Beauty: Did you mean...?

Greek literature has influenced not only its Roman neighbors to the west but also countless generations across the European continent. Greek writers are responsible for the introduction of such genres as poetry, tragedy...

Little Crow (Taoyateduta, also known as Little Crow III, l. c. 1810-1863) was a Dakota Sioux chief best known as the leader of the Mdewakanton Dakota (Santee) Sioux during the Dakota War of 1862. After years of trying...

Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (c. 90 - c. 20 BCE), better known simply as Vitruvius, was a Roman military engineer and architect who wrote De Architectura (On Architecture), a treatise which combines the history of ancient architecture and...

Harriet Jacobs (l. c. 1813-1897) was a former slave, abolitionist, and author of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861), her autobiography, describing her life as a slave in North Carolina, her flight to freedom in the North...

Marsyas the satyr, or silen, was seen as a mythological founder of aulos playing or a divine judge of it by the ancient Greeks. The way in which his aulos playing enraptured his audience was likened to the way in which Socrates mesmerised...

Ajax is a play written by the 5th-century BCE Greek poet and dramatist Sophocles. Although Sophocles wrote at least 120 plays, only seven have survived. Of his surviving plays, the best-known is Oedipus Rex (Oedipus the King) - part...

Empress Wu Zetian (Empress Consort Wu, Wu Hou, Wu Mei Niang, Mei-Niang, and Wu Zhao, l. 624-705 CE, r. 690-704 CE) was the only female emperor of Imperial China. She reigned during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) and was one of the most...

Osiris is the Egyptian Lord of the Underworld and Judge of the Dead, brother-husband to Isis, and one of the most important gods of ancient Egypt. The name `Osiris' is the Latinized form of the Egyptian Usir which is interpreted as 'powerful'...

Zeus was the king of the 12 Olympian gods and the supreme god in Greek religion. Zeus is often referred to as the Father, as the god of thunder, and the 'cloud-gatherer'. Zeus controlled the weather and offered signs and omens. Zeus generally...

Built in the seventh century BCE, the ancient city of Byzantium proved to be a valuable city for both the Greeks and Romans. Because it lay on the European side of the Strait of Bosporus, the Emperor Constantine understood its...