From a Polish source:

Roman legionary quarters have been discovered on the Crimean peninsula on the Black Sea by Polish archeologists.

A team of Polish archeologists supervised by Radoslaw Karasiewicz-Szczypiorski

from the Archeology Institute at the University of Warsaw have discovered a house of a Roman legionary consisting of several spacious rooms in Balaklava in the Crimea.

“The discovery suggests that there must have been a Roman fort here. We aren’t sure yet how big it was and where the borders were but we hope to find an answer to these questions,” says Karasiewicz-Szczypiorski.

The archeologists established that in 1 A.D. a settlement on the Crimean peninsula, which was later to become Balaklava, was burnt. In 2 A.D. it was conquered by the Romans who built the fort including legionary quarters.

“The building that we discovered was several times remodeled: old walls were pulled down and new were erected, floors and roofs were repaired. In 3 A.D. the house was destroyed by fire and much later, probably between 15th and 16th centuries a Tatar settlement replaced the Roman fort,” says the archeologist.

• via Polish archeologists discover Roman fort in Ukraine|News from Poland.

Balaklava was the ancient Greek settlement of Symbolon …  alas,I don’t have the time to wade through Russian dating sites to give you much more than that …

Longtime readers of rogueclassicism may remember a post from a couple of years ago wherein was mentioned the contention that the Capitoline She-Wolf was not as old as we thought (the subject first came to our notice in one of Mary Beard’s posts). At the time, I wondered whether the Chimera of Arezzo would be soon coming under the same scrutiny. I asked the same question last year when the Chimera went on display at the Getty.  In the latest AJA I notice an article by P. Gregory Warden: The Chimaera of Arezzo: Made in Etruria? which deals with just the sorts of things I was wondering about (it appears the antiquity of both the Chimera and the Amazon Sarcophagus in the Florence museum came under scrutiny in the wake of the Capitoline Wolf reexamination). What’s even better, the pdf (link on the page) is ‘free’ and can be perused by all and sundry (and rogueclassicists). Enjoy …

I’ve mentioned these in my Explorator newsletter, but I don’t think I’ve mentioned them here (and I think I missed one in Explorator). Forbes has a very interesting weekly series going on in which Paul Cartledge and James Romm are discussing various aspects of Alexander the Great:

• Two Great Historians On Alexander the Great, Part One [on when Alexander came to be called ‘The Great’ as well as a list of interesting topics at the end which could be used on an exam or as essay questions]
• Two Great Historians On Alexander the Great Part Two [on whether Alexander was involved in the death of his father]
• Two Great Historians Talk Alexander the Great Part 3 [on problems with source material for Alexander]
• Two Great Historians Talk Alexander The Great, Part 4 [on the Greek attitude toward Alexander]

Starz is starting to ramp up the hype for its upcoming season of Spartacus … apparently they’re going to have a Facebook game (limited to 10 000 players) and there’s an iPad thingy in the works as well … initial details at:

• Starz Turns Facebook Into a Roman Empire Arena – WebNewser.