(Full view plz)

Some historical characters that will be making an appearance in the webcomic I'm developing!

Reblog if you have Roman Republic content on your blog

(aside from just during the international Tumblr holiday that is the Ides of March)

Put in the tags who your favs are

I leave the Ancient World behind and travel forward to the Cold War in my books.

The Western Roman Empire has fallen in my podcast. So now I move to Byzantines and Crusading Medieval Europe podcast.

‘Incredible’ Mosaics Were Found in an Ancient Luxury Home in Rome

Italy’s Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano has called the works “an authentic treasure.”

Researchers working in the Archaeological Park of the Colosseum in Rome have shared their discovery of luxurious mosaic-tiled rooms found in an ancient home on the site, which they believe may have belonged to a Roman senator. Created from shells, glass, white marble, and Egyptian blue tiles, the mosaics have been described by Italy’s Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano as “an authentic treasure”.

The “rustic” mosaics, found on the grounds surrounding the Colosseum in the heart of the city, date to the late Republican Age, in the last decades of the second century B.C.E., and show a series of figurative scenes. They once decorated a townhouse, or domus, owned by an upper class citizen. Italy’s Ministry of Culture have said that “due to the complexity of the scenes depicted” and their age, the mosaics are “without comparison.”

One mosaic depicts a coastal city with towers and porticos, with three large ships floating by on the ocean waves. The culture ministry believes this could be a reference to naval victories achieved by the owner of the home, which is believed to have been a Roman senator. This is supported by historical sources describing the area as having been occupied by such high-ranking members of society.

The decorated walls were likely located in the home’s dining rooms, where luxurious banquets would be hosted, and guests at these events were likely wowed with “spectacular water games,” according to the culture ministry, based on the presence of lead pipes set into the walls.

In the reception room, an extremely well preserved decorated stucco featuring landscapes and figures was also discovered. Other designs include vines and lotus leaves flowing from vases, musical instruments, and tridents.

The mosaic walls were first discovered near the Colosseum in 2018, but excavation at the site will continue into 2024, and more rooms could be discovered. Alfonsina Russo, the Director of the Archaeological Park of the Colosseum, has said that once the domus is full uncovered, “we will work intensely to make this place, among the most evocative of ancient Rome, accessible to the public as soon as possible.”

By Verity Babbs.

oh boy I sure hope nothing bad ever happens to my new OC Mewlius Catsar I just love my little boy so much even if he is consolidating his power in a way that grows worrisome

also here’s his bestie (and maybe even potential love interest???) Marcanine Wufius Booftus! relationship lore to come, but suffice to say, Catsar knows that Booftus will always have his back

Roman silver coin minted in 55 BCE, during Julius Caesar's campaigns in Gaul, by Publius Fonteius Capito, one of the tresviri monetales (mint officials) for that year. On the obverse, the helmeted head of the war god Mars, with a small representation of a tropaeum (trophy) behind him. On the reverse, a Roman horseman rides down two enemy soldiers, identified by their helmets and shields as Gauls.

Denarius with head of Julius Caesar (obverse) and Venus holding Victory (reverse), minted under P. Sepullius Macer at Rome

Roman, Republican Period, 44 B.C.

silver

British Museum

Roman history is wild because there's so many fucked-up little guys who are mass-murdering imperialist slaveowners, but also painfully human and relatable. And if you aren't honest about both of those things, you'll end up either whitewashing history, or denying that ordinary people like ourselves are capable of great harm.

I can understand why not everyone would find it appealing, or even interesting. But I guess I like the challenge. It's bittersweet to read about this goofy bisexual theater kid, alienated from the establishment and refusing to abandon his old friends, and reconcile that with the civil war he'd start and the tyrant he'd become.

Sulla: The Last Republican, by Arthur Keaveney

I think that's also one of my favorite parts of the Masters of Rome series: McCullough often dives straight into the cognitive dissonance and refuses to apologize for it or comfort us. It felt like she trusted the readers' intelligence to make up our own minds about difficult topics instead of needing morality neatly sorted out, and to simply put the book down if we don't want that. After being in several fandoms where some people did expect stories to always be comfortable and palatable, I found the messiness refreshing. (Her Sulla is a particularly fun example. Awful man, but so fun.)

~ Denarius.

Place oforigin: Rome, Italy

Maker: Lucius Hostilius Saserna

Period: Republican Roman Period

Date: 48 B.C.

one of the (many) funny things about ancient rome imo is that, as an adult, you could just get yourself legally adopted by another family for whatever reason, even, as in one notable case, by someone younger than you so that you could be eligible for a specific political office

My webcomic characters ft. the historical characters they were close to!

https://www.archaeology.org/news/12001-231215-rome-republican-domus

Sounds like this was an important house. I'm astounded, as I often am, that this was found between the Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill. You'd have thought that area was gone over with a fine-toothed comb in the 19th century.

i also think between act 2 and 3 meredith had her own proscriptions with the justification she was punishing people who were harbouring apostates or something like that and that she would use the seized assets to help rebuild kirkwall, except the money ends up only going to the templars and chantry

A ROMAN MARBLE PORTRAIT HEAD OF A MAN REPUBLICAN PERIOD, CIRCA LATE 1ST CENTURY B.C. 11 7/16 in. (29 cm.) high

In a letter to the previous owner from 1991, Cornelius C. Vermeule wrote: "This Republican head does look like Julius Caesar, but is probably someone else of his era, like the head restored on the Barberini togatus of the man holding the busts of his two ancestors. There was also a great vogue for reviving Republican portraiture in the late First and early Second centuries A.D., and Republican lookalikes, such as Hadrian's brother-in-law L. Julius Ursus Servianus."

As Vermeule notes, this example's likeness to Julius Caesar is striking, particularly to a bust of the dictator known as the "Chiaramonti-Pisa Type," now in the Vatican Museum (see F.S. Johansen, "The Portraits of Marble of Gaius Julius Caesar: A Review," fig. 1a). As he goes on to explain however, it was common practice beginning in the Republican era to commission private likeness after prominent public figures and likely this is what we have here. In his extensive study, Johansen writes that he believes only two actual representations of Caesar himself exist in marble, the first being the aforementioned example, and the other being a bust thought to be commissioned in his lifetime, known as the "Tusculum type" (see figs. 1a and 15a, op. cit.). Nevertheless, the present example illustrates that while the veristic style was certainly in vogue with reference to Republican portraiture, it did not prohibit artists nor their patrons from using other people's likenesses as inspiration.

shaking academics by the lapels like shut up about trying to reconstruct a historically accurate account of catullus' life with a factual chronology shut up about separating 'truth' from 'fiction' and the historical figure from the poetic one