Episode 2.1 (2) Lydia – The Birth of Western Coinage

The first western coinage is generally attributed to the Kingdom of Lydia in Anatolia. The Greek cities of Ionia are another contender and started minting coins at the same time or soon after. However, the electrum deposits used to make these first coins were within Lydia, making them the likely first issuers of coinage. The …

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From Anatolia to Sindh: the rapid spread of money in the middle ages

Given the iconoclastic nature of Islam, images on Islamic coins are rare, but yet not unknown.  Many of them were inspired by classical representations (like the bronzes of the Artuquids, Zangids and other Atabegs in the region) or survived when the coinage in question succeeded a pre-Islamic variety (like the Arab-Byzantine and Arab-Sassanid series or …

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This day in history – The Ides of March 44, B.C. – The Assassination of Julius Caesar.

The acquisition of empire ultimately spelled doom for the Roman Republic.  After destroying Carthage, conquering Macedonia and thrashing the Seleucids the Roman Republic ruled the Mediterranean world.  The remaining states that retained their independence lay supine before Roman might.  One king even willed his kingdom to the Romans on his death.  However, the acquisition of …

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300: Rise of an Empire – history infantilized into fiction (with spoilers)

300: Rise of an Empire is replete with so many head slap worthy whoppers, that I had to stop before they resulted in a concussion.  I went into the theater expecting that history would be shredded…the result surpassed my exceptions.  The end product easily surpasses the collection of whoppers in Mel Gibson’s Braveheart.  It is …

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This day in history – January 10, 49 B.C. – “Alea iacta est” – start of the Great Roman Civil War

Politics in the Roman Republic was a brutal business.  The rivalry between the patricians was accentuated by the class divisions between patricians and plebeians.  Yet these were manageable so long as the Republic was confined to Italy.  However, Rome’s victories in the Punic Wars with Carthage and the ensuing wars with Macedonia and the Seleucid …

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