Category: Roman Empire
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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…
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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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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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Andromeda
Unknown Artist, c.1800, National Trust for Scotland, Brodick Castle, Garden & Country Park Andromeda was the daughter of Cepheus and Cassiopeia, Cepheus being the King of the Ethiopians. When Cassiopeia boasted of her beauty being greater than that of the Nereids (the 50 daughters of the ‘Old Man of the Sea’ Nereus and the Oceanid…
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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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Ovid: The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria) Book I Part VI: Triumphs are good too!
llustration by Frederico Righi Publius Ovidius Naso 43 BC – c. 17 AD Behold, now Caesar’s planning to add to our rule what’s left of earth: now the far East will be ours. Parthia , we’ll have vengeance: Crassus’s bust will cheer, and those standards wickedly laid low by barbarians. The avenger’s here, the leader, proclaimed,…
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