This painting, by the Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens (c. 1577-1640), was inspired by the ancient Greek myth of Meleager, Atalanta (or Atalante), and...
In early 11th-century Norway, a chieftain named Thórir the Hound reigned supreme in the northernmost stretches, known as Halogaland, of the Norwegian countryside. On...
During the relatively quiet reign of King Perctarit of the Lombards (r. 671-688), the Lombard capital of Ticinum (later Pavia) and several other cities...
This painting, by the French artist Jean-Paul Laurens (c. 1838–1921), depicts the explorer, Christopher Columbus, in an audience with his patron, Queen Isabella (r....
This painting, by the Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens (c. 1577-1640), was inspired by the ancient Greek myth of Meleager, Atalanta (or Atalante), and...
In early 11th-century Norway, a chieftain named Thórir the Hound reigned supreme in the northernmost stretches, known as Halogaland, of the Norwegian countryside. On...
(French Political Cartoon "China -- the cake of kings and... of emperors," c. 1898, via Creative Commons)
The diplomatic relationship between China and the...
This painting, by the French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme (c. 1824-1904), depicts the assassination of the Roman dictator, Julius Caesar, on the Ides of March...
Procopius (c. 490-565)
"While cleverness is appropriate to rhetoric, and inventiveness to poetry, truth alone is appropriate to history."
From The History of the Wars (Book I, section...
Tacitus (c. 56-117+)
"Important events are obscure. Some believe all manner of hearsay evidence; others twist truth into fiction; and both sorts of error are...
This painting, by the artists Wilhelm Schubert van Ehrenberg (c. 1630-1676) and Carl Borromäus Andreas Ruthart (c. 1630-1703), re-creates an episode from Homer’s ancient...
This painting, by the Italian artist Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (c. 1696-1770), was inspired by an uncomfortable legend from the history of ancient Rome. The...
Jonathan Swift (c. 1667-1745)
"His Majesty's present severities acquitted me of all past obligations."
Gulliver’s Travels (Voyage to Laputa, chapter 7) by Jonathan Swift. New...
Hákon Eiriksson was a Norwegian nobleman with ties to the Danish royal family. His father, Jarl Eirik Hakonarson, had aligned himself with King Sweyn...
A man called Thórarin, nicknamed Loftunga (or Praise-Tongue), was an 11th-century Icelandic skald who offered his poetic services to the prominent Scandinavian kings of...
According to folklore and oral history preserved in the Icelandic Book of Settlements (Landnámabók), an enigmatic figure named Uni lived a troubled life in...
Sophocles (c. 496-406/405 BCE)
"Second thoughts make liars of us all."
Sophocles, Antigone, approximately line 390, translated by Robert Fagles (Penguin Classics, 1982, 1984, 2018).
Interesting occurrences were happening in the Meroitic Kushite Kingdom (approximately modern Sudan) in the 3rd century BCE that caught the attention of ancient Greek...
Jonathan Swift (c. 1667-1745)
"His Majesty's present severities acquitted me of all past obligations."
Gulliver’s Travels (Voyage to Laputa, chapter 7) by Jonathan Swift. New...
This painting, by the French artist Jacques-Louis David (c. 1748 – 1825), was inspired by stories about the ancient Greek mythological figure, Telemachus—the son...
