Browse Items (299 total)

Zancle (“sickle”), named for its sickle-shaped harbor, was conquered by Anaxilas, the tyrant of Rhegium, a city on the Italic peninsula just across the strait, in the early fifth century BCE. Anaxilas settled Messenian exiles there and the named was…

Persis, an area now in southern Iran, was the original home of the Persians. Conquered by Alexander the Great, it was controlled by the Seleucids after his death in 323 BCE. There was a period, however, when Persis was basically independent: after…

The first Ptolemy, Ptolemy I Soter, was elected satrap of Egypt after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE. In 305, he declared himself king of Egypt and started the Ptolemaic dynasty that would rule for almost three-hundred years.

This…

Metapontum (Greek: Metapontion) was an Achaean colony on the Italian coast. Located between two rivers, the area was famed for its rich croplands. They were even able to afford sending a “golden harvest,” probably golden replicas of sheaves of…

Herakleia was founded as an outpost by an alliance of Thurii and Tarentum. Near the destroyed city of Siris, Herakleia is most notable for the place where king Pyrrhus of Epirus defeated a Roman army in the first major battle of the Pyrrhic war, in…

Demetrios II Nikator ascended to the throne at only 14-16 years of age. This coin is from the first years (145-138 BCE) of his relatively long but tumultuous reign. In order to take control of the dwindling Seleucid empire, Demetrios had to overcome…

This coin is one of the very first issued by one of the most famous/infamous individuals from the ancient world: Julius Caesar. A powerful senator, consul and military general during the late Roman Republic, Caesar used his military success to…

The Thessalian League was a loose confederation of several Thessalian city-states. The largest city, Larisa, functioned as the seat of the league. The alliance existed even after the Roman province of Macedonia was founded in 146 BCE.

Apollo…

Herodotus accounts the adventures of the Phocaians, a people from the area of Turkey who were displaced by the spread of the Persian kingdom. These people (Hist. 1. 167) settled in an area they named Hyele, on the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea, around…

This coin, a fake replica of a coin minted under Mithradates II in Parthia around 123-188 BCE is one of many coins from the ancient world that have been counterfeited.