The new book by Theodoros Papakostas (aka Archaeostoryteller) is a journey that, like a roller coaster, jumps from one end of antiquity to the other. The seventy-nine stories spread across the five chapters of the book present an exciting mix of emotions and images.

Each chapter is a stage towards acceptance, because what we experience to accept our individual past may be the key to our collective past as well. Through the narratives of the Archaeostoryteller about famous and completely unknown individuals, we realize that, no matter how unknown we may be to each other, we are connected by the human experience. And this can happen even in a taxi.

Five individuals, different from one another, discuss and travel together on a route from one end of the city to the other, simultaneously traversing all the lengths and breadths of the ancient world. Stories of mythology, slavery and superstition, sculpture, painting, theater, and entertainment, tales about poetry, philosophy, and, most importantly, love.

Did Pericles have a favorite contractor? Was there a "Spartacus" just before Spartacus? Was there a "Homer" long before Homer? When did the Minoan women start appearing bare-breasted in Knossos? How did Hercules experience body shaming? Did ancient Athens have haunted houses? Did it have a Ghostbuster? (Spoiler alert: it did.)

An illicit love in Sparta, a sommelier donkey in Halkidiki, and a flaming arrow that shot into the Aegean, tore through the darkness, and saved lives. The ancient world unfolds like a kaleidoscope, revealing to us what we always seek when digging in the soil: our very own selves.