A Lydian gold coin King Gyges About 687 BC, according to the Greek historian Herodotus, King Gyges started the new country of Lydia (LID-ee-ah), in modern Turkey where the Hittites had ruled before the [...]
Lorenzo de' Medici In the early 1400s AD, a few rich families ruled the city-state of Florence in northern Italy. With the Holy Roman Empire very weak, these families ran Florence as an independent country. But most people in [...]
Arion and the dolphins: a lyre player and his helper (probably enslaved) (Greece, about 680 BC, now in the Getty Museum) Arion was a great singer Herodotus tells us that in [...]
