Explores the experiences spectators have when they watch a film collectively in a cinema.

A modern historian sheds new light on an ancient Greek history of Persia.

The Persica is an extensive history of Assyria and Persia from around 400 BCE. It was written by the Greek historian Ctesias, who served as a doctor to the Persian king Artaxerxes II. In this volume, Matt Waters offers a fresh interdisciplinary analysis of the text. He shows in detail how Ctesias' history, though written in a Greek literary style, was infused with two millennia of Mesopotamian and Persian motifs, legends, and traditions. Waters' revealing study contributes significantly to knowledge of ancient historiography, Persian dynastic traditions and culture, and the influence of Near Eastern texts and oral tradition on Greek literature.

Towards the end of the fifth century BC Ctesias of Cnidus wrote his 23 book History of Persia. Ctesias is a remarkable figure: he lived and worked in the Persian court and, as a doctor, tended to the world’s most powerful kings and queens. His position gave him special insight into the workings of Persian court life and access to the gossip and scandal surrounding Persian history and court politics, past and present. His History of Persia was completed at a time when the Greeks were fascinated by Persia and seems very much to cater to contemporary interest in Persian wealth and opulence, powerful Persian women, the institution of the harem, kings and queens, eunuchs and secret plots. Presented here in English translation for the first time with commentaries, Ctesias offers a fascinating insight into Persia in the fifth century BC.