Author: Iain Maclean

----THE GREEKS IN AFRICA---- PART IV During the interlude of peace between the Persian war and the beginning of the Peloponnesian war was a short period of time when Athens used it's naval power to attack the satrapies of Persia. Inaros II held kingship over the Libyans and the part of the Nile Delta around … Continue reading ATHENS WAR IN EGYPT

---THE GREEKS IN AFRICA--- PART III Cyrene was a Greek city in Africa famed for the production of the medicinal Silphium, a plant that was used in antiquity as an aphrodisiac. Little wonder the city grew also to be famed for the philosophy of the Cyrenaics, a school of philosophy that taught that the only … Continue reading THE GREEK CITY IN AFRICA

---THE GREEKS IN AFRICA--- PART II It's well known that Alexander the Great pondered upon conquering Carthage in the West after he had finished with the East. Pryrus of Epirus also had dreams of breaking Carthaginian Hegemony in the West to no avail. Perhaps these dreams of victory by popular figures of the past are … Continue reading THE REVENGE OF AGATHOCLES

---THE GREEKS IN AFRICA--- PART I Everyone has already heard the story of the gallant actions of the Spartan King Leonidas and the 300' last stand against the Persians but few have heard the unfortunate tale of Leonidas's brother Dorieus of Sparta. Dorieus was the model Spartan but upon his father the king's death the … Continue reading THE SPARTANS IN AFRICA

---THE PHOCAEAN EXODUS--- PART I Phocaea was a large city founded on the coast of Asia Minor in the 9th century BC by settlers from the region of Phocis on the Greek mainland. Phocis was a pastoral region flanked by mountains, also famed for the Oracle of Delphi even in early times. The reasons for … Continue reading THE PHOCAEAN EXODUS

---The Phocaean Exodus--- PART II The city of Phocaea was abandoned to the Persians, it's inhabitants fled west to Italy and Gaul where they would establish Greek colonies further than anyone before them. After abandoning Phocaea they made common cause to set sail for the polis of Alalia, a city in Corsica they had set … Continue reading WHEN THE ETRUSCANS FOUGHT THE GREEKS!!!

Look at a map of ancient Greek colonization, there is one area where the Greeks don't appear to have any presence?? the Adriatic! every single one of them omits the Greek colonies of the Adriatic, possibly because these areas never grew to any great importance or status, or because they supposedly came a little later … Continue reading THE MISSING GREEK COLONIES

After the time of the lawgiver Lycurgus the Spartan state was set in good order, with good land and many fighting men they flourished in prosperity under the new laws set out by Lycurgus. Not content to live in peace, before long the Spartans believed themselves to be superior to their Arcadian neighbors and set … Continue reading WHEN THE SPARTANS WERE PUSSIES

The bones of the dead littered the island. During the long and indecisive conflict between Carthage and the Greeks for control of the island of Sicily, a strange occurrence lead to a small island being named "The Bone Island" Carthage was in the midst of a brutal conflict against the city of Syracuse for hegemony … Continue reading THE BONE ISLAND

Battle of the 300 Spartans???........ Or should we be saying "battle of the 298" I know, I know it doesn't quite have the same ring to it but there were a few Spartans who did not stand with the 300 on that fateful day at the battle of Thermopylae. Before the final stand at Thermopylae … Continue reading THE SURVIVORS OF THE 300