Ancient Greek mythology is full of classic stories which have become part of Western literature and culture; these stories have even given us some well-known words and phrases commonly used in English, and in other languages. Below, we introduce 12 of the greatest and best-known tales from the world of […]
The story of Prometheus stealing fire from the gods is, like the story of Pandora’s Box, an important ‘origin-story’ from Greek myth.
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle looks at a common line associated with Helen of Troy Who said, ‘Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?’ Most people know it was Doctor Faustus. Or rather, Christopher Marlowe, who gives Doctor Faustus these words in […]
The classical world gave us many things, from philosophy to democracy to clean drains (cue the Monty Python ‘what have the Romans ever done for us’ routine). And, of course, the ancient world gave us poetry. But which ancient world? Below we’ve selected ten of the finest examples of classical […]
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle travels back 4,000 years to find the world’s first great epic In 1850, a series of clay tablets came to light in the Middle East, in what is now Iraq. They were shipped back to the British Museum, where […]