Cyrus the Chill-Duder
This Median king was Cyrus's grandfather, who tried to have him killed as an infant after a troubling dream.
Who is Astyages?
This Latin term describes a slave's informal personal savings, sometimes used to purchase their own freedom.
What is the peculium?
This bench-shaped tomb was the standard form of burial for Old Kingdom nobles.
What is a mastaba?
Often called the "Father of History," this Greek writer's Histories is a major source for the reign of Cyrus the Great.
Who is Herodotus?
This river, essential to ancient Egyptian civilisation, floods annually to deposit fertile silt on its banks.
What is the Nile?
Cyrus used this animal to break the famed Lydian cavalry at the battle before Sardis, because horses fear its scent.
What is the camel?
This Latin term describes the legal process of freeing a slave.
What is manumission (manumissio)?
This Egyptian concept refers to a person's life force, which needed to be sustained with food offerings after death.
What is the ka?
This Roman Stoic philosopher wrote a letter to Lucilius arguing slaves should be treated humanely — while revealing just how harshly they were normally treated.
Who is Seneca?
This Greek commercial city-state was destroyed by Rome in 146 BC — the very same year Rome destroyed Carthage.
What is Corinth?
Cyrus diverted this river so his troops could wade into Babylon along its riverbed during a festival.
What is the Euphrates?
This Thracian gladiator led the Third Servile War against Rome from 73 to 71 BC.
Who is Spartacus?
This architect designed Djoser's Step Pyramid at Saqqara — the first monumental building made entirely of stone.
Who is Imhotep?
This type of ancient Egyptian source, inscribed on royal burial chamber walls from the reign of Unas onward, contained spells for the king's journey to the afterlife.
What are the Pyramid Texts?
This historical term describes evidence produced during or close to the period being studied, as opposed to a later interpretation of it.
What is a primary source?
This inscribed clay artefact, written in Akkadian cuneiform, records Cyrus's own account of restoring exiled peoples and their gods after the fall of Babylon.
What is the Cyrus Cylinder?
This wealthy Roman general defeated Spartacus's forces near the Sele River, using the ancient punishment of decimation to restore discipline among his own troops.
Who is Crassus?
This funerary ritual, performed on a tomb owner's ka statue, was believed to restore the senses for use in the afterlife.
What is the Opening of the Mouth ceremony?
This modern historian wrote that Roman slavery is "almost entirely represented from what the historian of a modern slave culture would call pro-slavery sources."
Who is Keith Bradley?
This Persian city, built under Darius I, became the grand ceremonial capital of the Persian Empire after Pasargadae.
What is Persepolis?
According to Herodotus, this Massagetae queen defeated and killed Cyrus in battle, then placed his head in a skin filled with blood.
Who is Tomyris?
This category of slaves, condemned to work in gold and silver mines, could never legally be freed, sold, or purchase their own liberty.
What are the damnati in metallum (mining slaves)?
This god of the underworld, murdered by his brother Seth and revived by his wife Isis, became identified with the deceased king in Old Kingdom belief.
Who is Osiris?
This Persian court physician wrote a history called the Persica using (he claimed) the Persian Royal Archives, but his pro-Persian account often contradicts Herodotus and contains many factual errors.
Who is Ctesias?
An alloy of silver and gold. Use by the Lydians to make their coinage.
What is electrum?