Ancient Worlds
Rome, Greece, Persia, Egypt and the Bronze Age, in depth: how they worked and how they fell.
The Bronze Age Collapse: What Happened Around 1200 BCE and Why
How the Hittite, Mycenaean and Levantine worlds came apart around 1200 BCE, and how invasion, drought and systems-failure explanations compare.
Read · 8 min read →Ancient WorldsThe Fall of the Roman Republic: From the Gracchi to Augustus
How Rome's Republic broke down from 133 BCE to Augustus, told through Plutarch, Appian and the Res Gestae, with the main modern explanations.
Read · 8 min read →Ancient WorldsThe Achaemenid Persian Empire: How the Great Kings Ran It
How Cyrus and Darius built and ran the largest empire of its age, from Herodotus and the Behistun inscription to the Persepolis tablets.
Read · 8 min read →Ancient WorldsHannibal and the Second Punic War: What Polybius and Livy Tell Us
Hannibal's war on Rome from the Alps to Cannae and Zama, following Polybius and Livy and showing where their accounts and modern views differ.
Read · 8 min read →Ancient WorldsAlexander the Great: The Conquests and the Kingdoms After Him
Alexander's campaigns from the Granicus to India, the debates over Persepolis and his death, and how his generals carved up his empire.
Read · 8 min read →Ancient WorldsLife in a Roman Legion: Pay, Camps, Discipline and Daily Work
What serving in a Roman legion involved, from Polybius's levy and camp to imperial pay disputes and the Vindolanda tablets.
Read · 9 min read →