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The Baths of Zeuxippus, built sometime between 100 to 200, destroyed by the Nika revolt of 532 and then rebuilt several years later, were popular public baths in the city of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. They were so called because they were built upon the site where a Temple of Jupiter (Zeus) had formerly existed. They were built around 500 yards south of the much older baths of Achilles of the earlier Greek Acropolis in Byzantion. The baths were famed primarily for the many statues that were built within, and the famous people they each represented. However, they were later used for military purposes, during the seventh century. Excavations of the site and the Baths were made in 1928. Read more...

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Epikleros (ἐπίκληρος) (plural epikleroi) was the name given to an heiress in ancient Athens, and in other ancient Greek city states. It denoted a daughter of a man who had no male heirs. In Sparta they were called patroiouchoi (πατρούχοι), as they were in Gortyn. Athenian women were not allowed to hold property in their own name, so laws to regulate the marriages of epikleroi had to be introduced. Athenian epikleroi were required to marry the nearest male relative of their father, in order to keep their father's property in the family. Even if a woman was already married, evidence suggests that she would have been required to divorce her spouse to marry that relative. Spartan women were allowed to hold property in their own right, and so Spartan heiresses were subject to less restrictive rules. Evidence from other city-states is more fragmentary, only allowing a few observations to be made for Gortyn and Rhegium. Read more...

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In the Battle of Thermopylae, which occurred on August 19, 480 BC (and was detailed almost entirely by Herodotus), an alliance of Greek city-states fought the invading Persian Empire at the pass of Thermopylae in central Greece. Vastly outnumbered, the Greeks held back the Persians for three days in one of history's most famous last stands. A small force led by King Leonidas I of Sparta blocked the only road through which the massive army of Xerxes I of Persia could pass. After three days of battle, a local resident named Ephialtes is believed to have betrayed the Greeks by revealing a mountain path that led behind the Greek lines. Dismissing the rest of the army, King Leonidas stayed behind with 300 Spartans, 700 Thespian volunteers, 400 Thebans who had been pressed into service, and 900 Helots. Read more...

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The Walls of Constantinople are a series of stone walls that have surrounded and protected the city of Constantinople (today Istanbul in Turkey) since its founding as the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire by Constantine the Great. With numerous additions and modifications during their history, they were the last great fortification system of Antiquity, and one of the most complex and elaborate systems ever built. Initially built by Constantine the Great, the walls surrounded the new city on all sides, protecting it against attack from both sea and land. As the city grew, the famous double line of the Theodosian Walls was built in the 5th century. Although the other sections of the walls were less elaborate, when well manned, they were almost impregnable for any medieval besieger, saving the city, and the Byzantine Empire with it, during sieges from the Avars, Arabs, Rus', and Bulgars, among others (see Sieges of Constantinople). Read more...

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The Minoan eruption of Thera, also referred to as the Thera eruption or Santorini eruption, was a major catastrophic volcanic eruption (VEI = 6, DRE = 60 km³) which is estimated to have occurred in the mid second millennium BC. The eruption was one of the largest volcanic events on Earth in recorded history. The eruption devastated the island of Thera (also called Santorini), including the Minoan settlement at Akrotiri as well as communities and agricultural areas on nearby islands and on the coast of Crete. The eruption may have contributed to the collapse of the Minoan culture. The eruption caused significant climatic changes in the eastern Mediterranean region, Aegean Sea and much of the Northern Hemisphere. There is also evidence that the eruption caused failure of crops in China, inspired certain Greek myths, contributed to turmoil in Egypt, and influenced many of the biblical Exodus stories. Read more...

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The Greece Runestones comprise around 30 runestones containing information related to voyages made by Scandinavians to "Greece", which refers to the Byzantine Empire (ON.: Grikkland, Grikk(i)aR), during the Viking Age and until the early 12th century AD. Engraved in the Old Norse language with the Younger Futhark script, all of the Greece Runestones are found in modern-day Sweden, with the majority residing in Uppland (18 runestones) and Södermanland (7 runestones). The only group of runestones comparable in number to the Greece Runestones are those that mention England, the England Runestones. The primary reason for the creation of the relatively large number of inscriptions that refer to Greece was that Greece was home to the illustrious Varangian Guard. Stationed in Constantinople, which the Scandinavians referred to as Miklagarðr (the "Great City"), the Guard represented an irresistible attraction to young, adventurous Scandinavians of the sort that had composed it since its creation in the late 10th century. Read more...

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The Rus'-Byzantine War of 860 was the only major military expedition of the Rus' Khaganate recorded in Byzantine and Western European sources. Accounts vary regarding the events that took place, with discrepancies between contemporary and later sources, and the exact outcome is unknown. It is known from Byzantine sources that the Rus' caught Constantinople unprepared, when the empire was occupied by the ongoing Byzantine-Arab Wars and unable to deal with the Rus' threat. After pillaging the suburbs of the Byzantine capital, the Rus' retreated, although the nature of this withdrawal, and indeed which side was victorious, is subject to debate. This event gave rise to a later Orthodox Christian tradition, which ascribed the deliverance of Constantinople to a miraculous intervention by the Theotokos. Read more...

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Orion (Greek Ωρίων or Ὠαρίων, Latin Orion) was a giant huntsman of Greek mythology whom Zeus placed among the stars as the constellation of Orion. Ancient sources tell several different stories about Orion. There are two major versions of his birth and several versions of his death. The most important recorded episodes are his birth somewhere in Boeotia, his visit to Chios where he met Merope and was blinded by her father, Oenopion, the recovery of his sight at Lemnos, his hunting with Artemis on Crete, his death by the blow of Artemis or of the giant scorpion which became Scorpio, and his elevation to the heavens. Most ancient sources omit some of these episodes and several tell only one. These various incidents may originally have been independent, unrelated stories and it is impossible to tell whether omissions are simple brevity or represent a real disagreement. Read more...

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The Treaty of Devol was an agreement made in 1108 between Bohemond I of Antioch and Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, in the wake of the First Crusade. Although the treaty was not immediately enforced, it was intended to make the Principality of Antioch a vassal state of the Byzantine Empire. At the beginning of the First Crusade, Crusader armies assembled at Constantinople and promised to return to the Byzantine Empire any land they might conquer. However, Bohemond, the son of Alexios' former enemy Robert Guiscard, claimed the Principality of Antioch for himself. Alexios did not recognize the legitimacy of the Principality, and Bohemond went to Europe looking for reinforcements. He launched into open warfare against Alexios, but he was soon forced to surrender and negotiate with Alexios at the imperial camp at Diabolis (Devol), where the Treaty was signed. Under the terms of the Treaty, Bohemond agreed to become a vassal of the Emperor and to defend the Empire whenever needed. He also accepted the appointment of a Greek Patriarch. In return, he was given the titles of sebastos and doux (duke) of Antioch, and he was guaranteed the right to pass on to his heirs the County of Edessa. Following this, Bohemond retreated to Apulia and died there. His nephew, Tancred, who was regent in Antioch, refused to accept the terms of the Treaty. Antioch came temporarily under Byzantine sway in 1137, but it was not until 1158 that it truly became a Byzantine vassal. Read more...

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The Byzantine Empire and Eastern Roman Empire are recent names used to describe the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on its capital of Constantinople, referred to by its inhabitants simply as the Roman Empire (in Greek Βασιλεία Ῥωμαίων) or Romania (Ῥωμανία), its emperors continuing the unbroken succession of Roman emperors, preserving Greco-Roman legal and cultural traditions; to the Islamic world it was known primarily as روم (Rûm "Rome"). Due to the linguistic, cultural, and demographic dominance of medieval Greek, it was known to many of its western European contemporaries as Empire of the Greeks (see also the etymology section). As an outgrowth of the eastern portion of Empire founded in Rome, the Byzantine Empire's evolution into a separate culture from the West can be seen as a process beginning with Emperor Constantine's transferring the capital from Nicomedia in Anatolia to Byzantium, which was renamed Constantinople, on the Bosphorus. Read more...

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The War against Nabis or Laconian War of 195 BC was fought between the Greek city-state of Sparta and a coalition composed of Rome, the Achean League, Pergamum, Rhodes, and Macedon. During the Second Macedonian War (200–196 BC), Macedon had given Sparta control over Argos, an important city on the Aegean coast of Peloponnese. Sparta's continued occupation of Argos at the end of war was used as a pretext for Rome and its allies to declare war. The anti-Spartan coalition laid siege to Argos, captured the Spartan naval base at Gythium, and soon invested and besieged Sparta itself. Eventually, negotiations led to peace on Rome's terms, under which Argos and the coastal towns of Laconia were freed from Spartan rule and the Spartans were compelled to pay a war indemnity to Rome over the next eight years. Argos joined the Achaean League, and the Laconian towns were placed under Achaean protection. Read more...

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The Pythia (Greek: Πυθία) was the priestess presiding over the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi, located on the slopes of Mount Parnassus. The Pythia was widely credited with giving prophecies inspired by Apollo, giving her a prominence unusual for a woman in male-dominated ancient Greece. The Delphic oracle was established in the 8th century BC. Its last recorded response was given in 393 AD, when the emperor Theodosius I ordered pagan temples to cease operation. During this period the Delphic Oracle was the most prestigious and authoritative oracle in the Greek world. The oracle is one of the best-documented religious institutions of the classical Greek world. Writers who mention the oracle include Herodotus, Thucydides, Euripides, Sophocles, Plato, Aristotle, Pindar, Aeschylus, Xenophon, Diodorus, Strabo, Pausanias, Plutarch, Livy, Justin, Ovid, Lucan and Julian. Read more...

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Delphi (Greek Δελφοί, [ðe̞lˈfi]) (pronounce and dialectal forms) is an archaeological site and a modern town in Greece on the south-western spur of Mount Parnassus in the valley of Phocis. Delphi was the site of the Delphic oracle, the most important oracle in the classical Greek world, and it was a major site for the worship of the god Apollo. His sacred precinct in Delphi was a Panhellenic sanctuary, where every four years athletes from all over the Greek world competed in the Pythian Games, the precursor to the Olympic Games. Delphi was revered throughout the Greek world as the site of the omphalos stone, the centre of the earth and the universe. In the inner hestia ("hearth") of the Temple of Apollo, an eternal flame burned. After the battle of Plataea, the Greek cities extinguished their fires and brought new fire from the hearth of Greece, at Delphi; in the foundation stories of several Greek colonies, the founding colonists were first dedicated at Delphi. Read more...

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The Ancient Olympic Games, originally referred to as simply the Olympic Games (Greek: Ολυμπιακοί Αγώνες; Olympiakoi Agones) were a series of athletic competitions held between various city-states of Ancient Greece. They began in 776 BC in Olympia, Greece, and were celebrated until 393 AD. The prizes were olive wreaths, palm branches and woollen ribbons. The origins of the Ancient Olympic Games are unknown, but several legends and myths have survived. One of these involved Pelops, king of Olympia and eponymous hero of the Peloponnesus, to whom offerings were made during the games. The Christian Clement of Alexandria asserted, "[The] Olympian games are nothing else than the funeral sacrifices of Pelops." That myth tells of how Pelops' overcame the King and won the hand of his daughter Hippodamia with the help of Poseidon, his old lover, a myth linked to the later fall of the house of Atreus and the sufferings of Oedipus. Read more...

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Ai-Khanoum or Ay Khanum (lit. “Lady Moon” in Uzbek, probably the historical Alexandria on the Oxus, also possibly later named Eucratidia), was founded in the 4th century BCE, following the conquests of Alexander the Great and was one of the primary cities of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom. The city is located in the Kunduz area in northeastern Afghanistan, at the confluence of the Oxus river (today's Amu Darya) and the Kokcha river (lat N 37° 10' 10"; long E 69° 24' 30"), and at the doorstep of the Indian subcontinent. Ai Khanoum was one of the focal points of Hellenism in the East for nearly two centuries, until its annihilation by nomadic invaders around 145 BCE about the time of the death of Eucratides. The site was excavated through archaeological searches by a French DAFA mission under Paul Bernard between 1964 and 1978, as well as Russian scientists. The searches had to be abandoned with the onset of the Soviet war in Afghanistan, during which the site was looted and used as a battleground, leaving very little of the original material. Read more...

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Euclidean geometry is a mathematical system attributed to the Greek mathematician Euclid of Alexandria. Euclid's text Elements is the earliest known systematic discussion of geometry. It has been one of the most influential books in history, as much for its method as for its mathematical content. The method consists of assuming a small set of intuitively appealing axioms, and then proving many other propositions (theorems) from those axioms. Although many of Euclid's results had been stated by earlier Greek mathematicians, Euclid was the first to show how these propositions could be fit together into a comprehensive deductive and logical system. The Elements begin with plane geometry, still taught in secondary school as the first axiomatic system and the first examples of formal proof. The Elements goes on to the solid geometry of three dimensions, and Euclidean geometry was subsequently extended to any finite number of dimensions. Much of the Elements states results of what is now called number theory, proved using geometrical methods. Read more...

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Mount Athos (Greek: Όρος Άθως) is a mountain on the peninsula of the same name in Macedonia, of northern Greece, called in Greek Άγιον Όρος (Agion Oros, transliterated often as Hagion Oros), or in English, "Holy Mountain". In Classical times, the peninsula was called Ακτή (Acte or Akte). Politically it is known in Greece as the Autonomous Monastic State of the Holy Mountain. This World Heritage Site is home to 20 Eastern Orthodox monasteries and forms a self-governed monastic state within the sovereignty of the Hellenic Republic. Spiritually, Mount Athos comes under the direct jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. The peninsula, the easternmost "leg" of the larger Chalcidice peninsula, protrudes into the Aegean Sea for some 60 kilometres (37 mi) at a width between 7 to 12 km and covers an area of 335.637 square kilometres (129.59 sq mi), with the actual Mount Athos and its steep, densely forested slopes reaching up to 2,033 metres (6,670 ft). The seas around the end of the peninsula can be dangerous. Read more...

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Red-figure vase painting is one of the most important styles of figural Greek vase painting. It developed in Athens around 530 BC and remained in use until the late 3rd century BC. It replaced the previously dominant style of Black-figure vase painting within a few decades. Its modern name is based on the figural depictions in red colour on a black background, in contrast to the preceding black-figure style with black figures on a red background. The most important areas of production, apart from Attica, were in Southern Italy. The style was also adopted in other parts of Greece. Etruria became an important centre of production outside the Greek World. Attic red-figure vases were exported throughout Greece and beyond. For a long time, they dominated the market for fine ceramics. Only few centres of pottery production could compete with Athens in terms of innovativeness, quality and production capacity. Of the red figure vases produced in Athens alone, more than 40,000 specimens and fragments survive today. Read more...

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Late Antiquity is a periodization used by historians to describe the transitional centuries from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages, in both mainland Europe and the Mediterranean world: generally from the end of the Roman Empire's Crisis of the Third Century (c. 284) to the Islamic conquests and the re-organization of the Byzantine Empire under Heraclius. The Roman Empire underwent considerable social, cultural and organizational change starting with reign of Diocletian, who began the custom of splitting the Empire into Eastern and Western halves ruled by multiple emperors. Beginning with Constantine the Great the Empire was Christianized, and a new capital founded at Constantinople. Migrations of Germanic tribes disrupted Roman rule from the late fourth century onwards, culminating in the eventual collapse of the Empire in the West in 476, replaced by the barbarian kingdoms. The resultant cultural fusion of Greco-Roman, Germanic and Christian traditions formed the cultural foundations of Western Europe. The term Spätantike, literally "late antiquity", has been used by German historians since its popularization by Alois Riegl in the early twentieth century. Read more...

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The Socratic Method (or Method of Elenchus or Socratic Debate), named after the Classical Greek philosopher Socrates, is a form of philosophical inquiry in which the questioner explores the implications of others' positions, to stimulate rational thinking and illuminate ideas. This dialectical method often involves an oppositional discussion in which the defense of one point of view is pitted against another; one participant may lead another to contradict himself in some way, strengthening the inquirer's own point. Socrates began to engage in such discussions with his fellow Athenians after his friend from youth, Chaerephon, visited the Oracle of Delphi, which confirmed Socrates to be the wisest man in Athens. Socrates saw this as a paradox, and began utilizing the Socratic method in order to answer his conundrum. Diogenes Laertius, however, wrote that Protagoras invented the “Socratic” method. Read more...