Magna Mater: Did you mean...?

Imagine something that has never been thought of before. If one holds a book in one's hands, one can imagine an e-book, a large-print book, a picture book, all kinds of books. But how does one imagine a book in a world where even the concept...

Domesday Book was a comprehensive survey and record of all the landowners, property, tenants and serfs of medieval Norman England. It was compiled in 1086-7 under the orders of William the Conqueror (r. 1066-87). The record is unique in European...

The Mediterranean island of Sicily, with its natural resources and strategic position on ancient trading routes, aroused the intense interest of successive empires from Carthage to Athens to Rome. Consequently, the island was never far from...

Map of the western Mediterranean at the time of the First Punic War in 264 BCE.

Selinus (or Selinous, modern: Selinunte), located on the south-west coast of Sicily, was founded in the mid-7th century BCE by Greek colonists from Megara Hyblaea on the eastern side of the island. Selinus was the most western Greek colony...

Segesta (or Egesta), located in the north-west corner of Sicily, was an important trading town from the 7th century BCE onwards. Situated on the strategically advantageous slopes of Mt. Barbaro, yet still close enough to the coast to support...

Agathocles of Syracuse (c. 361 - 289 BCE) ruled as tyrant of the Sicilian city for over 25 years. Ambitious, unprincipled, and seeing himself as a new Alexander, he famously attacked Carthage in a three-year campaign and made conquests in...

Although ancient Greek Society was dominated by the male citizen, with his full legal status, right to vote, hold public office, and own property, the social groups which made up the population of a typical Greek city-state or polis were...

Travel opportunities within the ancient Greek world largely depended on status and profession; nevertheless, a significant proportion of the population could, and did, travel across the Mediterranean to sell their wares, skills, go on religious...

Sometime around 330 BCE, Pytheas, a little-known Greek merchant, embarked on an astonishing voyage. It was a voyage that would take him far beyond the known boundaries of the Mediterranean, into lands thought to exist only in myth and legend...