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Archaeologists have discovered the wreck of a Roman-era ship off the east coast of Cyprus. In a statement, Cyprus’ Department of Antiquities explained that the wreck is the first undisturbed Roman shipwreck found in the Mediterranean island nation’s waters. The ship is loaded with amphorae, or large ancient jars, which are likely from Syria and ancient Cilicia on modern-day Turkey's southeastern coast. Analysis of the shipwreck will shed new light on seaborne trade between Cyprus and the rest of the Roman provinces of the eastern Mediterranean, officials explained in the statement. The wreck was found near the resort town of...

Sometime around A.D. 60, in the age of Emperor Nero, a Roman court insider named Gaius Petronius wrote a satirical Latin novel, “The Satyricon,” about moral corruption in Imperial Rome. The novel’s general landscape was Rome’s transition from an agrarian republic to a globalized multicultural superpower. The novel survives only in a series of extended fragments. But there are enough chapters for critics to agree that the high-living Petronius, nicknamed the “Judge of Elegance,” was a brilliant cynic. He often mocked the cultural consequences of the sudden and disruptive influx of money and strangers from elsewhere in the Mediterranean region...

In a land flowing with milk and honey, what kinds of food made up the ancient Jewish diet? What did people eat and drink in Roman Palestine? Susan Weingarten guides readers through a menu of the first millennium C.E. in her article "Biblical Archaeology 101: The Ancient Diet of Roman Palestine," published in the March/April 2019 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review. Although it is difficult to reconstruct the diet of the average person in Palestine during the Roman and Late Antique periods, Weingarten, as both a food historian and an archaeologist, is well equipped for the task. Using archaeological remains...

Archaeologists working in a richly decorated house in ancient Pompeii have discovered a stunningly preserved fresco depicting the mythological hunter Narcissus enraptured by his own reflection in a pool of water. The figure of Narcissus, who according to the myth fell in love with his own image to the point that he melted from the fire of passion burning inside him, was a fairly common theme in the first-century Roman city. The discovery, announced on Thursday, is in the atrium of a house where, back in November, excavations brought to light another fresco that portrays an erotic scene from the...

In apparent shot at Trump, Pope says 'builders of walls' sow fear and divide Panama City, Panama (CNN)Pope Francis has taken another shot at wall-building politicians, telling thousands of Catholics in Panama gathered for World Youth Day that "builders of walls sow fear" and "divide people." "We know that the father of lies, the devil, prefers a community divided and bickering," Francis told a crowd of tens of thousands of youth Thursday night at a seaside park in Panama City. "This is the criteria to divide people: The builders of bridges and the builders of walls, those builders of walls...

A silver mask that had belonged to a Roman cavalryman of imperial times. It was found on the site of the battle of Teutoburg, fought in September 9 A.D. This year marks the 2000th anniversary of the battle that led to the annihilation of three Roman legions and changed forever the history of Europe. It was a tremendous shock for the Romans, who saw their mighty army destroyed by uncivilized barbarians. It was not yet the peak of the Roman Empire, but it was a first hint that something was deeply wrong with it. This text describes the presentation that...

Omnia Romae venalia sunt—all the Romans are for sale. This was the historian Sallust’s judgment on the Roman Republic’s moral climate in the 1st and 2nd centuries BCE as it careened through disintegrating norms of public behavior, faltering institutions, civil wars, and the rise of the empire of the Caesars. I fear the same judgment increasingly applies to our American Republic—that our political and social institutions risk a parallel descent into chaos and authoritarianism. Sallust put his grim judgment in the mouth of Jugurtha, a North African king who resisted Rome at the end of the 2nd century BCE with...

We arrived at the forum, and straight away the story went about the neighbourhood near the forum and a huge crowd gathered. We walked up to the prisoner's dock. All the others when questioned admitted their guilt. Then, when it came my turn, my father appeared with my son, dragged me from the step, and said: Perform the sacrifice--have pity on your baby!' Hilarianus the governor, who had received his judicial powers as the successor of the late proconsul Minucius Timinianus, said to me: 'Have pity on your father's grey head; have pity on your infant son. Offer the sacrifice...

It is believed that soldiers and merchants gathered in these secret temples drinking, feasting and performing rituals that may have involved simulating death and rebirth, and even some nakedness... ...They were very effective at keeping their knowledge a secret, so we really don't know a lot about what went on in the Mithraeum ...

University of Haifa researchers have made an important discovery underwater: a rare inscription from the period preceding the Bar Kochva revolt offers for the first time the definite identification of Gargilius Antiques as the Roman prefect of Judea at that time. The inscription was found in a University of Haifa underwater excavation at Tel Dor, on Israel’s Mediterranean coast, about 20 miles south of Haifa. “For the first time, we can state with certainty the name of the Roman prefect of Judea during the critical period leading up to the Bar Kochva revolt,” stated Prof. Assaf Yasur-Landau of the University...

THE FALL OF ROME was a culmination of external and internal factors. GREAT WALL OF CHINA By 220AD, the Later Eastern Han Dynasty had extended sections of the Great Wall of China along its Mongolian border. This resulted in the Northern Huns attacking west instead of east. This caused a domino effect of tribes migrating west across Central Asia, and overrunning the Western Roman Empire. OPEN BORDERS Illegal immigrants poured across the Roman borders: Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Franks, Anglos, Saxons, Alemanni, Thuringians, Rugians, Jutes, Picts, Burgundians, Lombards, Alans, Vandals, as well as African Berbers and Arab raiders. Will and Ariel Durant...

The ancient Roman prison where Sts. Peter and Paul were once confined has been re-opened to visitors after a year-long renovation. The Mamertine prison, also known as the Carcer Tullianum, is a 3,000-year-old structure, located near the Roman Forum. The church of San Giuseppe dei Falegnami now stands above it, and in the prison itself there is an altar so that Mass can be celebrated at the site where the apostles were jailed. The renovations to the prison include the introduction of a multimedia tour, which allows visitors to learn more about any facet of the building and its history...

The average ancient Roman worker was riddled with arthritis, suffered broken bones and was dead by 30 thanks to a diet of rotting grains and a lifetime of hard labour. The grim realities of the Eternal City were revealed in a study carried out by an Italian team of specialists that used modern-scanning techniques to analyse 2,000 ancient skeletons. The majority of the skeletons from the first and third century AD, found in the suburbs of the ancient city, had broken collar bones, noses and hand bones.

This is the first ancient DNA to be obtained from Phoenician remains. Known as “Ariche,” the young man came from Byrsa, a walled citadel above the harbor of ancient Carthage. Byrsa was attacked by the Roman general Scipio Aemilianus “Africanus” in the Third Punic War. It was destroyed by Rome in 146 B.C. Analysis of the skeleton revealed the man died between the age of 19 and 24, had a rather robust physique and was 1.7 meters (5’6″) tall. He may have belonged to the Carthaginian elite, as he was buried with gems, scarabs, amulets and other artifacts. Now genetic...

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A 1,500-year-old church which was buried under debris from an earthquake for more than a millennium has reopened to the public after a painstaking restoration of some of the world’s earliest Christian art. The sixth-century church of Santa Maria Antiqua is located in the ancient Roman Forum, at the bottom of the Palatine Hill, where Roman emperors lived for centuries in sumptuous palaces.

If you're a fan of HBO's series "Rome," here's the producers and actors revealing Octavian's true storyline. It's HBO, so the mature warning should be obvious. https://youtu.be/XnwpjE4MrB0

Only fragments remain today and most are held in the Capitoline museum. They cover just 10 percent the original map surface that once stood on a wall in the Templum Pacis (Temple of Peace). The wall still survives today in a building near the 6th-century Church of Santi Cosma e Damiano. Rows of holes where the map was attached using bronze clamps can still be seen. Carved on 150 marble slabs, the 60-foot by 43-foot map detailed every building, street and staircase in Rome until it was partially ripped from the wall, probably to make lime for cement. What was...

The enormous arena was empty, save for the seesaws and the dozens of condemned criminals who sat naked upon them, hands tied behind their backs. Unfamiliar with the recently invented contraptions known as petaurua, the men tested the seesaws uneasily. One criminal would push off the ground and suddenly find himself 15 feet in the air while his partner on the other side of the seesaw descended swiftly to the ground. How strange. In the stands, tens of thousands of Roman citizens waited with half-bored curiosity to see what would happen next and whether it would be interesting enough to...

It didn’t take all that much to tip a great civilization into the shackles of empire. Rome holds a special place in the popular imagination. Cast as a culture steeped in myth, with values reminiscent of our own, it is often treated as the forebearer of our own political system, an ancestral democracy that provides a republican link between the present and the ancient past. From architecture to literature to political system, Rome is where it all began. But in his latest book, Richard Alston wants us all to think a little more critically about our beloved Rome. Alston is...