Tag: Rome
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Amateur Historian Hour: Velleius Paterculus’ History of Rome
“His [Paterculus’] admiration of Caesar is questionable, of Augustus justified, of Tiberius excessive.” — Jacket copy to the Loeb edition “Velleius Paterculus does not rank among the great Olympians of classical literature either as a stylist or as historian.” — Introduction to the same Some of you probably breathed a sigh of relief that I…
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Accidental Adventures in Antiquity: The Works of Ausonius
“For when the Emperor Octavianus was reigning, they [the Golden Age poets] vied with one another in presenting him with their works, and set no limit on to the number of the poems which they composed to his praise. You may be sure that though he may perhaps have admired these authors as much as…
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The Seven Against the Seven Hills: The Ancient-Medieval Mashup of the Roman de Thèbes & the Roman d’Eneas
“If lord Homer and lord Plato, and Virgil and Cicero, had concealed their knowledge, there would never have been any talk of them. For this reason I do not wish to keep my intelligence hidden, or to suppress my knowledge, rather does it please me to recount something worthy to be remembered.” — Roman de…
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Travels with Hadrian: Julia Balbilla, Her Poetry, and Ancient Tourism
In my entry about the two(?) Sulpicias, I said that she/them were the only Roman women poets that we have a record of—but that’s not strictly true. We have one more, the equally sketchily-known Julia Balbilla (72 – after 130 CE), but perhaps what we can mean is that the Sulpicias are the only Italian…
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Gods, Girls, and Gender: Elagabalus and the Cultural Politics of the Severan Roman Empire
Since it’s Pride Month here the US for our LGBTQ+ community, I thought we’d do a little deep dive into the reign of Rome’s queerest ruler (yes, even more than Hadrian…), the 3rd century emperor Elagabalus (c.204-222 CE), formerly mentioned on this blog as a Vestal Virgin-marrying early adopter of the wheelbarrow/unicycle. Held by many traditional historians…
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Glimpses of Love: The Two Sulpicias and the Private Lives of Roman Women
“He who shall weigh well her poems will say no maid was so roguish, will say no maid was so modest.” (Martial, Epigrams, 10.35, 11-12) We’ve spent a fair amount of time (some, I’m sure, would argue too much) talking about Roman poets and their work. But at end of the day, the poets, indeed all…
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Getting Away the Roman Way: Drama, Death, and Debauchery in Baiae
To witness persons wandering drunk along the beach, the riotous revelling of sailing parties, the lakes a-din with choral song, and all the other ways in which luxury, when it is, so to speak, released from the restraints of law not merely sins, but blazons its sins abroad, – why must I witness all this? –…
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Is This a Blog Post, or is it a Boar Vessel 600-500 BC Etruscan Ceramic?: The Wonderful World of Forged Antiquities
Back in the faraway time of the 2010s, classical Reddit and Twitter were seized by a strange obsession with an Etruscan ceramic piece in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. It is a small vessel about seven inches done in terracotta in the shape of a wild boar. The museum acquired the piece…
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Beyond the Plagiarism: (Almost) Ten Things Actually Invented by the Romans
“You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn’t earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don’t take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew what you had, you patented it, and you…
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Purple Reign: The Cross-Cultural History of Murex
“The most favourable season for taking these [shellfish] is after the rising of the Dog-Star, or else before spring; for when they have once discharged their waxy secretion, their juices have no consistency: this, however, is a fact unknown in the dyers’ workshops, although it is a point of primary importance.” – Pliny the Elder, Natural…
Sarah Holz 