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In 49 BC, Roman statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero sent a letter to his friend Atticus informing him about the current gossip in Rome. This time, the big news involved the famous Mark Antony. “ Marcus...
The ancient Greek city of Poseidonia, now Paestum , lies on the Italian coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea. Paestum, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is famed for its well-preserved ruins. In fact, posterity...
The Devonshire Manuscript contains love poems written by the ladies at the court of Queen Anne Boleyn, second wife of King Henry VIII. It consists of 124 pages on which 184 poems had been lovingly...
One hears of Aeneas’ pedigree for the first time from his own mouth, in the Iliad , as he stands facing his arch-foe, Achilles, on the battlefield before Troy: ‘ Learn then my lineage if you will –...
The history of the Castle of Ivry is one of betrayal and bloodshed. Its very construction ended in violence. Countess Aubrée, who had the castle built, was so impressed with it that she had the...
The life of a woman in Tudor England was not an easy one, even for those of noble birth and royal status. The role of a woman was to marry, run a household and produce the all-important male heir...
The story of the settlement of the Israelite tribes in the Promised Land has long been the subject of controversy among scholars. Moreover, the narrative of the Book of Judges has been regarded as...
Like many ancient cities, and some modern, Augustan Rome was a combination of public magnificence and private squalor. There were the temples, the aqueducts, the basilicas, and other grandiose public...
Standing unique among ancient structures, Chichén Itzá’s enigmatic “Observatory”, El Caracol, may be the world’s most mysterious and distinctive stone monument. It was built by the Maya of the...
Although the Julian Dynasty of ancient Rome has delivered many examples of powerful and ambitious imperial women, not all of them were meant to become an empress. The reign of Emperor Augustus alone...
According to the biblical story told in the Book of Genesis , Chapter 6:1-4, certain Sons of God fathered children with the daughters of men. They were called the Nephilim and are often identified...
The Pseudo-Aristotelian Hermetica are a core subgroup of Arabic Hermetic texts which take the form of discourses and letters of the philosopher Aristotle to Alexander the Great. The texts concern an...
For over 300 years, and probably more besides, the fabled figure of King Arthur had set the standard for English kings to follow. The victorious son of Uther Pendragon was, in the words of Geoffrey...
The Greeks exhibited an amazing aptitude for fashioning myths about gods and heroes. Not so the Romans, who failed to produce an independent mythological tradition. But what the Romans did excel at...
Uruk, in southern Iraq, has reached superstar status in the realm of archaeological excavations of ancient civilizations by delivering the Sumerian King Lists among the 5,000 cuneiform tablets...
Since ancient times, ubiquitous to various cultures, humankind has sought to overcome that which they cannot control, such as healing mysterious afflictions and trying to predict the veiled future,...
Rome was the very essence of a male dominated society, being militaristic, proud, go-getting and determined on expansion. The man of the house, the Paterfamilias, was the head of the family with...
Ancient Sumerian mythology tells that Eridu, considered one of the most southern of the settlements close to the Persian Gulf, was inhabited before the flood when, according to the Sumerian King list...
Since ancient times, wills and inheritance have a long, recorded history and Britain is no different. A history of a thousand years of the wills of women offer a rare but rich glimpse into their...
Why are there so many songs about rainbows and what's on the other side? Rainbows are visions, but only illusions, and rainbows have nothing to hide. So we've been told and some choose to believe it...
The fall of the Third Dynasty of Ur at end of the third millennium echoed over the land of Sumer, between the Tigris and Euphrates in ancient southern Mesopotamia and it opened the landscape for the...
The popular conception of the Romans, mainly fostered by movies and television, extends to their all-conquering dominance, their armies, gladiators, blood and gore, sex and violence, mad emperors,...
Where the Euphrates River once opened its mouth into the Persian Gulf, on the southern floodplain of Mesopotamia, lies Ur, dating from the Ubaid period, circa (6500 -3800 BC), and host to the...
In Roman times, a decree of Damnatio memoriae was the chief way of obliterating the memory, nearly always posthumous, of those perceived as having transgressed in some way, as was the case of Emperor...
