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From around 800 BCE, ancient Greek city-states, most of which were maritime powers, began to look beyond Greece for land and resources. As a consequence, they founded colonies across the Mediterranean. Trade was usually the first step in...

Theseus is a legendary hero from Greek mythology who was considered an early king of Athens. Famously killing villains, Amazons, and centaurs, Theseus' most celebrated adventure was his slaying of the fearsome Minotaur in the labyrinth of...

Aqueducts transport water from one place to another, achieving a regular and controlled supply to a place that would not otherwise receive sufficient quantities. Consequently, aqueducts met basic needs from antiquity onwards such as the irrigation...

Draco was an aristocrat who in 7th century BCE Athens was handed the task of composing a new body of laws. We have no particular clues concerning his life and general biography and the only certainty is that, as an aristocrat and an educated...

Euclid of Alexandria (lived c. 300 BCE) systematized ancient Greek and Near Eastern mathematics and geometry. He wrote The Elements, the most widely used mathematics and geometry textbook in history. Older books sometimes confuse him with...

Solon (c. 640 – c. 560 BCE) was an Athenian statesman, lawmaker, and poet, who is credited with restructuring the social and political organisation of Athens and thereby laying the foundations for Athenian democracy. Such were his accomplishments...

Hercules (Herakles) was a hero of Greek mythology famous for his great strength and endurance. Celebrated as an extraordinary mortal, his success in seemingly impossible labours won him an immortal place amongst the gods. As the greatest...

Nyx (also known as Nox or the Night) is the personification of the night in Greek mythology. Coming from Chaos (Void), Nyx is a primordial deity (Protogenoi). The Protogenoi represent the physical and elemental forces of the world and consist...

Publius Vergilius Maro (70-19 BCE), better known to most modern readers as Virgil, was one of the greatest poets of the early Roman Empire. His best-known work, the Aeneid, told of a Trojan prince, Aeneas, who escaped the burning of Troy...

The Thirty Tyrants (οἱ τριάκοντα τύραννοι) is a term first used by Polycrates in a speech praising Thrasybulus (Arist. Rhet. 1401a) to describe the brief 8-month oligarchy which governed Athens after the Peloponnesian War – roughly late-summer...