"Egyptian temple culture was thought to be declining in the Ptolemaic era, after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC. Nothing could be further from the truth, says Egyptologist Carina van den Hoven. Temple culture was very much alive and kicking." Source: Science Daily (2017).
According to van den Hoven, "[a] profound cultural transition took place in the Ptolemaic period in Egypt, entailing large-scale innovations and fundamental change in many areas of society. A close examination of the Ptolemaic temples shows that they also underwent substantial change and innovation in their architectural appearance and building techniques, their wall decoration including the composition of new religious texts and the hieroglyphic script. Yet in the composition of new ritual texts the priests seem to have been particularly interested in their own past and traditions."
Next video (2019) describes the discovery of a 2,200-year-old temple dating back to the rule of Ptolemy IV Philopator. According to Egypt Today, "A team of researchers have uncovered a north-south wall and a wall directed east to west, in addition to the southwest corner of the temple structure, engraved with inscriptions of Hapi; the Nile god of the ancient Egyptians, carrying sacrifices surrounded by birds and flowers."
Comment: The main reason the Egyptian temple tradition continued under the rule of the Ptolemies is that the new Macedonian kings were smart enough to adapt themselves (at least to a certain extent) to the existing Egyptian culture. Ptolemy I set the tone through a delicate balancing act. Even though Egypt went through a process of Hellenization under the Ptolemies, "[he] assimilated some aspects of Egyptian culture ... assuming the traditional title pharaoh in 305/4 BC. The use of the title of pharaoh was often situational: pharaoh was used for an Egyptian audience, and Basileus for a Greek audience, as exemplified by Egyptian coinage." (Wikipedia)
The myth of Hell can be traced all the way back to the first civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia, but I'm guessing that the concept of an "underworld of the dead" had its origins in the earliest funerary religions of the Stone Age. The dead were buried under the earth, so the land of the dead was also seen as being somewhere underground.
Hell wasn't called Hell in Mesopotamia and it wasn't a place of punishment for sinners. That's a much more modern idea. Originally, the place we call Hell was just a grim vision of the afterlife waiting for everyone. In other words, back around 3,000 BC or so, everybody went to "Hell" so I guess you could say that Hell was the original Heaven:
"The Sumerian afterlife was a dark, dreary cavern located deep below the ground, where inhabitants were believed to continue 'a shadowy version of life on earth'. This bleak domain was known as Kur, and was believed to be ruled by the goddess Ereshkigal. All souls went to the same afterlife, and a person's actions during life had no effect on how the person would be treated in the world to come." Source: Wikipedia.
Closed-captions helpful. Sort of.
The Old Testament Sheol, also known as Hades, is basically identical to the Mesopotamian Kur. According to Wikipedia, "Sheol is a place of darkness to which all the dead go, both the righteous and the unrighteous, regardless of the moral choices made in life, a place of stillness and darkness cut off from life and from God."
The concept of an underworld where sinners are punished after death seems to have evolved in ancient Egypt and Greece, but several different versions of the myth were floating around the Near East and Mediterranean world back then.
The Greeks, for instance, had a concept of the underworld (Hades) as a "deep, gloomy place" where everyone went after death, but the element of judgment was also present in their mythology. " In the Gorgias, Plato (c. 400 BC) wrote that souls were judged after death and those who received punishment were sent to Tartarus," a pit or cave in Hades that was used as a dungeon. (Wikipedia) "Tartarus is the deep abyss that is used as a dungeon of torment and suffering for the wicked and as the prison for the Titans."
The next clip is from the great 1997 miniseries, The Odyssey, with Armand Assante (highly recommended). It starts off with the scene where Odysseus travels to Hades to ask the blind prophet Tiresias how to get home. The Hades in this scene is more of an underworld of shades than a place of divine punishment.
Hades was not only a place, but the name of the god of the underworld. Originally, he appears to have been one of many anonymous chthonic deities and it was dangerous to mention his actual name:
"...Hades lacked a proper name; as in the case of other nameless chthonians, his anonymity was a precaution. He was referred to by descriptive circumlocutions as 'chthonian Zeus' ... 'the chthonian god,' 'king of those below,' 'Zeus of the departed' ... 'the other Zeus,' 'the god below,' or simply 'lord.' As the Lord of the Dead, he was dark and sinister, a god to be feared and kept at a distance." Source: Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd ed. revised).
The history of Hell and its demons is too long and complex to describe in detail here, but our modern concept of Hell apparently originated with the Abrahamic religions, particularly Christianity. From what I've read, Judaism sees Hell as a state of shame and atonement rather than a physical place. The full-blown description of Hell as a literal pit of fire and brimstone and eternal torment seems to be an invention of the medieval Christian church.
Interestingly enough, "[t]he Christian doctrine of hell derives from passages in the New Testament. The word hell does not appear in the Greek New Testament; instead one of three words is used: the Greek words Tartarus or Hades, or the Hebrew word Gehinnom (1)." So the Hell of the New Testament has clear roots in the underworld of the dead as described by the ancient Greeks and Mesopotamians.
(1) The word Gehinnom derives from Gehenna, a reference to the "Valley of Hinnom," a garbage dump outside of Jersualem where people burned their garbage. According to Wikipedia, "[b]odies of those deemed to have died in sin without hope of salvation (such as people who committed suicide) were thrown there to be destroyed. Gehenna is used in the New Testament as a metaphor for the final place of punishment for the wicked after the resurrection."
The valley is said to be cursed before some of the early kings of Judah sacrificed children to Moloch there.
These days, a majority of Americans still believe in Hell and a 2007 Harris poll revealed that more Americans believe in a literal Hell and Devil than they do in the theory of evolution. Some Christian denominations reject the concept of Hell altogether, while others still embrace the literal version of Hell famously described by Jonathan Edwards in his notorious 1741 sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.
This is an abridged version. The original sermon is a classic well worth reading.
Back in 2018, Pope Francis created a storm of controversy when he supposedly said that Hell doesn't exist and that condemned souls just disappear, though it's possible that his actual words were misreported. If Francis doesn't believe in Hell, he apparently still believes in demons, however, because the Vatican announced in the same year that it would hold a "training course for priests in exorcism ... amid claims that demands for deliverance from demonic possession have greatly increased across the world."
"The ancient Patara Lighthouse, constructed on the order of one of the most famed emperors in Roman history, Nero, in 64 AD, is set to be restored and once again shine on the shores of Kaş, in southern Antalya [Turkey], centuries after it went dark." Source: Archaeology News Network.
Note: Kas, thought to have been founded by the Lycians, became the port of Phellus, a town apparently located farther inland. Under the Greeks and Romans, Kas was known as Antiphellus.
The Hymn to Nemesis was written by Mesomedes of Crete, a Greek singer and poet who lived during the Roman era, early 2nd century AD.
"In ancient Greek religion, Nemesis was the goddess who enacted retribution against those who succumb to hubris. The best description of her role and attributes, in my opinion, is a hymn to the goddess written by Mesomedes." Source: Coin Talk.
"Mesomedes of Crete was a Roman-era Greek kitharode [professional singer] and lyric poet. He was a freedman and favorite of Emperor Hadrian, who made him his chief musician; he also served under Hadrian's successor, Antoninus Pius."
Note: The Coin Talk article includes photos of several ancient coins illustrating the hymn as well as links to a couple of other interpretations of the song.
"It’s called mad honey, and it has a slightly bitter taste and a reddish color. More notably, a few types of rhododendrons ... contain grayanotoxin, which can cause dramatic physiological reactions in humans and animals. Depending on how much a person consumes, reactions can range from hallucinations and a slower heartbeat to temporary paralysis and unconsciousness."
"The intoxicating effects of mad honey have been known for thousands of years. Not surprisingly, there have been many famous episodes of human inebriation caused by its consumption. Xenophon, Aristotle, Strabo, Pliny the Elder and Columella all document the results of eating this 'maddening' honey, believed to be from the pollen and nectar of Rhododendron luteum and Rhododendron ponticum. According to Xenophon, an invading Greek army was accidentally poisoned by harvesting and eating the local Asia Minor honey, but they all made a quick recovery with no fatalities. Having heard of this incident, and realizing that foreign invaders would be ignorant of the dangers of the local honey, King Mithridates later used the honey as a deliberate poison when Pompey's army attacked the Heptakometes [1] in Asia Minor in 69 BCE. The Roman soldiers became delirious and nauseated after being tricked into eating the toxic honey, at which point Mithridates's army attacked." Source: Wikipedia.
[1] "In about 65 BCE, Pompey's army was approaching Colchis. Mithridates' allies there, the Heptakometes, were described by Strabo as 'utterly savage' mountain barbarians, dwelling in tree forts and living on 'the flesh of wild animals and nuts.' The tribe was feared for attacking wayfarers - suddenly leaping down on them like leopards from their tree houses. The Heptakometes may have received specific orders from Mithridates on how to ambush the Roman army. What we do know for a fact is that they gathered up great numbers of wild honeycombs dripping with toxic honey and placed them all along Pompey's route. The Roman soldiers stopped to enjoy the sweets and immediately lost their senses. Reeling and babbling, the men collapsed with vomiting and diarrhea and lay on the ground unable to move. The Heptakometes easily wiped out about one thousand of Pompey's men." - Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, and Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World by Adrienne Mayor. (Quoted in Roman Times)
Taking mad honey sounds like a dangerous way to get loaded. According to the Drug Classroom, "[t]he core symptoms of mad honey poisoning include nausea, vomiting, salivation, headache, blurred vision, sweating, weakness, circumoral paresthesia, tongue numbing, fainting, drowsiness, drunkenness, tingling, and seizures." The toxins in the honey can also cause "1st to 3rd degree heart block, asystole, and myocardial infarction."
"The Battle of Himera (480 BC), supposedly fought on the same day as the more famous Battle of Salamis, or at the same time as the Battle of Thermopylae, saw the Greek forces of Gelon, King of Syracuse, and Theron, tyrant of Agrigentum, defeat the Carthaginian force of Hamilcar the Magonid, ending a Carthaginian bid to restore the deposed tyrant of Himera ... Scholars ... agree that the battle led to the crippling of Carthage's power in Sicily for many decades. It was one of the most important battles of the Sicilian Wars." Source: Wikipedia.
Note: The battle of Himera was one of the first major events in a struggle for power in the region that lasted for hundreds of years. Sicily is located about midway between the coast of northern Africa and the boot of Italy (see map). This made the island a central conflict zone between the forces of Carthage, Greece and later Rome.
Around two centuries after the Battle of Himera, the Punic Wars began and much of the action in the beginning took place on Sicily. By that time, Carthage had grown into an empire dominating the Mediterranean and was threatening to invade Italy itself. The land and sea battles that took place between Carthage and the emerging Roman Republic were later described by the Greek historian Polybius in his Histories, available in an excellent Penguin edition titled The Rise Of The Roman Empire.
"The Punic Wars were a series of three wars fought between Rome and Carthage from 264 BC to 146 BC. At the time, they were some of the largest wars that had ever taken place." (Wikipedia) The story of the back-and-forth struggle between the two major powers is complex and exotic and full of wild scenes of fleets destroyed by storms, land battles fought with elephants, sieges, calamitous reversals of fortune, spectacular exploits like Hannibal's crossing of the Alps, and major battles like Cannae. Carthage came very close to defeating Rome, something that would have changed the future course of history completely.
Notes: "The Battle of Issus (5th November, 333 BCE) was Alexander the Great's second battle against the Persian army and the first direct engagement with King Darius III, near the village of Issus in southern modern-day Turkey. It was a major victory for Alexander, defeating the Persian army and causing Darius III to flee the battlefield." Source: Ancient History Encyclopedia.
First stage of the battle: The two armies faced each other on opposite banks of the what is thought to have been the Pinaros River. "As Alexander moved towards the River Pinaros he thinned out his center to extend his line on both wings. By the time battle was joined his forces outflanked those of Darius despite being fewer in number. The battle commenced with both sides charging across the river, in opposite directions, with their right-wing units." Source: The Landmark Arrian -- The Campaigns of Alexander (p.74), edited by James Romm.
Second stage of the battle: "With his extended right wing, Alexander was able to get around and behind Darius' front-line infantry once the Persian left had been routed. The approach of Alexander's cavalry caused Darius to flee, according to Arrian, and the Persian right, which had been prevailing up to that point over Parmenion and Krateros, soon followed his retreat." (Ibid, p.75)
Comment: Alexander was a master of flanking movements and he had inherited a highly-skilled army from his father, the underrated Philip II of Macedon. As for Darius III, I wouldn't want to call him an effete coward, so I'll just say that he had a tendency to run the minute he thought his own life was in danger, abandoning his soldiers to their fate. A stronger leader might have been able to salvage the situation at Issus since his right wing was still doing well, but Darius was no Alexander the Great.
The diagram below (from Wikipedia) shows the situation at the critical moment of the battle. Alexander's forces are in blue, the Persians in red. Note that the Persian right wing had forced Alexander's left to retreat. If the battle had continued, it looks like it would have revolved like a wheel in a counter-clockwise motion and the Persian forces might have been able to defeat the Macedonians then and there.
Video is one part of a longer series on Greek history from the HistoryDen channel.
"The Corinthian War, 395 - 386 BC, [was] fought against Sparta by a combination of Athens, Thebes, Corinth, Persia, and others. The surface cause was trouble between Locris and Phocis(1) in which Thebes and Sparta intervened, the deeper cause was general fear of Spartan expansionism in Asia Minor, central and northern Greece (Thessaly and perhaps Macedonia), and even the west ..." Source: Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd ed. revised).
(1) The history here is kind of obscure, but I think the conflict between Locris and Phocia was over territory. All the different regions and city states in ancient Greece were constantly fighting with each other. Next video puts the war in its broader context. Corinthian War is covered starting at 11:33.
I'm no expert on this extremely chaotic period of Greek history, but the Corinthian War appears to have taken place about 50 years after the end of the famous Greco-Persian wars (which may have been settled in 449 BC with the Peace of Callias treaty, though the existence of this treaty is still in question). If this is accurate, then it shows that the Persian Empire was still engaged in Greek politics in order to protect its interests in Asia Minor long after its invasions of the Greek mainland had failed. It also shows that Sparta was still a major expansionist threat at least a century after its victory (with Persian assistance) over Athens in the truly epic Peloponnesian War.
Comment: In the popular imagination, ancient Greece is pictured as a golden age, a time when democracy and the ideals of freedom and intellectual inquiry were born. This is extremely misleading, however, since it only applies to a short period in the history of one city state: Athens. The Golden Age of Athens, "a period of Athenian political hegemony, economic growth and cultural flourishing," only lasted about one century. In reality, the history of ancient Greece is a story of almost constant bloody conflict in which the Corinthian War is just a sidebar. The truth is that "Classical Greek civilization eventually self-destructed after decades of internal warfare," according to The Dark Side: Thoughts on the Futility of Life from the Ancient Greeks to the Present, edited by Alan R. Pratt. By the time of the Roman conquest, ancient Greece was pretty much finished.
"The blue monkeys painted on the walls of Akrotiri on the Greek island of Santorini are among many animals found in the frescoes of this 3,600-year-old city. Historians have studied the murals for decades since they were unearthed in the 1960s and 1970s on the island, which was once known as Thera. But when we and a team of other primatologists recently examined the paintings, we realized the monkeys could provide a clue that the Bronze Age world was much more globalized than previously thought." Source: Phys.org.
"Archaeologists had assumed the monkeys were an African species, with which the Aegean people that built Akrotiri probably came into contact via trade links with Egypt. But we think the paintings actually depict Hanuman langurs, a species from the Indian subcontinent. This suggests the Aegean people, who came from Crete and the Cycladic islands in the Aegean Sea, may have had trade routes that reached over 2,500 miles."
The prehistoric town of Akrotiri, Greece.
Note: "Bronze Age Aegean (ca. 3500–1100 B.C.) wall paintings from the islands of Crete and Thera depict monkeys in a variety of roles such as running wild in nature, possibly following (trained) commands, and participating in sacred activities. These images, while stylistically Aegean, are traditionally considered closely related to—and descendant from—Egyptian, Near Eastern, and Mesopotamian monkey imagery. While monkey depictions in the latter regions may provide species-specific characteristics, Aegean wall paintings typically lack this level of detail." Source: A new identification of the monkeys depicted in a Bronze Age wall painting from Akrotiri, Thera.
Notes: Cybele may have evolved from an even older fertility goddess in the proto-city of Catalhoyuk (7500-5700 BC), also located in ancient Anatolia. According to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD, 3rd ed. revised), Cybele was "the great mother-goddess of Anatolia, associated in myth, and later at least in cult, with her youthful lover Attis. Pessinus in Phyrgia was her chief sanctuary, and the cult appears at an early date in Lydia."
According to Theoi Greek Mythology, "Kybele (Cybele) was the ancient Phrygian Mother of the Gods, a primal nature goddess worshiped with orgiastic rites in the mountains of central and western Anatolia. The Greeks identified her with their own mother of the gods--the Titaness Rhea."
The cult of Cybele was apparently introduced fairly early (3rd cent. BC) in Rome. "Thanks to its official status and early naturalization in Rome and in Ostia, the cult spread rapidly through the provinces, especially in Gaul and Africa, and was readily accepted as a municipal cult. Its agrarian character made it more popular with the fixed populations than with the soldiers, and it was especially favored by women." (OCD)
Cybele was also known as the Magna Mater or Great Mother (1). According to The Ancient Mysteries: A Sourcebook of Ancient Texts, edited by Marvin W. Meyer (p.113), "she was honored as the mother goddess of fertility, but her particular power was evidenced in the wilds of the untamed forests and mountains." After Cybele entered the official Roman pantheon, "she was to function practically as a Roman national goddess" and enjoyed great favor with the emperors starting with Claudius in the first century.
(1) Several other goddesses were also referred to as "Great Mother."
"The most well-known Roman festival in honor of the Anatolian deities [Cybele and her consort Attis] was celebrated in the spring, during March," according to The Ancient Mysteries (p.114). These rites were associated with violent religious frenzy. "March 24 was aptly named The Day of Blood. On this day some of the fanatical celebrants flogged themselves until they bled and sprinkled their blood upon the image and altars in the sanctuary, while others are said to have imitated Attis by castrating themselves." (Ibid) Bulls were also sacrificed in honor of the Great Mother of the Gods.
Several Roman historians and poets described the cult of Cybele in detail. Livy, for instance, described how the cult was first brought to Rome in his History of Rome (Book 29.10-14):
"About this time a sudden wave of superstition swept over Rome. The Sibylline Books had been consulted because it had rained stones that year more than usual [!], and in the Books a prophecy was found that if ever a foreign enemy should invade Italy, he could be defeated and driven out if Cybele, The Idaean Mother of the Gods, were brought from Pessinus to Rome." (Ibid, p. 121).
Christian writers denounced the cult of Cybele and the church banned it altogether when they gained the secular power required to force their intolerant monotheism on the pagan world, but the tradition of the Great Mother still survives in the figure of the Virgin Mary.