The Far Edges of the Known World: Life Beyond the Borders of Ancient Civilization

A revisionist history of the ancient world that shifts our focus from Athens and Rome to the long-ignored societies on the borders.

When Ovid was exiled from Rome to a border town on the Black Sea, he despaired at his bleak and barbarous new surroundings. Like many Greeks and Romans, Ovid thought the outer reaches of his world was where civilization ceased to exist. Our own fascination with the Greek and Roman world has for centuries followed this perspective, shrouding cultures at the far r...