HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
date: 2025-10-30T10:27:58.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: The overshadowed ancient empire that rivalled Rome with maritime might and an iron fist
items: Were the Amazons just a “male fantasy”? Here’s the truth behind the ancient world’s warrior women
items: Arson, murder and goddesses: secrets of a Seventh Wonder of the Ancient World
items: Three thousand years ago, the ancient Greeks turned an even older civilisation into a monster
items: Paint your own pot, like an ancient Etruscan
items: The Minoans: everything you wanted to know
items: Are you healthier than a Roman? These ancient secrets for longevity are still shockingly relevant
items: You probably eat these foods every day, so why did the ancient Romans think they were disgusting poison?
items: Ancient tips for health and happiness
items: Meet the people the ancient Romans and Greeks desperately tried to hide

The overshadowed ancient empire that rivalled Rome with maritime might and an iron fist
type: item
date: 2025-10-02T11:14:58.000Z
creator: James Osborne
subject: Ancient Greece
subject: General ancient history
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Discover / Apple News
description: Historian Josephine Quinn explores how the Phoenicians and their great colony, Carthage, built a maritime empire that once overshadowed both Greece and Rome
encoded: The Phoenicians founded one of antiquity’s greatest Mediterranean powers. An ambitious and powerful network of seafaring traders along the eastern Mediterranean coast, they built a commercial empire whose crowning capital was Carthage: a city that rivalled (and for much of its history outshone) both ancient Greece and Rome. It was from here that they imposed a ruthless influence across the region. “I feel like this is something that has been lost in ancient histories that move from Greece first to Rome second. They miss out this massive third power, which was sometimes bigger than both,” says historian Josephine Quinn, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast. But this great power began only as a cluster of small port cities, overshadowed by mighty neighbours. So how did the Phoenicians rise to command vast trade routes, create colonies across the western Mediterranean, and challenge the future dominance of Rome? The Phoenicians: masters of the seas Centred on the harbours of modern-day Lebanon and Syria – notably Tyre, Sidon and Byblos – the early Phoenicians developed a reputation as “extraordinary navigators”. “They discovered the Pole Star and founded settlements in the western Mediterranean long before the Greeks were sailing around the region,” explains Quinn. Read more | Ancient Roman theatre was a powerful weapon of empire, so why were actors lives so tragic? As pioneers of open-sea sailing who steered by the stars, they also proved formidable traders. They carried cedar wood, glassware, textiles and most famously purple dye made from murex shells – a commodity so costly that it became the colour of kings. For centuries they acted as middlemen of the Mediterranean, linking Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece and beyond. Their alphabet, a streamlined script of 22 letters, spread westward and would later form the basis of Greek and Latin writing systems. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/GettyImages-122321640-58d95d9-e175940353277…

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Were the Amazons just a “male fantasy”? Here’s the truth behind the ancient world’s warrior women
type: item
date: 2025-09-11T10:35:24.000Z
creator: James Osborne
subject: Ancient Greece
subject: General ancient history
subject: Period
subject: Discover / Apple News
description: Greek myths of the Amazons blended kernels of truth with male fantasy to create a legend that has lasted for millennia. Here’s the truth behind the Amazons, and why the notion of warrior women fascinated and unsettled the ancient world
encoded: Few figures from antiquity capture the imagination quite like the Amazons: fearsome warrior women who fought Greek heroes, rode horses into battle and lived in societies ruled by beautiful and terrifying queens. From epic poetry to vase paintings, they endured as unique symbols of female power and independence in the world of ancient Greece. But were the Amazons ever real? According to Professor David Braund, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast, the answer is both yes and no. “There are two ways that we use the word ‘Amazons’. There’s a general way to mean women who fight, and if you want to know whether they existed in the ancient world, for sure they did.” In other words, some women certainly did hunt, fight and join pitched battles when their cities were under attack. These women slot into the archetypal image of an Amazon woman: fierce fighters who subverted the typical roles of women who lived in the ancient world. But what about the specific Amazons of Greek myth? The horse-riding warrior queens depicted on temples and vases? Braund argues that these were creations of the Greek imagination, shaped as much by male fantasy as by fragments of reality. Real women who fought across the ancient world The notion of women taking up arms was not purely mythical. Ancient sources, and modern evidence, suggest that some women did fight in exceptional circumstances. Read more | Ancient Greek religion “There were women who certainly went hunting and used weapons, and almost certainly participated in battles at times when their city was under attack,” Braund says. These women were not part of a single all-female society. They were members of families and communities who took up arms in moments of crisis. The ancient Greeks, however, wove these scattered examples into stories of an entire nation of warrior women – an idea that both fascinated and disturbed them. The Amazons of Greek imagination The notion of the Amazons as a unified group appeared as soon as Greek culture be…

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Arson, murder and goddesses: secrets of a Seventh Wonder of the Ancient World
type: item
date: 2025-08-11T08:00:52.000Z
creator: Rachel Dinning
subject: Ancient Greece
subject: General ancient history
subject: Membership
subject: Period
description: Bettany Hughes uncovers the secrets of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
encoded: What would it have been like to have witness one of the most spectacular sights of the ancient world first-hand? Speaking to Rachel Dinning, Bettany Hughes explores the extraordinary Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. From its awe-inspiring grandeur to its dramatic tales of arson, murder, and sanctuary, she reveals the secrets and significance of this remarkable ancient site.

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Three thousand years ago, the ancient Greeks turned an even older civilisation into a monster
type: item
date: 2025-07-31T13:54:52.000Z
creator: James Osborne
subject: Ancient Greece
subject: General ancient history
subject: Period
subject: Discover / Apple News
description: Behind the myth of the Minotaur lies the ancient Minoan civilisation – a culture steeped in ritual, rich in symbolism, and obsessed with the power of bulls
encoded: Half man, half bull and entirely terrifying, the Minotaur remains one of the most enduring mythic monsters from antiquity. According to Greek myth, it was born from an unwholesome combination of lust, punishment and divine retribution, hidden deep within a labyrinth so vast that no one could ever escape it. But behind the strange and violent tale of the Minotaur was a very real, and very ancient civilisation from whom the Minotaur took its name: the Minoans. Europe’s first complex civilisation, which flourished on the island of Crete more than 3,500 years ago, the Minoans were the subject of a recent HistoryExtra podcast with Dr Ellen Adams, in which she explained how the civilisation lends it name to the popular Greek myth. The Minoans didn’t leave behind written myths that we can read yet, but they did leave vivid traces of their civilisation, uncovered through archaeological excavation – frescoes, palaces and religious artefacts – which suggest a culture fascinated by bulls, performance and the symbolism of power. So, although the Minotaur is a creature of ancient Greek storytelling, it’s a fascinating reflection of the people and cultures that inspired it. Who were the Minoans? The people that we now call ‘Minoans’ were a sophisticated maritime society based on Crete, whose influence peaked between 2000 and 1450 BCE. They built monumental palaces, the largest of which was at Knossos, and developed advanced systems of administration, plumbing and trade. They traded widely across the eastern Mediterranean, from Egypt to the Levant, and left behind striking art filled with natural imagery, ceremonial scenes and athleticism. Their name, however, is modern – and Greek in origin. Read more | Meet the people the ancient Romans and Greeks desperately tried to hide “The term Minoans actually comes from the ancient Greeks,” explains Professor Adams. “The ancient Greeks set this story up for us about the Minoans, and this term comes from their King Minos of Greek myth.” Th…

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Paint your own pot, like an ancient Etruscan
type: item
date: 2025-07-27T09:00:19.000Z
creator: Dr David Musgrove, FSA
subject: Ancient Egypt
subject: Ancient Greece
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Historical people
description: Silence your inner critic and forget about perfectionism. That's the life lesson we should learn from the Etruscans and their artistic habits, Dr Lucy Shipley tells Dr David Musgrove
encoded: There’s a place I used to go to with my children where you could unleash your creative zing by painting a pot. You picked your pot, you painted your pot, and then they fired it for you and you came back and retrieved your handiwork a few days later. I’m no artist, so my pot designs were always distinctly average. But I enjoyed it, and so did my kids, and in that, we were unwittingly drawing on the mindset of the ancient Etruscans. Dr Lucy Shipley is an expert on this overlooked people, and her life lesson that we should draw from them is simple: paint your own pot. The overlooked Etruscans Before we go into that, let’s have a quick recap of who the Etruscans were. They are the people who lived in parts of what is now Italy, particularly in Tuscany and Umbria, in the period before the rise of ancient Rome, in the first millennium BC. They were neighbours and rivals of the Romans and the Greeks. They lived in cities spread across the region, and from their ports they traded widely across the Mediterranean. The Etruscans pop up in ancient sources quite often, but we only ever have accounts of them from an outside perspective, because their own texts do not survive beyond short inscriptions and one religious text. We have to rely on those accounts, along with archaeology, to get to grips with who they were and how they lived. Most of their cities are hard to excavate as they sit under modern settlements, but new excavations are revealing more of their world. Read more | The history of Florence: Italy's Renaissance powerhouse Etruscan tombs also provide a fascinating insight into Etruscan culture, and some feature remarkable wall paintings. These paintings show scenes from everyday life, religion and myth, but also some graphic sexual acts, which has surprised modern eyes (I’ll come back to that). Though Etruria was eventually subsumed into the Roman empire in the fourth and third centuries BC, echoes of their culture persisted. According to Shipley, there is something a…

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The Minoans: everything you wanted to know
type: item
date: 2025-07-27T08:00:30.000Z
creator: Dr David Musgrove, FSA
subject: Ancient Greece
subject: General ancient history
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Everything you wanted to know about history (podcast series)
description: Dr Ellen Adams answers all the key questions about the ancient civilisation best known for the legend of the Minotaur
encoded: Centred on the island of Crete, the Bronze-Age Minoan civilisation stretched from roughly 3000 to 1200BC, and is probably most famous for its legend surrounding the mythical Minotaur and the fabulous palace of Knossos. But what else do we know about this ancient society? In conversation with David Musgrove, Ellen Adams answers all the key questions about the Minoans. Ellen Adams is the author of The Minoans: Lost Civilizations (Reaktion Books, 2025). Buy it now from Waterstones

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Are you healthier than a Roman? These ancient secrets for longevity are still shockingly relevant
type: item
date: 2025-07-01T17:17:14.000Z
creator: James Osborne
subject: Ancient Greece
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Discover / Apple News
description: From seasonal intimacy schedules to open-air nudity, ancient Greco-Roman thinkers had no shortage of theories on how to stay healthy. Some might still feel surprisingly useful today
encoded: Think of the Roman empire or ancient Greece, and your first thoughts might be of political scheming, cultural innovation and incredibly violent warfare, rather than the world of wellness. But even in the ancient world, questions on how to preserve good health commanded the attention of the era’s deepest thinkers. Among the Greeks and Romans, physicians like Hippocrates, Galen and Diocles were fixated on health, how to build it and how to maintain it. They viewed good health as a constantly shifting balance between internal forces and external conditions: food, temperature, movement and even your clothing choices (or lack thereof) played a part. And the wrong choice – at the wrong time of year – could tip that balance in a very unwelcome direction. Read more | What did people eat in Ancient Rome? Professor Claire Bubb, an expert in ancient science and literature, joined the HistoryExtra podcast to explain some of the measures that Greco-Roman doctors advised for a healthy life. Here, we share five tips for maximising your health and longevity, from those ancient Greeks and Romans, as told by Professor Bubb. Tailor your health to your goals, not someone else’s Even before the rise of modern wellness programmes, ancient doctors were pushing personalisation. A healthy regime wasn’t a fixed rulebook. It was a flexible set of principles, adjusted to suit your specific body, lifestyle and ambitions. Want to build strength? There was a plan for that. Want to slim down? A completely different routine applied. “The Hippocratic approach here is very individualised,” explains Bubb, “and this to me is the thing that ancient medicine can still really help us think through and help us be more aware of.” “If you, as an individual, feel that you are overweight and you want to lose weight, you're going to do one thing. If you're underweight and you really want to bulk up and you'd rather be stronger and you want more mass, you have to do these other things, so everyone has their own …

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You probably eat these foods every day, so why did the ancient Romans think they were disgusting poison?
type: item
date: 2025-06-19T14:40:38.000Z
creator: James Osborne
subject: Ancient Greece
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Discover / Apple News
description: From peaches and lentils to your favourite herb, ancient Mediterranean doctors had strong opinions about what you should (and shouldn’t) eat – and their verdict on some of today’s staple foods might surprise you
encoded: Today, there are few foods as uncontroversial, health-wise, as fresh fruit, pulses and herbs. A ripe peach, a handful of lentils and a fragrant basil garnish could form the basis of a very healthy Mediterranean-inspired diet. But for many ancient Romans and Greeks – particularly the medical writers and thinkers working across the Greco-Roman Mediterranean between the 5th century BCE and the 2nd century CE – these were all foods to be approached with sincere scepticism, and sometimes outright revulsion. So why did some of the most influential physicians in history warn against what we now consider basic nutrition? According to Dr Claire Bubb, a historian of ancient science and literature speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast, these views existed within the context of a broader dietary philosophy. “They don’t think in terms of vitamins,” she explains. Instead, she says, “they’re trying to pay attention to what food seems to do to the body.” The conclusions might sound strange now, but they were based on close empirical observation of food, digestion and health – at least, the version of health that was understood by ancient science. Why the ancients hated fruit “Fruit is pretty universally viewed with scepticism,” says Bubb. She explains that Galen of Pergamon, one of the most celebrated physicians of the Roman empire, eyed fruit (and especially peaches) with a wary eye, because they “decompose like crazy”. Read more | Meet the people the ancient Romans and Greeks desperately tried to hide From the modern perspective that might sound obvious (especially if you’ve ever left fruit in a lunchbox too long) and mostly an inconvenience rather than a cause for avoidance. But for ancient doctors, that spoilage could be much more than an unpleasant but inconsequential disappointment. It was seen as actively harmful. “[Galen] says, ‘Look, it’s also decomposing in your stomach and it’s causing everything else in there to decompose,’” Bubb explains. “So, you need to be thoughtful …

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Ancient tips for health and happiness
type: item
date: 2025-06-18T07:00:05.000Z
creator: James Osborne
subject: Ancient Greece
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Roman
description: Claire Bubb examines Greek and Roman views on diet, exercise, and what it meant to live a healthy life in the ancient world
encoded: The science of health and wellbeing is a hot topic of modern life, and it was no different for the ancient civilisations of Greece and Rome. From what you should eat, to how you should exercise, and when you should (and shouldn't) have sex, these cultures developed their own highly specific set of rules to live by to maximise health and happiness. In this episode, Claire Bubb examines the logic behind these health tips alongside James Osborne, and reveals what insights they give us into the Greco-Roman mindset. Claire Bubb is the author of How to Eat: An Ancient Guide for Healthy Living (Princeton University Press, 2025). Buy it now from Amazon

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Meet the people the ancient Romans and Greeks desperately tried to hide
type: item
date: 2025-05-23T12:56:42.000Z
creator: James Osborne
subject: Ancient Greece
subject: Period
subject: Roman
subject: Discover / Apple News
description: Amazons, werewolves and unnamed traders: historian Owen Rees uncovers the lives hidden at the edges of ancient empires – and explains why they were written out of history
encoded: The story of the ancient world is often dominated by tales of Rome or Athens – the respective epicentres of the Greco-Roman civilisations. But that only provides a fraction of the entire picture. Away from the great cities of these ancient empires, the real history of ancient Greece and Rome is a more complex and variable. And – argues Dr Owen Rees, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast – it’s a view that you’ve only seen a fragment of. What’s more, there are things that the Greco-Romans wanted to hide. “The way we look at ancient history is a bit like going to New York and thinking we've seen America,” says Rees. He explains that what’s missing from the general understanding of the ancient world are the stories of those living far from imperial capitals – on the borders and fringes of the Greco-Roman cultures, where dividing lines were blurred and the rules of citizenship, identity and power were far less defined. Read more | A guide to ancient Rome and the Romans These citizens on the border weren’t emperors, generals or city elites, but the millions whose lives unfolded on the loose boundaries between cultures. In the podcast episode, Rees explains that he’s drawn to studying the lives that don’t survive easily in existing texts – because they weren’t written down, or because they were deliberately ignored. The evidence that has been preserved, however, suggests a world far more diverse than textbooks often demonstrate, says Rees. Ordinary lives in extraordinary places “When you're far away from the judgmental eyes of the centre,” Rees explains, “rules stop applying so vehemently and fastidiously.” Therefore, on the edges of ancient empires, cultural expectations softened. What tangible outcomes does that translate to? Social and cultural flexibility, for one. Read more | Three thousand years ago, the ancient Greeks turned an even older civilisation into a monster Across borders and on the frontier, Rees says that the evidence points to people “just living normal …

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