Philip V was King of Macedon from 221 BC to 179 BC. Philip's reign was principally marked by an unsuccessful struggle with the emerging power of Rome. Philip was attractive and charismatic as a young man. A dashing and courageous warrior, h...

Scipio Africanus, also known as Scipio the African, Scipio Africanus-Major, Scipio Africanus the Elder and Scipio the Great, was a Roman general and later consul who is often regarded as one of the greatest generals and military strategists...

Marcus Porcius Cato was a Roman statesman, commonly referred to as Cato Censorius (the Censor), Cato Sapiens (the Wise), Cato Priscus (the Ancient), Cato Major, or Cato the Elder (to distinguish him from his great-grandson, Cato the Younger...

The Xiongnu, also known as the Asiatic Huns, were one of the nomadic peoples of Ancient Central Asia. They're thought to have descended from various Turkic peoples known as Xianyun, Xunyu and Hongyu, yet all the knowledge we have come from...

The Second Punic War (referred to as "The War Against Hannibal" by the Romans) was fought between Carthage and Rome from 218 to 202 BC. It was the second of three major wars fought between the former Phoenician colony of Carthage, and the R...

The Siege of Syracuse by the Roman Republic took place in 214–212 BC, at the end of which the Magna Graecia Hellenistic city of Syracuse, located on the east coast of Sicily, fell. The Romans stormed the city after a protracted siege giving...

Perseus was the last king of the Antigonid dynasty, who ruled the successor state in Macedon created upon the death of Alexander the Great. He also has the distinction of being the last of the line, after losing the Battle of Pydna on 22 Ju...

The Terra Cotta Warriors and Horses are the most significant archeological excavations of the 20th century. Work is ongoing at this site, which is around 1.5 kilometers east of Emperor Qin Shi Huang's Mausoleum, Lintong County, Shaanxi prov...

Ptolemy V Epiphanes (reigned 204–181 BC), son of Ptolemy IV Philopator and Arsinoe III of Egypt, was the fifth ruler of the Ptolemaic dynasty. He became ruler at the age of five, and under a series of regents the kingdom was paralyzed. The...

Polybius was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic period noted for his work The Histories, which covered the period of 264–146 BC in detail. The work describes the rise of the Roman Republic to the status of dominance in the ancient Mediter...

The Rosetta Stone is a granodiorite stele inscribed with a decree issued at Memphis in 196 BC on behalf of King Ptolemy V. The decree appears in three scripts: the upper text is Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the middle portion Demotic scrip...

Hipparchus was the most important Greek astronomers of his time. He very accurately cataloged over 1,000 stars and invented the mathematical science of trigonometry. Ptolemy was a great admirer of Hipparchus's research and recorded some of...

Gaius Lucilius, the earliest Roman satirist, of whose writings only fragments remain, was a Roman citizen of the equestrian class, born at Suessa Aurunca in Campania. The dates assigned by Jerome for his birth and death are 148 BC and 103 B...

Emperor Wu of Han was the seventh emperor of the Han dynasty of China, ruling from 141–87 BC. He is one of the most famous emperors of ancient China. Emperor Wu's reign lasted 54 years — a record that was not broken until the reign of th...

Zhang Qian (d. 113 BC) was a Chinese official and diplomat who served as an imperial envoy to the world outside of China in the 2nd century BC, during the time of the Han dynasty. He was the first official diplomat to bring back reliable in...