A Letter From A Roman Soldier 1,800 Years Ago

The newly translated letter is from an Egyptian soldier named Aurelius Polion while he served as a volunteer Roman legion in Europe.

Arguing With Mum And Missing Home: The 1800 Year Old Letter That Reveals What Life As A Roman Soldier Was Really Like -- Daily Mail

* From an Egyptian soldier named Aurelius Polion while he served as a volunteer Roman legion in Europe
* Reveals a row with his mother, and plans to return to his family

A letter home from a Roman soldier 1,800 years ago has revealed that even for a volunteer on the front, family rows are still an issue.

The newly deciphered letter is from an Egyptian soldier named Aurelius Polion while he served as a volunteer in a Roman legion in Europe.

It reveals a row with his mother, and plans to return to his family.

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My Comment: It seems that aside from advancements in science and technology .... nothing much else has changed over the years.

More Secrets From A Famed Roman Shipwreck

Archaeologists secure an amphora from the Antikythera wreck.(Photo: Ephorate of Culture/Greece) 

Famed Roman Shipwreck Reveals More Secrets -- USA 

Today Ancient artifacts resembling the Antikythera mechanism, an ancient bronze clockwork astronomical calculator, may rest amid the larger-than-expected Roman shipwreck that yielded the device in 1901.

 Marine archaeologists report they have uncovered new secrets of an ancient Roman shipwreck famed for yielding an amazingly sophisticated astronomical calculator. An international survey team says the ship is twice as long as originally thought and contains many more calcified objects amid the ship's lost cargo that hint at new discoveries.

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My Comment: The ancient Romans were advanced .... more than what we give them credit for.

Rome's Colosseum Is Now Leaning

Rome's ancient Colosseum is seen from a helicopter, in this August 12, 2004 file photo. The ancient Colosseum of Rome, where gladiators fought for their lives, is slanting about 40 cm (16 inches) lower on the south side than on the north, and authorities are investigating whether it needs urgent repairs. REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi/File

First Pisa, Now Rome's Colosseum - It's Leaning -- Yahoo News/Reuters

ROME (Reuters) - The ancient Colosseum of Rome, where gladiators fought for their lives, is slanting about 40 cm (16 inches) lower on the south side than on the north, and authorities are investigating whether it needs urgent repairs.

Experts first noticed the incline about a year ago and have been monitoring it for the past few months, Rossella Rea, director at the 2,000-year-old monument, said in an article published in the Italian daily Corriere della Sera on Sunday.

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My Comment: the roman Colosseum has been standing for a long time .... so it should not surprise us if it is due for some repairs.

Highest-Paid Athlete Hailed From Ancient Rome

From Discovery News:

Ultra millionaire sponsorship deals such as those signed by sprinter Usain Bolt, motorcycle racer Valentino Rossi and tennis player Maria Sharapova, are just peanuts compared to the personal fortune amassed by a second century A.D. Roman racer, according to an estimate published in the historical magazine Lapham's Quarterly.

According to Peter Struck, associate professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania, an illiterate charioteer named Gaius Appuleius Diocles earned “the staggering sum" of 35,863,120 sesterces (ancient Roman coins) in prize money.

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My Comment: I am just curious to know what happened to all of that money.

Mummy Of A 'Tiny, Wide-Eyed Woman' Discovered In Egyptian Oasis

A gypsum mask unearthed alongside a sarcophagus recently discovered in Bahariya

From The Daily Mail:

Egyptian archaeologists discovered an intricately carved plaster sarcophagus portraying a tiny, wide-eyed woman dressed in a tunic in a newly uncovered complex of tombs at a remote desert oasis.

It is the first Roman-style mummy found in Bahariya Oasis some 186 miles southwest of Cairo, said archaeologist Mahmoud Afifi, who led the dig.

The find was part of a cemetery dating back to the Greco-Roman period containing 14 tombs.

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Mysterious Lead Coffin Found Near Rome

The lead coffin archaeologists found in the abandoned ancient city of Gabii, Italy could contain a gladiator or bishop. Credit: University of Michigan.

From Live Science:

Archaeologists found a 1,000-pound lead coffin while digging in the ruins of an ancient city near Rome last summer. The mission now is to determine who or what is buried inside.

The project – which is headed by Nicola Terrenato, a professor of classical studies at the University of Michigan – is the largest American-led dig in Italy in the past 50 years.

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How Roman Gladiators Died

Death Of A Gladiator -- Mind Hacks

Roman gladiators took part in one of the most brutal sports in history, many dying by traumatic brain injury during their matches. A medical study published in Forensic Science International examined the skulls of deceased fighters, discovered in a gladiator graveyard from Turkey, and reveals exactly how they died and even what weapons delivered the fatal brain injury.

The graveyard was discovered by archaeologists in 1993 but this study is the result of applying modern forensic medicine, which more typically attempts to discover the cause of death by looking at human remains after a crime, to the ancient bones.

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Before The Swiss Army Knife, What Did Soldiers Use?

(Click Image to Enlarge)
Inspired: The Roman army pen knife, a precursor to today's popular Swiss Army accessory

The Roman Army Knife: Or How The Ingenuity Of The Swiss Was Beaten By 1,800 Years -- The Daily Mail:

The world's first Swiss Army knife' has been revealed - made 1,800 years before its modern counterpart.

An intricately designed Roman implement, which dates back to 200AD, it is made from silver but has an iron blade.

It features a spoon, fork as well as a retractable spike, spatula and small tooth-pick.

Experts believe the spike may have been used by the Romans to extract meat from snails.

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Ambassador Or Slave? East Asian Skeleton Discovered In Vagnari Roman Cemetery

Researchers announced that the skeleton of a man, seen here, has DNA that indicates an East Asian ancestry. Sadly he may have been a slave. His sole surviving grave good, a single pot, can be seen on the far left. A person was buried on top of him and appears to have been given more grave goods. Photo courtesy Professor Tracy Prowse.

From The Independent:

A team of researchers announced a surprising discovery during a scholarly presentation in Toronto last Friday. The research team, based at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, has been helping to excavate an ancient Roman cemetery at the site of Vagnari in southern Italy. Led by Professor Tracy Prowse, they’ve been analyzing the skeletons found there by performing DNA and oxygen isotope tests.

The surprise is that the DNA tests show that one of the skeletons, a man, has an East Asian ancestry – on his mother’s side. This appears to be the first time that a skeleton with an East Asian ancestry has been discovered in the Roman Empire.

However, it seems like this contact between east and west did not go well.

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Top Ten Passions Of Ancient Rome

Getty Images

From The Independent:

From sex, binge drinking, and the culture of pleasure Ray Laurence looks at Roman passion.

By the time of the emperors, the Romans had created the world’s first global empire stretching from Morocco in the west to Iraq in the east, and from Scotland in the north to Egypt in the south.

Around this empire flowed a treasure trove of goods from far flung lands: slaves, spices, precious stones, and coloured marble, as well as an exotic array of foods and wine.

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Ancient Rome's Real Population Revealed

From Live Science:

The first century B.C. was one of the most culturally rich in the history of the Roman Empire — the age of Cicero, Caesar and Virgil. But as much as historians know about the great figures of this period of Ancient Rome, they know very little about some basic facts, such as the population size of the late Roman Empire.

Now, a group of historians has used caches of buried coins to provide an answer to this question.

During the Republican period of Rome (about the fifth to the first centuries B.C), adult male citizens of Rome could be taxed and conscribed into the army and were also given the right to vote. To keep track of this section of the population (and their taxable assets), the Roman state conducted periodic censuses.

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Roman Coin Hoards Show More War Means Fewer Babies

From Wired Science:

Coins buried by anxious Italians in the first century B.C. can be used to track the ups and downs of the Roman population during periods of civil war and violence.

In times of instability in the ancient world, people stashed their cash and if they got killed or displaced, they didn’t come back for their Geld. Thus, large numbers of coin hoards are a good quantitative indicator of population decline, two researchers argue in in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science Monday.

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'Mini-Colosseum' Excavated in Rome

Ulysses: A statue of Ulysses, also known as the famous Greek epic hero Odysseus. A 'mini-Colosseum' that lies beneath an airport may have hosted Roman emperors. With the help of ground penetrating radar, the archaeologists have uncovered luxuriously decorated rooms, a colonnaded garden, and this finely carved marble head, among other artifacts. University of Southampton

From Discovery News:

Beneath Rome's Fiumicino airport lies a "mini-Colosseum" that may have played host to Roman emperors, according to British archaeologists.

The foundations of the amphitheater, which are oval-shaped like the much larger arena in the heart of Rome, have been unearthed at the site of Portus, a 2nd century A.D. harbor near Ostia's port on the Tiber River.

A monumental seaport that saved imperial Rome from starvation, Portus is now reduced to a large hexagonal pond on a marshy land owned by a noble family, the Duke Sforza Cesarinis.

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The Secrets Of Ancient Rome

Rose Ferraby from the University of Southampton works on a three-seat communal toilet discovered at the site of the ancient port of the Roman Empire Photograph: Chris Ison/PA

From The Guardian:

The discovery of a major new archaeological site in Italy is a reminder that the world is still stuffed with secrets.

Look down from a height at any landscape in this slanting autumn light, and you'll see that the ground is only a thin blanket thrown over the remains of the past. The faint marks of fields and walls, houses and roads, show up even in the heart of cities – in relics as humble as the outline of a lost Edwardian rose bed, marring the bland green perfection of a suburban lawn.

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Roman Emperor Vespasian's Villa Found

An archaeologist works on the site of Roman Emperor Vespasian's summer villa. Titus Flavius Vespasianus, the emperor who ordered the construction of the Colosseum, ascended to the throne at the ripe old age of 60 and remained emperor until his death at age 69.

From Discovery News:

Aug. 6, 2009 -- The summer villa of Roman Emperor Vespasian has been found in the Sabine hill country northeast of Rome, Italian archaeologists announced today.

Titus Flavius Vespasianus is known for rebuilding the Roman Empire following the tumultuous reign of Emporer Nero. Vespasian changed the face of Rome by launching a major public works program, which included the construction of the Colosseum, the structure that arguably defines the glory of ancient Rome.

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Italian Archaeologists Find Lost Roman City Of Altinum Near Venice

From Times Online:

The bustling harbour of Altinum near Venice was one of the richest cities of the Roman empire. But terrified by the impending invasion of the fearsome Germanic Emperor Attila the Hun, its inhabitants cut their losses and fled in AD452, leaving behind a ghost town of theatres, temples and basilicas.

Altinum was never reoccupied and gradually sunk into the ground. The city lived on in Venetian folk tales and historical artefacts but its exact position, size and wealth gradually faded into obscurity.

Now, using aerial photography of the region, Italian archaeologists have not only located the city, but have produced a detailed map revealing its remarkably intact infrastructure and showing it to be slightly larger than Pompeii.

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