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Coins from the Hoxne Treasure, Hoxne, England, late 4th – early 5th century CE. silver 1994,0401.299.1-20 © Trustees of the British Museum © Trustees of the British Museum, 2018. All rights reserved

Rome: City + Empire contains wonderful objects but elides the bloody cost of imperialism

A major exhibition of treasures from ancient Rome presents a distinctly old-fashioned tale of the empire’s rise and expansion, which is out of step with contemporary scholarly thinking.
It is commonly thought that anyone in ancient Rome who killed his father, mother, or another relative was subjected to the ‘punishment of the sack’. But is this true? Creative Commons

Mythbusting Ancient Rome: cruel and unusual punishment

From being thrown off a cliff to being sewn into a sack with animals, ancient Rome is notorious for its cruel and unusual punishments. But we must be careful what we take as historical fact.
The Peutinger Table. Reproduction by Conradi Millieri - Ulrich Harsch Bibliotheca Augustana. Wikimedia Commons

Mythbusting Ancient Rome – did all roads actually lead there?

Today the phrase ‘all roads leads to Rome’ means that there’s more than one way to reach the same goal. But in Ancient Rome, all roads really did lead to the eternal city, which was at the centre of a vast road network.
An equestrian statue of a Julio-Claudian prince, originally identified as Caligula. ©Trustees of the British Museum: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license.

Mythbusting Ancient Rome – Caligula’s Horse

The emperor Caligula lavished attention on his favourite horse Incitatus, holding parties for friends in the steed’s grand stables. But did he make his horse a consul?
Was persecution a consistent imperial policy, and what types of punishments were inflicted on Christians? The Christian Martyrs' Last Prayer by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1883)/Wikimedia Commons

Mythbusting Ancient Rome – throwing Christians to the lions

The image of cowering Christians being thrown to the lions by Roman emperors is a grisly staple of popular culture. But how accurate is it?
Nero: had a reputation as an arsonist even in antiquity. Wikimedia Commons

Mythbusting Ancient Rome – the emperor Nero

The image of a crazed and capricious Emperor Nero is immortalised in popular culture: from fiddling while Rome burns to having a sexual relationship with his mother. The historical evidence, however, is rather different.

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