Roman Historian Travel Writer
The Romans are often lauded for their ingenious engineering: the graceful arches of their aqueducts, the grandeur of their bathhouses, and even the grim efficiency of their sewers. The remains of these monuments are proof – we like to think – that the Romans were at the cutting edge of public sanitation. But when we [ ]
Few voices from antiquity capture the sinister spectacle of the Roman amphitheatre quite like Tertullian. A North African Christian writing at the turn of the third century CE, Tertullian was a lawyer by training and a rhetorician by instinct, and when inveighing against pagan Rome’s moral decay, he poured full scorn on the amphitheatres’ “games”. [ ]
Given the famous deeds associated with Julius Caesar — his crossing of the Rubicon in 49 BCE, his assassination on the Ides of March, 44 BCE, and even his salacious sex life — it might surprise you to learn that we know next to nothing about his childhood. What little we do know comes mainly [ ]
Imagine unearthing a newspaper front page about Donald Trump two thousand years from now, amidst the ashes of a nuclear wasteland. “Trump dances to YMCA with Village People at pre-inaugural victory rally”, reads the faded title. As you brush away the radioactive dust to reveal a photograph beneath, you can just about make out the [ ]
There is a place called the Tullianum, about twelve feet below the earth. It is enclosed on all sides by walls, and above it is a chamber with a vaulted roof of stone. Neglect, darkness, and stench make it hideous and fearsome to behold. Sallust, The War against Catiline 55 Few sites embody the punitive [ ]
The life of Elagabalus, I should never have put into writing hoping that nobody should know that he was emperor of Rome. The Augustan History So starts Elagabalus imperial biographer, Aelius Lampridius, and his scathing review becomes only more scornful from there. As emperor, Elagabalus defiled a Vestal Virgin, transformed the Roman Forum into [ ]
Just north of London’s Westminster Bridge stands a nineteenth-century sculpture of Boudica and Her Daughters. The warrior queen rides in the rear of a scythed chariot, her arms aloft, a spear pointing to the sky. Her daughters crouch down on either side, bare-breasted and exposed, shielding themselves in her shadow. The statue encapsulates both chaos [ ]
In 2009 Germany commemorated the bimillennial anniversary of a momentous event from its ancient history, the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. This terrible Roman defeat saw the complete annihilation of the XVII, XVIII and XIX legions, ranking amongst Rome’s worst military disasters. Some sixteen to twenty thousand Roman soldiers perished in the Teutoburg Forest, a [ ]
“Wherever they go they leave destruction, and call it peace”. So says Lucius Verus (Paul Mescal) towards the beginning of Gladiator 2, calling his Numidian comrades to arms against the approaching Roman fleet of Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal). An educated Roman would have recognised these words. Or rather their Latin equivalent: ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem [ ]
Rome’s first emperor, Augustus, used to boast that he had inherited a city of brick and left a city of marble. Modesty was never one of his strong points. This was, after all, the emperor who wrote an autobiography called the Res Gestae Divi Augusti (literally “Things the Divine Augustus Got Done”) and insisted it [ ]