Articles

In 1508 CE the Pope commissioned the celebrated Florentine sculptor and painter Michelangelo (1475-1564 CE) to paint scenes on the ceiling of the Vatican's Sistine Chapel. The walls of the chapel had already received decoration from some...

Dogs were highly valued in ancient Rome, as they were in other cultures, and the Roman dog served many of the same purposes as it did in, say, Egypt and Persia - as hunters, guardians, and companions - but with a significant difference in...

Dogs in ancient Greece are regularly depicted in art, on ceramics, in literature, and other written works as loyal companions, guardians, hunters, and even as great intuitive thinkers; all of these expressing the deep admiration the Greeks...

The legacy of the ancient Romans – from both the time of the Roman Republic (509-27 BCE) and the time of the Roman Empire (27 BCE - 476 CE) – exerted a significant influence on succeeding cultures and is still felt around the world in the...

The Marian Reforms were a set of the reforms introduced to the Roman army in the late 2nd century BCE by Roman general and politician Gaius Marius (157-86 BCE). Through these reforms, the Roman army was transformed from a semi-professional...

Mesopotamia is the ancient Greek name (meaning “the land between two rivers”, the Tigris and Euphrates) for the region corresponding to modern-day Iraq and parts of Iran, Syria, and Turkey. It is considered the “cradle of civilization” for...

The legend of Mulan, now world-famous thanks to the Disney films of 1998 and 2020, is the story of a young girl who disguises herself as a man to take her aged father's place as a conscript in the army and so preserve the family honor...

Mulan (“magnolia”) is a legendary character in Chinese literature who is best known in the modern day from the Disney filmed adaptations (1998, 2020). Her story, however, about a young girl who takes her father's place in the army to help...

A stupa is a reliquary containing the remains (relics) of an individual associated with great spiritual power and insight, most often (since the 3rd century BCE) with the Buddha (l. c. 563 - c. 483 BCE). The form, a hemisphere topped by a...

Love, sex, and marriage in ancient Rome were defined by the patriarchy. The head of the household was the father (the pater familias) who had complete control over the lives of his wife, children, and slaves. This paradigm was justified...