Special guest Lieve Donnellan joins the regular team to talk about networks in the ancient Mediteranean, with special reference to Cyprian Broodbank’s book, The Making of the Middle Sea.

The idea that Cleopatra, the famous last queen of ancient Egypt, owed her powerful position to her beauty persist, but why does her appearance really matter?

Thanks to the MET, readers can now experience the ancient site of Palmyra and learn more about its history and modern plight.

Marcus Tullius Cicero was a famous politician and lawyer, whose life was cut short when he was killed at the order of Mark Antony.

“Hoplites” of the seventh century BC were “men of bronze”. A few centuries later, they had shed most of their armour, as a marble lekythos in Leiden shows.

After sailing away from Cephalonia, our first stop on the mainland is the city of Megara, oddly referred to as “Megaris” in the game.

Set around the start of the Peloponnesian War (431 BC), Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey offers an interesting take on ancient Greece.

Any book that attempts to understand Early Rome is fraught with difficulty; some sink while others float. Thomas Dynneson’s work may be found somewhere in between.

Near Orvieto, in the Italian region of Umbria, there are the remains of an Etruscan necropolis that dates to the sixth century BC. The site is today known as Crocifisso del tufo.

The little known wife of the Successor King Lysimachus, Amastris, is arguably the first true Hellenistic queen as she embodies the entanglement of Persian and Greco-Macedonian traditions.