Josho Brouwers's Blog, page 6

Ancient Greeks in Egypt

The sarcophagus depicted in this post’s featured image, above, can be found at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, the Netherlands. It dates to around 600 BC and belonged to a man called Wahibreemakhet. It looks entirely Egyptian. However, you might be surprised to know that his parents were Greeks. Greeks were probably active…

How Wrath of the Titans abused the gods

Few would argue that Jonathan Liebesman’s Wrath of the Titans (2012) was actually a good film. This sequel to the 2010-remake of the original Ray Harryhausen monster flick Clash of the Titans (1981) continues the Hollywood story of the Greek hero Perseus, but veers ever further from established Greek mythology. In case you haven’t seen the movies,…

The happiness of King Croesus

In his Histories (1.29–34), Herodotus claims that when Croesus, the king of Lydia (r. 560–ca. 547 BC), had established his dominion over western Anatolia, all the wise men of that time travelled from Greece to Sardis, the kingdom’s capital city. Among these men was Solon the Athenian. Solon was credited for having created new laws…

Henchmen of Ares

At long last, my doctoral dissertation will be published – in a revised form – later this year. I already wrote something about the book on the editor’s blog over on the website of Ancient Warfare magazine. Here, I want to briefly explain what sets this book apart from other contributions to the field of ancient…

The world of Homer

The ancient Greeks believed that a poet named Homer composed the epic poems that we refer to as the Iliad and the Odyssey. Homer’s floruit is nowadays usually dated around 700 BC. Many questions surround the poet and his work. One of these is whether or not the epic world described by Homer corresponds to…

Ancient Inventions

One book I always like to recommend to people who want to learn more about human ingenuity in the past is Ancient Inventions (1994) written by Peter James and Nick Thorpe. Monty Python-member Terry Jones even hosted a short BBC television documentary of the same name in 1998 that was inspired by the book. The…