Collecting choice Latin lines is easy – the difficulty is trying to work out what they add up to. And women, in particular, come off badly in this collection of Latin’s greatest hits.
The Colchester vase, dating to the later second century AD.
Following Hadrian/Flickr
Disregarded as ‘fakes’ for decades, new analysis of coins bearing the face of a mysterious emperor is providing answers about a heady gap in Roman history.
Just in time for this year’s Nobel Prize announcements, here’s how the symbolism of a plant associated with the god Apollo lives on in modern-day laureates.
A Ukrainian inspects a ruined Russian tank displayed on the streets of Kyiv.
Thomas O'Neill/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Jacques-Louis David’s picture of death and despair has a strange and compelling beauty.
Three soldiers (far right) carry karnyxes, long horns with frightening boar-headed mouths that produce eerie calls during battle.
Prisma/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
We tend to romanticise the Christmas season, that time of year when we gather with friends and family, feast and be merry. But for most of its history Christmas has been a time of sordid behaviour.
Perfumes, potions and witches have been entwined for centuries.
Frederick Stuart Church/Smithsonian American Art Museum/Wikimedia Commons
Scent and magic have been entwined in our imaginations for centuries – right up to today’s witch-inspired perfumes.
America’s political leaders rushed the nation into war just weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, just like ancient Greeks and Romans did in response to similar traumatic events.
David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images
Ancient Athenians and Romans also let shared mass tragedies propel justifications for going to war – even when it wasn’t clear what that violence would solve.
Lecturer in Classical Studies, Institute of Classical Studies, University of London; Honorary Fellow, Macquarie University, School of Advanced Study, University of London