Free Republic

For centuries, the waterfront resort of Baiae on the Bay of Naples was the stomping ground of Rome's rich and famous. Located around 150 miles south of the capital, many of Rome's wealthiest citizens, including several emperors, built villas there to escape the scorching city heat and take in the area's sulfurous waters. However, most of the site today lies submerged beneath the sea and is preserved as a spectacular underwater archaeological park, as seismic and volcanic activity has caused the coastline to sink as much as 30 feet. Recently, according to a report by Finestre sull'Arte, a team of...

New scientific analysis of the composition of Roman denarii has brought fresh understanding to a financial crisis briefly mentioned by the Roman statesman and writer Marcus Tullius Cicero in his essay on moral leadership, De Officiis, and solved a longstanding historical debate.Researchers at the University of Warwick and the University of Liverpool have analyzed coins of the period and revealed a debasement [sic] of the currency far greater than historians had thought, with coins that had been pure silver before 90BC cut with up to 10 percent copper five years later...The reference is part of an anecdote describing self-serving behavior...

Thomas Jefferson famously adapted key passages of John Locke’s Second Treatise in his draft Declaration of Independence. An 18th century gentleman could hardly regard himself as learned without the ability to quote a few Lockean passages from memory. Yet, what of the average colonial? Books were expensive imports. How were the yeomanry educated well enough in Lockean concepts to readily understand and accept this radical document, the Declaration of Independence? Through newspapers. Like modern Americans, our colonial forebears were also political junkies. Freewheeling editorials, letters to the editor that criticized parliamentary and colonial governments were standing features of public life....