Martini Fisher is an author and Ancient Historian. Her credits include "Time Maps," co-written with Dr. R.K Fisher, analyzing the world from the very beginning, examining theories of evolution and other beliefs on the subject, before discussing Biological Evolution in details.

Telesilla and the Brave Women of Argos

An ancient oracle told by a Pythian priestess says, “But when the time shall come that the female conquers in battle, driving away the male, and wins great glory in Argos, then many wives of the Argives shall tear both cheeks in their mourning.” The female whom this oracle refers to was Telesilla.

Octavian, Mark Antony and the Ancient Battle of “Fake News”

Disinformation and propaganda have featured in human communication since at least the ancient Roman period. Apart from using biographers and their writings to discredit the reputation of the Roman general Mark Antony, Octavian, the adopted heir of Julius Caesar, also waged a propaganda campaign in the form of brief, sharp slogans written on coins to portray Antony as a womanizer and a drunk. Through his use of propaganda, Octavian also implied that Mark Antony had been corrupted by his affair with the Egyptian queen Cleopatra and had become Cleopatra’s puppet. This early use of disinformation campaign had allowed Octavian to change the republican system once and for all and led to his road to becoming Augustus, the first Roman Emperor.

The King, The Scholars and the Kisaeng

King Sejong of Korea’s crowning achievement is hangul, the Korean alphabet. In 1443 CE, the king and eight of his advisers started the process of developing an alphabetic system to represent the Korean language sounds and sentence structure accurately. The new writing system quickly spread among segments of the population who previously had not had access to enough education to learn the more complicated Chinese writing system such as women and those of the lower social classes. This episode is also worth noting as the king initially faced a backlash from the scholars.

Anna Perenna and the Ides of March

The assassination of Julius Caesar on the 15th of March 44 BC was a turning point in Roman history. Since then, the Ides of March became notorious as being associated with death. However, long before the Ides of March became associated with Julius Caesar’s murder, it was a day of celebration for the ancient goddess Anna Perenna, a goddess beloved by the common people.

The Romance and Adventure of Bhadda Kundalakesa

The Therigatha (“Verses of the Elder Nuns”) is a collection of short poems by and about the early enlightened women in Buddhism. These women were the theris (“senior ones”) among ordained Buddhist women. They bore that epithet due to their religious achievements. Most of the gatha (“poems”) in the anthology are the songs of their experiences. With some of its poems dating as early as the late 6th century BC, while the poems of the Therigatha are clearly nowhere near as old as the poetry of the Rig Veda, for example, which had been orally transmitted since the 2nd millennium BC, the poems in the Therigatha are still some of the early poetries of India.

Tiresias and the Curse of the Forbidden Sight

Greek mythology tells us about Tiresias, a blind prophet of Apollo, who was famous for his clairvoyance and for being changed into a woman for seven years. He was in Thebes for seven generations, giving advice to Cadmus, the first king of Thebes, and seeing the story of King Laius and his son Oedipus unfold. After the Seven Against Thebes expedition, in which Polynices (son of Oedipus) and six others attacked Thebes, Tiresias died. Pliny the Elder even said that Tiresias invented augury.

Unveiling the Mysteries of Benzaiten, Goddess of War, Music, and Culture

Benzaiten is one of Japan’s most complex and popular syncretic deities who has long ago been conflated and associated with other divinities from the Hindu, Buddhist, and Japanese pantheons. Her many forms range from a two-armed beauty playing music to an eight-armed martial deity holding weapons and a divine representation of the supreme Shinto sun goddess, Amaterasu. Benzaiten is also an agricultural deity invoked for rain and harvests. This patronage earns her a place as one of the shichifukujin (‘Seven Gods of Fortune’)

Baubo, the Great and Forgotten

In 1898, a group of German archaeologists working in the Demeter sanctuary at Priene unearthed a peculiar set of Hellenistic female figurines. The head of each of these figurines sits directly on her legs. Each figure also has long hair that drapes around her back resembling a lifted veil. These figures represent Baubo.

Keris: Stories of the Wavy Daggers

The keris, a dagger from Southeast Asia, was named a Masterpiece of Humanity’s Oral and Intangible Heritage by UNESCO in 2005. The keris is a dagger with an unusual blade shape made possible by switching between iron and pamor (nickelous iron laminations). A number of the most well-known representations of the keris may be seen on the bas-reliefs of the Borobudur and Prambanan temples. Through maritime trade links and the growing influence of the Majapahit Empire in Java around the year 1492, keris culture spread throughout the Indonesian archipelago as far as Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines.  

Samurai and the Politics of the Feudal Caste System

In the 1600s in Japan, the samurai went through a bad time that led to a lot of changes. It was also a time when it was painfully clear that because of their place in society, samurais were not only the first people to go into battle, but they also had to take the most damage when the government changed. Ironically, the hardest time in a samurai’s life wasn’t when he was fighting, but when he was at home in peace.

Herodotus, Josephus, and Being a Historian in the Ancient World

As a historian, the truth is that no matter how hard we try, there will always be differences between what one historian says happened and what another historian says. We are constantly reminded that a person’s views, background, and environment have a big impact on how they see history and life in general. Ancient historians can also see that this is true. In fact, the stories of their own lives are almost as interesting as the stories they have written.

Diotima and the Philosophy of Love

Symposium, a philosophical work by Plato written between 385 and 370 BC, is about a friendly competition between speeches given by famous men at a banquet. During the talk, Socrates says that a priestess from Mantinea named Diotima taught him “the philosophy of love” when he was young. Socrates also says that Diotima slowed down the spread of the Plague of Athens, which destroyed the ancient Greek city-state of Athens in the second year of the Peloponnesian War (430 BC). Aside from these few details, we don’t know much about Diotima as a person, until now.