Category: Ancient Rome
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Pontius Pilate
A stone with a circa 30 CE Latin dedicatory inscription of Pontius Pilate was discovered in Israel’s Caesarea port in the early 1960s. (Collection of Israel Antiquities Authority/ © The Israel Museum, Jerusalem) The Pilate Stone is an engraved stone bearing the name of Pontius Pilate, the Perfectus of Judaea in 26-36 AD. The stone was found…
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Ancient mosaic returns to Pompeii: Cultural treasure repatriated after Nazi theft
As reported by Giada Zampano & Andrea Rosa in The Independent online on Tuesday 15 July 2025 An erotic-themed mosaic from the Roman era was returned to Pompeii on Tuesday after being stolen by a Nazi during the Second World War. The mosaic panel, on travertine slabs, depicting an erotic theme from the Roman era, was returned to the archaeological park of…
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Momento Mori
Remember that you must die – The ”Memento Mori” Mosaic dated to the mid-first century AD, before the Mt. Vesuvius eruption (photograph by Erich Lessing in Art Resource) In Roman culture, there was a belief in life after death and that the soul lived on after the person had died. The Romans believed that after…
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A poem by Sappho
A Fayum mummy portrait, a painted portrait on wooden board attached to the body of an usually upper class person before burial in Roman Egypt. Immortal Aphrodite, on your intricately brocaded throne, child of Zeus, weaver of wiles, this I pray: Dear Lady, don’t crush my heart with pains and sorrows. But come here, if ever before, when you heard…
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UK hoard of Roman silver coins discovered
Reported by Katy Prickett BBC News, Norfolk A hoard of 16 silver Roman coins spanning two centuries has been discovered in a field by a metal detectorist. The denarii date from the late Roman Republic to the reign of Marcus Aurelius and his wife Faustina, and were found at Barton Bendish, Norfolk. Coin specialist Adrian…
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Roman Bigfoot!
by the multi-award winning journalist Tony Henderson Evidence has emerged of Northumberland’s very own Bigfoot during a dig at a Roman fort near Hadrian’s Wall. Excavations by teams of volunteers are investigating defensive ditches at the little-explored Magna fort, which is also the site of the Vindolanda Trust’s Roman Army Museum. And the latest find has…
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The Siege of Dura-Europos
Courtesy Yale University Art Gallery, Dura-Europos Excavation Archive by Selme Angulo, and fact checked by Darci Heikkinen on 20th July 2023 In 256 AD, a war was being fought between the Romans and the Sasanians, and some brutal fighting took place during the awful Siege of Dura-Europos in what is now Syria. Europos, an old Macedonian-Greek military…
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Antony and Cleopatra
O Cleopatra, I am not distressed to have lost you, for I shall straightaway join you; but I am grieved that a commander as great as I should be found to be inferior to a woman in courage – as recorded by Plutarch, when Antony was told of Cleopatra’s (supposed) death The Roman politician and…
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Sulla’s Proscriptions: Terror and Power in Ancient Rome
Lucius Cornelius Sulla 138 BC-78 BC ‘…the gleam of his gray eyes, which was terribly sharp and powerful, was rendered even more fearful by the complexion of his face. This was covered with coarse blotches of red, interspersed with white. For this reason, they say, his surname was given him because of his complexion, and it…
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2,000 year old book about Roman Emperors enters bestseller charts
by Ella Creamer published on Monday 24 February 2025 in The Guardian The Lives of the Caesars, translated from the Latin by Tom Holland, details everything from ancient policy failures to sex scandals, and is a gossipy account of the lives of Roman emperors that has entered the bestseller charts – 2,000 years after it…
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