Summary Gaius Marius celebrates a triumph for his victory over King Jugurtha of Numidia (104 BCE); Marius takes command of the new army raised by Publius Rutilius Rufus and subjects it to a rigorous training programme (104 BCE); Start of the Second Servile War on Sicily (104 BCE); The praetor…
Summary Sulla convinces King Bocchus of Mauretania to betray his son-in-law Jugurtha; Jugurtha is delivered to the Romans in chains and sent to Rome; Much to Marius’ annoyance, Sulla gets most of the credit for capturing Jugurtha; Marius is elected consul for a second time (in absentia); The former suffect…
Summary Quintus Caecilius Metellus celebrates a triumph for his victories in the Jugurthine War and acquires the nickname ‘Numidicus’; Gaius Marius captures an important fort of Jugurtha near the river Muluccha; Marius is joined by his quaestor Lucius Cornelius Sulla; While returning to his winter camp, Marius is attacked by…
Summary The concilium plebis gives command of the Jugurthine War to the consul Gaius Marius; Marius openly recruits part of his soldiers from the class of the proletarii (the ‘Marian’ reforms); Marius captures Capsa by surprise, burns the city to the ground and massacres the male population; The Tigurini, allies…
Summary The consul Hortensius is forced to resign for unspecified reasons; The censor Marcus Aemilius Scaurus is forced to resign when his colleague Marcus Livius Drusus dies; The town of Vaga rebels against the Romans and massacres the garrison; the only survivor is the garrison commander, Titus Turpilius; The proconsul…
Summary Aulus Postumius Albinus suffers a defeat against Jugurtha and is forced to accept a humiliating peace treaty; The treaty is rejected by the Senate and the consul Quintus Caecilius Metellus is sent to Numidia to continue the Jugurthine War; A Lex Mamilia sets up a committee of three men…
Summary The consul Lucius Calpurnius Bestia invades Numidia and captures a number of cities (111 BCE); A truce is agreed after Bestia and his legate Marcus Aemilius Scaurus are allegedly bribed by Jugurtha (111 BCE); Jugurtha surrenders and is subsequently summoned to Rome to testify in the assembly after the…
Summary Jugurtha breaks the peace with Adherbal and captures his camp near Cirta; he subsequently puts the city under siege (113 BCE); The Senate sends a committee of three young men to Cirta to force Jugurtha to give up the siege; Jugurtha chooses to ignore them (113 BCE); In Noricum,…
Summary King Micipsa of Numidia dies and leaves his kingdom to his sons Adherbal and Hiempsal and his nephew and adopted son Jugurtha (118 BCE); Jugurtha has Hiempsal murdered and defeats Adherbal on the battlefield (117 BCE); De Senate sends a committee of ten men (decemviri) under Lucius Opimius to…
Some tourist attractions are so new that they are not yet mentioned in any travel guide. This was the case with Spello’s Villa dei Mosaici, which opened its doors to the public as late as March of 2018. The great thing about Italy is that one just has to stick…
The early history of Spello is poorly documented. The area of the town, which started as a settlement of the Umbrians, has been inhabited since at least the seventh century BCE. During the Roman era, Spello was known as Hispellum. It cannot have been more than a village, likely highly…
The Italian region of Umbria is a modern creation. Historically, the region where the Ancient Umbrians lived, ‘the oldest of the peoples of Italy’[1], was both much smaller and much larger. It was smaller because the western part of modern Umbria was in the hands of the Etruscans, who lived…
It took us a while to find the ruins of Carsulae, one of the most interesting archaeological sites in all of Umbria. This is a place where history becomes tangible and people from the twenty-first century can walk in the footsteps of Roman travellers, soldiers and traders. Carsulae was a…
The area around Spoleto has been inhabited since at least the eighth century BCE. Rich grave finds from several necropolises demonstrate that there must have been a settlement here of some importance. Excavations in 2008-2009 in the Piazza d’Armi, north of the railway station, have for instance uncovered the tomb…
I will readily admit that the famous Nile Mosaic was the reason I took the bus to Palestrina in the first place. This gorgeous piece of art, presumably from the late second century BCE, is the most prized possession of Palestrina’s National Archaeological Museum. The mosaic has a room of…
After Sulla had established a military colony at Praeneste after 82 BCE, the town enjoyed several centuries of peace. It prospered and grew and quickly became a popular destination for Romans during the summer to escape the scorching heat of Rome itself. I myself visited Palestrina on a very hot…
Getting from Rome to Palestrina by public transportation is pretty easy. You just have to know how. I travelled to the Ponte Mammolo metro station in the north of Rome and took a COTRAL bus to Palestrina from there. It should also be possible to make use of a similar…
Our ticket to the church of San Francesco allowed us to visit the National Archaeological Museum in Arezzo as well. The museum is special, because it is housed in a former monastery that was itself built into the remains of a Roman amphitheatre from the second century. We were short…
People who almost 2.000 years ago took the Limes road from Praetorium Agrippinae and travelled east for some eight kilometres would eventually arrive at the next castellum protecting the Rhine border. According to the Peutinger Table (Tabula Peutingeriana), this castellum was called Matilo(ne), a name of unknown origin. The precise…
Summary The people’s tribune Tiberius Gracchus launches a comprehensive land reform program; Gracchus’ proposal for a Lex Sempronia agraria is vetoed by his colleague, the tribune Marcus Octavius; After a second version of his land reform bill is again vetoed by Octavius, Gracchus issues a blanket veto on all public…