Constantine the Complex

Rome's long and enigmatic chain of emperors was rife with complex personalities, few the match of Constantine (282-337). In his new Constantine the Emperor, biographer David Potter makes a case for this emperor's historical prominence.

"No Roman emperor had a greater impact on the modern world than did Constantine. The reason is not simply that he converted to Christianity but that he did so in a way that brought his subjects along after him.” 

"Alongside the visionary who believed that his success came from the direct intervention of his God, resided an aggressive warrior, a sometimes cruel partner, and an immensely shrewd ruler. These characteristics, combined together in a long and remarkable career, are those that restored the Roman Empire to its former glory."

Potter, a professor of Greek and Roman history at the University of Michigan, actually offers this major hunk of history in a surprisingly readable and compelling manner. His description is excellent of Constantine's complicated world with its spreading Christian influence, altogether as good a story as the sordid family strife surrounding this emperor.

Potter's book ~ published by Oxford University Press ~ is available from Amazon.com. Please see the link at the top of the "Ancient Tides Books" column at the left of this page.

Many Ancient Marble Statues Were Painted

Archer from Temple of Athena with painted surface.

Research at Stanford University is revealing that many ancient Greco-Roman sculptures were not displayed in their marble whiteness, but instead were brightly painted.

According to Past Horizons in interviewing the university’s Ivy Nguyen:

Though we still think of ancient Greece and Rome in terms of white marble sparkling under a hot Mediterranean sun, a new exhibition shows a Greco-Roman lady as she was meant to be seen – in technicolor. Not everyone may take to Stanford’s painted lady, but first impressions can change. “It’s very different – some have called it kind of garish,” admitted Nguyen, but she confesses that she’s gotten used to it. 

We’ve always known that ancient statues were painted: The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a vase, circa 360-350 B.C., depicting a man painting a statue of Herakles. The most important evidence is on the statues themselves – traces of paint that time did not wash from the creases and crevices in porous marble.

Nguyen’s research indicates the marble surfaces were painted, but cannot detect how many coats of paint the ancients may have applied to the sculptures.

Click here for the article and a video.

St. Valentine's Day's Brutal History

Depiction of Lupercalian festivities.

The ancient origins of St. Valentine’s Day are obscure. Historians see the celebration of the day stretching back to early Rome, with several embellishments ~ especially commercials ones ~ occurring in the succeeding centuries.

According to NRP:

From February 13 to 15, the Romans celebrated the feast of Lupercalia. The men sacrificed a goat and a dog, then whipped women with the hides of the animals they had just slain.

The Roman romantics "were drunk. They were naked," says Noel Lenski, a historian at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Young women would actually line up for the men to hit them, Lenski says. They believed this would make them fertile.

The brutal fete included a matchmaking lottery, in which young men drew the names of women from a jar. The couple would then be, um, coupled up for the duration of the festival – or longer, if the match was right.

The ancient Romans may also be responsible for the name. Emperor Claudius II executed two men named Valentine on February 14 of different years in the 3rd century AD. Their martyrdom was honored by the Catholic Church with the celebration of St. Valentine's Day.

Click here for the complete article.

Smuggler Leads Police to Caligula's Tomb

Caligula’s lost tomb has been found due to Italian police arrested a man smuggling a statue of the notorious Roman emperor recovered from the site.

Caligula ruled from 37 to 41 AD and was described by contemporaries as insane. He had sex with his sisters, appointed his horse as a consul and killed many for pleasure. He was killed by his Praetorian guard at 28.

According to The Guardian:

Officers from the archaeological squad of Italy’s tax police had a break last week after arresting a man near Lake Nemi, south of Rome, as he loaded part of a 2.5 metre statue into a lorry. The emperor had a villa there, as well as a floating temple and a floating palace; their hulks were recovered in Mussolini's time but destroyed in the war.

The police said the statue was shod with a pair of the "caligae" military boots favoured by the emperor – real name Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus; as a boy, Gaius accompanied his father on campaigns in Germany; the soldiers were amused he wore a miniature uniform, and gave him his nickname Caligula, or "little boot.”

The statue’s rare Greek marble, throne and god's robes convinced the police it came from the emperor's tomb. Under questioning, the tomb raider led them to the site, where excavations have begun.

Click here for the complete article.

Demise of Mystery Legion May Have Been Mundane

Rome’s legendary Ninth Legion ~ Legio IX Hispana, or the “Spanish Legion” ~ was one of the oldest and most feared units in the Roman army by the 2nd century AD. Raised by Pompey in 65 BC, it fought victorious campaigns from Gaul to Africa, Sicily to and Spain, and Germania to Britain.

But sometime after 108 AD, the legion disappeared from the records. The popular version of events is that the Ninth ~ numbering some 4,000 men ~ was sent to vanquish the Picts of modern day Scotland and mysteriously never returned.

According to Heritage Key:

The real explanation is very likely much more mundane ~ the unit was probably either simply disbanded, or continued to serve elsewhere, before finally being destroyed at another battle some years later. The myth, as is so often the case, tends to overshadow the truth.

Legio IX Hispana was put together in Spain alongside the Sixth, Seventh and Eight Legions in 65 BC, and first came under the command of Julius Caesar then the Governor of Further Spain, in 61 BC.

Expert at inspiring loyalty in his troops, he found one of his most devoted veteran armies in the Ninth. Although no record of the legion’s emblem exists, we can deduce that it was probably a bull, like all of Caesar’s faithful legions.

It served in Gaul throughout the Gallic Wars from 58-51 BC, and during Caesar’s Civil War against Pompey and the Senate from 49-48 BC. Victory at Pharsalus was decisive in ensuring Caesar’s ultimate grip on the Republic, and the Ninth played a key role. He repaid its service by ~ after his African campaign of 46 BC, and ultimate triumph at the Battle of Thapsus ~ disbanding the legion, and settling its veterans at Picenum and Histria.

The one certainty is that Legio IX Hispana had been disbanded or wiped out altogether by the reign of Marcus Aurelius (161-180), because a listing of active legions by that Emperor makes no mention of the Ninth.

Click here for the complete article.

Mysterious God Depicted on Stone Altar

The stone relic depicts a god-like figure on the back of a bull, holding an ax and thunderbolt.

A massive altar dedicated to an unknown deity has been unearthed in northern England. At nearly two tons, the four-foot high, ornately carved stone relic was unearthed at the Roman fort of Vindolanda, built by order of the Emperor Hadrian between 122-30 A.D.

"What should have been part of the rampart mound near to the north gate of the fort has turned out to be an amazing religious shrine," said archaeologist Andrew Birley.

A jar and a shallow dish are depicted on one side of the altar. The other side shows a god-like figure standing on the back of a bull, with a thunderbolt in one hand and a battle ax in the other. According to Discovery News:

Romans called this god Juppiter Dolichenus, but it was originally an ancient weather god, known to the Semitic peoples of the Middle East as Hadad and to the Hittites as Teshab. It was in its war-like representation that the Anatolian god Juppiter of Doliche became a favorite deity among Roman soldiers.

Indeed, an inscription indicates that the altar was dedicated to the Dolichenus god by "Sulpicius Pudens, prefect of the Fourth Cohort of Gauls."

According to Birley, Sulpicius Pudens was the commanding officer of the Roman regiment based at Vindolanda in the Third century and he may have dedicated the expensive stone to the god in thanks for fulfilling a vow. This was a normal practice, as partial inscriptions from badly damaged Dolichenus shrines, all found in England, testify.

"The Vindolanda shrine is unique as it is situated within the walls of the fort, something which has yet to be encountered elsewhere. This casts new light on ritual spaces inside Roman forts," Birley said.

Click here for the complete Discovery News article.

Graveyard of Roman Shipwrecks Discovered

Some of the many jugs found in one of the Roman shipwrecks.

Archaeologists using sonar technology to scan the seabed have discovered five pristine ancient Roman shipwrecks near the Italian island of Ventotene.

The ships ~ dating from the first century BC to the fifth century AD ~ are 100 meters underwater and are amongst the deepest wrecks discovered in the Mediterranean .

"The ships appear to have been heading for safe anchorage, but they never made it," said Timmy Gambin, head of archaeology for the Aurora Trust. "So in a relatively small area we have five wrecks...a graveyard of ships."

The vessels were transporting wine from Italy, prized fish sauce from Spain and north Africa, and a mysterious cargo of metal ingots from Italy, possibly to be used in the construction of statues or weaponry.

Images of the wrecks show their crustacean-clad cargoes spilling onto the seafloor, after marine worms ate away the wooden hull of the vessels.

Click here for the complete Reuters article.

Pompeii Actors' Masks Rediscovered

Fifteen mysterious life-size masks, reminiscent of ancient Roman drama, have been rediscovered in Pompeii after being forgotten for more than two centuries.

Made of plaster, they were unearthed in 1749 in Pompeii during the excavations promoted by King Charles of Bourbon, then were deposited in the Royal Palace of Portici on the Bay of Naples.

"They ended up being totally forgotten, and indeed we do not have much information about them,” Mariarosaria Borriello, the scholar who rediscovered the masks, told Discovery News. “We do not even know where they were unearthed in Pompeii.”

Some of the masks have their mouth shut, a clear indication that they were used as models for a craftsman who then produced lighter masks for actors to wear.

Click here for the complete Discovery News article.

Photo above shows one of the rediscovered masks, likely a model for theatrical masks used by actors of the day.

Image of St. Paul Believed to be Earliest

Catacomb's images of St. Paul (left) and St. Peter (right).

Fourth-century images of St. Peter and St. Paul were discovered earlier this month on walls of the Catacomb of Santa Tecla beneath Rome. The image of St. Paul is “the oldest icon in history dedicated to the cult of the Apostle,” according to experts of the Vatican’s Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology.

Christians revere Peter and Paul as the greatest early missionaries. The apostle Peter accompanied Jesus during his lifetime, according the New Testament, while Paul converted to the faith following a blinding vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus in about 33 AD. He preached the faith to pagan Greeks and Romans and was martyred in Rome about 65 AD. Peter is presumed to have been martyred at the order of the Emperor Nero at about the same time.

The discovery of the images in the catacomb was made June 19 and announced yesterday.

Marble Head of Emporer Titus Found Near Rome

Archaeologists have unearthed a marble head of the Roman emperor Titus, during an excavation outside the southern Italian city of Naples.

So far, the digging in Rione Terra, a cliff in the port town of Pozzuoli, has yielded 12 ancient statues, columns and fragments bearing inscriptions from what appear to be monuments from the Republican and Imperial periods of ancient Rome.

The marble head of Emperor Titus ~ who ruled at the time of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. and who was celebrated throughout antiquity for providing generous financial assistance to survivors of the eruption ~ is the most striking find to date. Bearing a crown of laurel leaves, the emperor's head was found in an ancient water tunnel.

Nearby there were four marble busts, plus a frieze portraying two human figures, two figures wearing a toga, and part of an equestrian statue.

Click here for the complete Discovery News article.

Photo is marble head of Titus (39-81 AD) found recently in Pozzuoli.

Pieces of Roman Temple of Isis Believed Found

Image of Isis from a 2nd Century AD linen shroud.

Workmen inside the courthouse in Florence, Italy, have uncovered a spiral column and hundreds of multicolored fragments that may have belonged to a Roman temple dedicated to the Egyptian goddess Isis.

Dating to the second century AD, the remains were discovered as the men dug a hole for a new water cistern for the courthouse.

''These finds are of extraordinary importance,'' said Alessandro Palchetti, the archaeologist overseeing the works in the courthouse, who suspected something interesting might be uncovered because of the area's historic relevance. 

He said the remains were comparable to others found over the last three centuries in the immediate area that have also been attributed to the temple of Isis, the Egyptian goddess of motherhood and fertility who was later adopted by the Greeks and Romans.

The actual location of the temple is unknown, Palchetti said, but it is believed to have been built just outside the Roman part of the city, near the current courthouse building.

Click here for the Ansa.it article.

Rare Roman Bowl found in Old London Cemetery

The bowl was pieced together from fragments found at the site.

Calling it a “miracle of preservation,” archaeologists have unearthed a Roman glass bowl in an ancient cemetery beyond the walls of the old city of London. The millefiori ~ meaning “a thousand flowers” ~ dish is believed to date from around the 2nd to 3rd century AD.

"For it to have survived intact is amazing,” Jenny Hall, curator of the Roman collection at the Museum of London, told Reuters News. “In fact, it is unprecedented in the western Roman world. We are still checking out whether there are similar examples surviving in the eastern part of the empire, in ancient Alexandria for example, but it's the only one in the West.”

The dish was found about nine feet deep in the ancient cemetery in Aldgate, east London, just beyond the old city walls. Romans were required by law to bury their dead outside the city gates.

Archaeologists said the dish was colored bright red when it was first pulled from the earth. The vermilion color has slowly disappeared since excavation as the water-saturated glass dried out. The moisture had preserved the original coloring, and some of the pigment is still distinguishable around the rim.

Click here for the Reuters article.

Romans Ready to Laugh at Themselves

Scene from 'Romans in the Decadence of Empire' by T. Coutoure, 1847.

Two men approached one another on the Appian Way.
“But you’re dead,” one tells the other. “Julius told me so.”
“How can I be dead?" the man says. "I’m standing here talking to you?”
“But Julius is much more reliable.”

It may lose a little in translation, but that’s a rough example of a joke from a 1,600-year-old book of ancient humor entitled Philogelos, or The Laughter Lover. I did an earlier post on the book last year, but Britain’s Guardian newspaper yesterday published an article about it, which has some additional detail.

According to classics professor Mary Beard in the article, the ancient Romans were a race ready to laugh at themselves.

Written in Greek, Philogelos, or The Laughter Lover, dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes which Beard said are "very similar" to the jokes we have today, although peopled with different stereotypes – the "egghead", or absent-minded professor, is a particular figure of fun, along with the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath.

"They're also poking fun at certain types of foreigners – people from Abdera, a city in Thrace, were very, very stupid, almost as stupid as [they thought] eggheads [were]," said Beard.

Researchers such as Beard continue to ponder how much the cultural differences between Ancient Rome and today may be altering the humorous aspects of the jokes.

Beard, who discovered the title while carrying out research for a new book she's working on about humour in the ancient world, pointed out that when we're told a joke, we make a huge effort to make it funny for ourselves, or it's an admission of failure. "Are we doing that to these Roman jokes? Were they actually laughing at something quite different?”

Click here for the complete article from the Guardian.

Roman Villa Still Yielding Many Artifacts

Aqueducts at the Villa delle Vignacce site south of Rome.

Excavations at an ancient Roman villa and bath complex in the outskirts of Rome have unearthed a wealth of surprisingly well-preserved artifacts, including the marble head of a Greek god. The site of the Villa delle Vignacce, towards Ciampino airport south of Rome, was first explored by archeologists in 1780.

Excavations began in earnest only about two years ago, revealing a residence attached to an elaborate thermal bath complex dating to the first century A.D. complete with hot baths, large tubs and a communal latrine. Since then, archeologists said they had also uncovered prized artifacts including fragments of columns, floor slabs and the head of a marble statue believed to represent either the Greek divinity of Zeus Serapide or Asclepius, the god of medicine and healing.

"It's very unusual to find such well-preserved remains in Rome because most of the sites have usually been plundered already and the artifacts stolen," Dora Cirone, an archeologist on the dig, told reporters last week. "Luckily, much of the remains here were found buried below floor level, and no one had laid their hands on it."

The complex initially belonged to Quintus Servilius Pudens, a wealthy friend of Emperor Hadrian, who probably held private parties in the baths for his friends, archeologists said.

Click here for the Reuters article.

More on Roman Battlefield Discovery

Historical implications of the recent discovery of an ancient battlefield in Germany continue to grow. Current thinking is that Germanic tribes ambushed a Roman legion in the densely wooded forests during a period long after historians believed Rome had completely withdrawn from the northern areas.

This CNN video shows some interesting footage of the archaeological efforts as well as some of the discoveries made in recent weeks.

Click here for the complete CNN article.

Click here for my earlier posts on the discovery.

Battlefield's Discovery Will Rewrite History

Tennis balls on stakes indicate where weapons and other artifacts have been unearthed on the wooded hilltop near the town of Kalefeld.


Yesterday’s announcement of the discovery of a 3rd Century battlefield between Roman legionnaires and Germanic tribes is the topic of another excellent article, this one in Spiegel Online.

Finding evidence of Roman fighting forces so far north is surprising, archaeologists say. Germany was once considered prime territory for Roman conquest. But in 9 AD thousands of Roman legionaries were slaughtered in a forest near modern-day Bremen, the article notes.

"We thought that with the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, the Romans gave up on this region and pulled back behind the limes," or frontier fortifications further south, Henning Hassmann, the Lower Saxony Conservation Department's lead archaeologist, told Spiegel.

But evidence found in woods outside the small town of Kalefeld may force historians to take a new look at the Roman presence in Germany. More than 600 artifacts, ranging from axe heads and wagon parts to coins and arrowheads, have been found on a forested hill called the Harzhorn.

Click here for the Spiegel article.

Early German Battlefield Shows Extensive Roman Presence into the 3rd Century

Roman dagger recovered from battlefield between Roman Legions and Germanic tribes.


Archaeologists are rewriting history with the discovery of the site of a third-century battle between Roman soldiers and Germanic tribes in what is now Germany’s Lower Saxony.

“The find can be dated to the third century and will definitely change the historical perception of that time,” archaeologist Henning Haßmann said last week. “The find indicates a massive Roman military presence."

Until now historians believed that the battle of the Teutoburg Forest ~ which took place in 9 AD ~ resulted in the Roman’s Empire withdrawal from Germania without any further attempt to conquer the land beyond the Rhine River. But the unearthing of the battleground near the village of Kalefeld proves Rome didn't give up its expansionary ambitions until much later than previously assumed.

“It is pretty normal to find evidence of Roman culture all over even up in Scotland, but a find like this in northern Germany is really amazing,” Haßmann said. “And it's spectacularly well preserved.”

The dig has already brought some 600 artifacts to light during the last three months, most of them ancient weapons.

This recovered decorative piece is part of a Roman binder for a knife case.

Here are three catapult arrow tips recovered from the Lower Saxony battlefield.

Rome's Oil Lamp 'Factory Town' Discovered

A selection of oil lamps recovered in Modena, with the bottoms of the lamps clearly marked with their brand names, Fortis being the most popular.


Italian researchers have discovered the ‘factory town’ where oil lamps that lighted the ancient Roman empire were made. Ruins were found in the north-central Italian city of Modena, near the city’s ancient walls.

"We found a large ancient Roman dumping filled with pottery scraps. There were vases, bottles, bricks, but most of all, hundreds of oil lamps, each bearing their maker's name," Donato Labate, the archaeologist in charge of the dig, told Discovery News.

Firmalampen, or "factory lamps," were one of the first mass-produced goods in Roman times and they carried brand names clearly stamped on their clay bottoms. Modena contained lamps by the most famous brands of the time: Strobili, Communis, Phoetaspi, Eucarpi and Fortis.

Popular Fortis Brand Was Imitated

These manufacturers had their products sold on the markets of three continents. Fortis was the trendiest of all pottery brands and its products were used up to the end of the second century A.D.

“Fortis gained such a name for its lamps that its stamp was copied and reproduced throughout the empire. It was one of the earliest examples of pirated brands," Labate said.

Scholars have long thought that the fashionable Fortis originated from Modena -- then called Mutina -- but until now no evidence had been found for that claim. "We know now for sure that Fortis came from Mutina. The city was a major pottery center, a cluster of pottery workshops, as the variety of brand names on the newly discovered items testifies," Labate said.

Labate added that kilns were located outside the city walls to prevent fires from breaking out in the city.

Click here for the Discovery News article.

Romulus Murder Site to be On Display

Romulus and brother Remus and the she-wolf from an image on an ancient Roman coin.


After a half-century of being hidden beneath a slab of concrete, people will be able to view the black marble paving stones ~ called the “Lapis Niger” ~ where Romulus, the first king of Rome, was brutally murdered.

Professor Angelo Bottini, Superintendent of Archeology in Rome, said the underground spot where Romulus is traditionally said to have been killed and dismembered, had been covered over with cement since the 1950s. Recent rains had damaged the covering, and he’s decided to remove it.

According to legend the twins Romulus and Remus jointly founded Rome in the eighth century BC. Romulus became sole ruler after killing Remus in a dispute over omens indicating which of them had the support of the gods. However, Romulus fell foul of the Senate, and was murdered at the age of 53 in 717 BC. According to the historian Plutarch, the senators were "exasperated by the imperious behaviour of Romulus toward them, and plotted against his life.”

She-Wolf or Prostitute?

Legend has it that Romulus and Remus were the grandsons of Numitor, ruler of the kingdom of Alba Longa who was deposed by his brother Amulius. The brother ordered a slave to kill the twins, but instead they were cast into a river in a basket and saved by a she-wolf, who suckled them until a shepherd found them.

Some scholars believe the word "Lupa" refers not to a wild animal but to a woman, since it was the nickname for a prostitute.

Click here for the Times of London article.

Caligula's Assassination Site Discovered

"Caligula Depositing the Ashes of His Mother and Brother in the Tomb of His Ancestors," by Eustache Le Sueur, 1647.

Archaeologists in Rome have found the underground passage where members of the Praetorian Guard assassinated the cruel Emperor Caligula.

The underground corridor discovered beneath the imperial palaces on Palatine Hill matches exactly the description given by the Roman historian Suetonius, who wrote that the Emperor was stabbed to death there after watching an entertainment, as the result of a conspiracy hatched in the Roman Senate.

Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus ~ who lived from 12 to 41 AD and was known by his nickname Caligula (Little Boots) ~ was the third emperor of the Roman Empire after Augustus and Tiberius, and like them a member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty.

According to the London Times:

Unlike his father Germanicus, a widely admired and upright Roman general, Caligula became a byword for cruelty, excess, insanity and sexual perversion. His nickname derived from the fact that as a small boy he dressed up in a miniature uniform while accompanying his father on military campaigns.

Some scholars maintain that Caligula murdered Tiberius to ensure the succession, or at least ordered his murder. On becoming emperor Caligula was at first hailed as the son of Germanicus, but his behaviour became increasingly psychopathic after he fell ill in AD37 and nearly died. He had all possible opponents, real and imagined — including members of his own family — banished or killed, and seized their properties.

He also proclaimed himself a living god. According to Suetonius, Caligula had incestuous sex with with his sisters Agrippina, Drusilla and Julia Livilla. He also supposedly tried to confer the title of consul on his favourite horse, Incitatus, who had a stable of marble and a collar of precious stones, and had flakes of gold mixed into his oats. Some historians have suggested, however, that such stories were embellished or even invented by Caligula’s many enemies.

Maria Antonietta Tomei, a Rome archeologist, said she was “absolutely convinced” that the passage was the one in which Caligula met his end. Although it bore builders’ stamps from the time of Claudius, it already existed at the time of Caligula, and had only been restructured by his uncle and successor.

“It is clear that it was Claudius and not Nero, as commonly thought, who gave shape to the imperial palace complex on the Palatine Hill,” she said.

At right is bust of Caligula from The Louvre.

Click here for the London Times article.