The Misunderstood Byzantine Princess and Her Magnum Opus

Feria was among the first, but by no means the last, of Elizabeth’s perplexed interlocutors. She could be childlike or canny, forthright or devious, brave or risk-averse, forgiving or vindictive, serene or volcanic, even feminine or masculine: “I have the body but of a weak, feeble woman,” she told her troops as the Spanish Armada sailed for home i

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The seventh century is outstanding for the number of women who played active, sometimes decisive roles in the fortunes of kingdoms, both earthly and spiritual. They are not to be underestimated. They had their own queenly agendas, engineering lines of patronage for their families, acting as brakes on hot-headed husbands, as brokers of deals, as pac

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Equally intriguing a survival, and perhaps even more surprising, is part of a long poem that Cicero wrote to celebrate the achievements of his consulship; it is no longer complete, but it was famous, or infamous, enough that more than seventy lines of it are quoted by other ancient writers and by Cicero himself in later works. It includes one of th

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So it was not just a case of simple ingratitude when Brutus and the others turned on the man who had given them a second chance. It was partly that. It was partly motivated by self-interest and disgruntlement, driven by the assassins’ sense of dignitas. But they were also defending one view of liberty and one view of the importance of Republican tr

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