A Roman wall can lose its blue without losing the material that made it blue. To the eye, weathered plaster may look grey, brown or almost bare. Under the right illumination and camera, scattered particles answer with a strong near-infrared glow invisible to human sight. Those particles belong to Egyptian blue, a synthetic pigment whose … Read more
In 1931, excavators working at Aquincum found rows of corroded pipes and metal fittings in the ruins of a Roman building. The pieces did not look like a complete instrument. Collapse, fire and centuries underground had flattened the wooden frame and scattered its mechanism. An inscription made the wreck intelligible. The object had been a … Read more
A snail is easy to collect and difficult to schedule. Rain, season and landscape decide when a forager finds it. A Roman host planning an expensive dinner wanted a different kind of certainty: animals available on the estate, separated by type, kept alive and fattened before they reached the kitchen. Late Republican writers attach that … Read more
The prescription did not begin with a powder or a blade. It began with a living fish on wet sand. When gout pain arrived, Scribonius Largus wrote, a black torpedo ray should be placed under the patient’s feet. The patient was to stand where the sea washed the shore until sensation faded through the foot … Read more
The first decision came before any calculation. A ship in danger had to become lighter, so merchandise went over the rail. Roman law began its work after that deliberate sacrifice: one owner’s cargo was gone, other cargo remained aboard, and the vessel had escaped the danger that made the throw necessary. Who should arrive poorer? … Read more
The die did not travel directly from a player’s fingers to the table. It vanished into the open top of a copper-alloy tower, struck one sloping shelf, crossed to another and fell again. At the bottom it descended a miniature staircase. Three small bells waited above the exit. A throw that began in concealment ended … Read more
The first warning arrives before the main spectacle. A silver skeleton is dropped onto the table, its loose joints clattering while Trimalchio recites about the brevity of life. Then the servants bring a circular tray marked by the zodiac. Each sign carries an appropriate morsel. The guests see a disappointing assortment and begin to judge … Read more
The object looked familiar before the excavators had finished uncovering it. A broad wooden ring surrounded a keyhole-shaped opening, smoothed into a form that could support a human body. It emerged in 2014 from the wet deposits of Vindolanda, the Roman fort and settlement south of Hadrian’s Wall. Stone latrine benches survive across the empire. … Read more
“At last love has come.” The surviving sequence attributed to Sulpicia begins not with a description of the beloved but with a decision about disclosure. Hiding her affair, the speaker says, would bring more shame than revealing it. She refuses to entrust the story to sealed tablets for one private reader. Reputation will carry it … Read more
A patient sat facing the light while another person held his head from behind. One eye was covered with wool. The surgeon took a needle fine enough to enter the side of the other eye, but not so fine that it bent away from his hand. A slight movement, the Roman medical writer Celsus warned, … Read more
