The term "Barbarian" is Greek in origin. The Greeks originally coined the term and targeted it at the peoples of Northern Europe because to them, the harsh "barking" sound of their speech sounded to them like "Bar-bar-bar." Since these strangers from the north did not understand classic Greek, the Greeks…

The Ptolemaic dynasty, (Ancient Greek: Πτολεμαῖοι, sometimes also known as the Lagids or Lagides, Ancient Greek: Λαγίδαι, from the name of Ptolemy I's father, Lagus) was a Macedonian Greek royal family which ruled the Ptolemaic Empire in Egypt during the Hellenistic period. Their rule lasted for 275 years,…

The Ancient Greeks had one of the richest mythologies, involving scores of gods and goddesses. The writings that relate these life-affirming stories span more than a millenium, from the early poets Homer and Hesiod, who probably lived in the 8th or 7th centuries BCE heyday.

When the Romans conquered most of Europe…

Reading about heroic (and sometimes crazy) Greeks is one of my favorite pastimes. And every now and then I'll come across a story that just screams "share me with the rest of the world!" and this is one of those stories. Some Greeks are just so badass that it makes me tear up with pride (I know, I'm the opposite of…

A series of devastating tsunamis -- not an earthquake -- might have swept away the birthplace of the Olympic Games in ancient Greece nearly 1500 years ago, according to new findings.



Scholars have long assumed that Olympia, located at the confluence of the Kladeos and Alpheios rivers in the western…

The bone of a large extinct creature, once treasured by the ancient Greeks, has finally found a permanent home in England.



Known as the Nichoria bone, the blackened fossil is part of the thigh bone of an immense extinct mammal that roamed southern Greece perhaps a million years ago. The bone was…

Trip to Crete raises questions about early maritime activity



“Find a good corner on the deck, and I’ll be with you in a minute,” my fellow traveler Frontis shouted over the din of cars as he secured his motorcycle on the ferryboat’s parking deck. The journey from…

ATHENS — The Acropolis Museum was Greece's top tourist draw in 2010, eclipsing for the first time the ancient Athens citadel whose sculptures it showcases, official data showed on Monday.



Over 1.3 million people queued to visit the country's newest museum between January and December last year, the…

It had paid-up intellectuals and progressive politics, yet ancient Greece was less civil than we are inclined to remember, says Paul Cartledge

E pluribus unum: "out of many – one". The one-time motto of the US reminds us that, much like most of the larger nation states today, ancient Greece was a mosaic…

We continue to find the many ways our culture has influenced so many thanks to our forbearers such as Alexander the Great, and this is just more proof of how great a people we are.

Greco-Buddhism, sometimes spelt Graeco-Buddhism, is the cultural syncetism between Hellenistic culture and Buddhism, which developed between the 4th century BCE and the 5th century CE in the area modernly covered by…