N.S.Gill's Ancient History Blog December 2005 Archive

According to A 5,500-year-old mystery emerges, 5500 years ago a city on the Iraq-Syria border was destroyed. "Hamoukar appears to have reached big-city status by 4,500 B.C. and may have been ... Read More

Bryan Ward-Perkins and Peter Heather are the authors of The Fall of Rome: And the End of Civilization and The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome ... Read More

Shortly after the Trojan War, Greece fell into a dark age about which we know little. With the return of literacy at the beginning of the 8th century B.C. came ... Read More

Some believe the Exodus never took place because there is no physical or literary proof beyond the Bible. Others say all the proof that is needed is in the Bible. ... Read More

The Rogue Classicist has posted an article on Cobbold's translation of Vergil's Aeneid: New Aeneid Translation. The article contains information about Cobbold as a writer and translator, and as the chair ... Read More

In this Slate blog, Jesus and the Gospel—What Really Happened? - Three historians debate. By Larry Hurtado, John S. Kloppenborg, and Alan F. Segal, Segal discusses a strange sounding criterion ... Read More

At the start of the 4th century B.C. Socrates drank the poison cup of hemlock. Later, Rome began its conquest of Italy and the Gauls sacked Rome. This was also ... Read More

The four periods of Roman history are the period of kings, the Republic, the Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire. These eras of Roman history are based on the type ... Read More

In the 5th Century B.C., the Greeks fought the Persians, the Romans were at war with the Veii, the Presocratic philosophers were coming up with novel ideas, and the Greeks ... Read More

These animals and animal-like creatures from Greek mythology played a range of roles in the lives of the ancient Greeks, from devouring to helping. This list is ranked in order ... Read More

Learn the Latin for "O Come All Ye Faithful," "Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer," and "O Come, Emmanuel." Latin Christmas Carols

In the spirit of the season you may want to watch a 27-minute streaming video called "Herod the Builder King," from The Archaeology Channel."This video describes the life and times of ... Read More

In What’s old is new again: Rome’s Jewish museum gets facelift, Ruth Ellen Gruber describes the Jewish Museum in Rome, which shows the 2000-year old history of Jews in Rome. The ... Read More

The Forgotten Emperor, an article from 50 connect.co.uk, says a coin has been found that verifies the existence (and face) of an unrecognised rebel Roman ‘emperor’ called Domitianus. Domitianus would ... Read More

In his will, Julius Caesar adopted Octavian, his great nephew. In itself that was not enough to make Octavian emperor, but it was a start. Read a timeline of the ... Read More

Today's trivia question is about Cleisthenes. When Cleisthenes came to power as chief magistrate in Athens, he had to face problems Solon had created fifty years earlier through his compromising ... Read More

The Rogue Classicist posted "Latin curriculum breeds success." This article about a K-12 Kentucky Latin school says the Highlands Latin School was created in 2000 by a former Latin ... Read More

An almost industrial site from the second century B.C. that produced bricks has been found in Italy. It is almost in good enough shape to start using it. The bricks ... Read More

The Agonalia was celebrated on this day in ancient Rome. It was celebrated 3-4 times a year and is believed to have been instituted by Numa Pompilius. Although we don't ... Read More

If the Greek is gnothi seauton would the Latin have te and ipsum joined? Please join the discussion: Nosce Te IpsumSocrates | Modern editorial using Socrates as an exampleDelphic Oracle ... Read More

An article from Pravda, Modern humor makes people rather cry bitterly than laugh, explains why people in ancient times laughed and how the meaning of laughter has actually changed over ... Read More

'Narnia' laced with Christianity, but not in overt way, an article from Journal Sentinel Online, mentions that the Narnia movie, based on C. S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and ... Read More

On this day in ancient history, the Roman poet Horace was born. Quintus Horatius Flaccus was a Roman poet who lived from December 8, 65 B.C. to November 27, 8 ... Read More

Do you know much about the genealogy of the descendants of Hercules (Heracleidai) or Herodotus? If so can you help this forum poster? Thanks. In Book I Herodotus claims that ... Read More

This was the third day of the Faunalia and was the day in 43 B.C. on which Cicero was executed on the orders of Mark Antony. In 1985 Robert Graves, ... Read More

Enigma of the smile on the Nile, an article from the New Zealand Herald describes the wonder of the sphinx, a 4600-year old limestone carving in front of the ... Read More

A forum poster asks about a Latin inscription. Can you help? My family brought back a picture of the Black Madonna in 1910. I have been trying for years to learn ... Read More

On this day in ancient history, the Romans celebrated the Faunalia. The Faunalia honored Faunus. god of fields and shepherds. Faunus was associated with the Greek god Pan. ... Read More

When pigs and dogs root for the odoriferous sometimes $3000/pound truffle, they help spread the spores. The ancient Romans sought the truffle to flavor their exotic dishes. These are ... Read More

Ecbatana was what the Greeks called the ancient city of Hegmataneh, a systematically built ancient city which Hegmataneh History Revised says was incorrectly ascribed to the era of the Medes ... Read More

An article from Physorg.com entitled "Modern tools to unlock Ancient Texts" explains the contributions of the Cultural Heritage Language Technologies (CHLT). Not only is CHLT responsible for the Perseus ... Read More

The story of Freyr and Gerd is a sort of love story. Freyr was a Norse god of the Vanir and Gerd a giantess. Through the connivance of a trusty ... Read More

Kevin Kerr treats the topic of the parallel between the modern U.S. and ancient Rome in Repeating History Commentary: How to profit from the coming collapse of the 'Empire'. While the ... Read More

Around Christmas time, people gather under the mistletoe to kiss. Learn about the love lore connected with this peculiar half-parasitic plant. Lore About Mistletoe