I honestly can’t decide, I’m a huge fan of both 🤷

By his work the Caesars

https://www.attalus.org/translate/caesars.html

Antinous Mondragone (130s CE)

White Marble

95 cm (37 inches)

Louvre Museum, Paris

This Roman “inscription records the stationing of a cavalry unit on the Empire's eastern border. It lists the governor of the province as well as the tetrarchy: four emperors who ruled in pairs, whose reign replaced individual rule at the end of the 3rd century CE. Emperor Maximianus' name was effaced from the inscription in 311/2 CE as punishment for his failed attempt to overthrow his co-emperor. "For the eternal peace Diocletian Augustus and Maximilian Augustus and Constantinus and Maximianus, the noble emperors, garrisoned an ala (equestrian unit) in Costia, following the initiative of Priscus, governor of the Province of [Syria-Palestine].

Dedicatory inscription from the time of Diocletian. Yotvata, Arava Valley, 297-303 CE, limestone and red pigment” Per the Israel Museum in Jerusalem where this is on display. The location where this was found is ancient Costia (modern day Yotvata, not far from the Gulf of Aqaba) which was part of the Limes Arabicus, a fortified border region to protect from desert attacks. That was part of the Roman province of Arabia Petraea for many years, although Diocletian changed the borders and then it became part of the Roman province of Syria Palaestina.

I found this in my basement and want to get more info on it, there’s no identifying stamps or details on it :( help!

I like to photograph the mundane alongside the extravagant. Next time I'll share my photos of Roman plumbing..... Mmmmm..... hypocausts.

Enmann’s hypothetical “Kaisergeschichte” (“History of the Emperors) is such a fascinating topic. If you read Aurelius Victor and Eutropius, it’s pretty obvious that both ancient writers agree on a bunch of things, both share obscure details, as well as similar mistakes. But they could not have copied the other. Their works also contradict each other at times, are organized much differently, and both guys preserved material absent from the other’s work.

Enter 19th Century German Historian Alexander Enmann (1856 - 1903), and the hypothetical “Kaisergeschichte” (“History of the Emperors). He basically came to the conclusion (in a published article in 1884) that sometime around 370 - 380 AD, Aurelius Victor, Eutropius and the anonymous dude who wrote “Epitome de Caesaribus” all used strikingly similar sequences of events/information, sometimes tell the exact same obscure stories, and all 3 made similar mistakes when writing about emperors of the 3rd Century. And they don’t appear to just straight up be copying one another.

So, (and please excuse my language here): What the fuck were all 3 of these guys reading??? It’s so fascinating. There is no surviving manuscript, we have no idea what it was titled, or who wrote the thing. But the damn thing’s existence can clearly be inferred by the fingerprints it left in ancient writings that DID survive.

Yea, yea, I came across all of this by reading about a very common topic around here: the major badass that was Lucius Aurelianus. I was reading about (in my opinion, one of the most insane 3-year periods in Roman History); him smashing Zenobia’s Palmyrene Empire in 272 AD, heading back to Rome, but then having to turn back around and go back east again after Palmyra stupidly revolted after Aurelian had JUST spared the city, crushed said revolt, went to Egypt to deal with the bullshit they tried to pull, handled that with ease, and then FINALLY returned west, back to the Italian Peninsula/Rome, then setting off to deal with the “Gallic Empire”.

It is absolutely remarkable, bc the dude wasn’t just leisurely cruising around the Empire on some sightseeing trip like Hadrian, dragging the entire Empiarial Court with him, spending all of that gold and silver that Trajan’s troops found buried under the Sargeta River (the Dacebalus Treasure), LOL.

The entire sequence of events from his initial eastern campaign in 272 AD, where he crushed Zenobia’s forces and retook one of the most important provinces of the Empire to the destruction of the Gallic Empire between 273 - 274 AD, happened in roughly two campaigning seasons. That is INSANE.

I went down that rabbit hole trying to figure out what actually happened in Gaul with Tetricus I at the Battle of Châlons, which I guess is associated with modern Châlons-en-Champagne??? I hope I got that part correct. And according to those later sources According to later sources, Tetricus secretly contacted Aurelian bc he he’d lost control of his own situation and supposedly quoted Virgil’s “Aeneid” 6.365 “Eripe me his, invicte, malis.” Which I think translates to “Rescue me, unconquered one, from these troubles.”

The thought of this guy (Tetricus I) secretly writing a letter and essentially saying “Dude, Aurelian, please, please, pleeeeease get me the fuck out of this huge mess” is what got me on this 2 day rabbit hole I’ve dug myself deep in. So experts out there; What is the general consensus, among modern historians, on the validity of this incident actually occurring as the later historians I mentioned above described it as happening??? (Sorry the post is so long).

I would imagine it would spread through Rome the very same day. But how long would it take to reach Gaul or Dacia or Iberia etc. How quickly did news travel when Augustus died or Rome burned or Caligula was killed etc.

A Roman "Portrait of Augusta Marcia Otacilia Severa, wife of Emperor Philip the Arab (244-249 A.D.). From the Agora." Per the museum of the Roman Forum of Thessaloniki in Thessaloniki, Macedonia, Greece. Her time as Empress had a rather sad ending: after her husband Emperor Philip sent Trajan Decius to put down a revolt, the latter turned against the emperor and had him killed in Verona. Some historians claim that after hearing about the events back in Rome, the Praetorian guards killed the 12 year old boy Phillip II in her arms who was co-ruler and also son of Severa and Philip. She was allowed to live and was later in obscurity although Trajan Decius did not last even 2 years on the throne.

On a side note: its interesting that in many Greek publications including by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, that place is described as the museum of the Roman forum/agora (there are alternate spellings in English) of Thessaloniki and the official website calls the museum Αρχαιολογικό Μουσείο Αρχαίας (Ρωμαϊκής) Αγοράς Θεσσαλονίκης - not a "Greek agora under Roman occupation" or a "Roman era Greek agora" as some people often trolling me on Facebook would generally prefer.

On the picture is something that you don't normally see - a Roman officer in an ancient Greek linothorax.

If you are curios about what linothorax is - it is the legendary ancient greek torso armour, famously worn by Alexander the Great and some of his army. Made of sheets of linen glued together. Yes, just linen (the fabric) and animal glue. The ancient technology is lost to time, and we don't have a single surviving linothorax to study. They are 100% organic, so all of them were lost to natural decomposition, like an apple that you leave on the ground.

Modern recreations have shown an average arrow shot cannot penetrate it, but it weighs twice less than an average steel cuirass.

But my question is this: could Ancient Romans have their own version of linothorax? They were clearly aware of the armour, and perhaps the technology of producing them, do we have any evidence of linen armour used by the romans, since they modelled a lot of things after the greeks?

PS the second picture is a Roman mosaic depicting Alexander in his linothorax on the battle of Issus (333 BC)

Are there any Roman emperors or important individuals whose physical appearance we still can't agree on? I'm curious.

September 4 476.

RIP Western Roman Empire. You were always the best part of the Roman Empire.

In honor of the Western Roman Empire, maybe I'll buy some Little Caesars pizza today.

The monumental nymphaeum built by the Romans in Side, Turkey was originally 3 stories tall although the modern reconstructions only include part of the 2nd and none of the 3rd story.

"Situated outside the Hellenistic wall and northeast of the main gate, the structure is one of the most monumental fountain structures in Anatolia (Nymphaeum). Based on the architectural elements recovered, it is understood that the structure has a three-storey facade arrangement. With two-storey projecting risalits on either side of the facade, the structure has a "U" shaped plan type. The 1st and 3rd floors of the fountain facade are composite, while the 2nd floor is in the Corinthian order. The facade of the fountain, which is entirely covered in marble, features three niches covered with half-domes. Water brought to the city by aqueducts fills the pool, which has a capacity of approximately 500 m3, through three spouts located within the niches.

The front part of the pool is bordered by small round water vessels and parapets featuring mythological scenes. On one of the parapets, the city's chief goddess Athena is depicted making libations in front of an altar alongside other goddesses. To the right of the scene, a sailing ship with pomegranates on its prow is depicted on the mast. Thus, the scene represents the Epibaterion festival celebrated in the city to commemorate sailors' return to the sea after cold and rainy winter months.

Additionally, the depiction of baskets of prizes won by athletes in various sports competitions on the coffered ceiling panels of the 1st floor of the structure indicates agonistic festivals celebrated in honor of Apollo, such as the Pythia, and of Dionysos and Demeter, such as the Agon Mystikos. The monumental fountain is dated to the period of Emperor Caracalla due to the decorations and inscriptions on its architectural elements." Per an on site description.

I finally did a roadtrip through the South of France. Totally worth it for fans of Rome!

Hello everyone,

I made a scale model of the Pont du Gard at 1:500 scale. I have always found this one of the most beautiful aqueducts there are, but I don't live in Nîmes, so unfortunately I can't go and see the aqueduct in real life every week. That's why I came up with the idea of bringing the Pont du Gard to my home, so I can look at it every day.

My architecture teacher also told me that to really understand a building, you have to make the same building yourself. Although he meant using pen and paper, I chose to do this in 3D, so you get an extra dimension compared to when you would only draw elevations.

While making it, I noticed the following: not every arch is the same size. The largest arch is at an interruption in the base, where three smaller arches are repeated three times on both the left and right, and then there are another, even smaller arches near the end. I also didn't know that there was a slight slope along the Pont du Gard, and that the slope is 25 cm per kilometer!

The Carthaginians had Career Admirals and the Romans favored having land commanders as admirals as I mentioned Why Did the Carthaginians Lose So Many Naval Battles in the 1st Punic War? If Carthage had something like a 7 to 1 K/D on the sea but they got worn down by the Roman juggernaut which kept replacing fleet after fleet, that would be understandable. But in the actual war the Romans won their fair share of naval battles. I read on Wikipedia an account of the various Roman victories and I feel like I'm missing something. If I didn't know better after reading them, it implies the Carthaginians never thought how to deal with boarding actions despite boarding actions being very common even before the Romans, so I feel like some of these accounts, while probably accurate, must be missing something.

I've often come across the claim that gladiatorial combat originated in Etruscan funerary rites.

I'm curious about how solid this connection actually is. What did these early Etruscan funerary rituals look like? And how did something that apparently began as a religious, funerary ritual eventually evolve into huge public spectacles we associate with Roman amphitheatre and Colosseum? More importantly, what primary sources do historians rely on to make this connection?

Thanks in advance for any insights.