When the first phase of the Peloponnesian War ended, in 421 BC, Athens and Sparta signed the Peace of Nicias which was to last 50 years. However, only five years later, an embassy from the city of Segesta, in Sicily, arrived in Athens with an irresistible offer. It is also true that neither the Ath
The Corinth Canal, which links the gulf of the same name in the northwest of the Peloponnese with the Saronic Gulf in the Aegean through a 6.3-kilometre-long waterway, was built at the end of the 19th century, between 1881 and 1893. But the idea was not new, it was several centuries old (even Nero
Of all the oracles of the ancient Greek world, that of Delphi was undoubtedly the most important. Many who consulted the oracles of Didyma, Dodona, Olympia, Claros, Efira or Delos, asked for a second opinion at Delphi, if they could afford it. Even so, it was not the oldest, an honor that fell to
One of the primary sources available to historians to date the events of the history of ancient Rome is that of the consular tables. As its name indicates, these are lists that summarize the names of all the consuls who succeeded one another in that magistracy, first in the Republican era and later
In August 1893, the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen experienced a strange phenomenon when he was sailing in the Arctic north of Siberia near the Nordenskiöld archipelago:his ship, the Fram , he was slowed down by a mysterious force that barely allowed him to maneuver, let alone reach normal spe
Traditionally, the great trump card of Athens over Sparta in that long rivalry they maintained for primacy in the Greek world was their navy, thanks to which they were able to compensate for the unstoppable war machine of the Spartan army on land. However, after the trial for blasphemy of his most p
If someone plans to visit the German city of Magdeburg, they will inevitably have in mind to enter the cathedral. In this case, we recommend that you go to the tomb of Otto I the Great e, where you will discover an unusual statue:a medieval knight, with his sword at his belt, his coat of mail, his c
Military decorations are not something relatively recent, since the Egyptians from the Old Kingdom (between 2686 and 2181 BC) knew them and awarded them to their most outstanding soldiers. Greeks, Celts and Romans also had different decorations, whose names have come down to us although their meanin
Ancient Egypt has served as the context for a few movies that mix its story with science fiction or uchrony, showing pyramids turned into spaceships, mammoths used as pack animals, theriomorphic gods that are aliens, and the like. It is somewhat strange but fun as long as the approach is merely fant
Until the end of the 16th century, all Chinese maps identified with the exonym Da Qin to the city of Rome. An exonym, as we explained some time ago, is the term used by speakers of a language to refer to a place that is outside their scope. A clear example would be the term London, which is how we S
After Alexanders death, the diadochi, that is, his generals, got into a thousand and one disputes to divide up the empire, unable to reach an agreement on the succession. As is known, Ptolemy kept Egypt but was about to lose it to the invasion initiated by one of his companions, Perdiccas, when the
The most famous Nepos is perhaps Cornelius, a Gallo-Roman historian who was a friend of Catullus, Cicero and Pomponius Atticus who, therefore, lived in the time of Augustus and left an anthology of biographies entitled De viris illustribus , among other works. But, four centuries later, at the end o
When the Roman general Sulla took Athens in 86 B.C. he got a fantastic prize:Aristotles library. Indeed, much of the library of the famous philosopher had been taken back to Athens by Apelicon, who had bought it in very poor condition and dedicated himself to restoring it, not too tactfully. The R
This quote does not correspond to a proclamation of the War of Independence against the Napoleonic troops nor to the work of an author of the extreme left, nor to an American indigenist speech against the Spanish conquest or one against the British Empire from one of its colonies. Tacitus wrote it a
The Esquiline is a district in the historic center of Rome whose etymology comes from the ancient castra priora equitum singularium , that is, the headquarters of the Equites Singulares Augusti (imperial guard on horseback), which was located on the neighboring Celio hill. In ancient times it was
Recently reading that unique compendium of Roman history that is Veni, vidi, vici written by Professor Peter Jones, an enigmatic phrase caught my attention: Note that it says we know of no Latin poet who was born in Rome Come on, absolutely none. It is not that no poet was born in the city of Rom
My mother was a high priestess, I did not know my father. With this famous phrase, a rare combination of pride and modesty (and which is actually many centuries later), the founder of a new dynasty in the Mesopotamian kingdom of Acad and creator of what can be considered the first great empire of An
The expression mosaic of peoples is frequently used to refer to the numerous and varied ethnic and cultural composition that characterized Central Asia in ancient times, to the point that even when we refer to one in particular, it was often a confederation of several of them. This is the case of th
We are going to talk about one of the oldest cities in History -if not the oldest-, understanding as such those that have been inhabited continuously from its foundation to the present day. If I tell you that his name was Gubla, it wont sound familiar to most; if we look at its biblical name, Gebal,
In military history there are often cases of armies that, harassed during their retreats, end up being decimated or even exterminated completely. The cases of the British who left Kabul or the Grand Armée returning from Russia are famous. But there is one little-known one that is somewhat surprising
Armagnac , Southwest Historical Region France , is now in Department Gers. It is a hilly region reaching 300m in height, drained by the Gers and other rivers that fan out from the Lannemezan Plateau. On the slopes of its hills grow the grapes from which the famous Armagnac Brandy .
Because the economic relations between France and its external possessions are still in conformity, in 1934, with the principles of the old Colonial Pact, with the customs assimilation, the monopoly of the flag for the commercial navigation, the systematic development of the products and materials n
We left the 19th corps established south of the plain of Pont-du-Fahs and the steep-sided Pont-du-Fahs - Saouaf road, facing the Zaghouan. For the attack set for May 4, General Koeltz gave the following instructions:• Left. the division of Oran will seize the threshold of Pont-du-Fahs, thus opening
The establishment of the republican regime in Brazil was justified by the tensions undertaken by the political centralization of the monarchical government. In this way, the Republic promised to lead Brazil to the indispensable changes that would take the nation out of the backwardness promoted by c