Conventionally, we host costume parties, watch scary movies, carve pumpkins and light bonfires to celebrate the occasion, while the younger generations are off trick-or-treating down the road.

Just like any holiday we tend to celebrate, we can trace the origin of Halloween far back in time. Beyond the scary pranks and the spooky outfits, the festivities have a rich, cultural history.

Celtic Origins

The origins of Halloween can be traced back all the way to the ancient Celtic festival known as Samhain – pronounced ‘sow-in’ in Gaelic language. It was originally an event that marked the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter in Ireland. The day after, on 1 November, would mark the ancient Celts’ new year.

Like other ancient Gaelic festivals, Samhain was seen to be a liminal time, when the boundaries separating the spiritual world and the real world were reduced. This is why Halloween has become associated with appearance of spirits, fairies and ghosts from the mythical ‘Otherworld’.

Images from a Celtic cauldron found in Denmark, dating back to 1st Century BC. (Image Credit: CC).

Evil Spirits

When the lines were blurred between worlds of the living and the dead, Celts used the opportunity to honour and worship their ancestors. Many, however, were concerned about the access darker and evil spirits had to influence those in the real world.

This is why many Celts dressed their children as demons to confuse the evil spirits and marked their doors with animal blood to deter unwanted visitors.

Sacrifice

With newly uncovered archaeological evidence, historians are almost certain that animal, as well as human sacrifices, were made during Samhain to honour the dead and the Celtic Gods. It is thought that the famous ‘Irish Bog Bodies’ may be the remains of Kings who were sacrificed. They suffered the ‘threefold death’, which involved wounding, burning and drowning.

Crops were also burnt and bonfires were made as part of the worship of Celtic deities. Some sources claim these fires were made to honour the ancestors, while others indicate that these fires were part of the deterrence of evil spirits.

Roman and Christian Influence

Once Roman forces had conquered a vast amount of Celtic territory by 43 AD in Northern France and the British Isles, traditional Roman religious festivals were assimilated with the pagan celebrations.

The Roman festival of Feralia was traditionally celebrated in late October (although some historians suggest the festival occurred in February). It was a day to commemorate the souls and spirits of the dead, and was hence one of the first festivals to be combined with the Celtic festival of Samhain.

Another festival was the day of Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. In Roman religion, the symbol that represented this goddess was an apple. This has led many to believe the Halloween tradition of apple bobbing originated from this Roman influence on the Celtic celebration.

“Snap-Apple Night”, painted by Irish artist Daniel Maclise in 1833. It was inspired by a Halloween party he attended in Blarney, Ireland, in 1832. (Image Credit: Public Domain).

It is believed that from the 9th century AD, Christianity had began to influence and displace old pagan rituals within the Celtic regions. At the behest of Pope Gregory VI, ‘All Hallows’ Day’ was assigned to the date of 1 November – the first day of the Celtic new year. The Pope, nevertheless, renamed the event ‘All Saints’ Day’, in honour of all the Christian Saints.

‘All Saints’ Day’ and ‘All Hallows’ Day’ are terms that have been used interchangeably throughout history. The eve before these dates was then called ‘Hallowe’en’ – a contraction of ‘Hallows’ Evening’. In the last century however, the holiday has been referred to simply as Halloween, celebrated on ‘Eve’ before the Day of the Hallows, on 31 October.

A revolution in decline

By the last year of the 18th century, the French Revolution had drifted a long way from the heady days of 1789. Though the King was dead and France’s external enemies mostly defeated, it had largely devolved into an orgy of violence, known afterwards as the Great Terror.

Between 1793 and 1794, Robespierre’s France guillotined and summarily executed thousands of potential political opponents before the orchestrator himself lost his head in July 1794.

The fall of Robespierre ushered in a new, more conservative form of government known as the Directory. The Directory purged the former leader’s radical supporters – the ‘Jacobins’ – and resorted to extreme repression to keep the country under Parisian control.

The Directory

Historians have not been kind to the Directory, calling it unrepresentative and repressive.

The Directory was made up of five directors. The voting system at the time denied almost all Frenchmen any real say in who these Directors were. The regime was not a popular one.

It clung onto power over the last years of the 1790s. But when the brilliant young General Napoleon Bonaparte returned to France in October 1799, many saw him as a potential saviour.

Napoleon may only have been thirty at the time of the coup but he was already a famous soldier and regarded by many as the greatest son of the revolution. The chaos generated by the revolution had granted this gifted young man opportunities that would have been denied to him under the old regime.

Run on the Tuileries on 10. Aug. 1792 during the French Revolution, as painted by Jean Duplessis-Bertaux in 1793. Image Credit: CC

Military career

Napoleon began his military career as an artillery officer. He played an integral role in defeating a British Royalist force at the battle of Toulon in 1793.

Promotions quickly followed. Despite having been imprisoned for his connections to Robespierre, and his descent from a very minor noble family on the remote Italian-speaking island of Corsica, Napoleon was given command of a ragtag army in Nice in 1796.

Over the next year, he lead this army on a stunning campaign, defeating the Italians and the Austrians and forcing both to sign humiliating peace treaties. His next step was to take his armies to Egypt in a roundabout attempt to menace the growing British Empire in India.

The glamour of this campaign, though it was less successful than the first, enhanced the growing fame of the young soldier.

In the Autumn of 1799 he sensed an opportunity and returned to France (leaving his loyal and devoted troops behind to be defeated and captured by the British).

An offer he couldn’t refuse

This opportunity came at the hands of Director Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès. Though a member of the government, Sieyès was as bitterly disappointed with it as everyone else and had been planning a coup for some time.

But a coup needed popular support. Sieyès noted the adulation with which Napoleon was greeted when he returned home. He realised that this was the man to legitimise and defend his new regime.

Napoleon had other ideas. Far from being Sieyès’ puppet, he began planning to seize power for himself.

The uprising

A series of recent uprisings meant thousands of troops were conveniently stationed around Paris. The plan was to use these men to intimidate the upper and lower chambers of the government into resigning and permit a new more centralised regime to replace it.

The Storming of the Bastille, by Jean-Pierre Houël. Image Credit: Public Domain

Sensing that something was wrong, the Directors resigned and their system collapsed. But the upper and lower chambers remained defiant.

On 9 November, with Sieyès occupied in Paris, Napoleon took matters into his own hands. He marched proudly into the upper chamber – the Council of Ancients – surrounded by battle-scarred grenadiers.

The Ancients resisted, but a show of military muscle and an effective speech allowed Napoleon to escape unscathed. The lower chamber – the Council of the 500 – proved more difficult.

These men threatened Napoleon, many with daggers in their hands. According to some reports, Napoleon was paralysed with fear and came close to fainting.

Napoleon Crossing the Alps, currently located in the Charlottenburg Palace, painted by Jacques-Louis David in 1801. Image Credit: Public Domain

Fortunately for Napleon, his brother Lucien was President of the lower chamber. In the midst of the unrest, Lucien drew his sword and pointed it at his brother’s heart, roaring to the councillors that if his brother was a traitor he would kill him himself.

This ostentatious display gave control of the situation back to Napoleon, who then forced the 500 to sign a new constitution.

First Consul

Napoleon I as Emperor of France, c. 1805. Image Credit: Public Domain

With thousands of soldiers behind him, Napoleon intimidated Sieyès into changing the new constitution to give one man, “First Consul”, absolute power.

This man, of course, would be Napoleon. With this move, the French Revolution was over.

France had a new absolute ruler, and in 1804 he would dispense with the pretence of democracy by declaring himself Emperor.

This enormous toll, which came in the age of mechanised and mass mobilised warfare, is well known. What isn’t well known, however, is that more than 2,000 years before, in the era of the sword, shield and bow, the Republican Roman Army lost 2.5 times that many men in just a single day.

And, as if a death toll of 50,000 wasn’t shocking enough, it was suffered at the hands of a smaller and more lightly equipped Carthaginian army. This battle, which took place at Cannae, was the masterpiece of Hannibal Barca, and is undoubtedly one of the most spectacular military victories of all time.

The Punic Wars

Few tales from history can match the epic grandeur of Hannibal’s march into modern-day Italy during the Second Punic War. It was set against the backdrop of two powers that had grown too big to share the central Mediterranean and as a result came to clash with each other through the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC.

Carthage was a powerful maritime empire based around its capital of the same name which now lies in modern Tunisia. Predating Rome as a major power, by 264 BC (the year of its first clash with Rome), Carthage controlled much of North Africa, Spain and the western part of Sicily.

It was this last province that would cause Carthage to come into contact with Rome, the city-state that had now come to dominate much of Italy after defeating the Greek states of Magna Grecia (modern-day southern Italy).

How the western Mediterranean looked at the start of the First Punic War. Image Credit: CC

The first war between the two powers, known as the First Punic War, was fought over Sicily, and proved to be a see-sawing contest that took place on both land and at sea – the latter a theatre of war that the Carthaginians had previously dominated.

In the end, however, the bloody-minded and determined Romans were victorious, much to the disgust of the Carthaginian commander, Hamilcar Barca. Barca made his nine-year-old son, Hannibal, swear that as long as he lived, he would never be a friend of Rome.

Hamilcar’s revenge

After its defeat, the navy and finances of Carthage were in a sorry state. But Hamilcar wasn’t done. Taking his sons with him, he lead an invasion of the Iberian Peninsula in order to subdue the hardy tribes that resisted Carthaginian rule. After the death of his father, 26-year-old Hannibal took command in 221 and immediately made a name for himself.

His youth and energy made him popular with the multinational soldiers under his command, and a string of impressive victories helped subdue the Iberians and ensure that across the Balearic Sea the Romans were paying close attention to the revival of their old enemy.

The central government in Carthage had signed a peace treaty with Rome after their earlier defeat. But now the Roman government declared an alliance with the independent Spanish city of Saguntum, knowing that Hannibal was planning on attacking it.

The remains of the Roman forum at Saguntum. Seven years after Hannibal captured the city in 219 BC, it was taken by the Romans. Image Credit: CC

The young Carthaginian commander was popular enough at this stage to take politics into his own hands, and marched to besiege the city anyway, perhaps thinking of his promise to his father. The government back in Africa had little choice but to support the decision.

A brutal eight-month siege ensued before Saguntum’s eventual bloody fall. Rome demanded an explanation for Hannibal’s actions and by 218 BC the two empires were once again at war – but this time on a far greater scale. In the eyes of the Romans, they had already given Carthage one chance and this time it was all or nothing.

Hannibal’s march into Italy

Hannibal’s reponse to the declaration of war was simple. He would continue his march north through Spain, all the way to the Alps, and on into Rome’s heartland. He had a 40,000 infantry, 8,000 cavalry and 38 war elephants by the time he’d reached the foothills of the Alps – as well as boundless ambition.

But the crossing of the mountains in spring proved a disaster for Hannibal, costing him half of his men and almost all of his war elephants. Most generals would have given up at this stage, or at least limited their objectives.

Hannibal is depicted crossing the Alps on none other than an elephant. Image Credit: Public Domain

Hannibal, however, managed to win over the allegiances of many of the Alpine Gauls who had been troubling Rome with their raids for centuries. And he also had a plan to attract Rome’s reluctant southern and northern subjects to his cause.

By the time of his first major battle with Rome at Trebia in December, Hannibal’s army was back up to 40,000 infantry (though they were not well-armoured like their Roman foes). His army was still heavily outnumbered, but it did not seem to matter as the Romans were soundly defeated at Trebia and Lake Trasimene.

This latter victory took Hannibal deep into the fertile lands of Italy and put Rome into a state of blind panic. Had Hannibal struck at Rome then, history could have been very different, but he had no siege weapons and was still waiting for Rome’s allies to defect to even up the numbers.

Amid these circumstances, Quintus Fabius was appointed an emergency dictator in Rome. He pursued a policy of attrition, while refusing to meet the Carthaginians in a pitched battle. These tactics succeeded in frustrating Hannibal for a year, but by 216 BC the people of Rome were growing angry. They wanted victory and this invader to be removed at any cost.

The Romans go to Hannibal

To meet the demands of the people of Rome and take on Hannibal, a Roman army of unprecedented size had to be assembled. Some estimates put the size of this army as high as 90,000 men, though 50-70,000 is considered more likely.

Even so, an army of such a size was hugely impressive for a state still smaller than modern-day Italy in the ancient world. It dwarfed even the highest counts of Hannibal’s forces, which only numbered around 40-50,000.

The Romans’ enemy, meanwhile, was far to the south of Rome, attempting to court the former Greek city-states there, which had little fondness for their Roman conquerors. Hannibal had spent the winter and spring down in these balmy and fertile lands, and his own men had collected the harvest, meaning that they were well-fed and ready.

Eager to take the initiative, Hannibal seized the important supply post at Cannae in the spring, and waited for the Romans to come to him. They obliged.

The Romans were commanded by two consuls named Varro and Paullus, and the accounts of ancient historians tell of Varro winning a minor skirmish along the way to Cannae, which cultivated a dangerous sense of hubris in the days ahead.

Though modern historians believe that Varro’s fairly lowly origins made him something of a scapegoat for later writers, he still had every reason to be confident following the skirmish. Not only did he have more men, but they were also clad in heavy armour and fighting for their homelands against a ragged army of Gauls, Africans and Spaniards who were a very long way from home.

Hannibal’s invasion route. Image Credit: The Department of History, United States Military Academy / CC

Varro takes a risk

In ancient warfare the deployment of troops was crucial. The standard formation of the times was lines of lighter at the front and then heavier infantry in the centre, with the cavalry protecting the flanks. Varro, however, was wary of Hannibal’s genius and wanted to try something different.

He directed his men in the centre to stand much closer together than was normal, creating a dense fist of armoured men who would smash through the weaker Carthaginian line.

Hannibal, meanwhile, placed his Spaniards and Iberians in the centre and his veteran Africans on the flanks. This meant that, to the Romans, the task of breaking through the middle of the line and dividing the enemy army looked easy.

But Hannibal knew that the battle could be won via the Carthaginian cavalrymen – who he placed opposite their Roman counterparts – rather than in the unequal clash of infantry.

This part of the battlefield was also where the fighting began. As the Roman infantry marched forwards, Hannibal’s horsemen – commanded by his brother Hasdrubal – engaged their counterparts and put them to flight after a brief and vicious struggle.

Hannibal’s African soldiers win the day

By now, the slow-moving Roman infantry was already exposed, but the clouds of dust thrown up by so many thousands of men on a hot August day meant that they were oblivious to the danger. When they met the light Gallic and Spanish infantry in the centre, the Carthaginian general ordered his troops not to engage fully but to retreat steadily in the face of the closely-packed enemy.

The Romans, meanwhile, kept pressing further and further forwards, so enraged by the enemy refusing to stay put that they ignored the veteran Africans, who had remained in place and were now dangerously positioned on the Romans’ flanks.

How Hannibal’s men defeated the Roman army. Image Credit: The Department of History, United States Military Academy / CC

As Varro’s men advanced, the Africans began to press in on them until eventually they were so pressed together that they could barely swing their swords. Hannibal then gave his Africans the order to charge at the Roman flanks, completely encircling the Roman army and completing the pincer movement – one of the earliest examples of this tactic being used in military history.

Once Hannibal’s cavalrymen had hit the Roman rear to complete the chaos, the battle ended as a contest. The slaughter, however, continued.

Panicking, confused and hemmed in like cattle, thousands of Romans were massacred throughout the morning, with no means of escape with Carthaginians on all sides. Though some cut their way through to the nearest town, the vast majority of the massive army lay dead on the plain of Cannae, and Rome was in a state of numbed terror.

Rome lives to fight another day – just

Following the battle, Rome’s survival seemed genuinely threatened. Over a fifth of all Roman males over the age of 17 had died in a single day, while the old Greek cities, along with King Phillip of Macedon, joined Hannibal after the defeat.

This statue shows Hannibal counting the signet rings of Roman knights killed in the Battle of Cannae. Image Credit: Public Domain

And yet Rome survived. Perhaps its reaction to Cannae is the best demonstration of why Romans came to rule the known world. Refusing to give in, they stopped risking all against Hannibal in open battle, formed new armies and ground him down with a scorched earth policy until he was forced to return to Africa in the face of a Roman invasion.

The new hero of Rome, Scipio Africanus, formed the nucleus of his army with the survivors of Cannae, who had been humiliatingly exiled to Sicily after their defeat, but won redemption at the decisively fought battle of Zama in 202 BC.

As a result, the reasons for the Battle of Cannae’s enduring fame are not political ones, though it did form the climax of the romantic period of Hannibal’s doomed invasion of Italy. It did not topple Rome, nor – ultimately – save Carthage from destruction at the hands of the newer power less than a hundred years later.

However, it has been taught consistently in military academies ever since as the perfect way of destroying a superior force utterly using encirclement, and has fascinated all the great commanders of modern times, from Frederick the Great and Napoleon to Eisenhower, who said, “In modern war, every ground commander seeks to duplicate the classic example of Cannae”.

History of Vergina Museum

The tombs were discovered by Greek archaeologist Manolis Andronikos in 1977 and, though there has been much debate on the matter, many – including the Greek government – believe it likely that the tombs do in fact belong to these famous historical figures.

In 1993 a set of underground enclosures were built to enclose and protect the tombs and this opened to the public a few years later as the Royal Tombs of Vergina Museum. Externally, the museum is contained within a reconstructed earth mound which covers the site and is similar to what is believed would have originally appeared above the tombs.

Vergina Museum today

The Vergina Museum can be found in the centre of the modern town of Vergina – sometimes spelt Verghina – which was once the ancient Macedonian capital of Aigai.

Visitors descend through the subterranean passageways to enter the museum from where they can explore both the tombs themselves and a number of exhibitions showcasing artefacts from the site and the local area.

A virtual museum, “Alexander the Great, from Aigai to the World” and a model of the entire archaeological site is planned for the main entrance hall. Funding for the project came from the EU’s NSRF business program on “Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship and Innovation”, which will provide 10 million euros in total for the reconstruction, expected to be completed by the end of 2022.

Getting to Vergina Museum

Vergina Museum is located 75 km west of Thessaloniki, Greece, centered around the royal tombs built by the ancient Kingdom of Macedon at Aigai. From Thessaloniki, you can take a KTEL bus from Thessaloniki to Veria  (1 hr or 1 hr 20 minutes) and from Veria the connecting bus to Vergina (20 minutes).

The round-trip ticket to Veria costs roughly 10 euros and the trip from Veria to Vergina costs less than 2 euros. In Vergina, the bus stops in the immediate vicinity of the museum.

With 1093 invention patents to his name – almost twice as much as anyone else in American history – Edison (and his employees) did more than anyone else to create a range of products that are now central to modern life. Here are 5 of Edison’s most famous inventions.

1. The Light Bulb (1879)

Arguably Edison’s most famous invention, the incandescent light bulb was patented in 1879. Scientists had been racing to create artificial light for years, yet it was the Ohio-born inventor who cinched the win by creating an incandescent bulb with a carbon filament that could be practically reproduced on a mass scale.

Thomas Edison holding his electric light bulb. Image Credit: Public Domain

Image Credit: Public Domain

In his first public demonstration of the new light bulb, which took place at Edison’s Menlo Park, New Jersey laboratory on New Year’s Eve, 1879, Edison showed how the light bulb created light when electrical current passed through the metal filament wire, heating it to a high temperature until it glowed. More importantly, the hot filament was protected from the air by a glass bulb that was filled up with inert gas.

Edison was able to spend so much time on this invention because, thanks to his reputation as a successful inventor, he had the support of some leading financiers of the day. J.P. Morgan and the Vanderbilt family established the Edison Light Company and advanced Edison $30,000 for research and development.

2. The Phonograph (1877)

On 21 November, 1877, Edison was officially credited with inventing the phonograph – a revolutionary device which could record and play back sounds. This invention was greeted with hysteria at the time, so utterly extraordinary was the idea that we could preserve the spoken word, and its legacy has transformed every aspect of our modern world.

Edison first thought about the phonograph whilst working on two other world-changing 19th century inventions – the telephone and the telegraph. The technology used for the two, he decided, could also be altered to record sound – something which had hitherto never even been considered as a possibility.

Patent drawing for Edison’s phonograph, May 18, 1880.

In 1877, he began to create a machine designed for this purpose with two needles, one for recording the sound, and one for playing it back. The first needle would indent the sound vibrations onto a cylinder covered with tin foil, while the other one would copy the exact indentations to produce the same sound again.

When he spoke the oddly chosen words “Mary had a little lamb” into the machine, he was awed and astonished to hear them played back to him. Or, perhaps, he was the first of millions of people to dislike the sound of his own voice on recording.

3. The Kinetograph / Motion Picture Camera (1891)

In the late 1880s, Edison supervised his lab’s development of a technology “that does for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear.” Seeking to provide a visual accompaniment to the phonograph, Edison commissioned William Kennedy-Laurie Dickson, one of his young laboratory assistants, to invent a motion-picture camera in 1888 (possibly because of his background as a photographer).

Dickson combined the two final essentials of motion-picture recording and viewing technology. A device, adapted from the escapement mechanism of a clock, to ensure the regular motion of the film strip through the camera and a regularly perforated celluloid film strip to ensure precise synchronization between the film strip and the shutter.

There has been some argument about how much Edison himself contributed to the invention of the motion picture camera. While Edison seems to have conceived the idea and initiated the experiments, Dickson apparently performed the bulk of the experimentation, leading most modern scholars to assign Dickson with the major credit for turning the concept into a practical reality. The Edison laboratory, though, worked as a collaborative organization.

Movies became a big industry and Edison’s camera and viewer were quickly replaced by innovations such as the Lumière Cinématographe, a combination camera, printer and projector that allowed audiences to watch a film together. But Edison adjusted and his company became a thriving early movie studio, churning out scores of silent films between the 1890s and 1918, when it shut down production.

4. The Alkaline Battery (1906)

As one of the leaders of the electricity revolution, Edison patented the Alkaline Battery on July 31, 1906. In the early twentieth century, the available lead acid rechargeable batteries were notoriously inneficient and the acid battery market was already tied up by other companies. Hence, Edison pursued using alkaline instead of acid.

He had his lab work on many types of materials (going through some 10,000 combinations), eventually settling on a nickel-iron combination.

Share of Edison’s Storage Battery Company, c. 1903. Image Credit: Public Domain

Edison obtained a US and European patent for his nickel–iron battery in 1901 and founded the Edison Storage Battery Company and by 1904 it had 450 people working there. The first rechargeable batteries they produced were for electric cars, but there were many defects with customers complaining about the product.

5. The Carbon Microphone (1878)

The first ever microphone that enabled voice telephony and amplification was the Carbon Microphone (then called the “carbon transmitter”), another one of Thomas Edison’s famous inventions.

He had begun work to improve the transmitters in 1876 by developing a microphone that used a button of carbon, changing the resistance with the pressure of sound waves. This would serve as a massive improvement on the existing microphones developed by Johann Philipp Reis and Alexander Graham Bell, which worked by generating an extremely weak electric current.

Edison’s work in this field was concurrent with Emile Berliner’s loose-contact carbon transmitter (who lost a later patent case against Edison over the carbon transmitters invention) and David Edward Hughes’ study and published paper on the physics of loose-contact carbon transmitters (work that Hughes did not bother to patent).

The carbon microphone is the direct prototype of today’s microphones and was critical in the development of telephony, broadcasting and the recording industries. Carbon microphones were widely used in telephones from 1890 until the 1980s.

Salses Fortress history

Constructed by the Spanish in the late-fifteenth, early-sixteenth century, Salses Castle was a vital stronghold on the then-border with France. It was the subject of numerous sieges in the 16th and 17th centuries before being taken by the French in 1642. At the time, Salses Castle was within Spanish territory, a fact changed by the 1659 Treaty of the Pyrenees, which redefined the French-Spanish border, incorporating the area into France.

Given its distance from the border, the fortress subsequently lost its strategic importance and was threatened with demolition on several occasions because it was becoming too expensive to maintain. The fortress nevertheless survived and was repaired and transformed from 1691 onwards, under the supervision of Vauban. The fort was also used as refuge during the Spanish Civil War between 1936 and 1939.

Salses Fortress today

Today, Salses Fortress is open to the public as an historic site and as an art museum. It is the architecture of Salses Fortress which makes it such an interesting historic site. The Fortress of Salses is a masterpiece of military architecture, designed to protect against the recently developed metal cannonball.

It is a prime example of the transition between the mediaeval château, with its keep and cylindrical towers with long curtain walls, and the modern fortress, with its rigorously geometric and part-buried structure. Its walls are around 10 metres thick, and the fortress is divided over seven levels served by a maze of corridors and multiple interior defensive chicanes.

Salses Fortress is listed as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture and is operated by the Centre des monuments nationaux. The fortress receives 100,000 visitors a year. Guided tours are available.

Getting to Salses Fortress

The address of Salses Fortress is 66600 Salses-le-Château, France. If travelling by car, from Montpellier, take the A9 towards Perpignan and take exit 40 to Salses-le-Château. From Perpignan, take the N9 towards Narbonne.

If travelling via public transport, you can take the Narbonne to Perpignan train line and exit at Salses-le-château station which is roughly a 15 minute walk away from the castle. By bus, take the 135 (Perpignan Salses line).

History of the Tomb of Cyrus the Great

Cyrus the Great, also known as Cyrus II, founded the Achaemenid Dynasty in the 6th century BC and with it the capital, Pasargadae. The Achaemenid Dynasty was vitally important, being the first ruling dynasty of the Persian Empire.

The Tomb of Cyrus the Great is one of the main historic sites of modern Pasargadae. A stepped limestone structure crowned with a rectangular chamber, the Tomb of Cyrus the Great dates back to approximately 540-530 BC.

What was inside the tomb of Cyrus? Legend has it that when Alexander the Great conquered Pasargadae in 330 BC, Alexander visited the tomb and had it renovated in honour of Cyrus the Great. However, it has never been conclusively proved that this is indeed the tomb of the great Persian king. In fact, it was thought at one point to have been the tomb of the mother of the prophet Sulayman, accounting for various additions such as its carved mihrab, added in the 1970s.

Tomb of Cyrus the Great today

Restoration works started in 2003 and continued to October 2008. The tomb chamber itself, built from white limestone, is two meters wide, two meters high, and three meters deep. It once contained a gold sarcophagus, Cyrus’ arms, his jewellery, and a cloak.

Cyrus the Great Day, also known as Cyrus Day, is an unofficial holiday in Iran that takes place annually in the Tomb of Cyrus on October 29th, 7th of Aban on Iranian calendar, to commemorate Cyrus the Great. During Nowruz, the Persian New Year, celebrations are held annually around the tomb by Iranians which gather from all around the country. Iranians respect Cyrus the Great as the founder of Iran and the Persian Empire.

Getting to the Tomb of Cyrus the Great

The Tomb of Cyrus the Great is located in Pasargadae, now a World Heritage Site, in Iran. The nearest major city is Shiraz. From here simply drive along route 65 until you reach Pasargad (1 hour 45 min).

Throughout most of his reign, he was associated with unrivalled extravagance, tyranny, debauchery and murder – to the extent that Roman citizens allegedly considered him to be the Antichrist. Here are 10 fascinating facts about Rome’s iconic and abominable leader.

1. He became Emperor at the age of 17

As Nero was older than Emperor Claudius’ natural son, Britannicus, he now had a superb claim to the imperial purple. When Claudius was almost certainly poisoned by his wife Agrippina in 54 AD, her young son declared the dish of mushrooms that had done the deed to be “the food of the gods”.

By the time Claudius died, Britannicus was still younger than 14, the minimum legal age to rule, and therefore his step-brother, the 17-year-old Nero, took the throne.

The day before Britannicus was due to come of age, he met a very suspicious death after drinking wine prepared for him at his celebratory banquet, leaving Nero – and his mother – in undisputed control of the world’s greatest empire.

2. He murdered his mother

Having poisoned two different husbands to reach her exalted position, Agrippina was unwilling to relinquish the hold that she had over her son, and was even portrayed face-to-face with him in his early coins. Soon Nero grew tired of his mother’s interference. While her influence dwindled she tried desperately to maintain control over proceedings and her son’s decision making.

As a result of her opposition to Nero’s affair with Poppaea Sabina, the Emperor eventually decided to murder his mother. Inviting her to Baiae, he had her set forth on the Bay of Naples in a boat designed to sink, but she swam ashore. Eventually she was murdered by a loyal freedman (ex-slave) in 59 AD on Nero’s orders at her country house.

3. …and two of his wives

Nero’s marriages to both Claudia Octavia and later Poppaea Sabina both ended in their subsequent murders. Claudia Octavia was perhaps the best suitor for Nero, described as “an aristocratic and virtuous wife” by Tacitus, yet Nero quickly grew bored and began to resent the Empress. After several attempts to strangle her, Nero claimed that Octavia was barren, using this as an excuse to divorce her and marry Poppaea Sabina twelve days later.

Unfortunately, Octavia was not off the hook. Her banishment at the hands of Nero and Poppaea was resented in Rome, infuriating the capricious Emperor even more. Hearing the news that a rumour of her reinstatement was met with widespread approval, he effectively signed her death warrant. Octavia’s veins were opened and she suffocated in a hot vapour bath. Her head was then chopped off and sent to Poppaea.

Poppaea brings the head of Octavia to Nero. Image Credit: CC

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons / Giovanni Muzzioli / Civic Museum of Modena / CC BY-SA 3.0

Despite Nero’s eight year long marriage to Claudia Octavia, the Roman empress had never bore child, and so when Nero’s mistress Poppaea Sabina became pregnant, he had used this opportunity to divorce his first wife and marry Sabina. Poppaea bore Nero’s only daughter, Claudia Augusta, in 63 AD (although she would die only four months later).

Her strong and ruthless nature was seen as a good match for Nero, yet it did not take long before the two fatally clashed.

After a fierce argument over how much time Nero was spending at the races, the intemperate Emperor violently kicked Poppaea in the abdomen whilst she was pregant with his second child – she died as a result in 65 AD. Nero went into a long period of mourning, and gave Sabina a state funeral.

4. He was immensely popular during his early reign

Despite his violent reputation, Nero had an uncanny knack for knowing what actions would endear him to the Roman public. After putting on several public musical performances, cutting taxes and even persuading the King of Parthia to come to Rome and take part in a lavish ceremony, he soon became the darling of the crowds.

Nero was so popular, in fact, that after his death there were three separate attempts by impostors over thirty years to gather support by assuming his appearance – one of which was so successful that it almost lead to a civil war. This immense popularity amongst the common people of the empire, however, only made the educated classes distrust him even more.

Nero is said to have been obsessed with his own popularity and far more impressed by the theatrical traditions of the Greeks than Roman austerity – something that was considered simultaneously scandalous by his senators yet superb by the inhabitants of the eastern part of the empire.

5. He was accused of orchestrating the Great Fire of Rome

In 64 AD, the Great Fire of Rome erupted on the night of 18 to 19 July. The fire started on the slope of the Aventine overlooking the Circus Maximus and ravaged the city for over six days.

The Great Fire of Rome, 64 AD. Image Credit: Public Domain

It was noted that Nero was (conveniently) not present in Rome at the time, and most contemporary writers, including Pliny the Elder, Suetonius and Cassius Dio held Nero responsible for the fire. Tacitus, the main ancient source for information about the fire, is the only surviving account which does not blame Nero for starting the fire; although he says he is “unsure”.

Although it is likely that claims stating Nero was playing the fiddle whilst the city of Rome burned are a literary construct of Flavian propaganda, Nero’s absence left an extremely bitter taste in the public’s mouth. Sensing this frustration and aggravation, Nero looked to use the Christian faith as a scapegoat.

6. He instigated the persecution of Christians

With the supposed intention of diverting attention away from the rumours that he had instigated the Great Fire, Nero ordered that Christians should be rounded up and killed. He blamed them for starting the fire and in the subsequent purge, they were torn apart by dogs and others burnt alive as human torches.

“Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as nightly illumination when daylight had expired.” – Tacitus

Over the next hundred years or so, Christians were sporadically persecuted. It was not until the mid-third century that emperors initiated intensive persecutions.

7. He built a ‘Golden House’

Nero certainly took advantage of the devastation of the city, building a lavish private palace on part of the site of the fire. It was to be known as the Domus Aurea or ‘Golden Palace’ and was said, at the entranceway, to have included a 120-foot-long (37 meters) column that contained a statue of him.

Statue of a muse in the newly reopened Domus Aurea. Image Credit: CC

Image Credit: Public Domain

The palace was nearly completed before Nero’s death in 68 AD, a remarkably short time for such an enormous project. Unfortunately little has survived of the incredible architectural feat because the expropriations involved in its building were deeply resented. Nero’s successors hastened to put large parts of the palace to public use or to construct other buildings on the land.

8. He castrated and married his former slave

In 67 AD, Nero ordered the castration of Sporus, a former slave boy. He then married him, which noted historian Cassius Dio claims was because Sporus bore an uncanny resemblance to Nero’s dead former wife Poppaea Sabina. Other suggest Nero used his marriage to Sporus to assuage the guilt he felt for kicking his former pregnant wife to death.

9. He competed in Rome’s Olympic Games

Following the death of his mother, Nero became deeply involved in his artistic and aesthetic passions. At first, he sang and performed on the lyre in private events but later began performing in public to improve his popularity. He strived to assume every kind of role and trained as an athlete for public games which he ordered to be held every five years.

As a competitor in the games, Nero raced a ten-horse chariot and nearly died after being thrown from it. He also competed as an actor and singer. Although he faltered in the competitions, being the emperor he won nevertheless and then he paraded in Rome the crowns he had won.

10. Citizens worried he would return to life as the Antichrist

Revolts against Nero in 67 and 68 AD sparked a series of civil wars, which for a time threatened the survival of the Roman Empire. Nero was followed by Galba who was to be first emperor in the chaotic Year of the Four Emperors. The death of Nero brought an end to the Julio-Claudian dynasty, which had ruled the Roman Empire from the time of its formation under Augustus in 27 BC.


As Nero died, he proclaimed “what an artist dies with me” in a piece of arrogant melodrama which has come to symbolise the worst and most ludicrous excesses of his 13-year reign. In the end, Nero was his own worst enemy, as his contempt of the Empire’s traditions and ruling classes gave rise to rebellions that ended the line of the Caesars.

Due to the troubled time after his death, Nero might have initially been missed but with time his legacy suffered and he is mostly portrayed as an insane ruler and a tyrant. Such was the fear of his persecutions that there was a legend for hundreds of years among Christians that Nero was not dead and would somehow return as Antichrist.

As their fortunes flourished and their appetite for treasure grew, targets for plunder were soon no longer exclusive to small merchant ships. Pirates attacked large convoys, were able to fight off sizeable naval ships and became a general force to be reckoned with.

Below is a list of some of the most infamous and notorious of these pirates who continue to capture the imagination of the public today.

1. Edward Teach (“Blackbeard”)

Edward Teach (aka “Thatch”) was born in the English port city of Bristol around 1680. Although it is unclear when exactly Teach arrived in the Caribbean, it is likely he disembarked as a sailor on privateer ships during the War of Spanish Succession at the turn of the 18th century.

In the late 17th and early 18th century, many private ships received a licence from the British monarchy, under the commission of war, that permitted the plundering of vessels belonging to a rival nation.

Teach may have remained a privateer during the war, however it was not before the sailor found himself on the sloop of the pirate Benjamin Hornigold, who also launched raids off Jamaica. The main difference now was that Teach was stealing from and killing his old employers, the British.

Teach clearly made a name for himself. His ruthless nature and unrivalled courage led to his quick promotion up the ranks until he found himself equal to Hornigold’s level of notoriety. While his mentor accepted an offer of amnesty from the British government, Blackbeard remained in the Caribbean, captaining a ship he had captured and renamed Queen Anne’s Revenge.

Blackbeard became the most notorious and feared pirate of the Caribbean. According to the legends, he was a giant man with a dark dusky beard covering half his face, wearing a great red coat to make him look even bigger. He carried two swords at his waist and had bandoleers full of pistols and knives across his chest.

Edward Teach aka ‘Blackbeard’. Image credit: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Image Credit: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Some reports even say that during a fight he stuck sticks of gunpowder into his long hair to make him seem even more terrifying.

We will probably never know exactly what he looked like, but there is no doubt that he was successful, as recent research has discovered he captured over 45 vessels, despite his relatively short career as a pirate.

On 22 November 1718, with an enormous bounty on his head, Blackbeard was eventually killed in a sword fight with Royal Marines on the deck of his ship. As a powerful symbol to any who dared follow in his footsteps, Blackbeard’s severed head was brought back to the governor of Virginia.

2. Benjamin Hornigold

Perhaps best known for mentoring Edward Teach, Captain Benjamin Hornigold (b. 1680) was a notorious pirate captain who operated in the Bahamas during the early 18th century. As one of the most influential pirates on New Providence Island, he had control over Fort Nassau, protecting the bay and the entrance to the harbour.

He was one of the founding members of the Consortium, the loose coalition of pirates and merchants that hoped to preserve the semi-independent Pirates’ Republic in the Bahamas.

When he was 33 years old, Hornigold began his pirate career in 1713 by attacking merchant ships in the Bahamas. By the year 1717, Hornigold was the Captain of the Ranger, one of the most heavily armed ships in the region. It was at that time when he appointed Edward Teach as his second-in-command.

Hornigold was described by others as a kind and skilled captain who treated prisoners better than other pirates. As an ex-privateer, Hornigold would eventually take the decision to turn his back on his former companions.

In December 1718, he accepted a King’s Pardon for his crimes and became a pirate hunter, pursuing his former allies on behalf of the Governor of the Bahamas, Woodes Rogers.

3. Charles Vane

As with many of the famous pirates on this list, it is believed that Charles Vane was born in England around 1680. Described as precarious and capricious pirate captain, Vane’s fearless nature and impressive combat skills made him an incredibly successful pirate, but his volatile relationship with his pirate crew would eventually lead to his demise.

Like Blackbeard, Vane started his career as a privateer working on one of Lord Archibald Hamilton’s ships during the War of Spanish Succession. He was involved with Henry Jennings and Benjamin Hornigold during a famous attack on the salvage camp for the wrecked Spanish 1715 Treasure Fleet. Here he amassed a booty valued at 87,000 pounds of gold and silver.

Early 18th century engraving of Charles Vane. Image credit: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Image Credit: Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Vane decided to become an independent pirate in 1717, operating out of Nassau. His remarkable navigational skills, dexterity and fighting prowess propelled him to a level of unrivalled notoriety in the Caribbean.

When word reached the pirates that King George I of Great Britain had extended an offer of pardon to all pirates who wished to surrender, Vane led the pirates who opposed taking the pardon. He was captured in Nassau by British Naval forces yet, on the advice of former private Benjamin Hornigold, Vane was set free as a sign of good faith.

It wasn’t long before Vane turned to piracy again. He and his crew, which included the famous pirate Jack Rackham, began to wreak havoc in the Caribbean yet again, capturing numerous vessels around Jamaica.

Problems began for Vane when the Governor Woodes Rogers arrived in Nassau where he was appointed Governor. Rogers had trapped Vane and his small fleet in the harbour, forcing Vane to turn his large vessel into a fireship and direct it towards Rogers’ blockade. It worked, and Vane managed to escape on a small schooner.

Despite evading capture for the second time, Vane’s luck was soon to run out. After his crew attacked a vessel that turned out to be powerful French Warship, Vane decide to flee for safety. His quartermaster, “Calico Jack” Rackham, accused him of being a coward in front of Vane’s crew and took over control of Vane’s ship leaving Vane behind in a small, captured sloop with just a few of his loyal pirate crew.

After being shipwrecked on a remote island after rebuilding a small fleet and subsequently recognised by a British Naval officer who had come to his rescue, Vane was eventually tried in a court where he was found guilty of piracy, and subsequently hanged in November 1720.

4. Jack Rackham (“Calico Jack”)

Born in 1682, John “Jack” Rackham, more commonly known as Calico Jack, was a Jamaican-born British pirate who operated in the West Indies during the early 18th century. Although he did not manage in his short career to amass incredible wealth or respect, his associations with other pirates, including two female crew members, managed to make him one of the most renowned pirates of all time.

Rackham is perhaps most famous for his relations with the female pirate Anne Bonny (who we will meet later). Rackham began an affair with Anne who was at the time the wife of sailor employed by Governor Rogers. Anne’s husband James learned about the relationship and brought Anne to Governor Rogers, who ordered her whipped on charges of adultery.

When Rackham’s offer to buy Anne in a “divorce by purchase” was sternly refused, the pair fled Nassau. They escaped to sea together and sailed the Caribbean for two months, taking over other pirate ships. Anne soon became pregnant and went to Cuba to have the child.

In September 1720, the Bahamas’ Governor Woodes Rogers issued a proclamation declaring Rackham and his crew wanted pirates. After publication of the warrant, the pirate and bounty hunter Jonathan Barnet and Jean Bonadvis started in pursuit of Rackham.

In October 1720, Barnet’s sloop attacked Rackham’s ship and captured it after a fight presumably led by Mary Read and Anne Bonny. Rackham and his crew were brought to Spanish Town, Jamaica, in November 1720, where they were tried and convicted of piracy and sentenced to be hanged.

Rackham was executed in Port Royal on 18 November 1720, his body then gibbeted on display on a very small islet at a main entrance to Port Royal now known as Rackham’s Cay.

5. Anne Bonny

Born in County Cork in 1697, the female buccaneer Anne Bonny has become an icon of the Golden Age of Piracy. In an era when women had little rights of their own, Bonny had to show enormous courage in order to become an equal crewmember and respected pirate.

The illegitimate daughter of her father and a servant, Bonny was taken as a young child to the New World after her father’s infidelity was made public in Ireland. There she was brought up on a plantation up until the age of 16, when she fell in love with a private named James Bonny.

Anne Bonny. Image credit: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Image Credit: Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

After marrying James, much to the disapproval of her father, Bonny established herself in the pirate hideout of New Providence. The extensive network she built with numerous pirates shortly began to compromise her marriage, as James Bonny had become a pirate informer. Her feelings towards the notorious pirate Jack Rackham didn’t help matters either, and the two ran off together in 1719.

Aboard Rackham’s vessel Revenge, Bonny developed an intimate personal relationship with Mary Read, another female pirate who disguised herself as a man. Legend has it that Bonny fell in love with Read only to be bitterly disappointed when she revealed her true gender. Rackham was also thought to have become extremely jealous of the two’s intimacy.

After becoming pregnant with Rackham’s child and delivering it in Cuba, Bonny returned to her lover. In October 1720, Revenge was attacked by a Royal Navy ship whilst most of Rackham’s crew were drunk. Bonny and Read were the only crew to resist.

The crew of Revenge were taken to Port Royal to stand trial. At the trial, the true genders of the female prisoners were revealed. Anne and Mary did manage to avoid execution however by pretending to be pregnant. Read was to die of fever in prison, whilst the fate of Bonny remains unknown to this date. We only know that she was never executed.

6. Mary Read

The second of the famed and legendary female pirate duo was Mary Read. Born in Devon in 1685, Read was raised as a boy, pretending to be her older brother. From an early age she recognised that disguising herself as a man was the only way she could find work and support herself.

Mary Read, 1710. Image credit: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Image Credit: Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Read worked in various roles and for various institutions, often becoming bored very quickly. Eventually as an older teenager she joined the army, where she met her future husband. After revealing her gender to him, the two ran away together and married in the Netherlands.

Burdened with bad luck throughout her entire life, Read’s husband fell ill shortly after the marriage and died. In a state of despair, Read wanted to escape from everything and joined the army again. This time, she has boarded a Dutch ship that sailed to the Caribbean. Almost at the reach of its destination, Mary’s ship was attacked and captured by the pirate, Calico Rackham Jack, who took all English captured sailors as part of his crew.

Unwillingly she became a pirate, yet it was not long before Read began to enjoy the pirate lifestyle. When she had a chance to leave Rackham’s ship, Mary decided to stay. It was on Rackham’s ship that Mary met Anne Bonny (who was also dressed as a man), and the two formed their close and intimate relationship.

After months of sailing the high seas aboard Revenge with Anne, the two would be eventually be captured and put on trial, only to be spared execution by ‘pleading the belly’. Whilst the fate of Anne has never been discovered, Mary died in prison after catching a violent fever. She was buried in Jamaica on 28 April 1721.

7. William Kidd (“Captain Kidd”)

Active just before the dawn of the Golden Age, William Kidd, or “Captain Kidd” as he is often remembered, was one of the most renowned privateers and pirates of the late 17th century.

Like so many pirates before and after him, Kidd had originally begun his career as a privateer, commissioned by the British during the Nine Years War to defend its trade routes between America and the West Indies. He was later employed on a pirate hunting expedition in the Indian Ocean.

As was the case with many other pirate hunters however, the temptations of plunder and booty were too great to ignore. Kidd’s crew threatened mutiny on multiple occasions if he did not commit himself to piracy, which he succumbed to doing in 1698.

Howard Pyle’s painting of William “Captain” Kidd and his ship, the Adventure Galley, in a New York City harbor. Image credit: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Image Credit: Howard Pyle, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Kidd’s relatively short career as a pirate was very successful. Kidd and his crew captured a number of ships including a vessel called the Queda which they found to have onboard a cargo worth 70,000 pounds – one of the biggest hauls in the history of piracy.

Unfortunately for Kidd, it was now two years since he had begun his original voyage and whilst his attitudes toward piracy had evidently softened, attitudes in England had become a lot stricter. Piracy was to be stamped out and was now declared a criminal act.

What ensued was one of the most notorious pirate hunts in all of history. Kidd finally arrived in the West Indies in April 1699 only to find that the American colonies were gripped by pirate fever. Up and down the coast, everyone was on the hunt for pirates, and his name was at the top of the list.

The hunt for Captain Kidd was the first to be live documented in newspapers around the Atlantic world. The Scottish pirate managed to negotiate a pardon from the English authorities for his actions, yet he knew his time was up. Kidd sailed for Boston, stopping along the way to bury booty on Gardiners Island and Block Island.

The New England governor, Lord Richard Bellomont, himself an investor in Kidd’s voyage, had him arrested on 7 July 1699 in Boston. He was sent to England aboard the frigate Advice in February 1700.

Captain William Kidd was hanged on 23 May 1701. The first rope put around this neck broke so he had to be strung up a second time. His corpse was placed in a gibbet at the mouth of the Thames River and left to rot, as an example to other would-be pirates.

8. Bartholomew Roberts (“Black Bart”)

Three centuries ago, a Welsh seaman (born in 1682 in Pembrokeshire) turned to piracy. He never even wanted to become a pirate, yet within a year he’d become the most successful of his era. During his brief but spectacular career he captured over 200 ships – more than all his pirate contemporaries combined.

Nowadays pirates like Blackbeard are better remembered than this young Welshman, as either their notoriety or their wild appearance has captured the public imagination. Yet Bartholomew Roberts, or ‘Black Bart’ as he was known, was arguably the most successful pirate of them all.

Described as a tall, attractive man, who loved expensive clothes and jewellery, Roberts quickly rose through the ranks as a pirate under the Welsh captain Howell Davies and soon captured his own vessel in 1721, which he renamed Royal Fortune. This ship was close to being impregnable, so well-armed and protected that only a formidable navy vessel could hope to stand against her.

Roberts was so successful, in part, because he usually commanded a fleet of anywhere from two to four pirate ships which could surround and catch victims. In large numbers this pirate convoy could set its limits high. Black Bart was also ruthless and so his crew and enemies feared him.

His reign of terror finally ended however off the West African coast in February 1722, when he was killed in a sea battle with a British warship. His passing, and the mass trial and hanging of his crew that followed, marked the real end of the ‘Golden Age’.