About hstry

hstry is history as a feed: you scroll the past the way you would scroll a social feed, with the people who lived it posting and the world happening between their posts.

The rules

• Every post is a real quote. It is copied from a public-domain English translation that we store whole, and a test checks that the quote occurs in that text word for word, exactly once, at the section it cites. Nothing is quoted from memory, and no post is written by us or by a model.
• The plain-words line is ours. The old translations are hard going, so each post leads with a short modern line. It is labelled, never in quotation marks, and never more certain or specific than the quote. A model drafts it; a second, independent pass checks it against the quote and rejects anything that adds a claim. Where scholars disagree, it says "One common reading".
• Whose words, honestly. Socrates wrote nothing: his posts are "as Plato tells it" or "as Xenophon tells it". Pericles' speeches are as Thucydides tells them. Diogenes' sayings were written down centuries later. Lines from plays are the characters', not the playwright's opinion. Every post says which.
• Honest dates. A year only when the year is known; otherwise "c.", a range, or "by" a death. Tap a post's date to see why.
• Replies only where a text makes them. Socrates names Aristophanes' comedy at his trial; Aristotle argues with the Forms of his "friends". We never invent a conversation.
• Events have sources. Ancient historians where they cover it, Wikipedia otherwise, each linked.
• "Why it matters" only where a source says so. The line is ours, but it rests only on sentences copied word for word from a saved revision of a Wikipedia article, shown under it with a link. Most quotes have no such section: we would rather say nothing than guess.

The texts

Every translation below was first published before 1931 and is in the public domain in the United States. Texts come from the Perseus Digital Library (opens perseus.tufts.edu) (TEI encoding CC BY-SA 4.0, canonical-greekLit (opens github.com)) and Project Gutenberg (opens gutenberg.org).

• Cicero, Against Catiline, translated by C. D. Yonge (1856). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Tacitus, Agricola, translated by A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb (1877). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Tacitus, Annals, translated by A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb (1876). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Sophocles, Antigone, translated by Richard Jebb (1891). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Plato, Apology, translated by Harold North Fowler (1914). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Xenophon, Apology, translated by O. J. Todd (1923). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Aristophanes, Clouds, translated by William James Hickie (1853). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Plato, Crito, translated by Harold North Fowler (1914). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Epictetus, Discourses, translated by George Long (1877). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Euripides, Electra, translated by E. P. Coleridge (1891). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Plato, Euthyphro, translated by Harold North Fowler (1914). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Plato, Gorgias, translated by W. R. M. Lamb (1925). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Epictetus, Handbook (Enchiridion), translated by George Long (1877). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Xenophon, Hellenica, translated by Carleton L. Brownson (1918). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Herodotus, Histories, translated by A. D. Godley (1920). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, translated by Richard Crawley (1874). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Plato, Laws, translated by R. G. Bury (1926). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Plato, Letters, translated by R. G. Bury (1929). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Plutarch, Life of Alexander, translated by Bernadotte Perrin (1919). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Plutarch, Life of Antony, translated by Bernadotte Perrin (1920). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Plutarch, Life of Caesar, translated by Bernadotte Perrin (1919). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Plutarch, Life of Cato the Younger, translated by Bernadotte Perrin (1919). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Plutarch, Life of Cicero, translated by Bernadotte Perrin (1919). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Plutarch, Life of Pericles, translated by Bernadotte Perrin (1916). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, translated by R. D. Hicks (1925). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars, translated by Alexander Thomson, revised by T. Forester (1889). Project Gutenberg (opens gutenberg.org)
• Euripides, Medea, translated by E. P. Coleridge (1906). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, translated by George Long (1862). Project Gutenberg (opens gutenberg.org)
• Xenophon, Memorabilia, translated by E. C. Marchant (1923). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Plato, Menexenus, translated by R. G. Bury (1929). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Plato, Meno, translated by W. R. M. Lamb (1924). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Seneca, Moral Letters to Lucilius, translated by Richard M. Gummere (1917). Wikisource (opens en.wikisource.org)
• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, translated by H. Rackham (1926). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Xenophon, Oeconomicus, translated by E. C. Marchant (1923). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus, translated by Richard Jebb (1889). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus, translated by Richard Jebb (1887). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Cicero, On Duties, translated by Walter Miller (1913). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Plato, Phaedo, translated by Harold North Fowler (1914). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Plato, Phaedrus, translated by Harold North Fowler (1914). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Aristotle, Poetics, translated by S. H. Butcher (1895). Project Gutenberg (opens gutenberg.org)
• Aristotle, Politics, translated by William Ellis (1912). Project Gutenberg (opens gutenberg.org)
• Plato, Protagoras, translated by W. R. M. Lamb (1924). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Plato, Republic, translated by Benjamin Jowett (1871). Project Gutenberg (opens gutenberg.org)
• Plato, Symposium, translated by W. R. M. Lamb (1925). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Caesar, The Civil War, translated by A. G. Peskett (1914). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Caesar, The Gallic War, translated by W. A. McDevitte and W. S. Bohn (1869). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Josephus, The Jewish War, translated by William Whiston (1737). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)
• Plato, Theaetetus, translated by Harold North Fowler (1921). Perseus Digital Library (opens github.com)

Places and the map

Every place on the map is linked to its entry in Pleiades (opens pleiades.stoa.org), the gazetteer of the ancient world (CC BY), and drawn at the point Pleiades gives. The one exception is Egypt: its marker sits in the Nile Delta, because Pleiades' point for the whole region lies far up the Nile. Regions are drawn as rings, not dots, and a place the source does not name is not drawn at all. The coastline is today's, from Natural Earth (opens naturalearthdata.com) (public domain); ancient shores differed in places.

• Athens: Pleiades 579885 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Rome: Pleiades 423025 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Britain: Pleiades 981513 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Nicopolis: Pleiades 531013 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Alexandria: Pleiades 727070 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Italy: Pleiades 1052 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Caledonia: Pleiades 89132 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Carnuntum: Pleiades 128376 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Jerusalem: Pleiades 687928 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Judaea: Pleiades 981527 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Asia Minor: Pleiades 837 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Corinth: Pleiades 570182 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Masada: Pleiades 687968 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Utica: Pleiades 315248 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Alesia: Pleiades 177434 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Campania: Pleiades 432742 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Corcyra: Pleiades 530835 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Egypt: Pleiades 981503 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Gaul: Pleiades 993 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Macedon: Pleiades 491656 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Melos: Pleiades 570475 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Sardis: Pleiades 550867 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• the Danube frontier: Pleiades 226577 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• the Rubicon: Pleiades 393484 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Actium: Pleiades 530771 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Amphipolis: Pleiades 501347 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Chaeronea: Pleiades 540701 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Pharsalus: Pleiades 541042 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Piraeus: Pleiades 580062 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Plataea: Pleiades 541063 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Sparta: Pleiades 570685 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Thermopylae: Pleiades 541140 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Abydos: Pleiades 501325 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Aegospotami: Pleiades 501336 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Arginusae islands: Pleiades 550449 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Attica: Pleiades 579888 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Babylon: Pleiades 893951 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Chalcis: Pleiades 540703 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Crete: Pleiades 589748 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Delos: Pleiades 599588 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Marathon: Pleiades 580021 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Persia: Pleiades 922698 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Philippi: Pleiades 501482 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Pompeii: Pleiades 433032 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Pylos: Pleiades 570640 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Salamis: Pleiades 580101 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Sicily: Pleiades 462492 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Syracuse: Pleiades 462503 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)
• Teutoburg Forest: Pleiades 99043 (opens pleiades.stoa.org)

Portraits

Ancient busts and portraits from Wikimedia Commons. Most are Roman copies made long after the person died; none is a photograph of a face.

• Herodotus: Roman marble portrait bust of Herodotus, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Open Access), CC0 (opens commons.wikimedia.org)
• Pericles: Roman marble copy of a Greek bust after Kresilas, inscribed with Pericles' name, Museo Pio-Clementino, Vatican. Jastrow, Public domain (opens commons.wikimedia.org)
• Aspasia: Roman marble herm inscribed with Aspasia's name, copy of a Hellenistic original, Museo Pio-Clementino, Vatican. Jastrow, Public domain (opens commons.wikimedia.org)
• Sophocles: Roman marble copy of a Greek head of Sophocles, Museo Barracco, Rome. Gavingaebe, CC0 (opens commons.wikimedia.org)
• Euripides: Roman marble copy of a Greek bust of Euripides, Museo Pio-Clementino, Vatican. Marie-Lan Nguyen, Public domain (opens commons.wikimedia.org)
• Socrates: Roman marble portrait of Socrates (1st century), Louvre. Eric Gaba (User:Sting), Public domain (opens commons.wikimedia.org)
• Thucydides: Marble head of Thucydides, late Hellenistic copy of a Greek original, Royal Ontario Museum (background removed). Captmondo, Public domain (opens commons.wikimedia.org)
• Aristophanes: Herm inscribed with Aristophanes' name, Uffizi, Florence (the head may not belong to the inscribed herm). Unknown (transferred from es.wikisource, uploader Torquemada), Public domain (opens commons.wikimedia.org)
• Xenophon: Marble bust of Xenophon, Berlin; scan from a 1905 book. Unknown (scan by User:Gabor), Public domain (opens commons.wikimedia.org)
• Plato: Roman copy of Silanion's portrait of Plato, Glyptothek, Munich. Bibi Saint-Pol, Public domain (opens commons.wikimedia.org)
• Diogenes: Marble bust identified, with a question mark, as Diogenes, Capitoline Museums, Rome; historic Arndt-Bruckmann photograph. Arndt-Bruckmann, Public domain (opens commons.wikimedia.org)
• Aristotle: Roman marble copy of Lysippos' bust of Aristotle, Palazzo Altemps, Rome (alabaster mantle modern). Jastrow, Public domain (opens commons.wikimedia.org)
• Alexander: The Azara herm: Roman-era copy after Lysippos' portrait of Alexander, Louvre. Jastrow, Public domain (opens commons.wikimedia.org)
• Cicero: Roman marble bust of Cicero, 1st century CE, Musei Capitolini, Rome; this portrait type is identified as Cicero by comparison with an inscribed bust at Apsley House. Wilfredor, CC0 (opens commons.wikimedia.org)
• Julius Caesar: Marble head of Julius Caesar found at Tusculum, Museo di Antichità, Turin; identified by comparison with his coins and often argued to be made in his lifetime. Marie-Lan Taÿ Pamart, Public domain (opens commons.wikimedia.org)
• Cleopatra: Roman marble head of Cleopatra VII (the 'Berlin Cleopatra'), Altes Museum, Berlin; identified by comparison with her coins. José Luiz, Public domain (opens commons.wikimedia.org)
• Mark Antony: Gold aureus of 41 BCE with the bare head of Mark Antony, named on the coin (M ANT IMP); the other side, not shown, carries Octavian. Photographed for a coin auction. NAC (Numismatica Ars Classica), Public domain (opens commons.wikimedia.org)
• Augustus: Head of the marble statue of Augustus from Livia's villa at Prima Porta, Braccio Nuovo, Vatican Museums; labelled 20–17 BCE, though many scholars think the marble is a later copy of a bronze. Daderot, Public domain (opens commons.wikimedia.org)
• Seneca: Seneca's face on a Roman double herm with Socrates, his name SENECA inscribed beneath it, Antikensammlung Berlin (Sk 397); the inscription is what makes this identification secure. Mark Landon, CC BY 4.0 (opens commons.wikimedia.org)
• Nero: Marble head of Nero from an over-life-size statue, Glyptothek, Munich (inv. 321); dated after 64 CE in the Commons record. Bibi Saint-Pol, Public domain (opens commons.wikimedia.org)
• Marcus Aurelius: Roman marble bust of Marcus Aurelius, Glyptothek, Munich. Bibi Saint-Pol, Public domain (opens commons.wikimedia.org)

Contact

Found a quote that looks wrong, a date that is too sure, or a reply that is not one? Use the feedback form or write to hello@kapps.dev.