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Iris Online New eyes for old worlds

At The Top Of The Ancient World

The smell of the meat markets in the midsummer heat is pungent and overwhelming as I walk along the dry, dusty streets. The walls of the city here, at the base of such beauty, are filled with ...

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The Menace of Maenads

To call Greek tragedies ‘timeless’ is a cliché that shames every reviewer of Greek tragedies; but it’s hard to argue that the clash between order and chaos, good and evil never goes out ...

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Mourning Does Not Become Electra

The summer saw the National Theatre’s critically-acclaimed and clever production of Euripides’ Medea directed by Carrie Cracknell and starring the brilliant Helen Mcrory. This autumn Ian ...

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Eye to Eye: Polychrome in the Age of Augustus

To begin, I would like to introduce you to a statuette – or at least what is left of it: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/26.7.1428. We know remarkably little about this piece of ...

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Interviews

(Not Quite) Thoroughly Modern Martha.

The clock struck thirteen as I stormed the ominous portals under the battlements of the British...

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A chat with Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye

In the midst of the apocalyptic storms that March had sent to whirl around the streets of London,...

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A Day in the Life of a Classicist

Classics is immensely transferable as a subject, and its students go on to almost every walk of...

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Travel

Great Cities of the Roman Empire - Tarragona, Spain

Welcome to Colonia Julia Urbs Triumphalis Tarraco. Better known to us today as Tarragona, it is...

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Samothrace - Moving to a remote Greek island

The 180 km squared Greek island of Samothrace in the North Aegean is dominated by the 1600 metre...

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Dougga By Day

Tunisia, a richly historical land at present under-going a (one hopes, short) period of political...

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Great Cities of the Roman Empire - Nîmes

Le Midi is the name the French have given to the beautiful, southern region of their country and if...

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When in Rome use the underground

It isn’t surprising that Rome’s Underground/Metro system is smaller than that of London’s - after...

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Bacchus in France

Philippa Williams searches for the god of wine in Aquitaine.

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