Ancient History Magazine

Ancient History looks at every aspect of the ancient world: you'll find articles covering politics, society, literature, language, religion, economics, and art - all in one magazine! Like its big brother, Ancient Warfare, Ancient History Magazine is a bi-monthly, 60-page magazine that relies on a thematic approach: each issue is centered around one specific subject. From ancient Egyptian trade and Roman family life to the lost city of Pompeii, there's sure to be something for everyone - all presented in a well-researched but accessible, fun manner.

Ancient History Magazine

EDITORIAL – AN AGE OF INSTABILITY?

PRELIMINARIES

ENDEMIC AND CRUCIAL

The origins of Athenian slaves

AWILD GOOSE CHASE • Almost every textbook on the late Roman Republic refers to two categories of politicians, the optimates and populares, often with the implication that they formed actual political parties or at least ‘pseudoparties’. Ideologically, they are identified as the right-wing ‘establishment’ and their reformist opponents. This understanding of Roman politics, despite its ubiquity in the modern literature, can be traced back to a single ancient text: Cicero’s speech in defence of his friend Publius Sestius.

A TIME OF CHANGE AND MISUNDERSTANDING • It is paradoxical that one of the most dynamic and innovative periods in Egyptian history is frequently characterized as an era of social and political collapse. Treating Egypt’s collapse around 2200 BC as an established fact has encouraged interpretations of preceding centuries as an inevitable decline toward disaster. Ironically, growing evidence of material prosperity, provincial affluence, administrative sophistication, and international exchange with other cultures has often been interpreted as contributing to the eventual downfall of the state.

The role of climatic catastrophe

REMEMBERING THE FIRST INTERMEDIATE PERIOD • Nearly everything about the First Intermediate Period is contestable: its name, its length, the identities and order of its rulers, the motives of those who described it, the reliableness of environmental proxies, and whether its reception in later literature is too biased to be admissible in historical reconstructions. How do we make sense of this evidence?

The Curse of Akkad

A LAND DIVIDED • After centuries of centralized rule under the kings of the Old Kingdom, authority along the Nile fractured. Provincial governors became rulers in all but name, cities outside Memphis flourished, and rival courts at Heracleopolis and Thebes claimed legitimacy over parts of a divided land.

People and identity

Administration and economy

ANCIENT NUBIA AND THE KINGDOM OF KERMA • The twilight of Egypt’s Old Kingdom at the end of the third millennium BC is often remembered as an age of crisis, which historians call the First Intermediate Period. In traditional narratives, the focus has been almost exclusively on internal developments. Yet at the same moment when Egypt was grappling with disunity, disparate cultural and political groups in Nubia were consolidating into what would soon become the Kingdom of Kerma.

A TALE OF DECLINE AND RENEWAL • When we think of ancient Egypt, the image that most readily comes to mind is the pyramid. Yet pyramids, like all monuments, were not static creations. Over time, their shape, building techniques, and materials evolved, mirroring the political, economic, and religious changes of the Egyptian state.

An Egyptian Leonardo da Vinci

AN INFAMOUS OPPORTUNIST • In AD 14, Tiberius became the ruler of the Roman Empire after the death of Augustus, his adoptive father. However, he soon became disillusioned with the reluctance of the Senate to participate in imperial governance. The ruthlessly ambitious Lucius Aelius Sejanus stepped into this vacuum and...