Free Republic

When Justinian secured the so-called "Eternal Peace" with the Persians in AD 532 after the Battle of Daras, it is likely that he realized that the peace on his eastern frontier would not actually be perpetual. But he probably thought it would last longer that seven or eight years. In any event, the emperor made the most the respite, gathering his substantial forces from the east which had previously been on station to face down the Persian menace, and readying them for a thrust to the West. His first target was the Vandal Kingdom which had ruled Roman Africa for...

The Legio X Fretensis “Tenth legion of the Strait”, was a legion of the Imperial Roman army formed around 41/40 BC. The legion was centrally involved in the Great Jewish Revolt (AD 66–73), the first of three major rebellions by the Jews against the Roman Empire. Around AD 70, most of Roman rule was restored in Judea except for several fortresses and Jerusalem. The city was placed under siege by the X Fretensis, in conjunction with the V Macedonica, XII Fulminata, and XV Apollinaris. After several battles, Jerusalem and the Second Temple was destroyed, with contemporary historian, Titus Flavius Josephus,...

Polish scientists discovered that Legion X Fretensis, known for its brutal suppression of Jewish uprisings, was stationed in the early 2nd century AD in the Roman fort of Apsaros in Colchis on the Black Sea coast.Until now, researchers were unaware of their presence in such a distant region.This legion of the Imperial Roman army known as the Legio X Fretensis, or "Tenth Legion of the Strait," was formed around 41/40 BC. The legion played a key role in the Great Jewish Revolt (AD 66-73), the first of three major Jewish rebellions against the Roman Empire.This finding was made possible through...

A scandal involving racist text messages sent between Antioch police officers led to mayhem during a Tuesday city council meeting. At one particularly intense moment, Mayor Lamar Thorpe stormed out of the council chamber following a heated interaction with a member of the community. Thorpe, who is Black, was the subject of at least one of several text messages revealed in a new report showing that officers in the city’s police department routinely used racist slurs when discussing Black people and other minorities. In one exchange referencing the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, an officer reportedly sent a text...

In February, multiple earthquakes hit 10 cities in southern and central regions of Turkey, destroying thousands of homes, killing or otherwise inflicting serious injuries on thousands in addition forcing countless into homelessness. The Turkish government announced on March 11 that the death toll caused by the earthquakes had reached 47,975. Yet, non-official figures estimate a much higher death toll. Geologist Prof. Dr. Övgün Ahmet Ercan, for instance, predicted on February 7 that the number of people under the rubble was approximately 184,000. Some of the places worst affected by the earthquakes are in Hatay province and its Antioch (Antakya) district....

Antioch (Antakya), one of the most important cities for the early Christian Church, lays in ruin. Block after block, buildings are now little more than piles of rubble, entombing their occupants as rescuers search for signs of life in the bitter cold. Home to Syriacs, Turks, Kurds, Armenians, Arabs, and Jews, the diverse community of Antioch find themselves homeless, together. The Saint Peter and Saint Paul Parish Church in Antioch is taking in people displaced from their homes. Lower to the ground and stronger than surrounding buildings, it was spared much of the damage others suffered. “There is no electricity,...

A foraging badger has uncovered a trove of 209 Roman coins dating as far back as the third century in a Spanish cave, scientists report. Hailed as an 'exceptional find', the coins include some 'from the distant mints' of London, Constantinople and Antioch, an ancient city once located in what is now modern-day Turkey. Researchers think they were hidden in the cave before the arrival of the Suebi, a Germanic people who invaded the Iberian Peninsula in AD 409, known for their infantry and ambush tactics.

A nailed-shut amulet uncovered in Turkey in the 1930s, written in Jewish Aramaic and newly translated, pleads for help from Balaam's ass at the track A 5th century ‘curse’ tablet written in Jewish Aramaic from Antioch, Turkey, which was recently deciphered by Tel Aviv University doctoral student Rivka Elitzur-Leiman. (Princeton University) When a typical nailed-shut 5th century curse scroll was uncovered by the University of Princeton in a 1930s excavation under the hippodrome in the city of Antioch (now in Turkey), the team of archaeologists didn’t realize what a unique find they had in hand. It would take almost another...

Chariot racing goes back thousands of years and so do attempts to fix the race... Now it turns out that not only did ancient Greeks and Romans exhort the deities to ruin their rivals' beasts: Jews were hexing the horses too and betting on their favorites. The first-ever evidence of Jewish cursing in sports was found in a rolled-up metal tablet that had been located in ancient Antioch by Princeton University researchers in the 1930s – and had been left rolled up until now. The tablet, about 9x6 centimeters in size, dated to about the 5th or 6th century C.E.,...

Los Angeles-based AEG Presents exec Michelle Swing, 29, was given two properties on the same street in suburban Nashville in the last year, paying nothing despite them being worth more than $400,000 combined, according to property records. They include the house in Antioch that Warner had last lived in — one he gave to her on Nov. 25, a day before Thanksgiving and exactly a month before his devastating suicide attack in his explosives-laden RV. Swing has refused to talk about how she knows Warner and has even claimed to have been unaware about the quitclaim transfer that granted her...

Anthony Quinn Warner is a 63-year-old Tennessee man who has been named as the person of interest accused in the explosion of a parked RV in downtown Nashville on Christmas morning, according to CBS News. An RV similar to the one used in the Nashville bombing was once parked at an address linked to his name in images available on both Google Maps and Google Earth. Jeff Pegues, a CBS News journalist, wrote on Twitter, “@CBSNews has learned the name of a person of interest tied to the explosion that rocked #Nashville on #Christmas Day. Multiple sources tell us that...

Lake County prosecutors said that the gun Kyle Rittenhouse used in the Kenosha shooting was bought, stored and used in Wisconsin. No charges will be filed against him in Lake County. Rittenhouse, 17, of Antioch, is facing charges in Wisconsin of first-degree intentional homicide, two counts of first-degree recklessly endangering safety, first-degree reckless homicide, attempted first-degree intentional homicide and possession of a dangerous weapon by a person under 18. The Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office announced Tuesday that an extensive investigation was conducted by the Antioch Police Department. The investigation revealed the gun used in the Kenosha shooting was purchased,...

Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, was arrested on Wednesday in his hometown of Antioch, Illinois and charged with first degree intentional homicide following the shooting death of two protesters The complaint says the teenager 'fled the state of Wisconsin with the intent to avoid prosecution' Dramatic video captured the moment one victim was shot in the head and another was shot in the chest shortly before midnight on Tuesday. A third man was shot in the arm but he survived The arrest of the teen came hours after video emerged of him walking up to police with his hands in the air...

A California city official said COVID-19 should be allowed to run its course, killing elderly and homeless residents to “fix what is a significant burden on our society.” Now his public position could be a pandemic-era casualty, and he’s calling that a violation of his rights. Ken Turnage, a member of the city planning commission in Antioch, said in a now-deleted April 23 Facebook post that coronavirus lockdowns should be lifted to “let nature take its course.” “We would have significant loss of life, we would lose many elderly, that would reduce burdens in our defunct Social Security System, health...

When life gives you a giant mosaic, build a museum-hotel. Digging in the soil of Antakya, a small city near Turkey's Syrian border known to the Greeks as Antioch, Nehmi Asfuroglu discovered one of the world's largest and best-preserved ancient mosaics. It was an archaeologist's dream, but Asfuroglu is a developer, and he was hoping to build a hotel on the site. He could have abandoned the project or concealed the discovery, but instead, he funded a seven-month excavation, abandoning the power tools of hotel construction for the manpower of historians from the local university. He hired architect Emre Arolat...

Antioch police are searching for a woman who witnesses say intentionally drove her car into a barber after she was reportedly dissatisfied with the haircut he gave her son, police said Wednesday. The brazen crash happened around 3:45 p.m. Wednesday at Delta Barbershop on A Street at E. 18th Street in Antioch. The suspect was reportedly causing a scene outside the shop, apparently dissatisfied with the haircut her son received. The barber went outside to record her license plate number and the woman allegedly attempted to run him over. The barber was knocked into the store’s glass windows, breaking them,...

Soon after liberating the ancient Christian city of Antioch from Muslim oppression, the First Crusaders managed in 1099 to realize their primary goal: take Jerusalem from Islam. Despite all the propaganda that surrounds the conquest of Jerusalem, there were very few Muslim calls to jihad (only one is known, and it quickly fell on deaf ears). After all, in the preceding decades, and thanks to Sunni and Shia infighting, local Muslim populations were hardly unused to such invasions and bloodbaths. In Muslim historian Ibn al-Athir's words, "[w]hile the Franks — Allah damn them! — were conquering and settling in a...

The mosaic was acquired by the MFA in 2002 from Dumbarton Oaks Research Center in Washington, DC, where it had been stored, unseen, for more than sixty years. Since its acquisition, the fragile mosaic surface has been stabilized, and crumbling concrete and rusting iron backings replaced with new supports. Our conservators are now meticulously cleaning the surface of the mosaic and reconstructing its patterned outer border—work that is taking place on view to the public through early 2006.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- The suspect in a quadruple homicide at a Nashville Waffle House was taken into custody Monday, police said. Authorities had mounted a massive manhunt for 29-year-old Travis Reinking, after the Sunday morning attacks. Authorities announced the arrest Monday afternoon on Twitter, but did not immediately give details. More than 100 Nashville police officers had been going door-to-door and searching wooded areas, joined by dozens of agents with the FBI, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and troopers with the Tennessee Highway Patrol. Police said he had stolen a BMW days before the attack....