Antiquity

Antiquity (Latin antiquitas, "ancientness") is a conventional name for the world of classical ancient history, above all the Greek and Roman civilizations of the Mediterranean. It was not one country or one people, but a broad historical horizon: Aegean poleis, Hellenistic kingdoms, the Roman Republic, the Roman Empire, provinces, frontier zones and cultures that constantly interacted with this world.

Political forms, religion, military organization, urban life, art, education and everyday practices changed throughout antiquity. Greek archaism, 5th-century BC Athens, the Hellenistic East, Augustan Rome and late antique provinces cannot be reduced to one set of images. The subject depends not only on literary authors, but also on archaeological complexes, inscriptions, coins, images, museum collections and preserved cities.

The chronological limits of antiquity depend on region, but several broad stages help keep different periods apart:

8th-6th centuries BC - archaic Greece, Mediterranean colonization, early Rome and the formation of the polis.
5th-4th centuries BC - classical Greece, the Persian Wars, Athens, Sparta, Macedonia and the first major Mediterranean powers.
Late 4th-1st centuries BC - the Hellenistic world after Alexander's campaigns, the Ptolemaic, Seleucid and Antigonid kingdoms, and the rise of Rome.
3rd-1st centuries BC - the Roman Republic as a Mediterranean power, the Punic Wars, the crisis of the Republic and the power of commanders.
1st-3rd centuries AD - the Roman Empire, provincial cities, frontiers, armies, roads, cults and urban culture.
4th-6th centuries AD - Late Antiquity, Christianization, division of the empire, new political centers and the gradual transition toward the medieval world.

Europe in the 3rd century BC

Europe in the 1st century AD

Europe in the 5th century BC

Civilizations and Regions

I. Mediterranean core

II. Ancient Near East beside the classical world

III. Northern and western neighbors

Everyday Culture and Spectacles

I. Everyday life and education

II. City, house and food

III. Chariots and spectacles

Mythology, Religion and Epic

I. Religion, gods and cult

II. Epic, heroes and mythical wars

III. Mythological creatures

Archaeological Sites and Evidence

I. General evidence and monumental images

II. Cities, archives and disasters

III. Roman Britain

IV. Rhine, Danube and battlefields

Museums and Collections

Museum articles are useful where an object needs to be seen together with inventory data, date, findspot, restoration and neighboring objects. For antiquity this is especially important: a museum display may combine sculpture, everyday objects, inscriptions, weapons, frescoes and collecting history, but without archaeological context it cannot be read as a direct image of a whole period.

I. Overview

Museums of Antiquity

II. Europe

III. America and the eastern Mediterranean

Literature

Soviet Historical Encyclopedia, ed. E. M. Zhukov. Moscow, 1973-1982.
Dictionary of Antiquity, ed. J. Irmscher and R. Johne.
The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Oxford University Press.
The Cambridge Ancient History. Cambridge University Press.
Boardman J. The Greeks Overseas.
Beard M., Crawford M. Rome in the Late Republic.
Woolf G. Rome: An Empire's Story.
Bagnall R. S., Brodersen K., Champion C. B., Erskine A., Huebner S. R. The Encyclopedia of Ancient History.

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