For some time, Ancient Egypt was ruled by a dynasty of Ethiopian kings. According to legend, one of them was so powerful that he conquered Anatolia, across the Mediterranean from Egypt. Could such a conquest have really occurred, and if not, then what led to this legend of an Ethiopian king of Egypt who was said to have conquered Anatolia?

Strabo’s legend of the Ethiopian king of Egypt who conquered Anatolia

The source for this legend comes from one particular document. This is Strabo’s Geography, written in the first century BC. Strabo mentions a particularly notable Ethiopian king twice. In the first instance, he mentions him alongside other notable conquerors of the ancient world, writing:

“Nor yet for the most part are the expeditions of their chiefs, for instance, Madys the Scythian, Tearko the Ethiopian, Cobus of Trerus, Sesostris and Psammeticus the Egyptians.”

Without going into details, the context of this reference makes it clear that Tearko the Ethiopian was supposed to have set out on a major expedition or conquest. He is grouped together with other famous conquerors of antiquity, such as Sesostris.

The next mention of Tearko provides additional information. Here, Strabo calls him “Tearco.” Referring to the claims of an earlier historian called Megasthenes, he wrote:

“Sesostris, the Aegyptian, he adds, and Tearco the Aethiopian advanced as far as Europe; and Nabocodrosor, who enjoyed greater repute among the Chaldaeans than Heracles, led an army even as far as the Pillars. Thus far, he says, also Tearco went; and Sesostris also led his army from Iberia to Thrace and the Pontus.”

According to this legend, Tearco the Ethiopian conquered as far as the Pillars, meaning the Pillars of Hercules. However, how is this associated with Anatolia, and why have we called this Ethiopian ruler a king of Egypt?

Who was Tearco the Ethiopian?

To understand the answer to these questions, we first need to understand who Tearco actually was. It is necessary to take a look at the context in which Strabo places him. In the first reference to him, Strabo grouped him together with figures such as Madys the Scythian, known to modern historians as Madyes, his contemporary king Cobus, and Psammeticus of Egypt. These were figures of the seventh century BC.

In the second reference to Tearco, Strabo groups him together with Nabocodrosor of the Chaldaeans, known to historians as Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, and Sesostris of Egypt, probably the historical Shebitku. These were also figures of that same era. Furthermore, immediately after the quoted passage, Strabo mentions Idanthyrsus, a Scythian king of the sixth century BC.

Therefore, based on the context in which Tearco is mentioned, it is obvious that we should be looking for an Ethiopian king who ruled at some point within that same era. For this reason, the mainstream conclusion among scholars is that Strabo’s Tearco is the historical Taharqa.

Taharqa was a member of the Ethiopian dynasty that ruled Egypt for much of the eighth and seventh centuries BC. Chronologically, he fits in perfectly with the other figures mentioned by Strabo, and his name is a linguistic match as well. We know, historically, that Taharqa became the ruler of Egypt, despite Strabo making no mention of this fact.

Understanding the legend

Now that it’s clear who Strabo was referencing, let us see if we can actually understand Strabo’s claim. It is easy to be confused by the reference to Tearco conquering as far as the Pillars. It might seem like Tearco was said to have conquered as far as Spain. After all, the Strait of Gibraltar is the standard location of the Pillars of Hercules.

For a king of Egypt, this might appear to make sense in the context of an exaggerated tale. It would mean that Tearco warred across the coast of North Africa until finally reaching the Strait of Gibraltar. However, this is illogical in the context of Strabo’s passage. As the quoted passage shows, Strabo states that both Nebuchadnezzar and Tearco reached the Pillars.

Given the reference to Nebuchadnezzar, Strabo may be referring to pillars that, according to Isocrates, were situated near the entrance of the Black Sea, at Troy, rather than the actual Pillars of Hercules at Gibraltar. While Nebuchadnezzar never historically got as far as Troy, he did conquer parts of Anatolia.

Furthermore, Strabo associates the event with Sesostris’ campaigns as far as Thrace and the Pontus (the Black Sea). This reinforces the point that Strabo was referring to pillars by the entrance to the Black Sea rather than the Pillars at the Strait of Gibraltar. Incidentally, the reference to Iberia in association with Sesostris must point to the Caucasian Iberia, as it is often called by modern historians, on the eastern end of the Black Sea region.

Conclusively, Tearco the Ethiopian, the historical Taharqa king of Egypt, was said to have conquered all across the Levant and right through Anatolia.

Is the legend of the Ethiopian king who conquered Anatolia actually true?

If an Ethiopian king of Egypt really did conquer Anatolia, we would definitely know about it. There would have been clear references to such an event in archaeological records. Nevertheless, that does not mean that this legend has no identifiable historical basis.

It is clear that the legend is not simply based on exaggerated accounts of Taharqa’s historical conquests. The reason is that Taharqa was, in reality, not a notable conqueror. Plenty of kings of Egypt engaged in far more impressive conquests than he ever did, yet no legends ever centered around them. Therefore, the true explanation must be something unique in his case.

The Bible provides the answer. In its account of Sennacherib of Assyria waging war against Jerusalem, the Bible mentions Taharqa. Using the spelling “Tirhakah,” it describes how this Ethiopian king went out to fight against Sennacherib. Historically, Taharqa was unable to secure a victory.

Nevertheless, we know that the Egyptians remembered it as a victory. Herodotus, in the fifth century BC, recorded an Egyptian legend about a king of Egypt named Sethos who successfully defeated the Assyrians. Scholars generally understand Sethos to be Shebitku. It appears that Shebitku was the senior king at the time of Sennacherib’s attack, with Taharqa as the junior king. Shebitku was the king of Egypt, while his relative Taharqa was the king of Ethiopia and the one who actually led the army against the Assyrians.

Hence, what appears to have occurred is that the Egyptians remembered the attack as a victory, regardless of the historical outcome. It was then exaggerated into tales of Tearco actually conquering the Assyrians. Since their territory extended far into Anatolia, this naturally led to the legend of Tearco, an Ethiopian king of Egypt, conquering as far away as Anatolia.

Most of us assume that looking after our teeth is a modern habit shaped by supermarket shelves, mint-flavored ads, and childhood dentist scares, but a surviving Ancient Greek toothpaste recipe suggests otherwise.

Sitting quietly in the Austrian National Library in Vienna is one of the most remarkable documents in the history of medicine: a small, faded papyrus from the fourth century AD containing what is widely considered the world’s oldest surviving, precise toothpaste formula.

The existence of this Ancient Greek toothpaste recipe points to something larger at work. By the time it was copied onto papyrus, Greek had long since become the language of science, medicine, and intellectual life across the Mediterranean. This linguistic dominance was a legacy of the conquests of Alexander the Great and, above all, of Alexandria, the city his successors transformed into the ancient world’s foremost hub of knowledge. Even in Roman Egypt, centuries after the Ptolemies had given way to the Caesars, Greek remained the language a physician used when he wanted to be taken seriously.

When was the toothpaste recipe written in Ancient Greek discovered?

The papyrus first came to the attention of modern researchers in 2003, when curators at the Austrian National Library in Vienna identified it while preparing for an international dental congress. It had likely been sitting in the collection for years, its significance unnoticed and largely forgotten. Once translated, however, scholars quickly realized what they were looking at—a toothpaste formula that predates the first commercially marketed toothpaste, Colgate, launched in 1873, by well over fifteen hundred years.

The formula itself is strikingly systematic. The scribe prescribes “a powder for white and perfect teeth” composed of four ingredients: one drachma of rock salt, two drachmas of mint, one drachma of dried iris flower, and twenty grains of pepper. The drachma in this context was a standard unit of Greek medical weight, roughly equivalent to one-eighth of an ounce (about 3–4 grams), part of the same measurement system used throughout the major pharmacological texts of the ancient world. Taken together, the recipe reads less like folklore and more like a physician’s deliberate prescription, carefully calibrated for a patient.

But one might wonder if it actually worked. In 2003, Austrian dentist Dr. Heinz Neuman decided to test it for himself by recreating the formula. His conclusion was cautious but intriguing: the mixture was mildly abrasive and caused slight gum bleeding, yet it also produced a noticeable sensation of cleanliness and freshness. Modern dental science helps explain why. Dried iris flower, or orris root, is now known to contain antibacterial compounds that target the pathogens responsible for gum disease. What might once have looked like ancient guesswork increasingly appears to be empirical knowledge derived through observation and practice. In this sense, modern pharmaceutical science is only now arriving at conclusions the Greeks and Egyptians had already explored more than a thousand years earlier.

None of this should entirely surprise us when we consider the world from which this recipe emerged. Ancient Greece had produced Pedanius Dioscorides, whose monumental work on medicinal plants shaped medical practice for more than a millennium. It had also produced physicians, botanists, and scholars who approached the human body with a level of rigor and curiosity that few ancient traditions matched. The anonymous scribe who recorded this formula was working squarely within that intellectual lineage, effectively encoding practical medical knowledge in Greek because it was the language in which serious medicine was conducted at the time.

The paste itself would have been applied without anything resembling a modern toothbrush. A folded linen cloth or a frayed chew stick—a fibrous twig worn soft at the tip through repeated use—would have served the purpose well enough. The tools were simple, but the intention was essentially the same as ours.

There is a quiet continuity in that detail. The next time you reach for mint toothpaste in the morning, you are participating in a ritual that a Greek-speaking scribe in Roman Egypt thought important enough to preserve on papyrus seventeen centuries ago. The ingredients have been refined, the packaging has changed beyond recognition, and no one is applying the mixture with linen anymore. Still, the impulse behind it—the very human desire for clean, white teeth—remains as old as the ancient world itself, and in many ways, the Ancient Greek world had already put the first working version of the answer into writing.

The Eridanos River of Greek mythology is a mysterious river whose location has long been debated. Numerous real-world rivers around Europe have been suggested, but some scholars believe it is completely mythical and corresponds to no real-world location. Nevertheless, some may wonder where this river might actually be situated.

The Eridanos River of Greek mythology

To try to understand which real-world river it might correspond to, we first need to look at what ancient sources say about it. The Eridanos River is most famous for its connection with Phaethon and amber. In the relevant legend, it’s the river into which Phaethon crashes after he steals the chariot of the sun god.

Phaethon’s sisters, the Heliades, grieved the loss of their brother, and the gods transformed them into poplar trees. These trees, in turn, supposedly produced amber for which the river was well known. Numerous scholars have attempted to use this information to identify this body of water.

Furthermore, we know that the Eridanos River cannot have been an obscure, minor river. Hesiod mentions it in his list of the offspring of Oceanus. Eridanos appears first in the list, and Hesiod even calls it “deep-swirling,” which is an expression normally reserved for the great Oceanus itself.

Where was the Eridanos River?

With these facts in mind, what have scholars argued about the location of this river? Well, one popular candidate is the Vistula River, since this flows through Poland and leads to the Baltic Sea. This was a major source of amber in the ancient world, and this fits the criterion of the Eridanos River being a source of amber.

Furthermore, Herodotus associates the Eridanos River with a certain “northern sea.” Since the Baltic Sea is to the north of Greece, it could fit Herodotus’ description. However, another popular candidate is the Po River, which flows through northern Italy and enters the Adriatic Sea. In fact, several ancient sources explicitly identify the Eridanos with this real river. At first, that might seem to settle the matter. However, it’s more complicated than that.

A closer look at Herodotus’ description

Herodotus, in the fifth century BC, was not the first person to mention the Eridanos River. As we saw earlier, that was Hesiod. However, he does seem to provide the earliest useful description of it. His description reads:

“As to the extremities of Europe towards the West, I am not able to speak with certainty: for neither do I accept the tale that there is a river called in Barbarian tongue Eridanos, flowing into the sea which lies towards the North Wind, whence it is said that amber comes; nor do I know of the real existence of the Cassiterides from which tin comes to us… However that may be, tin and amber certainly come to us from the extremity of Europe.”

As we can see from this description, the Eridanos River was explicitly said to flow into the sea which lies towards the North Wind, and Herodotus refers to this region as the “extremity of Europe”. This definitively rules out the Po River, which flows into the Adriatic Sea near Greece itself.

Does this mean that the Vistula River is the most likely candidate? At first, that might seem to match Herodotus’ reference to the “extremity of Europe” and the fact that the river flowed into the sea towards the North Wind. However, that does not work either. Herodotus prefaces this passage by referring to the “extremities of Europe towards the West”.

Since the Vistula and the Baltic Sea are essentially directly north of Greece, this does not match this aspect of Herodotus’ description.

Jason and the Argonauts

The Argonautica, by Apollonius Rhodius of the third century BC, reveals the answer to this conundrum. Although it contains some fictional geography, it is clear about where the Eridanos River was supposedly situated, and this aligns perfectly with Herodotus’ description.

According to Apollonius, Jason and the Argonauts sail from the Black Sea through the Danube and then reached the Adriatic Sea via a fictional channel between the two. They then sail up into the Eridanos River, actually signifying the Po River in this context. Eventually, they make it to the Rhodanus River, or the Rhone as it is known today, a body of water which flows through France relatively close to the Po River source and then spills into the the Mediterranean Sea on the country’s southern coast.

This is significant because it demonstrates that the Greeks believed the Po and the Rhone were connected. In fact, other ancient texts attest to this same belief. Consequently, this means Apollonius is presenting the Rhone as part of the Eridanus River.

How the Argonautica reveals the true location of the Eridanos River

At this point in the Argonautica, the true nature of the Eridanos River is made clear. Apollonius writes:

“Thence they entered the deep stream of Rhodanus which flows into Eridanus; and where they meet there is a roar of mingling waters. Now that river, rising from the ends of the earth, where are the portals and mansions of Night, on one side bursts forth upon the beach of Ocean, at another pours into the Ionian Sea, and on the third through seven mouths sends its stream to the Sardinian sea and its limitless bay.”

Apollonius refers to the Eridanos River as having three mouths. One arm of the river flows into the Ionian Sea, which is an ancient reference to the Adriatic Sea. That is the arm of the river that Jason and the Argonauts have just been described as sailing up. Another one of the arms of the river is said to flow into the Sardinian Sea. That would be the Rhone, in accordance with Apollonius who explicitly presents the Rhodanus (the Rhone) as part of the Eridanos.

The third arm is the final piece of the puzzle. According to Apollonius, it flows into the “beach of Ocean.” Incidentally, this matches Herodotus’s description of the Eridanos flowing into the sea on the other side of Europe, which doesn’t match the Rhone nor the Po. The notable point is that this shows that the Ancient Greeks believed the Po, the Rhone, and a third river were all part of one enormous waterway in Europe, which they referred to as the Eridanos.

What was the third arm of the Eridanos River?

A few lines later, Apollonius refers to the mouth of the river in the southern part of France as the middle of the three mouths of the Eridanos. With the Po River having the mouth closest to Greece, and the Rhone having the intermediate one, the third mouth must have been even further west. This, again, is in harmony with Herodotus’ description, which associated the Eridanos with the western extremity of Europe.

Based on this, the only plausible candidate for the third arm of the Eridanos River is the Loire. This is a river whose mouth is further west than the mouth of the Rhone. It flows out into the Atlantic Ocean on the western side of France and is located towards the north—another detail of Herodotus to keep in mind. Furthermore, it flows quite close to the Rhone near its source, making sense of the belief that they were connected.

In summary, it appears that the Greeks imagined the Loire, the Rhone, and the Po Rivers to all be connected. The Greeks received their amber via the Po River, since it was the final part of the Amber Road which originated in the Baltic Sea. However, they believed that the Po was connected to the Loire.

This perfectly matches up with Herodotus’ description of the Eridanos River in its entirety. As we saw, he claimed it flowed into the sea on the other side of Europe and associated it particularly with the north and the west, which points to the Loire.

Greece offers vegetarians a large variety of highly nutritional, delicious dishes to choose from. Using fresh ingredients, prepared with age-old recipes, Greek cuisine is full of delightful surprises for which your taste buds will be thankful.

Greek cuisine is based on fresh seasonal vegetables and fruit, grains, legumes, and greens—the perfect combination for vegetarians and vegans.

Across Greece, you will find a large variety of wholesome and flavorful but meat-free dishes for your palate to savor. It goes to show that Greek food is not just comprised of souvlaki, moussaka, or roasted lamb on a spit.

Vegetarianism as a practice, the idea of nonviolence to animals, has its roots in Ancient Greece as well as Ancient Indian civilizations. Ancient Greek historian Plutarch could be considered the first outspoken vegetarian in the West, as he believed that it was “immoral” to eat animal flesh.

In his book Morals, Plutarch devoted an entire chapter on meat-eating. Therein, he wrote that since man has access to so many fresh fruits, vegetables, and nuts, the fact that he is forcing himself to eat bloody animal flesh while “trying to cover the taste of blood with thousands of spices” is inconceivable.

Appetizers, salads, and dips for vegetarians

Choriatiki is quite a popular Greek salad made with freshly cut thick wedges of tomatoes, cucumber and onion slices, feta cheese, flavorful olives, virgin olive oil, and crushed, dried oregano leaves. It’s the perfect starter that will whet your appetite for the main course.

Dakos salad is a Cretan salad, which contains round, water-dampened barley rusk topped with chopped fresh tomatoes, crumbled feta or myzithra cheese, olive slices, capers, and a sprinkle of dried oregano A useful tip is to allow the juices to soak the rusk for a few minutes.

It is highly recommended that one try the following tempting mezedes (appetizers or side dishes): fried or grilled vegetables or cheese, including such delicacies as fried tomato balls, green vegetable patties, and saganaki cheese (fried feta or hard yellow cheese). Sliced zucchini can be boiled or fried, while zucchini is also used to make delicious patties (mixed with herbs and/or cheese). The sweet-tasting fried slices of eggplant and the rice and herb-stuffed zucchini blossoms are two must-try dishes, mostly served in the summer and autumn.

Accompany your vegetarian appetizers with some great-tasting dips:

• Taramosalata: A mousse salad made from fish roe blended with lemon, bread, and olive oil
• Melitzanosalata: A puree of grilled or smoked aubergines with olive oil, garlic and vinegar
• Tzatziki: The most famous Greek appetizer around, made with creamy Greek yoghurt, grated cucumber and garlic, and finely chopped dill, blended with oil, vinegar and salt.
• Skordalia: A vegan dip made with mashed potatoes or bread, garlic, olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. It usually accompanies fried cod and boiled beets (patzaria in Greek).

Main courses in Greece for vegetarians

Legumes & pulses

Pulses have been an essential part of the Greek diet since antiquity. Yellow split peas, gigantes (large dried white runner beans), broad beans, lentils, black-eyed peas, and chickpeas all hold an important place in the Greek cuisine and are an essential part of the Mediterranean Diet. Pulses are cooked in hot nourishing soups in the winter. Tey are also great in salads mixed with herbs and vegetables in the summer.

Northern Greece yields top quality pulses, as the soil is rich in potassium, an element that makes them more flavorful and contributes to shorter boiling times. Among these are beans from the Lake Prespes area, lentils from Voio, Kozani, yellow split peas from Feneos, Korinthia, and Santorini, lentils from Eglouvi, Lefkada, and chickpeas from Larisa or Grevena. These are all well-known, top quality produce on account of each area’s favorable microclimate.

Ladera (meaning cooked with olive oil)

Olive oil has always been a product precious to Greeks, one that has been considered sacred since ancient times. Ladera dishes are colorful and flavorful. Vegetables are cooked either fresh or dried in the pot at low to medium temperatures so as to best retain their shape and flavor.

Below are some tasty Greek vegetarian dishes for you to try:

• peas and okra (stewed with tomatoes)
• artichokes (cooked with potatoes, carrots, lots of finely chopped dill, and lemon juice—the “a la polita” dish)
• zucchini, potatoes, carrots, bell peppers, eggplant, and onions baked with tomato sauce and spices (a dish called “briam”)
• eggplant cooked with tomatoes, onions, garlic, parsley, dill, and spices (a dish called “imam”)
• oven-baked stuffed tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, and eggplant filled with a mixture made of rice, the flesh of the above vegetables, herbs, and spices (a heavenly dish called “gemista”).

Pies, the vegetarian way in Greece

Pies hold a special place in the country’s cuisine, as they are among the oldest, simplest, and most delicious dishes one can find in Greece. There are so many variations of ”pites,” as they are known in Greek, that it may be nearly impossible to determine precisely how many different kinds of Greek pies there are out there.

Pies are very popular among Greeks, and they come in all sorts of variations: savory, sweet, dressed with phyllo sheet or flaky pastry (called “sfoliata”), round, triangular or coil-shaped with either few ingredients or more elaborate ones. Age-old household management rules point towards the optimum use of seasonal produce, resulting in a large variety of tasty creations. Pies can be served as a main or side dish or as a healthy and tasty snack during the day.

Pie filling variations depend only on the maker’s imagination and the local bounty of nature. Practically everything can be included in a pie: cheese, greens, pasta, rice, trachanas, and vegetables, among other things. Greek ingenuity has led to a large number of pie creations, including cheese pie, spinach pie, leek pie, nettle pie, mushroom pie, onion pie, cabbage pie, potato pie, pasta pie, pumpkin pie, and many more.

Greek Pasta

You can find Greek pasta in many a shape and size. Some types contain milk and eggs. They can be a simple yet very tasty mixture of durum wheat or semolina, water, and salt.

The pasta-making tradition is kept alive mostly by women living in the countryside who usually prepare the pasta and allow it to dry out in the sun during the summer. They also participate in regional cooperatives, producing and selling a large variety of artisan pasta.

Such regional co-ops exist all over Greece on the mainland and islands alike. In these co-ops, you will find popular Greek pasta such as:

• chylopites (noodles that come in two basic shapes, namely small squares or thin, fettuccine-like strips)
• kritharaki (orzo)
• trachanas (a granular pasta made with semolina flour, wheat flour, or cracked wheat, kneaded with milk, yoghurt, buttermilk)
• lazania (broad strips of egg pasta)
• fides (angel hair)
• astraki (a small star-shaped pasta)