Greeks

Older people in ancient Greece and Rome may not have experienced severe memory problems like many who are aging today.Researchers in California have combed through a slew of classical texts on human health written between the 8th century BCE and 3rd century CE, and found surprisingly few references to cognitive impairment in older folk.According to Caleb Finch, who studies the mechanisms of aging at the University of Southern California, and historian Stanley Burstein from California State University, severe memory loss…

There was a wonderful, revelatory moment in Adam Nicolson’s last book, Life Between the Tides, where he suddenly telescoped out from the Scottish rock pool he was describing in order to meditate on the work of the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus, demonstrating how much we can still learn about our present-day world by turning to the great minds of the past. This dazzling passage of writing argued that engagement with the environment is always a philosophical act, and that the close looking of the naturalist is more…

Nearly 2500 years ago, two armies clashed outside the walls of Himera, a Greek colony on the northern coast of Sicily. Greek forces from Himera and the neighboring colonies of Agrigento and Syracuse battled their great rivals, the Carthaginians, who hailed from the African coast of the Mediterranean. Fighting raged across the city’s western necropolis, fallen warriors toppling among the tombs. Though little-known today, ancient authors portrayed the 480 B.C.E. battle as an…