Ancient History

Today's civilizations owe an immense debt to the powerful empires and mighty cities of antiquity. Their inventions, techniques and concepts enabled the advancement of humankind and lay the foundation for life in the modern world. From the literary legacy of ancient Greece to the majestic pyramids of the Maya, vestiges of their greatness still grace the globe, continuing to enthrall, inspire and mystify us. Thousands of years after these ancient cultures' declines, historians, archaeologists and other scholars of the distant past spend entire careers striving to unlock their secrets and walk in the footsteps of the people who created them.

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  • Ancient Greece

    Ancient Greece

    Between 800 and 500 B.C., Greek city-states spread from the Mediterranean to Asia Minor and from North Africa to the Black Sea.

  • Ancient Rome

    Ancient Rome

    Over its tumultuous 1,200-year history, Ancient Rome grew from a small town into one of the most successful imperial powers in history.

  • Ancient Egypt

    Ancient Egypt

    The ancient Egyptian civilization endured for more than 5,000 years, and at its peak was one of the richest and most powerful in the world.

  • Aztecs

    Aztecs

    At the height of their power in the 15th and early 16th centuries, the Aztecs ruled over a large empire in Mesoamerica (now south-central Mexico).

Ancient Egypt

For almost 30 centuries—from its unification around 3100 B.C. to its conquest by Alexander the Great in 332 B.C.—ancient Egypt was the preeminent civilization in the Mediterranean world. From the great pyramids of the Old Kingdom through the military conquests of the New Kingdom, Egypt's majesty has long entranced archaeologists and historians and created a vibrant field of study all its own: Egyptology. The main sources of information about ancient Egypt are the many monuments, objects and artifacts that have been recovered from archaeological sites, covered with hieroglyphs that have only recently been deciphered. The picture that emerges is of a culture with few equals in the beauty of its art, the accomplishment of its architecture or the richness of its religious traditions.

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Ancient Greece

The term "classical Greece" refers to the period between the Persian Wars at the beginning of the fifth century B.C. and the rise of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. The classical period was an era of war and conflict—first between the Greeks and the Persians, then between the Athenians and the Spartans—but it was also an era of unprecedented political and cultural achievement. Besides the Parthenon and Greek tragedy, classical Greece brought us the historian Herodotus, the physician Hippokrates and the philosopher Socrates. It also brought us the political reforms that are ancient Greece’s most enduring contribution to the modern world: the system known as demokratia, or "rule by the people."

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Ancient Rome

Beginning in the eighth century B.C., Ancient Rome grew from a small town on central Italy's Tiber River into an empire that at its peak encompassed most of continental Europe, Britain, much of western Asia, northern Africa and the Mediterranean islands. Among the many legacies of Roman dominance are the widespread use of the Romance languages (Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian) derived from Latin, the modern Western alphabet and calendar and the emergence of Christianity as a major world religion. After 450 years as a republic, Rome became an empire in the wake of Julius Caesar's rise and fall in the first century B.C. The long and triumphant reign of its first emperor, Augustus, began a golden age of peace and prosperity; by contrast, the empire's decline and fall by the fifth century A.D. was one of the most dramatic implosions in the history of human civilization.

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Aztec Empire

The Aztecs, who probably originated as a nomadic tribe in northern Mexico, arrived in Mesoamerica around the beginning of the 13th century. From their magnificent capital city, Tenochtitlán, the Aztecs emerged as the dominant force in central Mexico, developing an intricate social, political, religious and commercial organization that brought many of the region's city-states under their control by the 15th century. Invaders led by the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés overthrew the Aztecs by force and captured Tenochtitlán in 1521, bringing an end to Mesoamerica's last great native civilization.

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Maya

The Maya Empire, centered in the tropical lowlands of what is now Guatemala, reached the peak of its power and influence around the sixth century A.D. The Maya excelled at agriculture, pottery, hieroglyph writing, calendar-making and mathematics, and left behind an astonishing amount of impressive architecture and symbolic artwork. Most of the great stone cities of the Maya were abandoned by A.D. 900, however, and since the 19th century scholars have debated what might have caused this dramatic decline.

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This Day in History

May 21

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American Red Cross founded, 1881

In Washington, D.C., humanitarians Clara Barton and Adolphus Solomons found the American National Red Cross, an organization established to provide…

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