Definitions

Odoacer (433-493 CE, reigned 476-493 CE) also known as Odovacar, Flavius Odoacer, and Flavius Odovacer, was the first king of Italy. His reign marked the end of the Roman Empire; he deposed the last emperor, Romulus Augustulus, on 4 September...

The Inca civilization flourished in ancient Peru between c. 1400 and 1533 CE. The Inca Empire eventually extended across western South America from Quito in the north to Santiago in the south. It was the largest empire ever seen in the Americas...

Zenobia (b. c. 240 CE, death date unknown) was the queen of the Palmyrene Empire who challenged the authority of Rome during the latter part of the period of Roman history known as The Crisis of the Third Century (235-284 CE also known as...

Pottery is the first synthetic material ever created by humans. The term refers to objects made of clay that have been fashioned into the desired shape, dried, and either fired or baked to fix their form. Due to its abundance and durability...

The term "Slavs" designates an ethnic group of people who share a long-term cultural continuity and who speak a set of related languages known as the Slavic languages (all of which belong to the Indo-European language family). Little is known...

The Alemanni (also known as the Alamanni and the Alamans, meaning "All Men" or "Men United") were a confederacy of Germanic-speaking people who occupied the regions south of the Main and east of the Rhine rivers in present-day Germany. Many...

Alaric I (r. 394-410 CE) was a Gothic military commander who is famous for sacking Rome in 410 CE, which was the first time the city had been sacked in over 800 years. Although little of his family is known, we do know that he became the...

The Moche civilization (also known as the Mochica) flourished along the northern coast and valleys of ancient Peru, in particular, in the Chicama and Trujillo Valleys, between 1 CE and 800 CE. The Moche state spread to eventually cover an...

Semiramis is a legendary queen thought to based on the historical Sammu-Ramat (r. 811-806 BCE) the queen regent of the Assyrian Empire who held the throne for her young son Adad Nirari III until he reached maturity. She is also known as Shammuramat...

The Aeneid, written by the Roman poet Virgil (70-19 BCE), is a twelve-book-long epic poem that describes the early mythology of the founding of Rome. The eponymous hero Aeneas, a Trojan prince and son of Venus, faces trials and tribulations...