A Roman Empire boundary stone has been discovered in Rome, and while thousands of similar stones exist across the empire, this one is being viewed with extra attention. While most Roman boundary...
On October 30, 1501, the most decadence of festivals occurred in the papal palace of Cardinal Cesare Borgia. A party that his own father, Pope Alexander VI, not only attended but participated in. The...
Rome's famous 2,000-year-old Colosseum has a vast underground world called the “hypogeum” and it’s now open to the public for the first time. The Colosseum, or Flavian Amphitheater, was a gigantic...
Immurement is a practice whereby a person is enclosed within a confined space with no exits. Normally, a person who is immured is left in that space till he/she dies, either of dehydration or...
Hannibal Barca was a Carthaginian general who lived between the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC. He is perhaps best remembered for his military campaign against the Romans in the Second Punic War. Thanks to...
Public order in ancient Rome was a priority for the elite, who contrived a range of gruesome punishments for purportedly serious crimes deserving the death penalty. As a result, a day of fun and...
Livia Drusilla was the third wife of Augustus, the first Roman emperor. Prior to her marriage to Augustus, she was married to a Roman politician by the name of Tiberius Claudius Nero. Through this...
The ancient remains of nine Neanderthals found near Rome have been discovered in a cave. Italian archaeologistsspeculating as to how the Neanderthals found near Rome died, discovered tell-tale...
After 500 years, the ancient hand on a colossal bronze statue of Emperor Constantine is reunited with its middle bronze finger. In 2010, Aurélia Azéma, a French Ph.D. student researching ancient...
Throughout history the dark of the night has always brought fear. The quiet forests, roads or paths were a place where imagination would run wild as to what goes bump in the night. In the West,...
Shocking, disturbing and wholly ungodly methods of murder in ancient Rome have been brought together in a brutally graphic new book. Dr. Emma Southon is a historian at the University of Birmingham in...
A valuable piece of mosaic flooring from one of Caligula’s ‘orgy ships’, so-called for the lavish sex parties he hosted on the boats, somehow found its way from the bottom of Lake Nemi to the Upper...
The Libyan-born Septimius Severus has gone down in history as the first African Emperor of Rome . With a thirst for power, he ruled the Roman Empire almost 2,000 years ago, declaring himself Emperor...
While Caesar and Cleopatra have been remembered as the ultimate power couple, Cleopatra and Octavian are among the most famous enemies of ancient history. Both inextricably linked to Caesar,...
In ancient times, Thebes was one of the major Greek city states, and a rival of Athens. Later on, however, Thebes fell to the Macedonians, and was eventually conquered by the Romans. The post-...
Living in the Mediterranean, daily life in ancient Rome revolved around the climate. Unlike the more northern Europeans of the past and today, the ancient Romans started their days early in the...
Craig Barker / The Conversation Rarely does L.P. Hartley’s dictum that “the past is a foreign country” hold more firmly than in the area of sexuality in classical art. Classic erotic art, erotic...
Beneath Vatican City, excavations of a Roman era necropolis have revealed fascinating details about Roman burial rituals and funerary practices from the first through to the early fourth centuries AD...
In ancient Greek mythology, Medusa is the most famous of three monstrous sisters known as the Gorgons. The earliest known record about the story of Medusa and the Gorgons can be found in Hesiod’s...
The toga is arguably the best-known garment from ancient Rome. Initially, the toga was worn both by male and female Roman citizens. Later on, however, the toga was used exclusively by men (high class...
He famously raided the Lost Ark, explored the Temple of Doom and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and he even undertook a Last Crusade. Now, the legacy of Indiana Jones, our favorite silver screen...
The Roman dodecahedron is a small, hollow object made of bronze or (more rarely) stone, with a geometrical shape that has 12 flat faces. Each face is a pentagon, a five-sided shape. The Roman...
Janus is a deity found in the religion and myth of ancient Rome. The Romans believed that Janus was the god of doors, beginnings and endings, and transitions. In accordance to the role he played,...
Elagabalus was a Roman emperor who lived at the beginning of the 3rd century AD. He is often considered as one of Rome’s worst emperors and is routinely placed in the same league as other notorious...
