Emperor Caracalla kept a favorite lion, Acinaces, as a pet, but not all Romans’ obsession for big feline predators boded well for the animals. “It is believed that a dying lion bites the earth and...
It wasn’t until the 1970s that scientists developed an effective cure for leprosy . Up until then this terrible disease was feared not just for its awful symptoms, but also for the stigma that came...
A low-cost, high-risk drug hiding in plain sight – in your kitchen cabinet! This is a highly aromatic spice that can change the trajectory of your food, and is sometimes used as a healing agent in...
“Cleopatra’s Pearl” is a story told by the Roman author Pliny the Elder in his famous long-read book Natural History . According to this tale, the last Ptolemaic ruler of Egypt, Cleopatra VII, drank...
Archaeologists in Italy are studying the remains of a Roman soldier who was thrust face-first into the sand at Herculaneum when Mount Vesuvius erupted on October 24th 79 AD. The presence of this...
The Essenes were a Jewish sect that flourished around the end of the Second Temple Period, i.e. between the 2nd century BC and the 1st century AD. The main source of information regarding this...
Gaius Plinius Secundus, better known in history as Pliny the Elder, was an influential administrator, officer, and author during his life. Although he was only fifty-six years old at the time of his...
Imagine a glass you can bend and then watch it return to its original form. A glass that you drop but it doesn’t break. Stories say that an ancient Roman glassmaker had the technology to create a...
Poison was a potent weapon that could be used by would-be assassins to get rid of their targets. This was especially useful when the target was a person in power and was surrounded by bodyguards. One...
Gaius Plinius Secundus, better known as Pliny the Elder, was an influential administrator, officer, and author in ancient Rome. His life ended suddenly with the deadly eruption of Mount Vesuvius in...
Marcus Gavius Apicius is one of those Roman names that have (almost) been lost to the ravages of time. The characteristic that has allowed Apicius to stick out from the rest of the crowd of obscure...