Delphic Oracle: Did you mean...?

Writing is the physical manifestation of a spoken language. It is thought that human beings developed language circa 35,000 BCE as evidenced by cave paintings from the period of the Cro-Magnon Man...

Oracles in the ancient Greek world were the way in which the people of Greece could communicate with their gods. Gods couldn’t be communed with directly, so an oracle, who was often a woman, was the person that the gods...

Modern medicine has its origin in the ancient world. The oldest civilizations used magic and herbs to cure their sick people, but they also used religion to free them from harm and to protect their health. The medical...

Delphi was the site of the Delphic oracle, the most important oracle in the classical Greek world, when it was a major site for the worship of the god Apollo after he slew the Python, a deity who lived there and protected...

Hatshepsut, whose name means "Foremost of Noble Women" or "First Among Noble Women" (royal name, Ma'at-ka-re, translated as "spirit of harmony and truth") was the fifth ruler of the 18th Dynasty (r...

Xenophon's Defense of Socrates (c. 371 BCE) is a passage from the Memorabilia of Xenophon (l. 430 to c. 354 BCE) in which he addresses the teachings and actions of Socrates of Athens and denounces the charges against...

Magic was ever-present in the wider Greco-Roman world. Spells and herbs, spirits and gods, curses and blessings, prophecies and oracles, they were all the domain of the...

Daily life in ancient China changed through the centuries but reflected the values of the presence of gods and one's ancestors in almost every time period. Villages like Banpo show evidence of a matriarchal society, where...

Greek mythology was used as a means to explain the environment in which humankind lived, the natural phenomena they witnessed and the passing of time through the days, months, and seasons. Greek myths were also intricately connected...

Phaedra is a princess of Crete and the wife of the Greek hero Theseus in Greek mythology. She is one of the main characters in Euripides' (c. 484-407 BCE) Greek tragedy Hippolytus, which recounts how her love for Thesesus' son Hippolytus...