Definitions

Legio IX Hispana served with Julius Caesar in Gaul and against Pompey in the Civil Wars. Later, it fought alongside Augustus in his Cantabrian Wars and was one of the four legions Claudius took with him in his invasion of Britain in 43 CE...

The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea is an eyewitness account of ancient travel to Africa and India via the Red Sea written by an unknown Greek-speaking Egyptian author in the 1st century CE. In this detailed account, the conditions of the...

The Ten Commandments introduce the legislation received by Moses on Mt. Sinai after the Israelites escaped from Egypt (as related in the biblical book of Exodus). The "ten commandments" is often used as shorthand for the basic rules that...

Portuguese Angola in southwest Africa was the first European colony on that continent. While settlement from 1571 proved problematic in the interior, the Portuguese did obtain a large number of slaves which they shipped to their Atlantic...

The Ark of the Covenant refers to the box-like container that held the tablets of the Law received by Moses on Mount Sinai. Tradition claimed that it contained two stone tablets, carved by God, listing the first ten commandments given to...

An acropolis is any citadel or complex built on a high hill. The name derives from the Greek akro, "high" or "extreme/extremity" or "edge", and polis, "city", translated as "high city", "city on the edge" or "city in the air", the most famous...

With a wealth of natural resources, Brazil was by far the most important colony in the Portuguese empire and was, at one time or another, the world’s leading producer of sugar, diamonds, and tobacco. Colonised from the 1530s, most settlements...

Mycenaean society was strictly hierarchical, valued family lineage, and awarded higher social status to those involved with religious or military activities and palatial administration. The lower classes contained craftsmen and artisans who...

Athens, Greece, with its famous Acropolis, has come to symbolize the whole of the country in the popular imagination, and not without cause. It not only has its iconic ruins and the famous port of Piraeus but, thanks to ancient writers, its...

Legio I Germanica was a Roman legion that won acclaim early under Augustus (27 BCE - 14 CE) but was stripped of its title for cowardice. Stationed on the Lower Rhine, the legion mutinied in 14 CE and then faced disgrace when it turned traitor...