Photius (c.815-897) was one of the greatest scholars of the Byzantine world, and patriarch of Constantinople between 858-867 and 878-886. One of his main publications is the Myrobiblion, a collection of 280 excerpts of all kinds of literature on every…
The texts known as the "Sibylline oracles" were collected between the second century BCE and seventh century CE. They derive their name from Sibyl, a word indicating a prophetess; there were some ten or twelve of these ladies and there…
Curse texts or defixiones are handwritten texts, often on thin plaques of lead, in which someone asks a god or demon to do evil to another person. The oldest known, very simple tablets are from Sicily and Sardinia and date…
Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs: brief Latin text, describing the trial of six Christian martyrs executed in 180 CE.The earliest Christian text in the Latin language appears to be little more than a court record. Six Christians from the unknown…
In his Gorgias, the famous Athenian philosopher Plato (427-348 BCE) had attacked the study of oratory with several arguments, which all boiled down to the suspicion that capable rhetors were able to persuade people to bad behavior. More than five…
Aeschines (c.390-c.315): Athenian politician and orator.
Aeschines
During the fourth century, the Greek towns were even more divided than in the fifth century,…
In the summer of 330, the Athenian politician Aeschines attacked his rival Demosthenes for the failure of the latter's anti-Macedonian policy. His speech is known as Against Ctesiphon.
M.M. Austin has translated the sections 132-134.
Aeschylus (525-456): Athenian poet, author of many tragedies, of which seven survive.
Aeschylus
Together with Sophocles and Euripides, Aeschylus (525-456) is one…
Alexander and Prometheus: an episode from the reign of Alexander the Great, who saw what he believed to be the cave of Prometheus in the Hindu Kush Mountains.
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Alexander the Great (*356; r. 336-323): the Macedonian king who defeated his Persian colleague Darius III Codomannus and conquered the Achaemenid Empire. During his campaigns, Alexander visited a.o. Egypt, Babylonia, Persis, Media, Bactria, the Punjab, and the valley of the Indus. In the second half of his reign, he had to find a…