Ancient Texts
Greece and Rome: Ancient texts
Ancient Texts pages that draw on Greece and Rome, each with the sources shown. Start with Armies in the clouds over Jerusalem (66 CE), Atlantis, Helike, Hephaestus' golden maidens.
Events · Greece and RomeArmies in the clouds over Jerusalem (66 CE)Before the Roman war on Judea, the historian Josephus reports chariots and armed troops running among the clouds around cities. He admits it would sound like a fable if eyewitnesses had not told it. Tacitus, writing from the Roman side, mentions similar armies clashing in the sky. What explains two accounts of one sight?Places · Greece and RomeAtlantisPlato says a great island empire sank in a single day and night, and then his unfinished dialogue stops mid-sentence just as Zeus starts to speak. No Greek writer before him mentions Atlantis. So was it a warning parable, a memory of a real disaster, or something else? The sources point several ways.Places · Greece and RomeHelikeOne winter night in 373 BCE, a real Greek city and its harbor vanished beneath the sea. Roman tourists reportedly peered down at the drowned ruins, and a bronze Poseidon was said to snag fishermen's nets. Plato wrote about sunken Atlantis soon after. Where was Helike finally found, and why does it matter?Objects · Greece and RomeHephaestus' golden maidensIn the oldest Greek epic, the smith god Hephaestus has tripods that roll to meetings on their own, plus golden women with minds, voices and skill who help him walk. This was written about 700 BCE or earlier. Did Greeks imagine artificial helpers long before machines, or is it only divine craft? Read Homer's lines.Texts · Greece and RomeHesiod's five races of menAround 700 BCE, Hesiod wrote that the gods made humanity five times, from gold down to iron, and ours is the iron race. The silver people stayed children for a hundred years before a short, foolish adulthood. What happened to the earlier races, and what does Hesiod say comes next for us?Events · Greece and RomeLivy's ships in the skyRome's official list of omens for the winter of 218 BCE includes a baby shouting a victory cry, an ox climbing to a third floor and the likeness of ships shining in the sky. These reports went to the Senate. Livy repeats them, and also warns that fear made people believe too easily.Events · Greece and RomePliny's burning shieldPliny the Elder recorded a burning shield, scattering sparks, running across the sky at sunset from west to east. The year is pinned down by the consuls named, which gives 100 BCE. Astronomers see a fireball. UFO writers see a flying object. What exactly did the Roman encyclopedia say, and how careful was he?Events · Greece and RomeSolon and the priests of SaisAn aged Egyptian priest told the Athenian lawmaker Solon that Greeks are children with no old men among them. He said the world has been wrecked by fire and flood many times, and Egypt kept the records. Plato is the only source for this meeting. What did the priest say really happened to Phaethon?Beings · Greece and RomeTalosA giant of bronze circled Crete three times a day hurling rocks at ships. His whole body was armored except one blood-red vein running neck to ankle, sealed by a single nail. Ancient tales say Medea brought him down. Was Talos a monster, or one of the first imagined robots? Historians disagree.Places · Greece and RomeTartarusHesiod measured the Greek prison for defeated gods with a falling bronze anvil: nine days from sky to earth, nine more to reach it. Centuries later, 2 Peter used the same word for where fallen angels are chained. Why would a Greek pit show up in the New Testament? The page follows the trail.Texts · Greece and RomeThe reversed world of Plato's StatesmanPlato tells of an age when the cosmos ran backward, people rose from the ground white-haired and grew younger until they vanished. A god was said to steer the world, then let go. Humans were left with fire and crafts to survive. It is only a story told to make a point, but why this one?Events · Greece and RomeThe silver jar at Lucullus' battleTwo armies in Phrygia were about to clash when, Plutarch says, the sky burst apart and a flaming object shaped like a wine jar and colored like molten silver fell between them. Both sides drew back, and no battle took place. Was it an omen, a meteor or something else? Plutarch wrote it down long afterward.
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