Pericles had some rather advanced ideas about politics.
PabloEscudero
What would Aristotle have thought of modern liberal democracy? It’s complicated.
Donald Trump and Adam Smith.
Gage Skidmore via Flickr/Wikimedia Commons
American democracy is in thrall to an aggressive demagogue – and Adam Smith and friends saw it coming more than 200 years ago.
Beards: powering tech startups since 813 AD.
Wikimedia Commons
Many “modern” inventions actually have precedents dating back over 1000 years.
The Pantheon dome - made entirely out of concrete.
MatthiasKabel/wikimedia
Think atomic theory was invented in the 19th century? Try 5th century BC.
A ‘flat-Earth’ map drawn by Orlando Ferguson in 1893. This rendering of a flat Earth still gets some truck today.
Wikimedia/Orlando Ferguson
We often hear that most people throughout history believed the world was flat. But that’s not entirely true.
The heroes of the Iliad … or the Labour front bench?
Wikimedia Commons
The House of Commons’ remarkable debate over air strikes really was a spectacle of heroic proportions.
In Athenian spirit.
Carsten Rehder/EPA
Berlin recently agreed to curb the number of migrants it welcomed after a backlash against Angela Merkel’s suspension of EU rules limiting numbers. It followed previous scenes of crowds welcoming new arrivals…
National Theatre of Wales
Classical epic can seem particularly alien in the instant gratification culture of Instagram and Twitter, yet there’s a surge of interest in them.
What is Greece all about? Bearded philosophers? Caryatids? Spartans?
Sorin Colac/Shutterstock.com
Our current turn towards ancient Greece touches on a fundamental nerve in modern society.
Which football team do I support again?
Andy Rain/EPA
Ordinary bloke or posh twit? Meet the ancient Greek David Cameron.
The Anzac landings at Gallipoli in April 1915 marked the beginning of another instance of conflict in the war-rich region’s history.
archivesnz/flickr
The history of the Gallipoli region enhances the story of the Anzac campaign and situates it in a notably rich cultural context.
Studies of a reclining male nude: Adam in the fresco ‘The Creation of Man’ on the vault of the Sistine Chapel. c. 1511. Michelangelo.
© The Trustees of the British Museum
Here are the facts behind four commonly held beliefs about Ancient Greek sexuality.
The NBC Nightly News of ancient Greece…
Greek and Roman historians were also known to fudge or fabricate their time in the field.
Not the one we have fixed in our imaginations.
Peter Paul Rubens, 1638
Hippocrates is considered the father of medicine, enemy of superstition, pioneer of rationality and fount of eternal wisdom. Statues and drawings show him with a furrowed brow, thinking hard about how…
Statuettes and a reproduction of the automatic theatre of Hero of Alexandria.
Alan Dorin.
As humans, we create life. And we’re all familiar with the idea of artificial intelligence. But what about artificial life? What is it, and why should we care? Artificial Life is a recently labelled but…
Ancient Athens practically invented Western culture, but xenophobia led to the collapse of the Empire.
Flickr/SantiMB
Those debating Australia’s future, and its immigration policy would do well to consider a lesson from the past. Anybody can establish a successful state, the real difficulty is maintaining its success…