News
Divers Stumble Upon 2,000-Year-Old Roman Shipwreck in Italy
The wreck off the coast of Italy, filled with clay vessels, is being hailed as “one of the most important underwater archaeological discoveries of recent years.”
Ancient Rome
Art Review
The Scent of Ancient Rome in St. Louis
An exhibition makes a case for the sensuality of these marble sculptures, recreating the perfumes and balms that once adorned them.
News
Dutch Museum Discovers 8-Inch Ancient Roman Phallus
The bone carving was found in a forgotten collection of 16,000 boxes containing various archaeological finds at the Valkhof Museum.
News
Pet Monkeys Were Popular in Ancient Rome, Burials Reveal
The recent archaeological discovery also deepens our understanding of trade networks between India and the Roman Empire.
News
Nearly Intact Roman Shipwreck Rests Just Six Feet Beneath Mallorca’s Waters
Discovered in 2019, the 1,700-year-old merchant ship reveals details about early Christian trade.
News
Pompeii’s Elite Once Lived in Luxury Towers, Research Says
Digital reconstruction technology is offering new insights into life in the ever-fascinating Ancient Roman city.
Feature
Our Enduring Fascination With Ancient Roman Baths
From a mosaic of flip-flops in Sicily to Cicero's possible sauna, new discoveries prove that bathing has always been about more than getting clean.
Feature
An Ancient Roman Guide to Trump’s Authoritarian Playbook
The authors of a new anthology argue that we can understand and counter authoritarianism’s rapid expansion today by looking at culture in the time of Julius Caesar.
News
Archaeologists Reconstruct Ancient Roman “Jigsaw Puzzle”
The thousands of fragments once formed an enormous fresco that decorated around 20 walls in a building in central London.
News
Research Shows How Mount Vesuvius Turned Man’s Brain Into Glass
A glass sample collected from the skull of a young adult victim of the eruption in Herculaneum yielded evidence of human brain matter.
Art
The Revisionist History of the Nazi Salute
Elon Musk’s defenders were quick to claim that his hand motion was actually an ancient “Roman salute” — but that gesture never existed.
Film
The Insidious False History of Gladiator II
The film’s casting of Africa and Africans as largely rebellious, uncivil, and above all outside of the bounds of the Roman empire is incorrect and dangerous.