The Last Olympiad

"The best epic saga of the prewar period"
Czesław Miłosz: History of Polish Literature

Nights And Days

Readers speak

The Last Olympiad" is an amazing chronicle of the Roman Empire 389-395. A historical compilation of people, places, and events. Eagle Ray, USA

What a fascinating text! Layers of research. summaries of events and historical figures that share climatic events during a historical time period. The author does an excellent job at keeping readers intrigued with the text. Chill636, USA

I love the meditative aspect of the work: the book points out interesting coincidences, echoes from later epochs, possible lasting consequences of seemingly minor events. A kind of literary long-duree history. Christpher Mauer, USA

iIt was a delightful experience. The author weaves together the stories of key historical figures from the period, making the past feel alive and relevant. Angelique, USA

I absolutely adore these books. Caitlin, USA

by Aleksander Krawczuk

A turning point in history, the six years 389-395 AD in the Roman Empire saw many important historical developments:

the destruction of the temple of Serapis in Alexandria
the end of the Olympic games
the first excommunication of an Emperor
the first murder of an emperor at the hands of his Germanic bodyguards
the last significant rebellion of pagans against Christian rule
the Edict of Theodosius prohibiting the practice of any and all pagan religions

The best-selling European author of books on Graeco-Roman antiquity, paints for us a rich and highly readable panorama of the intellectual life of Greeks and Romans of the period. Here they are, debating topics ranging from bathing and chariot races to national character and demon possession:

the zany, crafty, and weird doctors of the Church: Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine
the caustic and dysphoric historian Ammianus Marcellinus
three fanatic historians of the Church
the grumpy rhetorician Libanius
the blood-thirsty scholar-defenders of the Alexandrian Serapeum
the author of a rabid anti-Christian diatribe which somehow miraculously survived to our times ("The Lives of Sophists")
and the quirky and mysterious figure of "Jorge Luis Borges of ancient Rome" ("Authors of Imperial History")

Quoting richly from various curious, entertaining, and beautiful texts from the period, Professor Krawczuk gives us a broad intellectual survey of the Roman Empire and its leading personalities at the time of the last rebellion of the pagan religion against Christianity.

Aleksander Krawczuk (died 2023) was a scholar, a professor at the Jagiellonian University and a best-selling European author of books on Graeco-Roman antiquity with an international cult following. His intimate and conversational style allowed him to talk about complicated subjects in an accessible way without dumbing them down in the process. His books remain in print in many languages across Europe. And now they finally appear in English.

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