There are three reasons why the church of Santi Vito e Modesto stands out: The church is next to an old Roman city gate, usually called the ‘Arch of Gallienus’; The church has two facades, so that it is unclear to visitors which side is the front and which the…
After the brief occupation of Rome by Brennus’ Senones in 390 BCE or 387/386 BCE[1] a large part of the city lay in ruins. It is now no longer possible to establish the scale of the destruction, but there is no need to doubt that the damage was significant. The…
In about 509 BCE, the Romans replaced their monarchy with a republic. This change was not brought about by a revolution and it would be even more wrong to see it as an ethnic clash between the Etruscan ‘oppressors’ and the native Roman population who had enough of Etruscan ‘occupation’.…
Claudius Gothicus was succeeded by his brother Quintillus. He was accepted by the Senate as Augustus, but the Senate had little real power in those days. Quintillus reigned long enough to mint coins, but the army was unhappy with the Senate’s choice and quickly presented its own candidate: Lucius Domitius…
About a year ago, I read an interesting book about the Via Appia, one of the most famous Roman roads in Italy and called the Regina Viarum, the Queen of Roads, by the poet Statius. When I visited Rome in the summer of 2018, I decided to follow in the…