Showing results by publisher "Charles River Editors" in Ancient

The Ancient Greeks have long been considered the forefathers of modern Western civilization, but the Golden Age of Athens and the spread of Greek influence across much of the known world only occurred due to one of the most crucial battles of antiquity: the Battle of Marathon.

Africa may have given rise to the first humans, and Egypt probably gave rise to the first great civilizations, which continue to fascinate modern societies across the globe nearly 5,000 years later. From the Library and Lighthouse of Alexandria to the Great Pyramid at Giza, the Ancient Egyptians produced several wonders of the world, revolutionized architecture and construction, created some of the world's first systems of mathematics and medicine, and established language and art that spread across the known world.

En África surgieron los primeros seres humanos, y Egipto probablemente dio origen a las primeras grandes civilizaciones, que continúan fascinando a las sociedades modernas alrededor del mundo casi 5.000 años más tarde. Desde la Biblioteca y el Faro de Alejandría hasta la gran pirámide de Guiza, los antiguos egipcios produjeron varias maravillas del mundo, revolucionaron la arquitectura y la construcción, crearon algunos de los primeros sistemas de matemáticas y medicina del mundo y establecieron lenguaje y arte que se extendieron por todo el mundo conocido.

Worshipped by many cultures, one of the main deities of the great Aztec Empire, the “Lord of the Smoking Mirror,” is also one of the most interesting and elusive Mesoamerican deities.

Sobresaliendo de las llanuras desérticas del sur de Iraq se pueden ver los restos de un montículo largo, de un tamaño aproximado de 1.750 x 1.750 pies, rodeado de varios montículos más pequeños. Conocido hoy en día como Tell Abu Shahrain y en el mundo antiguo como Eridu, el sitio contiene algunos de los mejores ejemplos de la cultura Obeid, y fue uno de los primeros, si no el primer centro urbano de la civilización en el sur de Mesopotamia.

In 1798, an initial review of France’s naval forces had led Napoleon to conclude his navy could not hope to outfight the power of the Royal Navy, which had been the dominant naval power for centuries, so he was forced to look elsewhere. After months of planning, Napoleon crafted a scheme to attack and conquer Egypt, denying the British easy access to their colonies in India, with the ultimate goal of linking up with the Sultan Tipoo in India itself and defeating the British in the field there.

Throughout the annals of history, there have been few men as reviled as Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger. To this day he is associated with murder, betrayal, violence, and infamy, so much so that in modern English his name provides the root for the words "brute" and "brutal", as it does in several other Romance languages. Indeed Brutus' reputation was so infamous that when Dante composed his timeless Divine Comedy, he relegated Brutus to the very nethermost depths of hell.

World history is replete with many examples of nomadic barbarian hordes that swept into the kingdoms and countries of sedentary peoples, often leaving just as quickly as they had come. Sometimes, the hordes stayed in the territories they conquered and adopted the cultural attributes of the more sophisticated sedentary groups. It is important to know that barbarian invasions throughout history were usually not led by individuals or groups that hated or wanted to see the larger, often more powerful sedentary kingdoms or empires destroyed. 

To many in the ancient world, their gods and goddesses were all around them and could be seen daily in nature, which meant that nearly every kind of animal, both domestic and wild, was associated with a god or goddess. In places like Egypt and Greece, deities and other mythological characters were often depicted with human bodies and animal heads, and various Greek religious rituals relied on sacrificing animals. Animals were constantly involved in the core elements of Greek society and cults.

Imagine a feline with the spirit of a lion, the sneakiness of a puma, the terrifying walk of a black bear, and the strong arms of a gorilla. This amazing creature was best known as the saber-toothed tiger, an animal so fearless, it could beat beasts even twice their size! After dinosaurs, few vanished animals are as famous as the woolly mammoths, or in 18th-century scientist George Cuvier’s words, "some kind of extinct elephant".

In today’s modern world, every political regime, even the most authoritarian or repressive, describes itself as democracy or a democratic people’s republic. The concept of rule by the people and on behalf of the people has come to be accepted as the norm. Very few would overtly espouse the cause of dictatorship, absolute monarchy, or oligarchy as the most desirable political system upon which to base the government of any country.

Throughout history, Syria has been dominated not by one great city but by two. Aside from Aleppo to the north, the religious and commercial metropolis of Damascus has been a place desired by the powerful. For thousands of years the Phoenicians, Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Christians, and Muslims all vied for control of the city.

Graeco-Roman relations in the ancient world are normally assumed to date, essentially, from 146 BC when Rome organized its supervision of Greece through its governors in Macedonia. In fact, the first direct interactions of any note between the two come about during the first Illyrian War in 229 B.C, although, of course there had been contacts of numerous kinds even prior to this date.

Cuando los estudiosos estudian la historia del antiguo Cercano Oriente, a menudo se destacan varias guerras que tuvieron consecuencias extremadamente brutales (al menos para los estándares modernos). La eliminación forzada de poblaciones enteras, los asedios que diezmaron ciudades enteras y la destrucción ilícita de propiedades fueron tácticas utilizadas por los diversos pueblos del antiguo Cercano Oriente unos contra otros, pero los asirios fueron los primeros en hacer de la guerra una ciencia.

The reasons for so little being known about Thebes and its contributions to ancient Greek civilization are complex, but the fact that it was totally destroyed by Alexander the Great is certainly one. Unlike Athens and Sparta, there are no magnificent structures still extant - indeed, the scale of the destruction meted out to Thebes was so great, that very few artifacts of any kind have been discovered that enable a full picture of life in the city. With the very notable exception of Pindar, Thebes did not produce significant numbers of philosophers or playwrights.

Before any type of unified political entity named Israel existed, the Jewish groups whose descendants would later form Israel identified themselves by their particular tribe. If asked their nationality or country of origin, they would likely identify themselves as Danites (from the tribe of Dan; Ex. 31:6) or Ephraimites (from the tribe of Ephraim; Judg. 12:5), etc.

After the Western Roman Empire ended in 476, a host of new, primarily Germanic people inherited Roman lands, wealth, and ideas in Western Europe. The most notable of these were the non-Germanic Huns, but after them came the Gepids, an important but overlooked group. The Gepids were no less bellicose than the other Germanic tribes or the Huns, causing immense destruction throughout Europe and constantly threatening the stability of the Eastern Roman Empire. The Gepids knew how to use the powerful Byzantine Empire to their advantage and to make alliances with other Germanic tribes.

There are not many corners in the world that have seen as many people, civilizations, and armies as Tel Megiddo. Located in the western Jezreel Valley, it once laid upon the Via Maris, an ancient international trade route that connected ancient Egypt to the kingdoms and empires of Palestine, Syria, Anatolia, and Mesopotamia. It is because of this road that Megiddo saw so much carnage and bloodshed throughout its history.

Much has been written about Western intervention during the breakup of Yugoslavia, and whether it made matters worse, prevented worse atrocities, or was simply ineffective. In early 1992, however, what was clear was that Europe was hopelessly divided over the best course of action to take towards Yugoslavia, and after several years of fighting, the Bosnian War was one of the most violent conflagrations in Europe since the end of World War II.

Dominated to this day by the sprawling white marble complex of the Acropolis, Athens is a city which is immensely and rightly proud of its past. For a period of roughly three centuries, the polis of Athens stood, if not in a position of unchallenged supremacy among the cities of Hellas, then at the very least among its three most important polities.