Ancient

The Diver of Paestum: Youth, Eros and the Sea in Ancient Greece by Tonio Hölscher – and translated by Robert Savage – searches beneath the surface for the meaning behind a beguiling fresco.

The Merovingians have a reputation for long hair and barbarity. Instead, the dynasty, born out of the chaos of civil war, was one of peace, diplomacy, and bureaucracy.

In the first millennium BC the Brahmin class organised as a community and assumed responsibility for learning the sacred Vedas. What are the origins of India’s priestly caste?

When it was discovered in the 19th century, the Library of Ashurbanipal revealed an ancient Assyrian empire previously known only through myth.

Who Really Wrote the Bible: The Story of the Scribes by William M. Schniedewind asks what authorship meant to the hidden hands behind the Old Testament.

Ancient Roman election advice suggested some uncomfortable campaign strategies. Evidence from Pompeii suggests many candidates followed it enthusiastically.

The Queen of the Night, rendered in clay in ancient Babylon, was evidently an important goddess who enjoyed considerable status – but who is she?

Once Rome’s main artery south, for centuries the Via Appia has been taken as proof of Roman greatness.

Four historians evaluate perceptions of Rome’s eastern successor beyond the piety, icons, bureaucracy and gold of Byzantium.