Tag: Roman Empire
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Hercules and Dejanira.
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…
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Roman Road built by Agricola discovered in Scotland
The following is an article printed in The Independent newpaper in November 2023 by Laura Paterson An ancient Roman Road said to be used by key historical figures including William the Conqueror, Oliver Cromwell and every King and Queen of Scotland, has been found in a garden near Stirling. The road dates back almost 2,000…
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Volcanic Ash Concrete: The Marvel of Roman Engineering
Herod the Great’s Roman-built harbour at Caesarea Maritima, present-day Israel We’ve known about it for centuries, but now it seeems we are willing to study the properties and chemical mixture of Roman concrete in a little more depth, because it is particularly well suited to marine structures, and could help us out of what is now a global…
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Rome
urbs Roma manet semperque manebit (the city of Rome remains, and will always remain) Photograph: Temple of Faustina Palatine Hill You search in Rome for Rome? Oh traveller! In Rome itself there is no room for Rome, a corpse is all its churches put on show, the Aventine is its own mound and tomb. There,…
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This Bloody Road
The Appian Way is named so after its founder, Appius Claudius Caecus. In 312 BC, Caecus, a Roman censor and engineer, started the road to improve military supply issues to and from Rome. Statius, a 1st century AD Greek-Roman poet, said the road was often referred to as the “Queen of the Long Roads”( Appia…
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Roman Wall Blues
W.H. Auden Over the heather the wet wind blows,I’ve lice in my tunic and a cold in my nose. The rain comes pattering out of the sky,I’m a Wall soldier, I don’t know why. The mist creeps over the hard grey stone,My girl’s in Tungria; I sleep alone. Aulus goes hanging around her place,I don’t…
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Beware the Ides of March
If you must break the law, do it to seize power: in all other cases observe it – Gaius Iulius Caesar The Ides of March (15th) 44 BC, was the day Julius Caesar was assassinated in Rome by a group of disgruntled Senators, and is one of the most consequential dates in history, an event that…
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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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Castor and Pollux: The Legendary Twin Horsemen of Rome
Black-figure amphora depicting the Dioscuri on horseback. Dating to circa 500 BC, held in the British Museum In the southern sky during wintertime, near the constellations of Orion and Taurus there are two bright stars. Known in Greek mythology as the Dioscuri, (Dioscuri from the Greek Dioskouroi, meaning “Sons of Zeus”), they were twin supernatural beings who helped save shipwrecked sailors, usually by appearing…
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