Free Republic

Albanian archaeologists made a surprising discovery near the city of Bulqiza after locals notified authorities about an unusual pile of stone blocks, Reuters reports. When a team from the Institute of Archaeology arrived to investigate the site in the village of Strikçan near the North Macedonia border, they identified the remains of a monumental Roman tomb, the only one ever uncovered in the Balkan country. Measuring 29 feet by 19 feet, the subterranean burial chamber is thought to date to the third or fourth century a.d., when the region was part of the Roman province of Illyricum. Once archaeologists entered...

On August 18, in anno Domini 472, the powerful generalissimo of the Western Roman Empire, Ricimer, passed from this life. A barbarian of noble birth, half Visigothic and half Suevian, Ricimer first appears in history as a soldier in the Western Roman army under the command of Flavius Aetius. It is in this capacity that he became allied with Majorian, another follower of Aetius. Both men, it seems, participated in the campaigns of Aetius against the Franks, though Majorian later had a falling out with the great commander prior to his famous victory over Attila. After the assassination of Aetius...