ROBIN ALINGTON MAGUIRE On the choice that changed everything
Category: History
War, Imperialism, and Democracy: Thucydides’ Ukrainian War
MAREK WĘCOWSKI What can we learn from the Peloponnesian War?
Iter Romanum: A Roman Journey – in Britain
PETER HULSE Exploring Corners of Roman Britain
The Fasces: Ancient Rome’s Most Dangerous Political Symbol
T.C. BRENNAN Rods, Axes, and Untrammelled Power.
Antigone’s Most-Read Articles
AN ANTIGONE REMINDER of our 50 most-read essays!
Ancient History is Happening Now: Jacek Bocheński and his Roman Trilogy
KATARZYNA MARCINIAK Celebrating a Classical trilogy.
Victualling a Trireme: A Taste of Experimental Archaeology
R.A. MAGUIRE Did the Athenians Take the Biscuit?
A Poetic Jewel from Late Antiquity: Prudentius’ Psychomachia
PETER HULSE An epic battle of the soul.
What Did Palaeo-European Peoples Write? Local Languages of the Western Mediterranean
GABRIELA DE TORD BASTERA Uncovering long-lost languages.
Barbarism and its Discontents in Ancient and Modern Ukraine
ANATOLY GRABLEVSKY Are barbarians in the eyes of the beholder?
“No Pharaoh’s Daughter is Ever Given to Anyone”: Why Did Amasis Refuse Cambyses?
NICKY NIELSEN On the complexities of Egyptian marriage.
The Stigma of Stigmata: Tattoos in the Ancient World
GISELLE ACOSTA Have attitudes to ink changed over millennia?
What Cicero Should Have Done: The Catilinarian Conspiracy Revisited
R. A. MAGUIRE Could Cicero have avoided exile?
Julius Caesar’s Last Words
J.S. UBHI Beware the Ides of March
Commodus: Rome’s Problem Child?
DAN BILLINGHAM Finding the man behind the myth.
The Ancient Boundaries of Classics
DOBRINKA CHIEKOVA The rich interaction between Greece and Thrace.
Helena, Julian and Attila: The Twilight of Rome in 20th-century Fiction
EDMUND RACHER Rome's Recessional in the novels of Burgess, Waugh and Vidal.
The Roman Army’s Trusty Vultures: The World’s First Banded Birds
ADRIENNE MAYOR When birds join the war effort.
Uncancelling Tiberius
JOHN ROTH What made Augustus' successor go so very wrong?
Two Greeks, Two Romans, and a Monsterdog: A Balloon Debate with ChatGPT
A TALE OF SKY-HIGH CHAOS As told by Artificial Intelligence
On Aging, On Friendship: Cicero’s De Senectute
MARTHA C. NUSSBAUM Life lessons from Cicero.
Herodotus on Christmas in 20th-Century Britain
AN ANCIENT HISTORIAN On the weird world of Niatirb.
The Romano-British Writing Tablets of Vindolanda
ALAN BOWMAN The Romans of Britannia speak again.
Sponsian: Another Lost Emperor
ALFRED DEAHL How (not) to mould a fake emperor.
The Ends of History
MICHAEL BONNER The decline and fall of declinism?
Integritas: the Importance of Being Whole
JOHN ROTH What can we learn from Regulus?
O Tempora: Classics Exams from Times Past
ANTIGONE Digs out papers from a different era.
Living Descendants of Mark Antony
THEODORE KOPALIANI Lifting a 2,000-year-old veil.
Was Apuleius a Witch?
JASPREET SINGH BOPARAI When wandering scholars go rogue.
Domitian II – the Lost Roman Emperor
ALFRED DEAHL When coins make history.
Eating and Living in Ancient Rome
TOMASZ SAPOTA Getting your fill in Latin literature.
The War that Made the Roman Empire: An Interview with Barry Strauss
BARRY STRAUSS Revisiting the Battle of Actium.
What You Need to Build a Greek Temple
EDMUND STEWART How hard can it be? Answer: very.
Epic Potery: Drinking with the Ancients
DAVID BUTTERFIELD Go hard or go Homer.
Learning Foreign Languages in Antiquity: How Did They Do It?
ELEANOR DICKEY Multilingual learning before Duolingo.
The Dewsbury Plaque revisited
(LIONEL SCOTT) What on earth is a temporary bus stop?
What did Classics do to Christianity?
SIMON GOLDHILL The constant collision of rival worldviews.
The Fate of Aristotle’s Library
LUCIANO CANFORA Did Aristotle's books found the Library of Alexandria?
American Argonauts (or, What Jason did next)
PETER HULSE Finding yourself in a Neo-Latin fantasy.
Polybius of Megalopolis: History Isn’t Always Written by Victors
GEORGINA LONGLEY The trials of a captive historian.
Bassani’s Cemeteries: the Ancient Etruscans and the Jews of Ferrara
GAVIN McCORMICK The solemn power of ancient memory.
Homer’s Scythian Readers
J.S. UBHI How did myths tour the ancient world?
Gellius in Antonine Society
LEOFRANC HOLFORD-STREVENS⠀ The manifold joys of Roman miscellanea.
The Writing’s on the Wall: Reading Roman Graffiti
JERRY TONER⠀ Who writes on a house like this?
A Fantasy of Justice: Revenge and the Other in Greek Tragedy
JANEK KUCHARSKI What do legendary "barbarians" reveal about Ancient Greek beliefs?
Socially Awkward Data: Studying Ancient Sociolinguistics
ROBIN MEYER By Pollux, curse these particles!
The Joy of a Humorless Stoic – Publius Rutilius Rufus
ALEX PETKAS Finding joy in a life full of embarrassment.
Beyond the Metropolis? The Roman Town of Interamna Lirenas
ALESSANDRO LAUNARO Are buried towns really left behind?
Ukraine’s Island of Heroes
MATEUSZ STRÓŻYŃSKI How heroism on an island links the past and present.
Versus de Scachis: When Chess Reached Europe
PETER HULSE A monkish poem on the game of kings.
Looking for Antinous
CAROLE RADDATO The immortal image of Hadrian's lost love.
Catullus and the Bad Poets Society
ALEKSANDRA KLĘCZAR The pleasure of writing good poems about bad ones.
Ancient Cybersecurity III: From Greek Fire-signalling to WWI Code-crafting
MARTINE DIEPENBROEK Sending high-security secrets from far away.
Julius Caesar and the Art of Hybrid War
BIJAN OMRANI The guile and spin of Caesar's campaigns.
Should You Be Upset? Cicero on the Desirability of Emotion
KATHARINA VOLK When should we really care?
Vergil, Versailles and Us: the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns
ANATOLY GRABLEVSKY Did 17th-century French art and literature outshine the Classics?
Herodotus, Pirate Amazons, and How to Write about the Past
CHRISTINE LEHNEN Scythian women did things their way.
Visions of Rome: An Interview with Mary Beard
MARY BEARD Caesars, Statues, and Classics Now.
Pandemics, Plagues, and Philosophy: Moral Lessons from Antiquity for the Modern World
MARTIN FERGUSON SMITH How would the Epicureans and Stoics face Covid-19?
The Joys of Latin and Christmas Feasts: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Farmer Giles of Ham
MATEUSZ STRÓŻYŃSKI Classic wordplay from Classics-loving Tolkien.
Shake It Off, Solon: What Was the Seisachtheia?
STEVE O'SULLIVAN Exploring the mysteries of Solon's economic revolution.
Learning to Read and Write in Ancient Rome
ALBERTO REGAGLIOLO How did the Romans begin their children's education?
Happy Eaters and Talkers, or The Great Idea of the Encyclopaedia
KRYSTYNA BARTOL The chance to be a fly on the wall at an ancient symposium.
After Pericles, or What Can We Learn about Democracy from the Athenians?
MAREK WĘCOWSKI How to keep the power with the people?
Richard Porson: Scholar of a Different Class
DAVID BUTTERFIELD What is a working-class Classicist?
The Song of Seikilos: a Musically Notated Ancient Greek Poem
ARMAND D'ANGOUR How to make Euterpe dance.
Thucydides’ Trap: Are the USA and China today’s Athens and Sparta?
EDMUND STEWART Is another Peloponnesian War really in the offing?
A.E. Housman and Miss A.M.B. Meakin: A Star Pupil in Victorian London
CHRISTOPHER STRAY Unpublished letters between Housman and a remarkable female pupil.
Alcibiades and the Pitfalls of Personality Politics
ALFRED DEAHL The chaotic career of Athens' most notorious playboy-politician.
Manipulating Mythology in Ancient Athens
JEROME RUDDICK What stories did Athenians choose to tell themselves?
Sophists and the Mistrust of Authority
SEYMOUR MAC MAHON The invincible power of independent thought.
Roads and Bricks: Why study the Romans?
ANGHARAD DERBYSHIRE What does it mean when the Romans are within touching distance?
Sappho, the Shining Star
ANTON BIERL Illuminating the fragments of the world's most famous female poet.
Egyptian Cats and Greek Curiosity
ALEX TARBET When Herodotus and cats collide.
The Man who Translated the Bible into Latin
JASPREET SINGH BOPARAI The exciting business of being Jerome
Sertorius: The Greatest Roman Rebel
ALEX PETKAS Who actually stood up to the tyranny of Sulla?
Classical Place-Names and the American Frontier
DANIEL KOCH Who lives in a town like Tully?
What ever happened to Rhetoric? Cicero revisited
THOMAS DEGIROLAMI Could a Roman orator help heal our modern discourse?
Ancient Cybersecurity II: Cracking the Caesar Cipher
MARTINE DIEPENBROEK Did Rome's most famous citizen advance encryption?
What do you fear most? Tyranny and the Polis
EDMUND STEWART Tyranny comes in many forms.
Ovid and Romanness in War and Metre
LLEWELYN MORGAN Why should I mention Pedo?
Chariot-Racing Hooliganism? The Nika Riots of Constantinople
DAN BILLINGHAM What makes a riot riot?
Seeing the Ordinary: Uncovering Ancient Romans
ROBERT KNAPP What does Rome look like when we ignore the elites?
No Laughing Matter? What the Romans Found Funny
ORLANDO GIBBS The Fun and Farce of Plautus and Terence
Seneca and Nero: How (Not) to Give an Emperor Unwelcome Advice
CATHARINE EDWARDS Can philosophy help when the horse has bolted?
Afghanistan, its pasts and futures.
LLEWELYN MORGAN Hope from history?
To Heaven on a Chariot: The Incredible Story of Poppaea Sabina
PAUL SCHUBERT A Greek poem, a Roman empress, and life among the gods.
One and Many: Mother Goddesses at the Ancient Black Sea
DOBRINKA CHIEKOVA The cross-cultural worship of the many-named Mother Goddess.
In praise of Frank M. Snowden, Jr: a personal tribute
LINDSAY JOHNS Celebrating the most influential Black Classicist of the 20th century.
Sophocles’ Antigone and the Sources of Human Ethics
DAVID KONSTAN What did Ancient Greeks make of Antigone's heroism?
Jesus Christ: the ‘Vitruvian Man’ on the Cross
PABLO IRIZAR What connects depictions of Christ's crucifixion to the pre-Christian world?
Ancient Cybersecurity? Deciphering the Spartan Scytale
MARTINE DIEPENBROEK Did the Ancient Greeks crack the code of cryptography?
Remember Their Names: The Women Who Almost Saved Troy
CHRISTINE LEHNEN The enduring power of Amazonian Penthesilea and Trojan Hippodamia.
Robert Wood and the Eighteenth-Century ‘Search’ for Troy
LESLEY FITTON How to look for Troy when you think there's nothing to find?
On the Roman Road: A Journey with the poet Ausonius
BIJAN OMRANI Finding escapism in a little-read Latin travel poem.
Celebrity Athletes in Ancient Greece: Go Hard or Go Home(r)
MICHAEL PLOWDEN-ROBERTS Milo of Croton, Europe's first sporting superstar?
The Romance of Ruins
IAN JENKINS and CELESTE FARGE What can we learn from Classical tourists of the 18th century?
The Letters of a Persian Satrap
CHRISTOPHER TUPLIN A rare window into the world of Aršāma, an Achaemenid governor.
Greeks, Romans, Monks, and Murder: the Chaotic History of Football in Britain
Episodes from the riotous tale of how football came to be.
Reading Greek Literature with The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
EDWARD M. HARRIS Surveying slavery in Ancient Greece through the lens of pre-Civil-War America.
Tacitus on the Thrill of Writing
JASPREET SINGH BOPARAI Why we write, according to Rome's greatest historian.
Money Talks: A Very Short History of Roman Currency
ALFRED DEAHL What have Roman coins done for us?
“My Inquisitive Girlish Gaze”: How Women Speak in Greek Drama
IMOGEN STEAD How can we find 'real' female speech in all-male drama?
Aristophanes’ Lysistrata: A Fair and Honest Peace
ANDREW DAVID IRVINE Who has the last laugh in wartime comedy?
Asebeia? An Outsider’s Claim on the Classics
TULLY WILLIAMS Where to start with Classics when you haven't got a map?
Two Concepts of Free Speech, from Classical Athens to Today’s Campus
JAMES KIERSTEAD How Ancient Greek practice can help bridge the university divide.
The Road Not Taken: Cicero and Lesser Creatures
ANDREW SILLETT What became of those who lived in Cicero's shadow?
The Tyranny of Titles: The Complex Case of Oedipus
ROSIE WYLES What does it mean to be a tragic tyrant?
A Classic Mistake: Ceding Greece to the Ancient Greeks
KATHERINE KELAIDIS How to study the Ancient Greeks without forgetting those that came after.
First Thoughts on the “New Naso”
CLASSICAL SCHOLARS explore the New Naso
The New Naso: A Preliminary Appreciation
KATHARINA VOLK on the New Naso
Numismatic Notes on Naso’s Nose
NUMISMATISTS on the New Naso
Don’t Look Back in Anger: On Remembering to Forget
DOBRINKA CHIEKOVA How did the Greeks move on from the shared pains of the past?
“Especially in the Use of Weapons”: Plato and the Amazons
ADRIENNE MAYOR What lessons did Plato learn from Scythian warrior-women?
Retracing the Steps of the Eleusinian Procession: A Mortal Experience
ATHINA MITROPOULOS Unravelling the Mysteries to make the silent speak.
Caesars and Sopranos: the Shadow of Suetonius
TOM HOLLAND Ancient proof that absolute power corrupts absolutely.
