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The agoge was the ancient Spartan education program, which trained male youths in the art of war. The word means "raising" in the sense of raising livestock from youth toward a specific purpose. The program was first instituted by the lawgiver...

Satan, or the Devil, is one of the best-known characters in the Western traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Surprisingly, this entity was a late-comer in the ancient world. Satan, as a totally evil being, is nowhere to be found...

The lives of women in ancient Mesopotamia cannot be characterized as easily as with other civilizations, owing to the different cultures over time. Generally speaking, though, Mesopotamian women had significant rights, could own businesses...

Greek mathematics, the study of numbers and their properties, patterns, structure, space, apparent change, and measurement, is said to have originated with Thales of Miletus (l. c. 585 BCE) but was clearly understood during the periods of...

The Jolly Roger with its white skull and crossbones set against a black background has become a rather jovial part of pirate folklore but, in its day, this flag and others with similar blood-curdling designs, had a single and terrifying purpose...

Female gladiators in ancient Rome – referred to by modern-day scholars as gladiatrix – may have been uncommon but they did exist. Evidence suggests that a number of women participated in the public games of Rome even though this practice...

For well over 1,000 years, sacred stories and heroic epics have made up the mythology of Hinduism. Nothing in these complex yet colourful legends is fixed and firm. Pulsing with creation, destruction, love, and war, it shifts and changes...

The so-called Hyphasis Mutiny was a conflict between Alexander the Great (356-323 BCE) and his army following their victory at the river Hydaspes in 326 BCE. Alexander voiced plans for further conquests in the Indian subcontinent, however...

Christianity began as a sect of Judaism in Judea in the 1st century CE and spread to the cities of the Eastern Roman Empire and beyond. In these cities, non-Jews, Gentiles, wanted to join the movement, and these Gentile-Christians soon outnumbered...

The word 'plague', in defining a lethal epidemic, was coined by the physician Galen (l. 130-210 CE) who lived through the Antonine Plague (165 - c. 180/190 CE) but the disease was recorded long before in relating the affliction of the Plague...