The Siege of Syracuse was the campaign that destroyed one of the greatest military expeditions ever launched by Athens.In 415 B.C., at the height of the Peloponnesian War, Athens dispatched an immense armada to Sicily. What began as an ambitious attempt to expand Athenian power soon became a two-year struggle for Syracuse, the most powerful Greek city in Sicily. By 413 B.C., the expedition had ended in catastrophe: the fleet was destroyed, the army forced into a de...

A rhetorician of the late second century, Athenaeus wrote ‘The Deipnosophistae’ (‘Dinner-Table Philosophers’), a fifteen-book encyclopaedia of information on the ancient world, preserving otherwise lost treasures from many important writers. The text is structured as a dialogue in the vein of Plato, offering an amusing account of a Greek symposium. ‘The Deipnosophistae’ details the many different cuisines and entertainments of ancient banquets, held together by the intellectual tal...

Athenaeus (Naucratita) was a Greek rhetorician and grammarian, flourishing about the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century AD. The Suda says only that he lived in the times of Marcus Aurelius.Several of his publications are lost, but the fifteen-volume Deipnosophistae mostly survives.The Deipnosophistae is an early 3rd-century AD Greek work by the Greek author Athenaeus of Naucratis. It is a long work of literary, historical, and antiquarian references set in Rome a...

Athenæus is the author of this book; and in it he is discoursing with Timocrates: and the name of the book is the Deipnosophists. In this work Laurentius is introduced, a Roman, a man of distinguished fortune, giving a banquet in his own house to men of the highest eminence for every kind of learning and accomplishment; and there is no sort of gentlemanly knowledge which he does not mention in the conversation which he attributes to them; for he has put down in his book, fish, and their us...

The Deipnosophists by Athenaeus of Naucratis is an encyclopedic work that provides a vivid picture of ancient Greek culture through a fictionalized banquet of intellectuals. The title, derived from the Greek word for "learned banqueters," refers to a symposium where a group of scholars, philosophers, and rhetoricians gather to discuss a wide array of topics, including food, literature, philosophy, and customs. Modeled after Plato’s Symposium, this work spans 15 volumes and offers a blend o...

In The Deipnosophists, Volume 2, Athenaeus continues the rich tapestry of discussion among the intellectuals gathered at the fictional banquet. Building upon the themes introduced in the first volume, this second installment delves even deeper into the cultural, gastronomic, and literary curiosities of ancient Greece. The conversation becomes more layered as participants recount specific details about feasting customs, unusual culinary practices, and lesser-known myths. The topics range wi...

In The Deipnosophists, Volume 3, Athenaeus continues the detailed and varied discussions among the guests at the elaborate banquet. This volume explores a mix of subjects, from the origins of foods and the significance of specific ingredients to poetic interpretations of luxury and moderation. Guests share knowledge of ancient festivals, elaborate drinking customs, and the symbolic meaning of particular dishes within Greek and Roman cultures. The banter often weaves mythological and histor...

The Battle of Coronea marked the moment Sparta preserved its supremacy against the greatest challenge of the Corinthian War.In 394 B.C., only weeks after the Battle of Nemea, King Agesilaus II returned from his victorious campaign in Asia Minor to confront the growing anti-Spartan coalition in Boeotia. Determined to prevent his enemies from uniting their full strength, he marched south through Central Greece and forced one of the fiercest hoplite battles of the Cla...

At Manzikert, the struggle for the eastern frontier became a crisis that would transform the future of Byzantium.In 1071 A.D., Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes led a major imperial army across Anatolia to recover Manzikert and Khliat and restore Byzantine control near Lake Van. While Romanos advanced from the west, the Seljuk sultan Alp Arslan abandoned his campaign in Syria and moved rapidly north toward Armenia. Their armies converged outside Manzikert in one of the m...

The -Deipnosophistae- of Athenaeus is one of the most celebrated works of Greek grammar to survive from the ancient world. Athenaeus lived in Naukratis, Egypt, at the end of the second century AD. Within the work, his dinner-table philosophers discuss many aspects of food, drink, dining habits and social customs, as represented in Greek literature through the ages, with extensive quotations. It is the only source for many works which have not survived to the present day, as well as a huge ...

The Battle of Megalopolis was Sparta's last great attempt to break Macedonian supremacy in Greece.In 331 B.C., while Alexander the Great was campaigning deep within the Persian Empire, King Agis III of Sparta launched a major revolt against Macedonian rule. After years of preparation and diplomacy, Agis gathered Spartan, Peloponnesian, and mercenary forces to challenge the political order established by Philip II and maintained in Greece by Alexander's regent, Anti...

At Yarmuk, the fate of the Eastern Roman Empire in the Levant was decided.In 636 A.D., two worlds collided on the windswept plains near the Yarmuk River. The Eastern Roman Empire, exhausted but victorious after decades of war against Sasanian Persia, sought to reclaim full control of Syria and halt the rapid expansion of the Rashidun Caliphate. Facing them stood the armies of Islam under Khalid ibn al-Walid, determined to preserve their conquests and secure the fut...