Mercury: Did you mean...?

The Cimbri were a tribe who lived in northern Jutland during the Roman era. Their ethnicity is enigmatic; scholars generally believe that the Cimbri were Germans, though others maintain that they were Celts. The late 2nd-century BCE migration...

Achilles The hero of the Trojan War, leader of the Myrmidons, slayer of Hector and Greece's greatest warrior, who sadly came unstuck when Paris sent a flying arrow guided by Apollo, which caught him in his only weak spot, his heel. Adonis...

To the ancient Romans, everything was imbued with a divine spirit (numen, plural: numina) which gave it life. Even supposedly inanimate objects like rocks and trees possessed a numen, a belief which no doubt grew out of the early religious...

The Spanish conquistadors might have gained a lasting reputation as the great gold-seekers of history, but they were actually far more successful in acquiring silver. Over 100 tons of gold were extracted from the Americas from 1492 to 1560...

The astronomers of the Scientific Revolution rejected long-held theories of ancient thinkers like Claudius Ptolemy and Aristotle and instead set out to systematically observe the heavens in order to create a model of the universe that fit...

This gallery is a visual guide to Roman mythology. It includes some of the more influential or popular deities, heroes and spirits from Roman mythology, and their identifying features. Roman mythology was a collection of legends and traditions...

In ancient Celtic cultures, torcs were a common form of jewellery and were made from bronze, copper, silver, and gold. Torcs were not just exquisite works of Celtic art but also identified the wearer’s status and perhaps were believed to...

Set on the North African coast, Tunisia is home to some of the finest Roman ruins in the Mediterranean. After the fall of Carthage, Rome transformed the region into the prosperous province of Africa, enriched by its fertile plains and bustling...

The foundation of observatories during the Scientific Revolution (1500-1700) followed a process of evolution from entirely independent observatories operated by a single astronomer to private observatories which received state or private...

Roman marble copy from the late 1st century CE - early 2nd century CE after a Greek original of 450-440 BCE (right hand restored). Possibly here as Hermes Psychopompos, leader of souls - the left hand beckons. Part of a monument in Athens...