Roman Empire Anecdotes
He came from the edge of the Roman world and rose through war to become one of Trajan’s most formidable commanders. Lusius Quietus seemed unstoppable, until power changed hands in Rome.
Roman Empire News
A September radar survey at Martinsicuro covered five areas of ancient Truentum. The data are being processed as the municipality considers a future archaeological park.
Roman Empire News
Two late Roman laws expose the pressures behind animal spectacles: protected supplies of lions, costly military convoys and penalties for overstaying in cities.
Roman justice was never equal. From trials in the forum to brutal punishments like crucifixion and exile, the law upheld social order through fear and spectacle. This article explores how crime and punishment shaped power in the empire.
A boy-emperor draped in silk and scandal, Elagabalus shook the Roman world with rituals, rumors, and rebellion. His brief reign remains one of the Empire’s most controversial and enigmatic chapters.
Salt and salary are often linked to Roman soldiers, but historical records reveal a different understanding of military pay in ancient Rome.
The Roman passion for red mullet drove them to pay fortunes to have this delicacy on their tables.
As the Severan dynasty rose to prominence, the two brothers were groomed to jointly inherit their father’s empire. Despite their shared upbringing, their differences—both personal and political—were stark and irreconcilable.
Anecdotes, historical facts, fictional stories and news curated from a small team of human writers, fascinated with Ancient Rome and its myriad myths and legends.
Hot baths, masked helmets and a sun god with possible special effects: Scotland’s Roman finds reveal an army with expensive tastes and an awkward habit of leaving.
Salona’s latest excavations uncovered 32 graves, including a face-down burial with varied glass vessels and a clue to the cemetery’s earlier walls.
A newly published inscription from Turkey preserves advice on travel, illness and trade, selected by casting five animal knucklebones.
Tweezers, a glass scent bottle and childhood charms survived in a Pompeii cupboard, alongside 38 bronze coins and a small box of lead weights.
A nearly naked theft search, forbidden dormice and a funeral exception for gold-bound teeth: twenty rules reveal the reach of Roman law.
Wall fragments from a villa at Torre di Pordenone reveal how Roman decorators mixed Egyptian blue into lime plaster to create a pale backdrop for fish and other marine life.
A soldier in a Velsen well left wounds, a worn dagger and clues in his teeth. Modern investigators have reopened his violent death.
Once in a lifetime, Rome celebrated the beginning of a new age. For three days and nights, extraordinary rituals and spectacles brought the city together in a festival unlike any other.
New Arctic evidence places renewed ice growth in Rome’s imperial age. The findings connect ancient snowlines, the Little Ice Age and modern warming; but scientists differ on when a glaciation begins.
A reused stone at Fortuna’s Roman baths preserves oversized letters, part of a name and a possible clue to a monumental building project.
Buried money traces Rome’s growing reach; and the civilian activity that helped coins remain in use long after they left the mint.
They once ruled kingdoms and commanded armies. Then Rome paraded them before cheering crowds. But what awaited these captive rulers after their humiliation?
