Category: Ancient Rome
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Ovid: The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria) Book I Part XVI: Promise and Deceive
lustration by Frederico Righi Publius Ovidius Naso 43 BC – c. 17 AD Don’t be shy of promising: promises entice girls: add any gods you like as witness to what you swear. Jupiter on high laughs at lovers’ perjuries, and orders Aeolus’s winds to carry them into the void. Jupiter used to swear by the…
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Sarn Helen: The Remarkable Roman Road in Wales
It is one of the most well-preserved Roman roads in the UK, where it runs the entire length of a country from coast to coast, much of it still visible and even walkable. By Steffan Rhys : June 8th 2025 One of Britain’s best-kept secrets lies beneath our feet, a living piece of history that even…
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Ribchester Helmet: A rare ‘face mask’ helmet worn by a Roman cavalry officer 1,900 years ago
By Kristina Killgrove published 2nd February 2026 in Live Science The helmet has been a powerful symbol of Roman Britain since it was discovered over 200 years ago. In 1796, while scampering through fields behind his house in Ribchester, England, a young boy stumbled upon a hoard of over 30 metal artifacts in a hollow. The most unique…
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Ovid: The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria) Book I Part XIV: Look Presentable
llustration by Frederico Righi Publius Ovidius Naso 43 BC – c. 17 AD Don’t delight in curling your hair with tongs, don’t smooth your legs with sharp pumice stone. Leave that to those who celebrate Cybele the Mother, howling wildly in the Phrygian manner. Male beauty’s better for neglect: Theseus carried off Ariadne, without a…
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Parasitical infection of soldiers at Hadrian’s Wall
Whipworm egg from the analysis of sediment from the sewer drain leading from the latrine block at the 3rd century CE bath complex at Vindolanda. Credit: Marissa Ledger by The University of Cambridge – edited by Sadie Harley, reviewed by Robert Egan – December 2025 I came across this article in Phys.org and thought it was very interesting…
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Ovid: The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria) Book I Part XIII: Be Where She Is
llustration by Frederico Righi Publius Ovidius Naso 43 BC – c. 17 AD Meanwhile, if she’s being carried, reclining on her bed, secretly approach your lady’s litter, and to avoid offering your words to odious ears, hide what you can with skill and ambiguous gestures. If she’s wandering at leisure in the spacious Colonnade, you…
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Hadrian’s Wall: A Marvel of Roman Engineering
”And so, having reformed the army quite in the manner of a monarch, he set out for Britannia, and there he corrected many abuses and was the first to construct a wall, eighty miles in length, which was to separate the barbarians from the Romans” – Historia Augusta The wall commonly known as ‘Hadrians’ is…
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Ovid: The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria) Book I Part XI: Don’t Forget Her Birthday!
llustration by Frederico Righi Publius Ovidius Naso 43 BC – c. 17 AD It’s a mistake to think that only farmers working the fields, and sailors, need to keep an eye on the season: Seed can’t always be trusted to the furrow, or a hollow ship to the wine-dark sea, It’s not always safe to…
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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…
