Strabo: Did you mean...?

Pasargadae was one of the oldest residences of the Achaemenid kings, founded by Cyrus the Great (r.559-530). It resembled a park of 2x3 km in which several monumental buildings were to be seen. According to the Roman geographer Strabo of...

Berenike IV (r. 58-55 BCE) was queen of Ptolemaic Egypt and the older sister of Cleopatra VII (r. 51-30 BCE). She ruled briefly after her father Ptolemy XII was overthrown by a popular rebellion. Berenike IV's reign ended in 55 BCE when her...

Aria (or Areia) was always understood to be the area around the Areios River, today Hari Rud in Afghanistan (Arrian, Anabasis IV.6.6). It was bounded to the north by Margiana and Bactria, where the area of the Margos River begins; to the...

Cyrus the Great (558-530 BCE) built the first universal empire, stretching from Greece to the Indus River. This was the famous Achaemenid Empire of Persia. An inscription at Naqsh-i-Rustam, the tomb of his able successor Darius I (521-486...

Sammu-Ramat (r. 811-806 BCE) was the queen regent of the Assyrian Empire who held the throne for her young son Adad Nirari III (r. 811-783 BCE) until he reached maturity. She is also known as Shammuramat, Sammuramat, and, most notably, as...

Mediterranean trade increased exponentially at the turn of the first millennium. During Rome's zenith, goods of all sorts began to move in all directions. As a common traveler aboard merchant ships, Paul traveled within such a milieu. Tracing...

The rarity of the appearance of Greco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek kingdoms in ancient literature is one of the reasons why those states are so little-known today. Indo-Greek literature did exist, but none has been found that speaks about the...

Caesarea Maritima was located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Built from the ground up in 22-10 BCE by Rome's client king, Herod the Great (r. 37-4 BCE), its location in relation to ship traffic and proximity to historical...

Magna Graecia (Megalē Hellas) refers to the coastal areas of southern Italy which were colonized by various Greek city-states from the 8th to 5th centuries BCE. Later writers such as Strabo also included Sicily and eventually the term came...

Map of the Pontic Kingdom before the reign of Mithridates VI (darkest purple), after his conquests (purple), and his conquests in the first Mithridatic wars (pink); little adds (ancient shorelines & some greek colonies under Mithridate's...