ancient Greek history Archives - Page 6 of 6

What Evidence Is There for Atheism in Ancient Greece?

A frequent question I have encountered is the question of whether there were atheists in ancient Greece. This is a question that is surprisingly difficult to answer and I think the most appropriate answer is something along the lines of “sort of, but not exactly.” Although it is certainly possible that there were people in ancient Greece who rejected the existence of all deities, the historical evidence for the existence of such individuals is extremely limited to say the very least.

We have solid evidence for the existence of people in ancient Greece who criticized certain aspects of traditional Greek religion and we even have solid evidence for the existence of people in ancient Greece who might be termed “agnostics,” but we have no clear, unambiguous, contemporary historical evidence for the existence of people in ancient Greece who outright denied the existence of all deities altogether.

What Makes Alexander the Great Different from Genghis Khan or Attila the Hun?

King Alexandros III of Makedonia, or, as he is more commonly known today, “Alexander the Great,” still looms large in our history books and in popular culture, where he is often portrayed as a benevolent ruler and a glorious conqueror, spreading the light of Greek civilization to the supposedly barbarous peoples of the east. In Greece today, Alexander is widely revered as a national hero.

Nonetheless, we must wonder why it is that Alexander is portrayed as such a glorious conqueror; whereas other historical figures known for their conquests, such as Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan, are remembered as ruthless barbarians and destroyers of civilization.

A Life of Herodotos

The ancient Greek historian Herodotos of Halikarnassos is renowned today as the “Father of History,” a title that was first conferred on him by the Roman orator Marcus Tullius Cicero (lived 106 – 43 BC) in his dialogue On the Laws. Herodotos is often credited with having been the first person to methodically collect and critically analyze different accounts of events from different sources, compile them into a detailed historical narrative, and attempt to assess the causes of those events and analyze the motives and politics behind them.

Herodotos did these things in a book in nine volumes titled Ἱστορίαι (Historíai), meaning “researches” or “inquiries,” describing his research on the Greco-Persian Wars and their historical context. It is from the title of Herodotos’s book that we have gotten our English word history. Ironically, even though Herodotos has contributed so much to our understanding of history, very little is known about Herodotos’s own, personal history. In this article, I intend to discuss what is known about Herodotos’s own life.

Misconceptions about the Colossus of Rhodes

The Colossus of Rhodes was a gigantic bronze statue of the ancient Greek sun god Helios that stood on the Greek island of Rhodes during the third century BC. It was constructed between 292 and 280 BC in celebration of the fact that Rhodes had survived a prolonged, but unsuccessful siege in 305 BC by Demetrios I Poliorketes of Makedonia, the son of Antigonos I Monophthalmos.

Although the Colossus collapsed as the result of an earthquake only fifty-four years after it was built, it is still remembered today as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. There is, however, a pernicious modern misconception about the statue’s position and location. Many people believe that the Colossus originally straddled the harbor of Rhodes with one foot on either side, but, for reasons I shall soon explain, this notion is certainly erroneous.

Fake and Misattributed Ancient Quotes

People who have been following my website for a while may recall that I wrote an article about real ancient quotes that have been misunderstood or misinterpreted back in August 2018. Now I am going to treat a whole different beast: quotes attributed to people from ancient times that are entirely misattributed. Misattributed quotes of this nature are absolutely rampant on the internet and in popular books of wise quotations. I cannot possibly hope to address all of them in this article, because there are far too many, but I will address a few of the more popular ones.

Misconceptions about the Library of Alexandria

The Great Library of Alexandria is by far the most famous library that existed in the ancient world. At its height in the third century BC, it attracted renowned scholars from all over the Hellenistic world. It is likely that it held more scrolls than any other library in the Mediterranean at the time. Many people today see this library as a symbol of everything the ancient world accomplished.

As a result of the Great Library’s fame, however, it has become heavily mythologized. Many of the things that many people today believe about the library are simply not true. For instance, contrary to what you may have read on the internet, the Library of Alexandria was not the first library ever built, its famous destruction is not the primary reason why so many texts from ancient times have been lost, and it was certainly not deliberately destroyed by religious obscurantists of any kind.

Just How Gay Were the Ancient Greeks Really?

The ancient Greeks have a longstanding reputation in modern culture for their alleged tolerance of homosexuality—a reputation that has been so thoroughly ingrained that a common euphemism for the word homosexuality itself is “Greek love.” Additionally, the modern English word lesbian, referring to a female homosexual, comes directly from the name of a Greek island (i.e. Lesbos) and the word sapphic with the same meaning comes from the name of an ancient Greek poetess (i.e. Sappho).

While the ancient Greeks’ modern reputation does have some basis in truth, the modern popular stereotype of the “boy-loving Greeks” is far from a complete and accurate portrait of ancient Greek sexuality. In reality, the subject of sexuality in the ancient Greek world is a deeply complicated—sometimes downright convoluted—matter. Homosexual activities were considered acceptable in some ancient Greek cultures under some specific circumstances, but, under other circumstances, the same activities were not tolerated at all.

The Real-Life Female Warriors Who Probably Inspired the Legendary Amazons

Everyone has heard of the legendary Amazons, a nation of fearsome female nomadic warriors who, according to legend, lived in the steppes north of the Black Sea. Have you ever wondered, though, if the legend of the Amazons might have some historical basis? Well, if you have, you are in luck, because there really just might be a grain of truth behind this famous legend.

What Evidence Is There for the Existence of Alexander the Great? Quite a Lot.

One of the things that bothers me the most about the internet are all the pernicious articles claiming that such-and-such well-attested historical figure from ancient times actually never existed at all. One of the most annoying claims out there on the internet is that there is no evidence for the existence of Alexander the Great. This claim is blatantly ridiculous, but yet I have seen multiple people on the internet claiming it, repeatedly and in earnest. In this article, I intend to offer a sound debunking of this assertion by presenting some solid evidence for the existence of Alexander the Great.

Cats and Weasels

Everyone knows that, in ancient times, the Egyptians worshipped cats, but across the Mediterranean over in Europe, the situation was much different. During the Archaic Period (lasted c. 800 – c. 510 BC), housecats seem to have been almost completely absent from the Greek world; they do not appear in Greek art and not referenced in works of Greek literature from this time period.

During the Classical Period (lasted c. 510 – c. 323 BC), housecats seem to have been gradually introduced to Greece and southern Italy from Egypt and the Near East, but they seem to have been seen as strange, exotic pets—in the same way that keeping a parrot as a pet might be seen as unusual today.

Eventually, starting during the Hellenistic Period (lasted c. 323 – c. 31 BC) and continuing into the Roman Period, housecats as pets gradually became more and more common in the Greco-Roman world. Curiously, though, weasels seem to have been much more commonly kept as pets in ancient Greece than cats and the words for “cat” and “weasel” seem to often been conflated.