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“... The ninth of the Crowns of the Martyrs by Prudentius, the great Christian poet of the fifth century, tells of his visit to the tomb in Rome of Cassian of Imola. Above the tomb hung a grisly portrait of a man surrounded by schoolchildren and perforated with scars. The tomb attendant explained that Cassian was an exacting schoolmaster whose demands on his students were not appreciated, for ‘a teacher always leaves a bitter taste in a young man and no discipline is sweet to the young ...”

“... These days​ , thanks to Google Books, it is possible to find out when people started paying attention to ‘Greek religion’. The phrase first appeared in print in English in 1654; it became more common in the middle of the 18th century, and reached a peak of popularity in the 19th. This is of course a crude index (and the picture is subtly different in other European languages), but it’s a reminder that, whatever its deeper roots, religion as a concept is largely an Enlightenment invention ...”

“... Apollonius of Tyana was a miracle-working holy man, philosopher and, we’re told, confidant of emperors, whose ministry covered the later part of the first century AD. Later generations would see him as the ‘pagan Jesus’, an icon of traditional polytheism whose cult rivalled that of the upstart Christ. According to his biographer, Philostratus, among the many topics this learned and charismatic figure expounded was the value of fables ...”

“... I remember​ being mesmerised by a shackle displayed in Philadelphia’s Lest We Forget Black Holocaust Museum of Slavery. It was a terrible object, the bequest of a past that is still too close. There was nothing metaphorical in the cold, heavy iron. To be ‘shackled’ by that instrument of brutality was not to be constrained or inhibited. Iron shackles survive from classical antiquity too, and they are no less menacing ...”

“... Lucian of Samosata, nicknamed ‘blasphemer’ or ‘slanderer’ – better, in fact, to call him ‘atheist’, because in his dialogues he went so far as to ridicule religious beliefs … The story goes that he was killed by dogs, because of his rabid attacks on the truth, for in his Life of Peregrinus he inveighed against Christianity, and (accursed man!) blasphemed against Christ himself ...”

“... nature and existence of the gods were widespread too, and often voiced with clarity and vigour. Tim Whitmarsh traces the history of those doubting voices in a narrative that starts with early Greek myth and ends with the advent of Christianity. Traditionally, scholars have explained the free-thinking spirit of the Greeks in terms of political ...”