Hodie est a.d. VII Kal. Mart. 2775 AUC ~ 22 Anthesterion in the first year of the 700th Olympiad
In the News
- 3,400-year-old tablets suggest King Tut’s ancient dagger was not from Egypt
- Lavish Roman mosaic is biggest found in London for 50 years | Roman Britain | The Guardian
- Digs begin to uncover ancient Roman mosaic in Colchester | Gazette
- I Bronzi di Riace ritrovati 50 anni fa: il via ai festeggiamenti – MAM-e
- Culture Minister Lina Mendoni on the Return of Antiquities and Her Trip to the U.S. – The National Herald
- Rare Roman coin hoard discovered on south Bristol site
In Case You Missed It
- Italy requests return of ancient “Doryphoros” statue from U.S. museum-Xinhua
- US told to return stolen Roman sculpture in Minneapolis Institute of Art | World | The Times
- Beach-combing police find 1,500-year-old marble pillar near Ashdod | The Times of Israel
- The U.S. Has Banned Imports of Afghan Antiquities to Quash the Market for Illicit Artifacts, But Some Experts Say It Could Do More Harm Than Good
Classicists and Classics in the News
- Smithsonian highlights UC’s early work at Troy | University Of Cincinnati
- In Search of Troy | History | Smithsonian Magazine
- Dan-el Padilla Peralta Speaks at UCSB About Classicism as an Afro-diasporic Movement | The Daily Nexus
- Professor Tim Parkin to hold seminar on marriage and children at Melbourne’s Greek Centre – Greek Herald
- What have the Romans ever done for us? Reading University expert knows – Wokingham.Today
Greek/Latin News
Fresh Bloggery
- Milk, Wine, and Rambling On – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
- The January Poems in the Chronography of 354 – Roger Pearse
- Laudator Temporis Acti: Anti-Intellectuals
- Silence of Oak and Stone – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
- Probably a coincidence – Liv Mariah Yarrow
- Laudator Temporis Acti: How to Respond When Someone Farts
- Antonine Restoration – Liv Mariah Yarrow
- The History Blog » Blog Archive » Roman mosaic is largest found in London in 50 years
- Kiwi Hellenist: The Aeneid and the Epic Cycle (conference paper, Jan. 2020)
- Wedloop naar Dyrrhachion – Mainzer Beobachter
- Spelling B: how did Mycenaean scribes learn to spell in Linear B? – It’s All Greek To Me
- PaleoJudaica.com: Online lecture on the Mount Zion cryptic stone cup inscription
- PaleoJudaica.com: A “docu-series” on the biblical giants and the nephilim
- PaleoJudaica.com: How much medieval (and ancient) literature is lost?
- Rhodian shipwreck from the Roman period found off Turkish coast – The Archaeology News Network
- Roman coin hoard discovered at Bristol construction site – The Archaeology News Network
- Italy asks for the return of the Doryphoros of Stabiae from the Museum of Minneapolis – The Archaeology News Network
- London’s largest Roman mosaic find for 50 years uncovered – The Archaeology News Network
- The Third Daughter, a New Novel by an ex-Classics Teacher | The Classics Library
Association/Departmental Blogs and News
Other Blog-like Publications
- Navigating the Modern World: Plato’s Ship of State – Antigone
- MOLA archaeologists discover major Roman mosaic in London – HeritageDaily – Archaeology News
- The Quinarius: An Ancient Roman Coin You’ve Never Heard of
- Evidence of Byzantine church found on beach in Ashdod – HeritageDaily – Archaeology News
- Roman roadside life and death near Aylesbury | The Past
Assorted Twitter Threads
Fresh Podcasts
We’re talking about bread again! This time, about ancient Greek bread — its vocabulary, the many types of bread and how they were made, and the economic aspects of bread production. Josh shares his practical experiences of baking along with his research into the classical Greek world.
It’s the summer of 415 BC and the Athenians (in the middle of a devastating war with Sparta) are debating whether to launch a naval expedition against colonies in Sicily. General Nicias says “no”, but here comes wonder boy Alcibiades who makes the assembly swoon, what with his silver tongue, chariot laurels, wavy hair, and chiseled abs, and it’s off to Sicily we go. But wait! On the night before departure somebody mutilates a bunch of herms in the city and maybe even performs a drunken satire of sacred mysteries! Questions invite questions: was it Alcibiades? If so, does he deserve the death penalty? Why would you want one of those scurrilous statues on your street corner? And don’t miss the following defections, deflections, and rejections. Pull up a chair, check your emergency umlaut supply, and crack open a case of Löwenbräu. You can’t make this stuff up.
A troubled soul in life, Emperor Gaius Caligula’s spirit remains restless in death… This story is adapted from Suetonius, Life of Caligula, 59 and is followed by a discussion about Caligula, King Herod Agrippa, and Roman funerary rites.
London is today one of the greatest cities in the world, and the story of its origins is fittingly spectacular. Founded by the Romans as Londinium in around 47-50 AD, the metropolis served as a major commercial hub and indeed military target until its abandonment in the 5th century. It wouldn’t be until the turn of the following millennium that London regained its eminence under the Anglo-Saxons. Thanks to centuries of astonishing discoveries and decades of key archaeological research, we actually know quite a lot about Londinium; perhaps even why the Romans chose to found it there in what was previously a rural and peripheral landscape under the Celtic Britons. In this episode, Tristan chats to ‘Mr Roman London’ himself Dr Dominic Perring, Professor of Archaeology at UCL, who shares incredible insights into the origins of London and what its artefacts tell us about the very first Londoners.
Edmonia Lewis broke barriers as the first African-American and Native American sculptor to achieve worldwide renown for her neoclassical works in marble and bronze. After her death, her most famous masterpiece lived on, incognito until its relatively recent rediscovery.
Heracles reign of terror continues as he finds yet another woman to marry. This time, he must fight a river and defeat a centaur but not before inadvertently providing the cause of his own mortal demise…
Fresh Youtubery
- Meteor Weapons – Space Gear for the Bronze Age DOCUMENTARY – YouTube | Invicta
- The Aeneid and the Epic Cycle – YouTube | Kiwi Hellenist
Book Reviews
- An Instant Classic About Learning Ancient Greek | The New Yorker
- BMCR – Clifford Ando, Marco Formisano, The new late antiquity. A gallery of intellectual portraits. Bibliothek der klassischen Altertumswissenschaften, 162. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2021.
- BMCR – Tristan Power, Collected papers on Suetonius. Abingdon; New York: Routledge, 2021.
- BMCR – Maria Letizia Caldelli, I prefetti dell’annona da Augusto a Costantino. Collection de l’École française de Rome, 577. Rome: École française de Rome, 2020.
Online Talks and Conference-Related Things
- CFP: Interdisciplinary Humanities Journal: Myth and Art | Society for Classical Studies
- CFP: ICoNiC – International Conferences of Novelty in Classics | Society for Classical Studies
- See what’s happening today in Dr Pistone’s Online Classics Social Calendar
- SCS Calendar: Classics, Ancient History, and Classical Archaeology Webinars
Alia
- Late Period and the Ptolemaic and Roman Periods, an introduction – Smarthistory
- The Ark of the Covenant | Live Science
‘Sorting’ Out Your Day:
- Homeromanteion | Online Homeric Oracle
- Sortes Virgilianae (English)
- Sortes Virgilianae (Latin)
- Consult the Oracle at UCL
Today on the Etruscan Brontoscopic Calendar:
If it thunders today, it portends deformities for humans and destruction for birds.
… adapted from the text and translation of:
Jean MacIntosh Turfa, The Etruscan Brontoscopic Calendar, in Nancy Thomson de Grummond and Erika Simon (eds.), The Religion of the Etruscans. University of Texas Press, 2006. (Kindle edition)