Prehistory and the Ancient

In the fifth century, Solon – an Athenian archon (or statesman) – introduced a number of measures in response to rising instability which would revolutionise political structure forever by shifting authority into the hands of citizens and out of those of the elite in the existing oligarchic structures. These democratic structures were strengthened into the second century, before the rule of Roman autocracy after the fall of Corinth in 146 BC. This democracy, however, remained

In a field outside Maxey in Cambridgeshire, there is almost nothing to see. The land is flat, the sky enormous, the earthworks long ploughed away. Yet beneath the soil lies a causewayed enclosure built around 3800 BCE, its ditches filled not with rubbish but with ritual: smashed pottery, animal bone, human remains, deposits laid down, covered, and reopened over generations. Etton was not a settlement. It was a place where people bound themselves to the land and kept returning

In 60/61 CE, Boudica, queen of the Iceni, led a revolt that unleashed devastation upon the early Roman settlements in Camulodunum, Londinium and Verulamium. With no voice of her own in the historical record,our knowledge of the revolt and the woman herself comes from Roman writers and what was left behind in Colchester, London and St. Albans. Textual evidence for Boudica’s revolt comes from Publius Cornelius Tacitus and Lucius Cassius Dio, Roman historians writing about Bo

The 1960 film 'Spartacus' is regarded as a cinematic masterpiece of its day, with an A-list cast including Kirk Douglas and Laurence Olivier. However, its historical accuracy is questionable. Spartacus never had a romance with the daughter of a Roman official, nor did Crassus ever know Spartacus when he was a gladiator. So, who was the real Spartacus, and how did he cement his place as a symbol of resistance and freedom? To the surprise of many, Spartacus' origins were as a