classical antiquity

CENTRVM MVNDI In 509 BC, Lars Porsenna, "King" of Clusium, occupied Rome. However, he supported the Republic rather than reinstalling Tarquinius Superbus, the last King of the Romans [1]. Tacitus also mentioned the Roman surrender to the Etruscan King in his work Histories [2]. After the...

(Disclaimer: there's an overall difference in this alternate Social War, not just contrasting military fortune. The Romans historically proved themselves extremely firm in war, not giving in to enemy goals. This particular conflict isn't going to be an exception, that's why they're going to...

Or alternatively, an empire based in Veii or another city. In a scenario where a militant Republican city in central Italy expands across first the peninsula, and then the whole Mediterranean, how would this affect the languages of the conquered regions? IOTL, when Rome conquered Italy it took...

In all of history, there has only ever been one succesful slave rebellion, in Haiti. What would the effects of a succesful slave rebellino 2000 years earlier be? Could the slaves have ever succesfully kicked the Romans out of Sicily? If they had, what would happen? What sort of society would...

What if Cyrus the Younger survived the Battle of Cunaxa and overthrew his older brother Artaxerxes II? He had administrative experience thanks to his stint as satrap of Lydia, and, most famously, had ten thousand Greek mercenaries in his army, one of whom was Xenophon. What would he be like as...

Stronger Essences of the Old World An Antique Late Antiquity ATTENTION, probably it will have bad grammar and orthography. I am still learning English. Also this is my first TL! The Legendary Restoration of Gens Mamilia As the year 258 AUC aproaches, later would be renamed as 496 BC. What...

What would be the impact of a Roman Emperor successfully conquering the Middle East to the extent that Alexander the Great did? It would be during the Pax Romana in the 2nd century and the Emperor in question would reign for decades after the conquest. What might be the short-term (next...

While it's been gestating ever since I took my first Latin class in high school, recent events have convinced me to make good on that interest and study up on Classical Civilization. Given the myriad achievements of the ancient Greeks and Romans--from inventions like the Antikythera mechanism...

Greetings all, for this thread I'll be asking about the enormous effects of a nonhellenized Judaism. To make things easy the POD is simply no Alexandrian conquests of the Persian empire. Any later or alternative Greek conquests are nowhere near as lucky, and just make it across Anatolia. That...

War Elephants have been a controversial subject. One the one hand, they're cool and terrifying proto-tanks that can rout entire armies out of fear. On the other hand, they're outrageously expensive to maintain in significant numbers, and many of the large nations of antiquity developed reliable...

Could the mythic-literary epic Ovid's Metamorphoses have become a codified holy book of a religion? In general, what texts could most realistically form the canon for a "reformed" Greco-Roman pagan religion?

This is something I've tried once before, but life got in the way. I've decided to reboot it after finding my old notes on the Project. I will be using footnotes for things so everyone knows what is going on, much like the last time I tried this. Without Further Ado, on with the Show! XXXX...

Furor Celticus: a Gallic TL Gaul united, forming a single nation, animated by a single spirit, can defy the Universe. - Memorial of Vercingetorix (1) ** Introduction: Strange Men from Strange Lands Gaul is a rich and conflicted land. Rich, from its fertile grounds, thick forests, and...

Just out of curiosity, how exactly would philosophy develop in Classical Antiquity if Christianity never came about? For our purposes, let's say Jesus was never born and no equivalent off-shot movement arises that gains the same traction in Judaism. From my understanding, there was a degree of...

On the windswept Steppes of the Pontic Steppe, a King Surveyed the Carnage he had wrought. Eumelos I, Basileus of the Bosporan Kingdom had taken his armies across the Steppe in a bid to reconquer territories that had broken away during the destructive civil war he and his brothers had engaged...

What if for whatever reason, every Christian church that developed in this ATL retained a style of worship and church buildings that is reminiscent of Eastern Orthodoxy in OTL? If someone who was raised in a different religion visited a church in this ATL, they would encounter a religious...

The Saw-Tunisia-238 BC Hamilcar Barca stood amidst the carnage of his great Victory, having just ended the threat of the Mercenary Rebellion. As he moved amongst the bodies of the slain, his men began counting prisoners, there were some 40,000 assorted mercenary troops from all over the Empire...