The Dead Sea scrolls consist of about 900 documents, including texts from the Hebrew Bible, discovered between 1947 and 1956 in eleven caves in and around the Qumran Wadi near the ruins of the ancient settlement of Khirbet Qumran, on the no...

Emperor Augustus of Rome was born with the given name Gaius Octavius on September 23, 63 B.C. He took the name Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus (Octavian) in 44 B.C. after the murder of his great uncle, Julius Caesar. In his will Caesar had a...

Strabo was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher. Strabo is mostly famous for his 17-volume work Geographica, which presented a descriptive history of people and places from different regions of the world known to his era. Although...

Juba II or Juba II of Numidia (52/50 BC – AD 23) was a king of Numidia and then later moved to Mauretania. His first wife was Cleopatra Selene II, daughter of Greek Ptolemaic Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt and Roman triumvir Mark Antony. J...

Publius Ovidius Naso, known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet best known for the Metamorphoses, a 15-book continuous mythological narrative written in the meter of epic, and for collections of love poetry in elegiac co...

Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus (or Tiberius I), was the second Roman Emperor, from the death of Augustus in AD 14 until his own death in 37. Tiberius was one of Rome's greatest generals, whose campaigns in Pannonia, Illyricum, Rhaetia and...

Mary of Nazareth often referred to by Christians as the Virgin Mary or Saint Mary, was a Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee, identified in the New Testament as the mother of Jesus Christ. Muslims also refer to her as the Virgin Mary or Sye...

Aulus Cornelius Celsus was a Roman encyclopaedist, known for his extant medical work, De Medicina, which is believed to be the only surviving section of a much larger encyclopedia. The De Medicina is a primary source on diet, pharmacy, surg...

Philo, known also as Philo of Alexandria, Philo Judaeus, Philo Judaeus of Alexandria, Yedidia and Philo the Jew, was an Hellenistic Jewish philosopher born in Alexandria. Philo used allegory to fuse and harmonize Greek philosophy and Judais...

Claudius was Roman emperor from 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, he was the son of Drusus and Antonia Minor. He was born at Lugdunum in Gaul, the first Roman Emperor to be born outside Italy. Because he was afflicted with a...

Mary Magdalene is described, both in the canonical New Testament and in the New Testament apocrypha, as a devoted disciple of Jesus. She is considered by the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Anglican churches to be a saint, with a feas...

Bartholomew was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus. He has been identified with Nathanael, who appears in the Gospel according to John as being introduced to Christ by Philip (who would also become an apostle), although some modern comment...

John the Apostle was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus. Christian tradition identifies him as the author of several New Testament works: the Gospel of John, the Epistles of John, and the Book of Revelation. Many modern scholars believe th...

Emperor Guangwu, courtesy name Wenshu, was an emperor of the Chinese Han dynasty, restorer of the dynasty in AD 25 and thus founder of the Later Han or Eastern Han (the restored Han Dynasty). He ruled over parts of China at first, and throu...

Saint Peter (died c. 64 AD), also known as Simon Peter, according to the New Testament, was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ, leaders of the early Christian Church. The Roman Catholic Church considers him to be the first pope, ord...