The lovely Dutch town of Valkenburg aan de Geul, located in the south of the province of Limburg, has a very special museum. The address is Plenkertstraat 55. Museum Romeinse Katakomben (Roman Catacombs Museum) does not just have a name that is a little peculiar – it is spelled ‘katakomben’…
In Antiquity, Boulogne-sur-Mer on the Channel and the Roman colony of Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium at Cologne in present-day Germany were connected by an important road. We do not know whether this road had a name in the Roman era itself, but nowadays it is usually called the Via Belgica.…
This short post is about a very special day of the year, 25 December. On this day, Christians and non-Christians alike celebrate Christmas everywhere in the world. On the internet, you will often find the claim that the date of 25 December derives from the ancient cult of Mithras, which…
Grado today is a lovely seaside resort which draws scores of tourists to its wonderful beaches. Ancient Grado used to be the port of Aquileia, some ten kilometres to the north. In Antiquity, it was known as Ad Aquas Gradatas, which was shortened to Gradus during the Middle Ages. Here,…
Modern Aquileia is just a small and pleasant town of some 3.500 inhabitants in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region of Northeast Italy. Ancient Aquileia, however, was a large and prosperous city with a population that is estimated to have exceeded 100.000 souls. Founded in the year 181 BCE, Aquileia occupied…
I am currently working on a new series about the Second Punic War (218-201 BCE). This is a lot of work and it is taking up much of my spare time. I will therefore repost a ‘golden oldie’, a post I wrote many years ago for an internet forum. The…
1. Introduction In 63 BCE, a trial took place in Ancient Rome which is still shrouded in mystery. Even in its own time it was extraordinary and controversial, not least because of the strange charges brought against the accused, the prosecutor’s motives, the alleged bias of the judges and the…
By Laurens Dragstra and Taco Groenewegen 1. Introduction If people call Dutch politician Geert Wilders a ‘people’s tribune’, this is unlikely to be meant as a compliment. The word is often used to describe agitators, demagogues and populists, people who are driven by resentment and claim that they – and…
Fiesole’s small but interesting archaeological museum is located right within the city’s archaeological area, where one can find the remains of an Etruscan wall, a Roman temple, Roman public baths and a Roman theatre that is still used for performances during the summer. Fiesole has had an archaeological museum since…
The Grand Ludovisi Sarcophagus was found in 1621 near the Porta Tiburtina, one of the eastern gates of the city of Rome. It was named after Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi (1595-1632), who was an avid collector of antiquities. The sarcophagus can be dated to around 250-260, so it is a little…
The Portonaccio Sarcophagus is a large sarcophagus that can be found in the Palazzo Massimo, one of the four locations of the Museo Nazionale Romano. It is an impressive piece of second century craftsmanship. The sarcophagus was found in 1931 near the Via Tiburtina and can be dated to around…
I was not familiar with the technique called opus sectile until I visited an exhibition in the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam about Constantine’s influence on the Christianisation of the Roman Empire. Part of the exhibition was a mosaic depicting a man in a chariot and four horsemen in the colours…
Gortys, also known as Gortyn or Gortyna, was the capital of Roman Crete. It was destroyed in the ninth century by Muslim Arab raiders and the area has been uninhabited ever since. At the end of the nineteenth century, the Italian archaeologist Federico Halbherr and his team began excavating at…
‘Filibustering’ refers to politicians holding endless speeches in parliament, touching upon all sorts of issues that are more or less off topic. The sole intention is to prevent the debate from being closed so that a vote can be called. As far as I know, we find the oldest known…
Kourion – Curium in Latin – was an important city state in Ancient Cyprus. It flourished during the Ptolemaic and Roman eras, until it was almost completely destroyed by two earthquakes in the fourth century CE. A rebuilt Kourion was an easy target for Arab raiders, who destroyed the city…
Modern western democracies have a strict separation of military and civil offices, but this was not the case in the Roman Republic (ca. 509-27 BCE). It was not until the third century CE, during the Imperial era, that such a separation was introduced. During the Republican era, politicians were also…
Affirmative action in favour of minorities or the politically disadvantaged is not a modern phenomenon. It was also known in Antiquity. In the fourth century BCE, a form of affirmative action was introduced in the Roman Republic. The plans to introduce it sparked a heated debate. ‘Positive discrimination’ was just…
Rome began as a collection of villages on several hills near the river Tiber. Life there was neither comfortable, nor safe. War was always looming. Neighbouring tribes and cultures envied Rome for its favourable position on the Tiber, from which it controlled the salt trade in Central Italy. Rome itself…
The Principate was the monarchy created by the first Roman emperor, Augustus. Although he presented it to the Senate and People of Rome as a restoration of the Roman Republic, Augustus and his successors held positions of supreme power, ultimately based on control of the army. I have discussed this…
I have heard and read it time and time again: Roman cavalry was terrible. It was only good at riding down enemy troops that had already routed. The Romans neglected their cavalry and therefore lost important battles. And because of this neglect, they were ultimately unable to fight off foreign…