Images

Bust of Lucian of Samosata, image included by William Faithorne in John Dryden's The works of Lucian, translated from the Greek by several eminent hands, London, 1711. Born in Roman Syria in the 2nd century CE, Lucian was a well-known satirist...

A statue of the snake god Glycon, whose cult became popular in the 2nd-century CE Roman Empire. The Roman satirist Lucian credits the founding of the cult to the mystic and apparent oracle Alexander of Abonoteichus. Museum of National History...

The westward expansion of the Scythians (c. 700–300 BCE) illustrates how mobile steppe societies could reshape the political and cultural landscapes of Eurasia without building territorial empires. Originating in the Central Asian steppes...

Hekate, painting by Maximilian Pirner, 1901. A depiction of the Greek goddess Hekate, or Hecate, with her many symbols and faces in an art nouveau style. She is associated with the domains of magic, witchcraft, night, light, crossroads...

Europe on the eve of World War I was defined by a volatile mix of alliance politics, imperial rivalry, and rising nationalism. The continent was divided into two heavily armed blocs, the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente, binding the...

A map of the cradles of early civilization. The pathways toward early civilization between c. 12,000 and 1,000 BCE were neither uniform nor linear. In the wake of the last Ice Age, climatic change encouraged communities in different parts...

The rise and spread of Christianity (1st–5th centuries CE) traces the transformation of a small, decentralized religious movement in Roman Judea into a faith that reshaped the political, social, and cultural foundations of the Roman world...

Caligula Depositing the Ashes of his Mother and Brother in the Tomb of his Ancestors, oil on canvas painting by Eustache Le Sueur, c. 1647. Depicted here is Emperor Caligula as he places the ashes of his mother Agrippina the Elder and brother...

Agrippina and Germanicus, oil on panel painting by Peter Paul Rubens, c. 1614. Here, Rubens depicts Agrippina the Elder and Germanicus, a power couple of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty in the early years of the Roman Empire. National Gallery...

Marble portrait of Agrippina the Elder (Agrippina Major) from the 1st century CE, photograph by Didier Descouens, 11 May 2023. National Archeological Museum of Venice.