Many people believe that the ancient Greeks used, among other things, armour that was made of layers of linen cloth glued together. But there is no ancient text linking linen armour and glue. No other culture made armour this way. So where does this idea come from?

The ancient Greek symposium was a drinking party in which the participants engaged in a number of activities. In this article, Daniel Woon focuses on cultural aspects of the symposium.

In Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age, science journalist and science fiction author Annalee Newitz explores the life, death, and afterlife of four cities across the globe, and connects their histories to the challenges facing urban life in the twenty-first century.

Military disasters were fairly rare in the Roman world – at least, according to the historical record. But when they happened, they happened with a vengeance – and could permanently destroy the reputation of those involved, even if their actions were not actually to blame.

It’s that time of the year again: we’re going on a short break, so we can relax for a bit and prepare stuff for Ancient World Magazine. We’ll be back to our semi-regular schedule on the 1st of September!

A Middle-English poem takes the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, gives it a contemporary, medieval setting, makes Orpheus a chivalrous king, and provides the story with a surprisingly happy ending.

Following the action of the Iliad, the Trojan War continued in the Aithiopis, a lost epic in which Achilles fought and killed the Amazon Penthesileia and Memnon, king of the Ethiopians, before dying himself at the hands of the Trojan prince Paris. Two black-figure vases attributed to the potter and painter Exekias feature scenes from this epic.

How should readers of Virgil’s Aeneid interpret the relationship between the Trojan soldiers Nisus and Euryalus? Harrison Voss argues that the pair is best understood as a depiction of the “ideal” pederastic relationship described in Plato’s Symposium.

The Halo series of games are set in the 26th century and focus on the struggle between Earth and various opposing alien factions, such as the “Covenant”. While set in the future, the series takes obvious inspiration from the past.

A Greek hydria in the Manchester Museum portrays a wrestling match between the hero Atalanta and Peleus, father of Achilles. Owen Rees explores the scene in greater detail.