Ancient rome’s darkest hour

ARCHAEOLOGY

It’s a measure of the enduring appeal of Stanley Kubrick’s 1960 swords-and-sandals epic that, when most of us hear the name Spartacus, a dimple-chinned Kirk Douglas springs immediately to mind. Heroic

LECHAIO, GREECE JULY 391 BCE

On 20 March 44 BC, a violent death in Rome was about to send assembled masses into uproar – sparking pandemonium that threatened to engulf the city. The incident described by the ancient biographer Su

During the early days Operation Barbarossa, Army Group Centre’s rapid advance surrounded hundreds of thousands of Red Army soldiers in the Białystok-Minsk area. What ensued was a catastrophic defeat for the Soviet defenders

On the feast day of St Mary Magdalene in 1342, the heavens opened over Würzburg with unrelenting fury. What had begun as a whisper in the summer air was thundering like a wild beast. The skies, heavy