Any Epic fantasy series based on the Ancient World?

[Rogue]

I wonder if the Earth's Children series by Jean Auel would fit what you're looking for. I haven't actually read any of them yet but I've heard really good things, especially about the first book, Clan of the Cave Bear. According to Wikipedia, the setting of the first novel takes places some 18,000 years before the current era and references the advance of the polar ice sheets. However, the descriptions I've heard of the series make it seem more speculative than fantasy.

 

[Hexasi]

David Drake’s Belisarius Saga
Sprague de Camp ‘Lest Darkness Fall’
Bernard Cornwell’s Saxon Chronicles (sorta dark ages I guess)
Conn Igulden’s Emperor series (Julius Caesar)

I see plenty more on Amazon but I haven’t read any of them. These I have, and they’re good stuff.

One could also argue that Conan is mostly based in copies of antiquity, but the Hyborian Age is riddled with technological impossibilities. You’ve got rapier-wielding corsairs living next door to armored knights, and Assyrian asshuri fighting cataphracts and hussars and chariot-riding Egyptians in Shem. There is a lot of pieces that savor of antiquity but it’s not at all consistent, but it’s still with us so the appeal is strong. To misquote Napoleon, success has a quality all its own.

Thanks!

 

[skip.knox]

Does it have to be a series?

In any case, it baffles me why people don't just do searches. "Byzantine fantasy novel" or "ancient greek fantasy novel" or ... well, you get the idea.
Category:Novels set in the Byzantine Empire - Wikipedia
https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/18k554/i_need_fantasy_books_involving_rome/
and so on. Between Wikipedia and Reddit, there's an answer for every "I want fantasy books about X" question out there. And that doesn't even count review sites that specialize.

 

[Hexasi]

Yeah, I've looked but only after rifling off this post. Mythic scribes is always a good place to come for advice first.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

I really liked Gene Wolfe's soldier in the mist trilogy.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[skip.knox]

Yeah, I've looked but only after rifling off this post. Mythic scribes is always a good place to come for advice first.

Well, I'm a big advocate of the virtues of Scribes, but I suggest that a forum is a good place to come *after* having done some research on one's own. Because then you can come to the community with more specific questions. The better the questions, the better the answers.

 

[S.T. Ockenner]

Technically, Antiquity refers to the time after the Iron Age and before the Middle Ages. Stone, Bronze, and Iron Age were called Prehistory because there's only archeological discoveries but no historic sources. But in the last 200 years we've found a lot of documents from the Bronze and Iron Ages and we also figured out how to translate them, so they aren't really prehistoric anymore.
To the expert there are major important differences between them, but when it comes to popular culture depictions, Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Antiquity are more or less the same thing.

No. Stone Age is prehistory, and Bronze Age and Iron Age are ancient.
The order of ages:
Prehistory- PrePreHistory (before Homo Sapiens Sapiens) , Paleolithic Stone Age, Neolithic Stone Age
Ancient History- Copper Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Antiquity
Middle Ages- Early Middle Ages, High Middle Ages, Late Middle Ages, Renaissance
Modern- Early Modern/colonial period, Contemporary Period, Age Of Information
THE FUTURE... who knows?