Tales of Times Forgotten

Ancient Greek Ghost Stories, Part One: Athenodoros and the Haunted House

In his letter To Sura, the ancient Roman writer Pliny the Younger recounts one of the oldest and most famous ghost stories of all time.

There was once a Stoic philosopher named Athenodoros of Tarsos. Athenodoros came to the city of Athens, where he learned that there was a large house for sale at an extraordinarily cheap price. When Athenodoros asked why the house was available at such a low price, he was informed that, every night, the clashing of chains could be heard coming from a certain room in the house and that, after a while, the sound of clattering chains would grow louder and louder until, at last, the terrifying apparition of an old, decrepit man would appear, standing in the room with iron chains attached to his arms and dragging along on the floor behind him. The man was said to be extremely emaciated, as though he had been starved to death, and his hair and beard were said to be tangled and matted.

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Why Everything about Your Toga Party is All Wrong

#1: First of all, that is not a toga you are wearing to begin with.

Today, most so-called “togas” are made from old bedsheets, which are rectangular. The classical Roman toga, however, was always made from a roughly semicircular piece of cloth. The classical toga was comprised of a single sheet of cloth, but this piece of cloth was actually much larger than the size of a single bedsheet. That is the reason why in Roman statues you always see ripples of flowing cloth.

Furthermore, the classical toga was always made from wool, whereas most modern bedsheets are made from cotton. In ancient times, cotton could only be obtained through importing it from India, which was half a world away from Italy. Only the extremely ultra wealthy would have been able to afford any kind of clothes made from cotton.

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Happy New Year? Depends on Which Calendar You Are Using…

Today, January 1 is widely celebrated as the beginning of the New Year, but it was not always that way.

Our modern calendar is based off the ancient Roman calendar, but the ancient Roman calendar is a bit different from ours. This is what scholars believe the ancient Roman calendar would have looked like originally:

Martius
Aprilis
Maius
Iunius
Quintilis
Sextilis
September
October
November
December

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Hades: Not Such a Bad Guy After All

There is an interesting trope common in films based on Greek mythology in which Hades, the ruler of the Underworld, always seems to be the villain. It is a trope seen in films such as Walt Disney Pictures’ Hercules (1997), Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010), and Wrath of the Titans (2012). It seems that every movie that includes Hades always seems to uniformly portray him as a maniacal, conniving scoundrel, constantly seeking to overthrow Zeus and claim supreme power for himself. The problem with this picture is that it really does not come from the myths themselves.

In ancient times, the Greeks did not think of Hades as being evil. He was neither regarded as some sinister, fast-talking, flamy-haired cartoon villain, nor a fifteen-foot winged fire demon. They did not consider him decidedly malevolent, but rather merely reclusive, coldhearted, and somewhat aloof to the misery of the people residing in his kingdom.

Palmyra: Chronicling the Destruction of an Ancient City

As you are all probably already aware, yesterday ISIS managed to successfully recapture the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra. Palmyra is an ancient city located in central Syria. Prior to the Syrian Civil War, Palmyra was widely renowned for its beautiful ancient monuments. It was one the most popular tourist destinations in the Middle East. It was, and still is, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In May of 2015, ISIS captured Palmyra. On June 27, 2015, ISIS destroyed the Lion of Al-lat, an ancient staute of a lion created during the first century A.D.

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Misunderstood Myths, Part One: Pandora’s Jar

You have all doubtlessly heard the story of Pandora at some point or another. The story begins with Zeus, who decides to punish humans for having received fire from the Titan Prometheus, so he creates Pandora, the first woman, and gives her to Prometheus’s twin brother Epimetheus. Epimetheus accepts Pandora and marries her, even though Prometheus has previously warned him never to accept any kind of gifts from Zeus under any circumstances. Along with Pandora, Zeus also gives Epimetheus a jar with a lid and instructs him that the jar must never be opened under any circumstances. Epimetheus warns Pandora not to open the jar, but then, once Epimetheus is out of the house, Pandora ignores his warning, opens the jar, and unleashes all the evils of the earth, causing untold suffering for all mankind. Pandora slams the lid shut on the jar, trapping the one thing left inside, Hope.

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The Longest-Reigning Monarch in All of Human History

You may have occasionally found yourself wondering who the longest-reigning monarch in all of recorded history was, but, chances are, you have probably never had the time to look it up.

Queen Elizabeth II of Britain is the longest-reigning monarch who is currently still alive. She ascended to the throne on February 6, 1952 and has remained queen ever since. In spite of this, however, she is not the longest-reigning monarch of all time or even the longest-reigning monarch in modern history.

The longest reigning monarch in modern history is King Sobhuza II of Swaziland, who ascended to the throne on December 10, 1899 and continued to reign until his death on August 21, 1982. He reigned for nearly eighty-three years, which is truly an astonishingly long period of time. Nonetheless, although King Sobhuza II is the longest-reigning monarch in modern times, he is not even close to being the longest-reigning monarch of all time.

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The Fascinating Evolution of the Word Silly

Some words seem to almost insinuate their meanings just by the very way they sound. I have always felt the word silly is one such word. There is something that seems almost inherently silly about the sound “illy” in English. Perhaps I only feel this way because I have heard comic expressions containing this sound, such as “silly billy” and “willy-nilly,” too many times. In any case, the word silly has quite an unusual and fascinating history. Indeed, of all the words in the English language, the word silly is perhaps the word with the strangest, most convoluted history of meanings.

Debunking Popular Myths about the First Thanksgiving

Most people think that they know the story of the first Thanksgiving. The truth, though, is that much of the traditional narrative that we have all been taught about the so-called “first Thanksgiving” is historically inaccurate. Here, in this article, I debunk a few of the most popular misconceptions about the so-called “first Thanksgiving,” including when it was held, why it was held, and who was present at it.

The Ancient Greek Cinderella

The story of Cinderella is a classic European folk tale that almost everyone in the western world has known since childhood. Most people here in the United States were first introduced to the story through the classic Walt Disney animated film Cinderella (1950), which was based on a French version of the story published in 1697 by the French writer Charles Perrault in his book Histoires ou contes du temps passé (“Stories of Past Times with Morals”). The story of Cinderella itself, however, is far, far older than Perrault. In fact, the oldest known version of the story of Cinderella was actually first recorded by a Greek writer in Hellenistic Egypt during the early first century AD.
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