Tag: Roman Empire
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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…
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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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The Roman’s use of lead lowered European IQ levels for centuries
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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…
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Ancient Iranian Qanats
By Joobin Bekhrad posted 20th June 2018 on BBC Travel blog This post isn’t really about the Roman Empire, although their seemingly never-ending conflict with the Parthian Empire, and long association with the ancient cities of Philadelphia (modern-day Amman in Jordan), Palmyra and Damascus (both in modern-day Syria), amongst others, would have definately brought them…
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Raunchy, Rowdy, and Rotten: Provocative Poetry in Ancient Rome
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Please be warned, the content of this post is (very) adult in nature. ”In around A.D. 64, Marcus Valerius Martialis (A.D. 31-41 to 103), better known as Martial, arrived in Rome aged 26 from his Spanish hometown of Bilbilis, famous then for its iron mines and for the manufacture of steel, and a center of Roman…
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Roman fort discovered – complete with wooden spikes
By Leman Altuntaş 23rd February 2023 Archaeologists have discovered wooden defenses surrounding an ancient Roman military base for the first time in Bad Ems, western Germany. The fence, which is topped with sharpened wooden stakes similar to barbed wire, is the type of fortification mentioned in ancient writings, including by Caesar, but no surviving examples had…
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Roman Basilica discovered beneath London
Reported by Jill Lawless – published in The Independent newspaper on the 13th February 2025 Developers have agreed to incorporate the remains into its plans and put them on display Beneath the foundations of a planned 32-story skyscraper in London, archaeologists have unearthed a remarkable vestige of the city’s Roman past: the remains of a…
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A Walk With The Dead
In ancient Rome, especially during the Republic, it was of great importance to show the fame and greatness of one’s ancestors, which served to strengthen the family’s standing in society, and serve as a prompt to its younger members that they must strive for a similar renown. One way of expressing the distinguished ancestral line…
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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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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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