Category: Everything Latin
-

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…
-

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…
-

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…
-

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…
-

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…
-

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…
-

Pliny the Elder: Eyewitness to the fury of Vesuvius
A Plinian eruption is the name given to any volcanic eruption of the ferocity of the one which destroyed the ancient Roman cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii in 79AD, and which subsequently cost Pliny his life. He, his sister and nephew (Pliny the Younger) were living in a villa in Misenum, across the Bay of Naples from Mount Vesuvius at…
-

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…
-

Peleus and Thetis
Praise for Tales from Ovid: ‘A breathtaking book…To compare his versions with the Latin is to be awestruck again and again by the range and ingenuity of his poetic intelligence…He rescues the old gods and goddesses from the classical dictionaries and gives them back their terror. There should be a copy of his book in…
-

The Roman’s use of lead lowered European IQ levels for centuries
—
by
Written by Ian Sample – and published in the Guardian newspaper UK Monday 6th January 2025 Widespread use of lead caused estimated 2- to 3-point drop in IQ for nearly 180 years of Pax Romana. Apart from sanitation, medicines, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what did the…