The Day Julius Caesar Was Assassinated, Half the City Was Drunk Because It...
While Brutus and his allies were stabbing Julius Caesar to death, a good chunk of the Roman working class was having a picnic. They drank wine, pitched makeshift tents out of branches and cloth, and...
View ArticleNot All Roads Led to Rome: Scientists Discover Byzantium Was the Empire’s...
All roads lead to Rome. It’s one of the oldest sayings in the Western world, and according to a new study in Nature Communications, it isn’t quite true. Led by Adam Pažout, a researcher at the...
View ArticleAll Lions Belonged to the Emperor — And Rome Had the Paperwork to Prove It
Picture the Colosseum, and the image that comes to mind is almost always the same: a lion bursting into the arena, the crowd roaring, a doomed man backing away. Film and popular history have fixated on...
View ArticleCantabrian Labarum, the military standard that the Romans knew as “cantabrum”
As indicated in its statute of autonomy, the flag of Cantabria (in north Spain) is “formed by two horizontal stripes of equal width, white on top and red on the bottom”, with the coat of arms in the...
View ArticleTabula Peutingeriana, the only surviving road map of the Roman Empire
On November 26, 2007, the Austrian National Library did something it hardly ever does: it took the Tabula Peutingeriana out of its climate-controlled display case and allowed the public to see it for a...
View ArticleSamnites, the fierce warriors who humiliated the Roman legions at the Caudine...
One of the greatest affronts suffered by the Roman legions took place in 321 BC, after the Battle of the Caudine Forks. Not only because of the forced surrender, without even fighting, but also due to...
View ArticleRoman Emperors Did Plan for the Future of Their Dynasties, According to a Study
Were Roman emperors simply improvisers who waited to see what would happen after their death? Or did they carefully plan for the future of their dynasties, thinking not only about their immediate...
View ArticleDaorson, the Illyrian capital of the mysterious Daorsi that Rome did not...
On a hill in Herzegovina, less than an hour from Mostar, a limestone wall 65 meters long, 4.2 meters wide, and up to 7.5 meters high still stands, having survived for more than two thousand years...
View ArticleRoman Lead Sling Bullets Reveal Two Distinct Routes in the Conquest of the Alps
In the summer of 15 BC, Emperor Augustus’ two stepsons, Tiberius and Drusus, brought the Central Alps and the Swiss Plateau under Roman control. That campaign concluded decades of efforts to link the...
View ArticleThe women who managed Roman villas were much more than simple housekeepers: a...
For decades, historians have described the vilica —the administrator of a Roman villa— as a figure in charge of domestic chores: cooking, cleaning, and caring for the household. However, a thorough...
View ArticleThe Law Against Long Hair in Rome in the Year 416: Why Did the Roman Empire...
In the year 416, Emperors Honorius and Theodosius II enacted a law that prohibited wearing long hair in the city of Rome and its surroundings. This regulation, which also forbade the use of fur...
View ArticleRoman Emperors Were Murdered Nearly Twice as Often as Chinese Emperors: Study...
The fate of emperors in antiquity was far from similar. While ruling in Rome often meant a premature and violent death, Chinese monarchs enjoyed considerably greater survival. This is confirmed by a...
View ArticleCarus, the Roman Emperor Struck by Lightning, and Whose Death Was Seized Upon...
Diocletian has gone down in History as one of the most important Roman emperors for the political, economic, military, and administrative reorganization he implemented, which allowed the Crisis of the...
View ArticleAntinoöpolis, the city that the Roman emperor Hadrian founded in the middle...
No need to be an expert in the New Testament to know that in the Gospel of Saint Matthew it is told how the Holy Family (that is, Joseph, Mary, and their newborn son, Jesus) had to flee to Egypt to...
View ArticleWhy the Romans Wore Short Hair and Women Wore Blonde Wigs
Hair has never been just hair. In classical Greece and Rome, the way it was worn—long, short, curled, braided, up or loose—revealed social status, religious beliefs, political loyalties, and even the...
View ArticleThe Roman Empire Gave Gold Jewelry to Barbarian Chiefs for Centuries, and...
When the barbarians entered the Roman Empire in the 5th century and founded their own kingdoms, something strange happened: they destroyed nothing. Palaces, churches, taxes, coins, Latin, and Greek all...
View ArticleHow the Romans Transformed Europe Without Imposing Their Culture: A Study...
Two archaeological sites in the region of Carinthia (Austria) tell a little-known story about how the Romans built their empire. These are the hill settlement of Magdalensberg and the planned city of...
View ArticleThe Romans Recycled Emperor Statues: A Study Reveals How and Why the Faces of...
In ancient Rome, statues of emperors were not immutable. They could change faces. A ruler who had fallen from favor would see his features chiseled away to make room for the image of his successor, or...
View ArticleThe Law that “Regularized” Thousands of Freed Slaves by Granting Them the...
For decades, the official history of ancient Rome has repeated the same idea: in the last decades of the Republic, freed slaves – the libertini – were so numerous and so impoverished that any populist...
View ArticleAttius Clausus, the Sabine who emigrated to Rome with his family and his five...
«Appius, who had an impulsive character… » says Livy in the second book of his work Ab urbe condita (On the Founding of the City); «Appius leaves because of the natural arrogance of his character»...
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