Running after foreign gods - Richard Stoneman explains how Rome's Syrian rival, the city of Palmyra, and her formidable queen Zenobia influenced the religion and mores of the later Empire - and brought us in the process Christmas Day.
Frank L. Holt looks at the legends and realities of Alexander's bride from Central Asia, the world she lived in and the power struggles that ensnared her.
Rebel without a cause? Paul Cartledge probes whether the chequered career of one of fifth-century Athens' most famous sons reveals more about conflicting codes of loyalty than just the machinations of a turncoat.
David Braund takes a look over the latest collection of books on the Roman age.
'You are what you eat' was as relevant an observation for the ancients as for more modern thinkers, argues Helen King
'Bread and circuses' - the control and availability of grain was the key to political power and social stability in the ancient world.
'History is a reinterpretation of the past which leads to conclusions about the present' wrote Arnaldo Momigliano. Taking that lead, John M. Carter explores the posthumous images of the Roman emperor, Augustus.
As a political thinker Cicero has been all manner of things to all manner of men. In order to understand Cicero's political ideas, however, we need to look at the world of Rome in the first century BC, argues J.B. Morrall.
There is evidence, argues Adrian Tronson, to suggest that the 13th-century Mali empire, and its ruler Sundiata, were strongly influenced by the life of Alexander the Great, 356-323 BC, an influence that was to be capitalised on in the late 1950s.
Neither the Greeks nor the Romans paid much attention to the achievements or customs of the peoples that they conquered. As Jenny Morris shows here, in the case of their Jewish subjects this indifference caused problems that had both religious and political repercussions.
