Anabasis: Did you mean...?

Silphium (also known as laser) was an uncultivated plant that grew in Cyrene, North Africa (modern Shahhat, Libya) and became the cash crop of the region of Cyrenaica between c. 631 BCE and the 1st century CE when, according to Pliny...

The Achaemenid Persian Empire functioned as well as it did because of the efficient bureaucracy established by its founder Cyrus the Great (r. c. 550-530 BCE) which was administered through the satrapy system. A Persian...

The Orontid dynasty (aka Eruandid or Yervanduni) succeeded the Kingdom of Urartu in ancient Armenia and ruled from the 6th to 3rd century BCE. Initially, the Orontids ruled as Persian satraps and the culture, language and political...

Side (pronounced see-day) was a city on the southern coast of Cilicia (modern-day Turkey) first settled in the 7th century BCE by immigrants from Cyme, an Aeolian municipality to the north near the kingdom of Lydia. Its name means 'pomegranate'...

The Constantinian Excerpts, or Excerpta Constantiniana is the conventional name given to the mid-10th Century Byzantine palace encyclopedia commissioned by the scholar emperor Constantine...

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...

Women in ancient Persia were not only highly respected but, in many cases, considered the equals of males. Women could own land, conduct business, received equal pay, could travel freely on their own, and in the case of...

The intoxicant known in English as beer takes its name from the Latin bibere (by way of the German bier), meaning "to drink", and the Spanish word for beer, cerveza, comes from the Latin word...

Considering the value the ancient Egyptians placed on enjoying life, it is no surprise that they are known as the first civilization to perfect the art of brewing beer. The Egyptians were so well known as brewers, in fact...

The Achaemenid Empire (c. 550-330 BCE) was the first great Persian political entity in Western and Central Asia which stretched, at its peak, from Asia Minor to the Indus Valley and Mesopotamia through Egypt. It...