Tag Archives: Ancient Rome

Culture, Essays, Magazines, Media, Opinion, Politics, Previews, Reviews

Culture/Politics: Harper’s Magazine – January 2024

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HARPER’S MAGAZINE – JANUARY 2024: This issue features ‘Behind the Iron Curtain’ – Caviar, counterculture, and the cult of Stalin reborn; A Life in Psychedelics; Sex and Grue in Ancient Rome, and more…

Behind the New Iron Curtain

Caviar, counterculture, and the cult of Stalin reborn

by Marzio G. Mian,Translated by Elettra Pauletto

Russia has become, to observers in the West, a distant, mysterious, and hostile land once again. It seems implausible, in the age of social media, that so little should be known about the country that has shattered the international order, but the shadows surrounding Russia have only grown since the days of the Soviet Union. Of course, it is one thing to observe the country from the outside; it is another to try to understand how Russians experience the war and react to sanctions from within, and what they hope the future holds. If Russia seems to have become…

The Museum of Broken G.I. Joes

When soldiers come home

by Matt Farwell

History, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

Previews: History Today Magazine – July 2023

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HISTORY TODAY MAGAZINE (JULY 2023) – Civil war in Ancient Rome, England’s most useless charities, agents of anarchy in the fin de siècle, the battle for the Korean peninsula, a Catholic sympathiser at Elizabeth I’s court, Bardolatry, Hong Kong’s floating population.

The Year of the Four, Five, Six Emperors

Vitellius led through the streets of Rome by the people, by Georges Rochegrosse, 1883
Vitellius led through the streets of Rome by the people, by Georges Rochegrosse, 1883.

For citizens of Ancient Rome, the recurrence of brutal civil war was par for the course. For writers, it was an opportunity. 

During the Roman Empire, outbreaks of civil war (and the assassinations which often preceded them) were generally intended to change the emperor, not the imperial system. Even though there was a brief moment after the emperor Caligula’s assassination in AD 41 when a change in the political system might have been triggered, the rudderless and leaderless soldiers quickly reverted to the reassuring default mode of imperial rule after conveniently finding Claudius hiding behind a curtain and making him emperor. 

How to Make a Devil

Image from Ravachol’s anthropometric file, 1892

The legend of Ravachol, the terrorist ‘mastermind’ of the fin de siècle. 

Cycling, Travel, Videos, Views

Bike Tours: The Appian Way – Rome In Central Italy (4K)

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Filmed on Saturday May 8th, 2021

The Appian Way is one of the earliest and strategically most important Roman roads of the ancient republic. It connected  Rome  to Brindisi, in southeast Italy. Its importance is indicated by its common name, recorded by Statius:

Appia longarum… regina viarum

“the Appian Way the queen of the long roads”

The road is named after Appius Claudius Caecus, the Roman censor who began and completed the first section as a military road to the south in 312 BC during the Samnite Wars.

Archaeology, Art, History, Travel, Videos, Views

Archaeology: ‘Ancient Rome Live – Episode 1’ – Uffizi Gallery, Florence

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Here is the first episode of the series about archaeology at the Uffizi Galleries, realized by the American Institute for Roman Culture. Darius Arya today speaks about some masterpieces of the Uffizi and the Boboli Gardens.

Archaeology, Food, History, Travel, Videos

Roman History: ‘Street Food Shop’ Discovered In Pompeii Excavation (Video)

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A street food eatery discovered at Pompeii has now been completely excavated, helping to reveal some of the favourite dishes of the citizens of the ancient Roman city. The shop is known as a “thermopolium” since it served hot food. A segment of the fast-food building’s counters was discovered in 2019 during work to shore up Pompeii’s often-crumbling ruins. The counter was decorated with paintings of animals, which might provide clues of the ingredients those meals contained. On top of the counter there were holes, where warm food was stored to be served.