u/deniz_aydiner

One of the biggest misconceptions about Hellenistic kingship is that people believed their kings were literally immortal gods.

They didn't. Everyone knew kings could grow old and die.

What made a king "divine" wasn't immortality—it was the ability to do what ordinary humans could not: found cities, end wars, establish peace, and transform entire societies. In a famous hymn to Demetrios Poliorcetes, the traditional gods are described as distant, but the king is here—present and able to help.

Perhaps the real challenge is not understanding ancient religion, but recognizing that the Hellenistic world didn't draw the same sharp line between humanity and divinity that we do today.

How do you interpret ruler cult: political propaganda, genuine religious belief, or both?

For much of modern historiography, historians were expected to reconstruct the past as it "actually happened." Hans-Georg Gadamer challenged that ideal, arguing that historians never stand outside history—they are shaped by the very traditions, language, and historical circumstances they seek to understand.

Rather than treating history as a collection of objective facts, Gadamer saw it as an ongoing dialogue between past and present. Concepts such as historically effected consciousness, prejudice, and the fusion of horizons continue to influence debates on historical truth, interpretation, and the role of the historian today.

This article explores why Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics remains one of the most significant challenges to the idea of objective history. Can historians ever free themselves from their own historical horizon, or is interpretation itself the essence of historical understanding?

I am aware that I am too young and inexperienced to ask the question, “What is history?” Nevertheless, reflecting on historical truth as part of my doctoral research constantly draws one back to this question. While “how history is made” and “why it is made” are separate, lengthy questions, I believe “what it is” is a more comprehensive one. For this reason, I wanted to present a chronological overview of how the “science of history (?)” has been evaluated. Do you still believe the concept of historical truth is valid in the 21st century?

Imagine trying to write the history of an ancient kingdom after most of its written records have disappeared.

That's exactly the challenge historians face with Hellenistic Bactria, one of the easternmost successor kingdoms of Alexander the Great. Fortunately, its coins survived. They preserve the names of forgotten kings, document political transitions, reveal royal propaganda, and even provide clues about the kingdom's economy, religion, and everyday life.

This article explores how numismatic evidence has become the primary source for reconstructing the history of one of the most fascinating and least understood Hellenistic kingdoms. It's a fascinating reminder that sometimes the smallest artifacts preserve the greatest histories.

When we think about the foundations of historical thought, names like Ranke, Dilthey, or Gadamer usually come to mind. Yet more than a century before them, Giambattista Vico was already asking a fundamental question: Why can human beings know history at all?

Vico's answer was strikingly original. We can understand history because we created it. Unlike nature, which exists independently of us, laws, languages, religions, myths, and political institutions are human creations. In this article, I explore Vico's famous principle of verum ipsum factum, his theory of the three ages of humanity, the cyclical movement of history (ricorso), and his attempt to uncover a universal pattern beneath the diversity of civilizations. Do you think history follows recurring cycles, or does it move toward genuine progress?

Can a historian truly understand the past? Wilhelm Dilthey believed this was the central question of historical inquiry. Against the positivists of his age, he argued that history cannot be studied like nature because human actions are shaped by meanings, values, and lived experiences, not merely by causes.

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For Dilthey, the historian's task is not simply to explain the past but to understand it. Through interpretation and empathy, historians attempt to reconstruct how people experienced their world. But can we ever fully understand those who lived centuries before us?

The man who built siege towers the size of skyscrapers — and lost everything anyway

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Demetrios Poliorcetes wasn’t just another successor of Alexander — he was the guy who turned warfare into spectacle, rolling out massive siege engines and briefly reshaping the Mediterranean world. From being worshipped as a “savior” in Athens to dying in captivity after a lifetime of explosive highs and humiliating defeats, his story is pure ancient chaos

Alexander the Great is a figure who has gone down in history. In my opinion, the primary source of this is not historical texts, but rather that vast abyss known as the “Alexander Romance.” I am currently researching this source as part of my doctoral studies. It is an endless abyss, which is why we call it an “open source.” It is an absolutely essential source, particularly from the perspective of questioning historical epistemology. Have you ever heard of it?

A coin that had captivated the entire world would, of course, bear the image of someone who had captivated the entire world. Alexander’s coins were not minted only during his lifetime; his successors continued to mint them for a long time afterward. In fact, even the Anatolian cities under Roman rule in the 2nd century CE continued to mint Alexander coins, driven by the importance they placed on their own history and the motif of Alexander’s greatness in contrast to Rome.

In ancient times, daily life was largely intertwined with religious practices. Votive offerings to the gods were at the heart of these practices. For this reason, there are many different types of votive inscriptions—a fulfillment of a promise, a curse, a thanksgiving, a wish, and so on. However, among the things dedicated to the gods, I find the practice of human sacrifice to be the most striking. I believe there is another aspect to this beyond its religious dimension.