A changing Rome Maria Barosso is an unsung heroine in Rome’s archaeological story. An extraordinary new exhibition in the Museo Centrale Montemartini provides a flavour of her work as a functionary in the Direzione Generale Antichità e Belle Arti. Born…
REVIEW BY MARC DeSANTIS Romans were hypocritical about gladiators. Typically slaves, criminals, or prisoners of war, they were seen by the upper crust as sitting squarely among the dregs of society. Yet they were admired, ogled, and cheered across the…
Lucy Gordan describes a temporary exhibition Treasures of the Pharaohs, which displays priceless artefacts from ancient Egypt in Rome for the first time.
Barbara Gai explores the history of this important monument and the clues that might lead to the location of Antinous’ tomb.
REVIEW BY PAULINE RIPAT Roman legends stressed the importance of babies in the foundation of Rome and its destiny to dominate. The unlikely birth of the twins Romulus and Remus from a Vestal Virgin, and their even more improbable survival…
REVIEW BY EMLYN DODD The study of dolia, and indeed research more generally into ancient viti- and viniculture, has become increasingly popular in the past two decades. Cheung’s book fits neatly into this trajectory and complements other recent work on…
REVIEW BY ANDREW SELKIRK Edward J Watts, Professor of History at San Diego University, is not a fan of politicians who claim that society is rotten and only they can make it better. This claim, however, is nothing new: the…
Excavations in Rome have discovered a theatre that was built by Emperor Nero in the 1st century AD. Several Classical historians refer to a theatre built for the infamous emperor – and known lover of the arts – where he…
REVIEW BY MARC DESANTIS Over several centuries, Rome met and bested every other organised state of the Mediterranean basin. By overcoming all rivals, Rome extinguished the ability of other states to make war, which was now its monopoly. It was…
With Marc DeSantis.
Review by Chris Epplett Over the past few years, there has been an increasing number of books and studies written on humankind’s interactions with and exploitation of the natural world. The book under review, drawn from the author’s background as…
Which notable battle, named after one of Italy's largest lakes, was won by the Carthaginian general Hannibal in 217 BC?
Review by Dylan K Rogers To say that the Roman world was overflowing with water is an understatement. Recently, scholarship has increasingly begun to explore the numerous ways water impacted the lives of ancient Romans, from understanding the design of…
A deity of wisdom and war, born fully grown, and armed, from the head of her father Zeus/Jupiter, Minerva – and her Greek counterpart Athena – played an important part in Greek and Roman religion.
REVIEW BY MARK CORBY This fine book seeks to overthrow the current academic consensus that the Romans were incapable of strategic thought, had little understanding of their frontiers, lacked the will to develop a coherent defensive system due to the…
Among the early Christian catacombs in northern Rome, beyond the walls of the ancient city, are those of the Sant’Agnese fuori le mura complex. It is here along the via Nomentana that St Agnes of Rome is said to have…
As we enter a new year, many of us find ourselves both reflecting on the past and making plans for the future. This dual outlook is embodied by the two-faced god Janus, who governed the first month of the year in ancient Rome
Put your military history knowledge to the test with our competition, and be in with a chance to win a copy of Don Hollway's At the Gates of Rome.
Fresh traces of urban life spanning almost three millennia are coming to light in central Rome. New Danish-Italian excavations have uncovered far more than Caesar’s monumental forum project. Delving through archaeological layers, while travelling back in time from Mussolini’s 1930s constructions, Jan Kindberg Jacobsen, Eva Mortensen, Claudio Parisi Presicce, and Rubina Raja disentangle the complex urban stratigraphy of the Eternal City.
A study involving the scientific analysis of Roman coinage has revealed a significant debasement in the value of silver denarii at the start of the 1st century BC, shedding new light on a financial crisis alluded to by Roman statesman…
Having brought together ancient Roman, Greek, Egyptian, and Mesopotamian artefacts to create a museum of comparative sculpture, Baron Giovanni Barracco gave his collection of antiquities to the city of Rome in 1902. Now housed in a 16th-century palace in the Italian capital, the little-known Museo Barracco showcases ancient artistry and the activities of collectors, both at the turn of the century and in ancient Rome. Dalu Jones is our guide.
Dismissed by one distinguished architectural writer as a regrettable example of Roman pomposity, ‘typical of the rather pretentious magnificence of the [Roman] Empire’, the ‘triumphal arch’ (more correctly the ‘honorary arch’) has proved to be surprisingly enduring, with a history that extends from the Roman period to the present day. Chris Catling reviews a new book by Peter Howell tracing the history of the arch through its many manifestations.
It was uncovered at a construction site in the Via Luigi Tosti, which joins Via Latina, home to a number of large tombs.
What name was given at birth to the 1st-century apostle now known as St Paul?
Tesserae played a central role in which Roman art form?
This book examines aspects of the medicine practised in the Roman Empire from the reign of Augustus to that of Marcus Aurelius. ‘Roman medicine’ was an amalgam, which combined the theories and practices of Greek physicians operating within the so-called…
Marcus Claudius Marcellus asked the Senate to grant him a triumph. He was refused because the fighting in his former province of Sicily was still ongoing, and his army was not with him to support his claim. Instead, he was given only an ovation.
Few figures in history have seen their reputation rise and fall quite like Domitian (AD 51-96). The third and final ruler of the dynasty founded in AD 69 by his father Vespasian, he became one of the longest-serving emperors, praised during his 15-year reign as a living god, but later remembered as corrupt, murderous and deeply depraved.
Are bad Roman emperors really that different from good Roman emperors? Nathalie de Haan and Eric M Moormann look at the case of Domitian, an accomplished military man and prolific builder who emulated Augustus but was reviled as a new Nero.
Augustus was the first Roman emperor. When did he come to power?
Based in Rome, LoveItaly is now in its seventh year and its accent is decidedly American and not patrician. It owes everything to the dynamism of a Californian who is every bit as Roman as the Romans.
Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars offers a series of sensational biographies of Roman rulers from Julius Caesar to Domitian, highlighting moments of depravity, viciousness, scheming, and excess.
The travertine stone bears an inscription detailing Claudius’ titles and honours
And here’s another point to take note of, that not everything people laugh at is witty.
With small tiles of marble and glass, Roman mosaicists created intricate mythological images, realistic scenes from nature, and other complex compositions to decorate the floors and walls of tombs, sanctuaries, and homes. Dalu Jones explores some mosaic masterpieces normally hidden in stores in Rome’s museums.
Only ten other stones of this kind have been discovered in Rome – the last was unearthed 100 years ago.