Category: History
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Sappho: Two new Poems discovered
Woman with Stylus, an ancient Roman fresco unearthed in Pompeii In the late 19th Century a series of excavations at an ancient rubbish dump in the city of Oxyrhynchus, around 100 miles south of Cairo, were undertaken that found some valuable papyrus scrolls that included a sizeable amount of long-lost poetry by the Greek poet…
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The Lewd, the Nude and the Rude: The Graffiti of Ancient Italy
Romans liked to scrawl their jokes, political opinions, wants and desires, complaints, insults, and their sometimes inane ramblings on the walls of communal toilets and private buildings. Both politicians and prostitutes would advertise there. Much like nowadays then, really. Their graffiti is usually bawdy, lewd, profane, and quite often vulgar, but at the same time…
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The Short Reign of Pertinax: Corruption and Assassination
Image Credit: Egisto Sani-Flickr Publius Helvius Pertinax was born of a fairly low status on the 1st August 126 AD. The son of a freed slave, he joined the legions, and after commanding in Syria, Britain, and earning distinction on the Danube and the Rhine during the invasion by German tribes in 169 AD, he found…
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Herculaneum’s Villa of the Papyri
The Villa of the Papyri is the name given to a private house that was uncovered in the ancient Roman town of Herculaneum. This town, along with nearby city of Pompeii, is perhaps best remembered for its destruction during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Because of this natural disaster, most, if not…
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AI reads ancient scroll burned by Vesuvius
US Military photograph of the 1944 eruption This article was written by Ian Sample the Science Editor, published in the Guardian newspaper on Thursday 12 Oct 2023 The University of Kentucky challenged computer scientists to reveal contents of carbonised papyrus, a ‘potential treasure trove for historians’. When the blast from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius…
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Romulus and Remus: Myth and Reality of the Lupercalia Festival
In the Capitoline Museum in Rome, there is a room known as the Chamber of the She – Wolf, a small but elaborately designed room of marble walls and mosaic floors. In the centre is a bronze statue of a wolf suckling two human infants, an image that the Romans, ancient and modern revere as…
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