Mary Beard tells about five tomes on the subject: Five Best: Religious Cults In Antiquity | Wall Street Journal

As part of a ‘cultural cooperation’ agreement, the Getty is returning a couple of items in its collection to Greece … some details excerpted from the Getty’s press release: [...] In conjunction with the signing of the agreement, David Bomford announced that the J. Paul Getty Museum plans to transfer two objects to the Hellenic [...]

From the Daily Star: A jobless Bulgarian man scraping a living by hunting for scrap metal has uncovered a haul of Bronze Age treasure worth 1.5 million euros, about $2 million. The 42-year-old discovered the trove of jewellery, coins and tools potentially dating back 4,000 years among the roots of a tree in the northern [...]

Hmmm … we’re starting to see more news of Latin programmes on the brink … From the Hartford Courant: After Suffield High School’s Latin teacher retired in June, the district struggled in vain to find a full-time replacement for the nine students — out of the high school’s nearly 900 — still enrolled in Latin. [...]

Seen on the Classicists list: War as Spectacle CALL FOR PAPERS Open University Milton Keynes 15 June 2012 This one day symposium will explore the theme of war as spectacle in classical antiquity and its reception in subsequent centuries, down to the present day. We are hoping to stimulate debate and address the following issues: [...]

We’ll be posting these in a few batches … I’ve got a bit of a backlog to catch up on (hectic week): The religious calendar from Thorikos September 23, 2011 David Gill On This Day (September 23) September 23, 2011 Eric Insurgency in Ancient Times: The Jewish Revolts Against the Seleucid and Roman Empires, 166 [...]

ante diem ix kalendas octobres rites in honour of Latona at the Theatre of Marcellus Mercatus — those cupboards must have been really empty! 484 B.C. — Birth of Euripides (?) 480 B.C. — Athenian naval forces under Themistocles defeat Xerxes’ Persian force in the narrows of Salamis (one reckoning) 63 B.C. — birth of [...]

A sidebar to a piece on the resurgence of Latin in Norfolk includes a sidebar with some ‘modern equivalents’ … inter alia: Like – sicut (as in “”I’m sicut studying Latin at sicut North Walsham High School”.”) … never seen that one before … via: Roman invasion take two as Latin returns to north Norfolk [...]

… it’s actually Madeline Miller’s (of Song of Achilles authorship fame): Madeline Miller’s top 10 classical books | Guardian

From a University of Southampton press release: University of Southampton and British School at Rome (BSR) archaeologists, leading an international excavation of Portus – the ancient port of Rome, believe they have discovered a large Roman shipyard. The team, working with the Italian Archaeological Superintendancy of Rome, has uncovered the remains of a massive building [...]

A quick romp through the Classical blogosphere (and environs): Round-Up: September 21 September 21, 2011 (Laura Gibbs) CFP: Go! Classics Go! The Beat Generation, the avant garde and the roots of counterculture September 21, 2011 lizgloyn Guess What September 21, 2011 (N.S. Gill) Classical Latin Texts Online September 21, 2011 Charles Ellwood Jones Antonine wall [...]

Sorry folks … just testing to see what facebook does with blog notifications (a major source of traffic for me ) …

Scientific American seems to be somehow involved in that Walters Museum exhibition of the Archimedes Palimpsest: Archimedes and Euclid? Like String Theory versus Freshman Calculus | Degrees of Freedom, Scientific American Blog Network.

Might have missed some … A Comparative Study of Numismatic Evidence from Excavations in Jerusalem September 19, 2011 History of the Ancient World Round-Up: September 19 September 19, 2011  (Laura Gibbs) The eroticization of knowledge in the Priapea – a preview September 19, 2011 lizgloyn On This Day in Ancient History – The Pious Emperor [...]

ante diem xi kalendas octobres Mercatus — stocking the cupboards after the ludi Romani 490 B.C. — battle of Marathon (yet another reckoning) 490 B.C. — the Athenian polemarch Callimachus dies during the Marathon campaign (contingent on the above, obviously) 19 B.C. — death of Publius Vergilius Maro (more likely than yesterday) 37 A.D. — [...]

Interesting coverage in the Guardian of a new exhibition at the recently reopened Hunterian Museum in Glasgow: One of the Roman empire’s most enigmatic monuments – the Antonine wall between the firths of Forth and Clyde in Scotland, which briefly marked the northernmost point of the empire between the 140s and 160s AD – is [...]

Adrian Murdoch continues the series with Varlerian’s son, who spent most of his time fighting assorted enemies: #34 Gallienus: Emperors of Rome

ante diem xii kalendas octobres Mercatus — after the completion of the ludi Romani, a few days were given over to restocking the cupboards 480 B.C. — battle of Salamis (one reckoning) 356 B.C. — birth of Alexander the Great (one reckoning) 91 B.C. — death of the orator Lucius Licinius Crassus (one author of [...]

Very interesting item from Kathimerini: A parallel universe lies beyond the fence of the American School of Classical Studies on Souidias Street in the Athenian neighborhood of Kolonaki. Time takes on a new dimension at the Wiener Laboratory, where those who research the past study human remains and other archaeological findings dating back hundreds or [...]

NPR appears to be interviewing Stephen Greenblatt this a.m. about his book, The Swerve … the NPR folks have already set up some items of interest: Lucretius, Man of Modern Mystery (intro; the audio will be here later toay) The Swerve (an excerpt from the book)  

ante diem xiii kalendas octobres ludi Romani (day 15) 86 A.D. — birth of the future emperor Antoninus Pius 208 A.D. — birth of the future emperor Diadumenianus 304 A.D. — martyrdom of Januarius (read about the ritual associated with him in the Catholic Encyclopedia)

… give or take; there’ll probably be more from today tomorrow (!):   explorator 14.22 September 18, 2011 david meadows Porticus Pompeiana: a new perspective on the first public park of ancient Rome September 16, 2011 History of the Ancient World APA Blog : CFP: The Raw and the Rotten: Perversions of Eating in Antiquity [...]

Just remembered what was bugging me about that original article … way back in 2004 (and I thought I had blogged this, but perhaps it was in Explorator), a Berlin-based researcher had claimed to have figured out the ‘formula’ for Pompeii red, which included a pile of cinnabar. Discovery News had the story … here’s [...]

From Rome Reports: