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.
Continue reading “The Real-Life Female Warriors Who Probably Inspired the Legendary Amazons”Category: ancient Greek history
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.
Continue reading “What Evidence Is There for the Existence of Alexander the Great? Quite a Lot.”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.
Continue reading “Cats and Weasels”