The story of the skulls of Pelusium illustrates Herodotus' use of evidence: he has checked the facts for himself. His explanation is obviously wrong, but at least he knows what he is talking about and is not repeating a story…
Tyre (Phoenician רצ, ṣūr, "rock"; Greek Τύρος; Latin Tyrus): port in Phoenicia and one of the main cities in the eastern Mediterranean.The Greek researcher Herodotus of Halicarnassus visited Tyre in the mid-fifth century BCE. In Herodotus' Histories 2.44, he offers…
Thermopylae (Greek Θερμοπύλαι; "Hot Gates"): small pass in Greece, site of several battles, of which the Spartan defeat against the Persian invaders in 480 is the most famous.The main source for the battle of 480 is Herodotus, Herodotus' Histories, 7.201-233, which…
The Greek researcher and storyteller Herodotus of Halicarnassus (fifth century BCE) was the world's first historian. In The Histories, he describes the expansion of the Achaemenid empire under its kings Cyrus the Great, Cambyses and Darius I the Great, culminating…
Simon ben Kosiba, surnamed Simon bar Kochba ("son of the star") was a Jewish Messiah. Between 132 and 135, he was the leader of the last resistance against the Romans. After the end of the desastrous rebellion, the rabbis called…
Most scholars agree that the following story, told by the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus in his Jewish antiquities 11.317-345, is not true. One argument is that Alexander is shown a book that was not yet written. Another argument is that…
In the war between the Jews and the Romans of 66-70, the Jewish general Joseph son of Matthias defended Galilee against the Roman legions. After he had been defeated, he defected to his enemies, and advised the Roman general Vespasian.…