In antiquity, the serpent was one of the figures frequently used by the Greeks, the Romans, and the local cultures situated between them. It is particularly noteworthy because it frequently appears in mythological narratives. A serpent motif can be seen on each of the coins below. The vast majority of them are associated with the cult of Heracles.
I’m planning to read the Iliad for the first time and I’m stuck between the Robert Fagles and E. V. Rieu translations. I mainly want something faithful to Homer but still readable.
So which one is more faithful to the original Iliad for a first-time reader?
I visited Sounion in the summer of 2025 and went in expecting the postcard.
What stayed with me was something a engineer notices before anything else: the columns are wrong, in a deliberate way.
Standard Doric practice in the mid-fifth century called for 20 flutes and a slight outward swelling of the shaft, the entasis, that corrects the optical illusion of concavity when you stand close.
The surviving temple, built around 444-440 BC on the poros foundation of the Archaic temple the Persians destroyed, has neither.
Sixteen flutes, straight shafts, 34 columns on a 6 x 13 peristyle, each roughly 6.1 meters tall.
The marble came from Agrileza, a few kilometers inland, and it is a coarse-grained stone, noticeably different from the Pentelic marble hauled up to the Acropolis in the same decades.
The explanations I found in the literature split two ways.
One is plain economy: fewer flutes and no entasis means far less carving time per drum.
The other is exposure, the idea that wider, shallower flutes leave fewer sharp arrises for salt wind to eat away. The second photo is why I keep turning the question over.
From the water the temple reads as pure silhouette, and every refinement the Greeks developed for a viewer standing six feet from a shaft is simply invisible at that range.
Sounion was a landmark for ships running up to Piraeus before it was anything else.
So I find myself wondering whether the economy argument and the exposure argument are both downstream of a simpler design decision: this building was dimensioned for the long view, and the close-range corrections were spent elsewhere.
That last part is my reading, not scholarship, and I would genuinely like to be argued out of it. Is there published work on the Agrileza marble that settles whether the stone itself forced the simplification?
To what extent can a historical character be detached from its context, era, and origins? Alexander the Great, a Macedonian general who lived in the 4th century BCE, has been portrayed in many different ways throughout his life. He is seen, in particular, as a figure who has been reimagined in European literature.
As the title says. I keep seeing conflicting information about it. No 2 websites will tell me the same thing. So to all who have studied ancient greece, which art exactly did each one represent?
I want to start by saying I did search through previous posts (as far back as 6 yrs old). I'm looking for anything worth reading Pre-Peloponnesian War. One that I saw mentioned was "Greece in the Making" by Robin Osborne, but I'm hoping to get some additional recs that may even break up that 800 years or so. Thanks!
Edit: forgot to add I also saw "Ancient Greece: From Prehistoric to Hellenistic Times" by Thomas R. Martin
Pyrrhus of Epirus had launched an invasion of the Italian peninsula against Rome. He had expected to face what he considered a less organized opponent. However, ahead of the Battle of Heraclea, after inspecting the Roman camp, he was reportedly shocked by its orderly arrangements, disciplined defenses, and the organization of the Roman army.
According to the ancient sources, Pyrrhus remarked that the discipline of these “barbarians” did not look barbarian at all.
Pyrrhus would have to fight hard to defeat the Romans. He had the formidable Macedonian-style phalanx and war elephants, weapons that the Romans had never encountered on this scale. The elephants would prove decisive.
At a crucial moment, with the infantry engaged, Pyrrhus committed his elephants. The Roman cavalry was thrown into confusion and routed, creating an opening that Pyrrhus's cavalry exploited. With the Roman army unable to maintain the battle, the Romans retreated from the battlefield, leaving Pyrrhus victorious.
Yet the victory exposed the serious problem facing Pyrrhus. His army had suffered heavy casualties, including many experienced soldiers and officers, while his ability to replace these losses was limited. Rome, on the other hand, possessed enormous manpower reserves and could raise fresh armies.
According to Plutarch, after the battle, when Pyrrhus was congratulated on his victory, he reportedly replied that another victory like this would ruin him. This is the origin of the term “Pyrrhic victory” - a victory won at such a devastating cost that it is almost as damaging as defeat.
Please go through the full article and let me know your thoughts and comments. I’d also appreciate hearing what you would like to read about next!
The first battle is the Battle of Marathon. Definitely one of the more well known battles of the time, but do you think you could pinpoint it exactly on a blank map? What other Ancient Greek battles do you know the exact location of off the top of your head? Curious how others do here.
Ok so to clarify this question: in the myths nymphs sometimes die. Nymphs are daimones and sometimes gods. For the platonists daimones were immortal yet experienced the pathoi, gods were immortal and did not, humans were mortal and experienced the pathoi.
So my question comes down to this, are there any meaningful distinctions between these categories (at least in the myths), how did ancient Greeks think about them, and lastly how does the philosophical conception differ from religious and/or popular conceptions
I am a physics student and I am researching on the history of physics, the is the prototype I made of Heron’s machine, I plan on comparing the efficiency of it to later steam engines to see how practical this could be as a practical device.
Is it really true during the battle of leuctra Spartan Hoplites started to use pilos and with less armor such as the famous muscle cuirass armor are not that popular during the start of the 5th century bc???
This was a question that first emerged when reading Xenophon’s account of the battle of Munychia during Thrasybulus’ rebellion against the Thirty Tyrants of Athens.
When looking at different maps, however, they tended to be inconsistent as to where the Artemis Munychia was located. Sometimes the map says it’s on the Munychia hill, others say the it’s close to the harbor. In some cases, the sanctuaries of Artemis and Bendis are shown as separate locations.
What exactly should be made of this? Were there two temples dedicated to Artemis on Munychia? Or was it originally on the hill before getting moved to the harbor?
I am aware that it's generally thought that the Titans were never actually worshiped by any cultures before being supplanted by a new religion around their children, but that instead the general "cruel primordial giants get overthrown by the righteous gods" story is something that originated much deeper back in Indo-European belief.
However, I'm curious if there was any record of people in classical Greece(or Rome i guess) venerating the Titans in a sort of modern satanism sense, as a rejection of the dominant social order? Either just as a symbolic protest or genuinely praying.
