Greek symposium: Did you mean...?

Eros was the Greek god of love, or more precisely, passionate and physical desire. Without warning Eros selects his targets and forcefully strikes at their hearts, bringing confusion and irrepressible feelings. In the words of Hesiod, he...

The Hellenistic World (from the Greek word Hellas for Greece) is the known world after the conquests of Alexander the Great and corresponds roughly with the Hellenistic Period of ancient Greece, from 323 BCE (Alexander's death) to the annexation...

We know the names of some potters and painters of Greek vases because they signed their work. Generally a painter signed his name followed by some form of the verb 'painted', while a potter (or perhaps the painter writing for him) signed...

The Battle of Plataea was a land battle between Greeks and Persians near the small town of Plataea in Boeotia in 479 BCE. Following up their naval victory at the Battle of Salamis in September 480 BCE against the same enemy, the Greeks again...

In the search for ever more impressive and lethal weapons to shock the enemy and bring total victory the armies of ancient Greece, Carthage, and even sometimes Rome turned to the elephant. Huge, exotic, and frightening the life out of an...

The system of names used today for Greek vases has quite rightly been described by one leading scholar as 'chaotic'. Many of the names were first applied in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by scholars who tried to fit the names of...

Satyrs (aka silens) are figures from Greek mythology who were followers of the god of wine Dionysos. Satyrs were often guilty of excessive sexual desires and overindulgence of wine. Men with a horse's tail and ears or men with goat legs...

The architects of the ancient Greek world believed that temples should not just fulfil their purpose of housing a statue of a god or goddess but that they should be admired from both close-up and from afar. Consequently, a great deal of effort...

Aristophanes (c. 460 - c. 380 BCE) was the most famous writer of Old Comedy plays in ancient Greece and his surviving works are the only examples of that style. His innovative and sometimes rough comedy could also hide more sophisticated...

Xenophon of Athens (l. 430 to c. 354 BCE) was a contemporary of Plato and a fellow student of Socrates. He is best known for his Anabasis (The March Up Country) detailing the retreat of the Ten Thousand Greek mercenaries after the defeat...