N.S.Gill's Ancient History Blog October 2007 Archive

Public Domain. Photo by Marie-Lan Nguyen/Wikimedia Commons According to Physorg's article Team IDs ancient cargo from DNA, DNA analysis is being applied to the content of ancient amphoras recovered from ... Read More

Charon in the Underworld © Clipart.com It's entirely coincidental that it's Halloween and I have just written about Odyssey Book 11, the Nekuia. I've been going through a book of the ... Read More

On this Day in A.D. 475, the last western Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was crowned in Ravenna. He was about 14 at the time. Romulus Augustulus was ousted a year ... Read More

Attila © Clipart.com Called the Scourge of God by the Romans, Attila the Hun was King and General of the Hun empire from A.D. 433 to 453. Succeeding his ... Read More

Circe and Odysseus © Clipart.com In Book X of the Odyssey, Circe takes an oath that she is not devising ill against Odysseus. She undertakes this oath when Odysseus asks it ... Read More

It may not make an appreciable difference to your quality of life, but knowing something about Roman and Greek mythology will give you insight into our cultural heritage, an understanding ... Read More

Constantine Statue at York © N.S. Gill On this day in A.D. 312, the Roman Emperor Constantine was victorious in battle for control of the Western Roman Empire against the Roman Emperor ... Read More

In the tenth book of the Odyssey, the men returning from Troy almost reach the homeland, Ithaca. They get so close they can see it. Odysseus, however, chooses that moment ... Read More

In 490, after the Greek cities of Eretria and Athens had sent help to the Ionian cities, the Persians, retaliating, made their first attempt to conquer mainland Greeks. After Eretria ... Read More

Cyrus © Clipart.com King Cyrus of Persia conquered the Lydians and put King Croesus to death. By acquiring Lydia, Cyrus was now king of the Ionian Greeks. The Greeks objected to ... Read More

Roman ghosts were known by various names. Some were benevolent and some were malicious. They required propitiation at annual festivals that bear a remote similarity to our Halloween, but the ... Read More

Domitian © Clipart.com On October 24 A.D. 51, the future emperor T. Flavius Domitianus, known as Domitian, was born in Rome to Domitilla and Vespasian who would be emperor from A.D. 69-79. Domitian ... Read More

Achilles prays to Zeus at Dodona before sending Patroclus off to fight the Trojans. "King Jove," he cried, "lord of Dodona, god of the Pelasgi, who dwellest afar, you ... Read More

Marcus Junius Brutus © Clipart.com On this day in 42 B.C., Brutus, assassin of Caesar, was defeated by the forces of Octavian and Mark Antony (members of the second triumvirate, with Marcus ... Read More

When reading about ancient Sparta, here are some terms you should know. Helots Helots were like slaves or serfs to the Spartans. Gerousia The Gerousia consisted of old men. Ephors Five ephors were ... Read More

When Athens surrendered at the end of the Peloponnesian War, democracy was replaced by the oligarchic rule of the Thirty Tyrants. From 404-403 B.C., during the start of the period ... Read More

Were there women in the Olympics of the Classical era? In Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World, Donald Kyle addresses the related questions of whether there were women at ... Read More

By the time Sparta won the Second Messenian War (perhaps in 640 B.C.), the Helots outnumbered the Spartans by possibly as much ... Read More

Today, state-sponsored education is pretty much taken for granted, as it was in ancient Sparta, at least for the sons of the Spartan elite. Considered a very rigorous education, children ... Read More

A Newswise article, Even Ancient Greeks and Romans Enjoyed Scary Stories, reports on Amherst classics professor Debbie Felton, who has written one book on the topic of scary stories and ... Read More

Aristotle wrote about the government of Sparta in his Politics. He says the Cretan constitution is like the Lacedaemonian (Spartan) one and probably its model -- copied by Lycurgus. Later ... Read More

Lycurgus © Clipart.com Although the evolution of Greek law codes is complicated and can't really be reduced to the work of a single individual, there is one man who stands out as ... Read More

Greeks Poking Out Polyphemus' Eye Photo © Clipart.com In the 9th Book of the Odyssey, Odysseus makes curious choices. Why does he go to the land of the Cyclops and why ... Read More

On this day in 1861, John Bagnell Bury was born in Ireland. He is best known for his 2-volume History of the Later Roman Empire, 395‑565, and also for his ... Read More

© Clipart.com In ancient Rome, this was the day that one Roman poet was born and another died. It is also the day of the rite of the October Horse. ... Read More

When we think of Sparta and the Lacedaemonians, we usually envision a regimented, fearless, obedient, upper-class fighter or Spartiate, obviously superior militarily to the sensual, democracy-loving, philosophy-pursuing Athenians. But there ... Read More

Leonidas © Clipart.com Just about everyone knows that the institution of democracy comes from the Greeks, and many people are aware that it wasn't all the Greeks, but the artistic, philosophical, ... Read More

In 54 A.D., on this day in ancient Rome, Emperor Claudius died, supposedly succumbing to a case of poisoned mushrooms. Emperors could become cult figures after death by being ... Read More

If you've seen the made for television movie about Spartacus, you probably have some questions. Read this short article on Crassus, Spartacus and the Slave Revolt and then, if you ... Read More

The Rogue Classicist says today is the anniversary of the date on which the Emperor Marcus Aurelius and his co-emperor Lucius Verus celebrated their triumph for victory in Persia in ... Read More

Pompey © Clipart.com Pompey the Great appears to have been a faithful and passionate husband. His marriages, however, were probably made for political convenience. In his longest lasting marriage, he sired three ... Read More

Dr. Clementina Panella, the archeologist from Rome’s Sapienza University, has uncovered physical evidence of Rome at the time of Numa Pompilius, the Sabine, second king of Rome, according to ... Read More

Pompey, whose father had worked with Sulla on subduing the rebelling allies in the Social War, made a name for himself for a variety of reasons. Among the more ... Read More

In ancient Rome on October 10, in 19 A.D., Germanicus, the extremely popular adopted son of the Emperor Tiberius died mysteriously. Germanicus had married Agrippina the Elder, granddaughter of Augustus, ... Read More

When Spartacus led the great slave revolt, Crassus put it down, but Pompey got most of the credit. Despite this, Crassus and Pompey formed a political partnership. Find out what ... Read More

Bingley looks at two classics by Mary Renault on the subject of the Greek hero Theseus, The King Must Die and The Bull From The Sea. "Ms. Renault's story follows ... Read More

Julius Caesar © Clipart.com Julius Caesar (July 12?, 100 B.C. - March 15, 44 B.C.) may have been the greatest man of all times. By age 39/40, Caesar had been a ... Read More

There were 2 triumvirates in ancient Rome, the first which was an unofficial alliance between Crassus, Pompey, and Julius Caesar and the second, an official one between Lepidus, Mark Antony, ... Read More

© Clipart.com Hammurabi was an important Babylonian king known for his early law code. It was one of the first law codes to be written down and because it was inscribed ... Read More

Winged Assyrian Lion © Clipart.com The Assyrians lived in the northern area of Mesopotamia, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers at the city-state of Ashur. The Assyrians tried to ... Read More

An article from Global Politician, Islam, the Greeks and the Scientific Revolution, part 1, by Norwegian blogger Fjordman, argues that Islam and the Arabs may have transferred knowledge, but they didn't ... Read More

Plaque From Ur © Clipart.com Mesopotamia means the land between the rivers. The two rivers Mesopotamia lay between were the Tigris and the Euphrates. Sumer came to be the name of ... Read More

© Clipart.com Babylonians believed the king held power because of the gods; moreover, they thought their king was a god. To maximize his power and control, a bureaucracy and centralized government ... Read More

The games in honor of Augustus were held from October 3 or 5-12. Theatrical performances were the main feature of these Roman games, which were made official under Augustus' successor ... Read More

© Clipart.com Where is the Fertile Crescent? One answer comes from The Oxford Companion to Archaeology. There it is described as an area extending from the northern Negev and ... Read More

... judging from the articles on this site on the Olympian gods, that is. Please note that some of these points make the facetious assumption that we are living ... Read More

© Clipart.com Did you know that Mesopotamia means the land between the rivers? The two rivers of Mesopotamia are the Tigris and the Euphrates (Dijla and Furat, in Arabic). The Euphrates is the ... Read More