Ancient History - Quillette

Detail from a Minoan wall painting, depicting women attending spiritual ceremonies.

In Praise of Antiquity’s Grande Dames

Daisy Dunn’s new book argues that the great female poets, heroines, and martyrs of the ancient world tied history together with a ‘missing thread.’

Joan Smith

6 Feb 2025 · 19 min read

Podcast #269: Ancient Australians

Quillette podcast host Iona Italia talks to “Mungo Manic” about his extensive research into the lives of the ancient Australians.

Quillette / Mungo Manic

24 Jan 2025 · 65 min read

Podcast #263: In Defence of Julia the Elder

Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with Joan Smith, whose new book critically examines the 2,000-year-old propaganda campaign against imperial Rome’s leading women.

Quillette

14 Dec 2024 · 15 min read

The face of a Roman statue, bisected by dark lines, coloured olive green and scarlet.

‘Shameless Beyond the Curse of Shamelessness’

In a new book, Joan Smith critically examines the historical mistreatment of Ancient Rome’s leading women—including Emperor Augustus’ daughter Julia, who was denounced as a nymphomaniac and cast into exile.

Joan Smith

12 Dec 2024 · 16 min read

Denzel Washington in Roman costume. He is a middle-aged black man with close cropped hair wearing robes and jewelle

Games and Thrones

The real history of the era portrayed in Gladiator II is much more interesting, tumultuous, and murderous than Scott’s simpleminded yarn.

Charlotte Allen

4 Dec 2024 · 13 min read

An actor in Roman costume with a gold crown. He is a man in his 50s, blonde hair, blue eyes wearing purple and gold.

Savage Entertainment

A new version of Tinto Brass and Bob Guccione’s notorious 1979 film ‘Caligula’ provides a valuable record of one of the most fascinating disasters in cinema history.

Jaspreet Singh Boparai

14 Nov 2024 · 30 min read

Two Wars, a Wedding, and a Funeral

In the eleventh instalment of ‘The So-Called Dark Ages,’ Herbert Bushman describes the dramatic events preceding the death of Attila the Hun.

Herbert Bushman

8 Aug 2024 · 12 min read

Feast of Attila, by Hungarian painter Mór Than (1828–99).

Under Attila’s Gaze

In the ninth instalment of ‘The So-Called Dark Ages,’ Herbert Bushman describes a Roman diplomat’s famous fifth-century journey into the heart of Hunnic territory.

Herbert Bushman

5 Apr 2024 · 28 min read

Attila Invictus

In the eighth instalment of ‘The So-Called Dark Ages,’ Herbert Bushman describes the Huns’ increasingly violent incursions into the Eastern half of the Roman Empire.

Herbert Bushman

8 Mar 2024 · 19 min read

A Gathering of the Huns

In the seventh instalment of ‘The So-Called Dark Ages,’ Herbert Bushman describes how disparate Hunnic tribes coalesced into the unified force that would terrorize Europe.

Herbert Bushman

23 Jan 2024 · 16 min read

Merry Christmas, Little Wolf

Christmas offers a chance to remind ourselves of the intellectual debt that our editors and writers owe to the Christian tradition.

The Quillette Editorial Board

24 Dec 2023 · 7 min read

From out of the Steppes, a ‘Whirlwind of Nations’

In the sixth instalment of ‘The So-Called Dark Ages,’ Herbert Bushman describes the rise of the Huns, who struck terror into the hearts of Goths and Romans alike.

Herbert Bushman

19 Dec 2023 · 21 min read

The Long Road to Aquitaine

In the fifth instalment of ‘The So-Called Dark Ages,’ Herbert Bushman describes the conclusion to the Visigoths’ four-decade quest for a permanent homeland.

Herbert Bushman

21 Nov 2023 · 13 min read

A Roman Trauma

In the fourth instalment of ‘The So-Called Dark Ages,’ podcaster Herbert Bushman describes the Visigothic sack of Rome in 410 C.E.

Herbert Bushman

1 Nov 2023 · 17 min read

King of the Goths

In the third instalment of ‘The So-Called Dark Ages,’ podcaster Herbert Bushman describes the rise of Alaric I, whose Gothic armies roamed Greece and the Balkans before marching on Rome itself.

Herbert Bushman

2 Oct 2023 · 20 min read