Carthage had once stood now became the Roman province of North Africa.”
― Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome

“The ancient country’s renaissance under its Greek rulers was over.”
― Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome

“It was the last time that Athens and Sparta would act as allies.”
― Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome

“Their customs were fierce. They made cups from the skulls of fallen enemies,”
― Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome

“All warfare is based on deception,” wrote Sun-Tzu.”
― Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome

“In a country where your friends were as likely to be plotting against you as your enemies,”
― Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome

“These are the words of a man who knew that enemies from your own state were just as dangerous as enemies in the next state over.”
― Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome

“(the penalty was to have boiling lead poured into the offending ears).”
― Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome

“barred from even hearing the sacred vedas read”
― Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome

“allowed by law to be killed or exiled at any whim of their masters,”
― Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome

“They were voiceless and powerless, unable to free themselves from servitude,”
― Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome

“The shudra were slaves and servants, the fourth and subordinate class of people.”
― Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome

“and the hired servants and slaves who worked on it.”
― Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome

“the ruling families who claimed most of the land,”
― Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome

“There were only two kinds of people in the gana-sanghas:”
― Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome

“Instead of coalescing into kingdoms, these tribes formed independent alliances, called gana-sanghas.”
― Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome

“that the brahmans—far from losing their job—kept their central role.”
― Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome

“The importance of the priests was so built into the entire consciousness of the warrior clans”
― Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome

“The sixteen mahajanapada, or “great janapada,” were tribes with land”
― Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome

“and called themselves janapada, tribes with land.”
― Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome

“warrior clans that had settled in the Ganga river valley and claimed land for themselves extended this word”
― Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome

“Aryan warrior clans had called themselves jana (Sanskrit for “tribe”);”
― Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome

“Cyrus the Great”
― Susan Wise Bauer, The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome