Holding Out for a Hero
From Achilles to Anakin Skywalker, the messiah myth has evolved from religious prophecy to cautionary tale.
Stewart Slater
· 12 min read
Ancient History
A collection of 22 posts
The Bronze Age Energy Crisis
How a supply chain failure brought down an ancient civilisation: a tale with disturbing implications for present day societies with their brittle energy logistics.
Joseph Zeller
· 9 min read
Nicholas II, Aššurbanipal, and Marco Polo Walk into a Bookstore…
Quillette editor Jonathan Kay reviews three newly published history books about the Assyrian Empire, the fall of the Romanovs, and the travels of Marco Polo.
Jonathan Kay
· 16 min read
Monogamy and the Making of Western Civilisation
The institution of monogamy in Classical Greece may have led to a host of phenomena that shaped the modern West: from individualism and abstract thinking to liberalism and democracy.
James Kierstead
· 8 min read
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
· 19 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
· 15 min read
‘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
· 16 min read
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
· 13 min read
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
· 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
· 12 min read
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
· 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
· 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
· 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
· 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
· 21 min read