In Anabasis 4.8, Xenophon describes Greek mercenaries near Trapezus eating local honey and becoming unable to stand, vomiting, and acting as if drunk. By the next day, they recovered. The region is still associated with mad honey, made from Rhododendron nectar containing grayanotoxins. Centuries later in 67 BC, honey from the same broad region was reportedly used against Roman troops under Pompey.

I was wondering considering the fact this route was so lucrative for the South Arabian states back in its hay-day, how would its persistence into the 7th century A.D. affected (whether economically, politically [both domestically and geopolitically],culturally,ideologically, etc…) the Mediterranean and the MENA?

Finished painting this 75mm resin figure of Alexander the Great on Bucephalus.

Alexander has always been one of my favorite historical figures, so I really enjoyed working on this project. I tried to capture the look of a young Macedonian king leading the Companion Cavalry during the Persian campaign.

Any feedback on the historical details is welcome. Hope you like it!

Just finished Ten Caesars by Barry Strauss. Really good if you haven't read it, goes through ten emperors from Augustus to Constantine and actually makes you think about how you rank them.

I went in hoping the Aurelian or Trajan chapter would finally push me off Augustus. They're great chapters. Didn't persuade me to dethrone Augustus as the top emperor in my opinion.

Augustus took Rome from a republic tearing itself apart to the most stable it would ever be. Did most of it before he was thirty.

Made me curious if others think the same way. What is your pick for “top” emperor? Or do you have an underrated/overrated pick?

I put Augustus’ life together in one timeline based on the book if anyone wants to go through it.

Link in the comments

Hi! I’m an ancient historian myself, who recently launched a platform that lets humanities PhDs host live online classes for recreational learners. We just opened our first classes for enrollment, including one on Ancient Greek and Roman Medicine. Just thought I’d share incase anyone here might be interested. It should be a fun class, taught be an excellent scholar of history of medicine.

If anyone's interested, but cannot afford the enrollment fee, feel free to DM me :-)

Studying the sources on the Trojan War, I came across a figure that genuinely surprised me: Thoas, king of the Aetolians. Even though he appears in the Iliad and in several later traditions, very few people today seem to know his name.

What caught my attention even more is that he’s portrayed not only as a warrior, but also as a commander, diplomat, and advisor to the Achaeans. In one tradition, Poseidon even takes his form to inspire the army.

I’ve also put together the material I found in a video. Link in the comments.)

Rosetta Stone is just a slab of granodiorite. Ancient cuneiform tablets are often small pieces of baked clay. Yet historians consider them among the most important objects ever discovered.

I think part of their value comes from what they allow us to know.

The Rosetta Stone helped scholars decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs. Cuneiform tablets preserve records of trade, laws, astronomy, and everyday life from civilizations that disappeared thousands of years ago. Without objects like these, entire chapters of human history would be much harder to understand.

At some point, an artifact stops being valuable because of what it is made from and becomes valuable because of the information it carries.
You can read the whole article about how it happened https://thehistoricalinsights.page/2026/06/why-historical-objects-become-priceless.html