Category: Everything Latin
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Ancient Roman tombstone found in New Orleans backyard
This story was published in Live Science on October 9th, updated on October 17th 2025, and was written by Tom Metcalfe A New Orleans couple doing yard work behind their house unexpectedly found a Roman headstone of a solider who died 1,900 years ago. The stone has been revealed to be the inscribed gravestone of a…
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Ovid: The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria) Book I Part X – First Secure the Maid
llustration by Frederico Righi Publius Ovidius Naso 43 BC – c. 17 AD First Secure the Maid But to get to know your desired-one’s maid is your first care: she’ll smooth your way. See if she’s close to her mistress’s thoughts, and has plenty of true knowledge of her secret jests. Corrupt her with promises,…
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Cloaca Maxima: The Greatest Drain
Built in Rome two thousand years ago, this underground sewer, a vaulted tunnel called Cloaca Maxima (meaning “the greatest drain”) was constructed from massive blocks of volcanic rock and limestone, and, along with concrete, aqueducts, ampitheatres and an amazing network of almost straight roads linking distant provinces to the capital, it is another testament to…
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Ovid: The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria) Book I Part IX: How To Win Her
llustration by Frederico Righi Publius Ovidius Naso 43 BC – c. 17 AD So far, riding her unequal wheels, the Muse has taught you where you might choose your love, where to set your nets. Now I’ll undertake to tell you what pleases her, by what arts she’s caught, itself a work of highest art.…
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Rare Roman gold coin discovered in Wiltshire UK
An extremely rare 1,700 year-old Roman gold coin discovered by a metal detecting enthusiast in South Wiltshire fetched £30,000 at an auction in London. Dix Noonan Webb offered the coin for sale in December 2013, it being one of only four known examples of a Gold One and Half Solidus from the reign of Emperor…
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Ovid: The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria) Book I Part VIII: And Finally There’s the Beach
llustration by Frederico Righi Publius Ovidius Naso 43 BC – c. 17 AD Why enumerate every female meeting place fit for the hunter? The grains of sand give way before the number. Why speak of Baiae, its shore splendid with sails, where the waters steam with sulphurous heat? Here one returning, his heart wounded, said:…
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A Happy Roman New Year
The Romans celebrated the New Year as a time of new beginnings and fresh starts, and New Year celebrations in ancient Rome were full of symbolism and held huge significance. Janus, the god who the month of January is named after, was often depicted with one face looking backward and another face looking forward, representing…
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Ovid: The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria) Book I Part VII: There’s always the Dinner-Table
llustration by Frederico Righi Publius Ovidius Naso 43 BC – c. 17 AD The table laid for a feast also gives you an opening: There’s something more than wine you can look for there. Often rosy Love has clasped Bacchus’s horns, drawing him to his gentle arms, as he lay there. And when wine has…
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Myth – A world of the imagination
“Zeus, first cause, prime mover; for what thing without Zeus is done among mortals?”– Aeschylus, Agamemnon The Greek gods were not local in their interests or powers: they held sway over the whole world. Ancient Greeks had access to a huge reserve of fabulous tales about these gods’ about a very different universe, one full of not…
