Innehållsförteckning för AH 57 från Ancient History Magazine

The relationship people had in antiquity to religion is very different to most people today. In Europe, the Enlightenment promoted, among other things, notions of rationality, scientific enquiry, and the separation of church of state, notions that remain strong today. However, in ancient Rome, as throughout the ancient world, everything was imbued with religious significance: the gods were everywhere. Consequently, the Roman ideas of religion can be hard to grasp. Where we might see natural disasters as forces of nature, the Romans would have understood such things as the gods expressing their displeasure. So, in order to propitiate the gods, people regularly prayed and made sacrifices, whether at great temples, road-side shrines, or within the home. The religious flexibility of polytheism also meant new gods, and even deified mortals, were…

In the years following Julius Caesar's assassination on the Ides of March in 44 BC, his young heir Octavian, the future Augustus, leveraged his connection to his great-uncle through military and religious means to claim power in Rome. One of the ways he did this was by helping to secure Caesar's place among the gods. Building upon a number of unprecedented honours Caesar had received during his lifetime, Octavian ensured that Caesar was granted a priesthood and temple. During the games produced by Octavian, it is said that a comet appeared and that this was interpreted as Caesar's soul journeying to the heavens, further strengthening his position among the gods. The young Octavian began including ‘son of a god’ (divi filius) among his titles and minted several coins promoting both…

Castor and Pollux had a busy heroic career before they stepped foot in Rome. According to their mythology, their mother Leda, Queen of Sparta, was impregnated in the same night by her husband, King Tyndareus, and by the god Zeus, appearing to her as a swan. This unusual conception meant that Leda gave birth to two eggs. In one were the mortal children of Tyndareus, Castor and Clytemnestra, and in the other were the semi-divine children of Zeus, Pollux and Helen, better known as Helen of Troy. After an impressive number of adventures, Castor's mortality caught up with him, and he was fatally wounded during a fight. Rather than lose his brother, Pollux begged his divine father to give his own immortality to Castor. Zeus, in recognition of their fraternal…

In the middle of the third century AD, the ancient Middle East was in turmoil — a time historians call the third century crisis — when politics, invasions, and economic crises created a historical dividing line between the early and late Roman Empire. But that crisis of the third century was also experienced on the ground, with human consequences. At Dura-Europos, on the Middle Euphrates in Syria, much of what we know about the ancient city, including its diverse religious landscape, was preserved accidentally by the throes of that disaster. This city, founded around 300 BC on the middle Euphrates in Syria, is best known from the archaeological remains of the period during which it was under Roman control, in the second and third centuries AD — remains that preserve…

Hengistbury Head is a sandstone promontory, created some 60 million years ago, on the eastern edge of Dorset, near Bournemouth. The promontory was named ‘Hengistbury’ in the eighteenth century, reflecting a belief that the early Jutish invader Hengist was buried on the promontory. There is tangible evidence of human habitation from the Stone Age through the Bronze Age and Iron Age to the Roman occupation of Britain. Located at the mouth of the estuary formed by the confluence of the rivers Avon and Stour on the last stage of their journeys to the sea, its coastal position made this one of the most important entry points into southern England and the Wessex uplands. Early habitation Hengistbury Head was inhabited intermittently throughout the Stone Age. The earliest artefacts at the site…

Rome Before Rome: The Legends that Shaped the Romans By Philip Matyszak ISBN: 978-0500028315 Thames & Hudson (2025) – £16.99 www.thamesandhudson.com “One can learn a lot about a society from its legends,” writes Matyszak in the introduction, “they are the stories that tell a people who they are, what they should be and what they should fear” (p. 9). Rome Before Rome, according to the publisher, “unravels the legends that shaped Roman identity, sowed the seeds of empire and continue to resonate today”. To do so, Matyszak offers the reader an overview of Roman legends, from before the Trojan War to the Early Republic, written in a conversational, engaging style, and accompanied by vivid illustrations. Matyszak does not simply retell stories most readers will be familiar with, but also includes…

A popular story of the centaurs' origins maintained that when Ixion was too attracted to Hera, Zeus sent him a cloud made to look like Hera, with which Ixion had sex. The result was Centaurus, who then mated with the mares on Mt Pelion and fathered the race of centaurs. Even in the fifth century, there were sceptics who dismissed this tale of cloud-sex and bestiality as fanciful. The writer Palaephatus claimed that they were actually horsemen trying to drive off cattle that were destroying crops. But this is rationalizing the centaurs — add ‘goad’ (kentron) to ‘bull’ (tauros) and the result is ‘centaur’. In addition to their origins, there is still a great deal about them that is confusing, particularly in relation to the combination of their horsey and…

By the third century AD, the impressive divine lineage of the emperor was actively promoted in official titles and inscriptions: “Imperator Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus [Caracalla], son of Imperator Caesar Lucius Septimius Severus Pius Pertinax Augustus Arabicus Adiabenicus Parthicus Mamiximus, grandson of Marcus Antoninus Pius Germanicus Sarmaticus [Marcus Aurelius], great-grandson of Antonius Pius, great-great grandson of Divus Hadrian, great-great-grandson of Divus Trajan Parthicus and Divus Nerva” (CIL 8.25808). This monumental inscription from Furnos in Africa Proconsularis highlights how the Severans sought to connect themselves to the previous generations of divi by claiming direct family relationships and an unbroken line of descent dating back to the late first century AD. It preserves a tradition — albeit a likely fabricated one — that Caracalla's father, Septimius Severus, was officially adopted by…

The Diosioscuri were worshipped across ancient Greece. Since their mythology is closely connected to Sparta, their cult likely began there, and it appears to have been a popular cult there. Given their attributes as horsemen, it is no surprise that the Dioscuri were favoured by the Spartans, since horse breeding and horse-based athletic events were popular throughout Spartan territory, as evidenced by the Damonon stele. The Dioscuri were so important at Sparta that it is said that one of them always accompanied a Spartan king on campaign, possibly as an effigy (Herodotus, 5.75). According to Xenophon, there was a place associated with the Dioscuri near Amyclae (Hellenica 6.5.31). The geographer Pausanias, writing in the second century AD, notes the existence of several sanctuaries dedicated to the Dioscuri throughout Sparta (3.13.1,…

The fortress-city was founded by Greeks in 300 BC, although there is little Hellenistic material at the site. While only initially a fortress, over the second century BC Macedonians settled there, and it gradually developed into a city. By 113 BC, however, as Seleucid power waned, the fortress-city was captured by the Parthians. Dura-Europos, sitting in a regularly shifting frontier region between competing powers, had connections to the Roman world long before it was under direct Roman control: material culture, currency, and ideas all found their way there. We know, from scant evidence, of the first attempt by the Romans to hold the site. An inscription on a Triumphal Arch just outside the city walls records a victory of Trajan ca. AD 115–116, which would be otherwise difficult to discern.…

Whether a woman remarried depended on her personal circumstances and the degree of social and financial pressure she faced. During the Augustan period, laws like the Lex Julia and the Lex Papia Poppaea gave tax incentives for marriage and penalized celibacy. Widows of childbearing age were expected to remarry, though only after a minimum of ten months mourning (mainly to remove doubt about the paternity of new offspring), and as it was customary for women to marry men far older than themselves, this applied to many women. Pompey, for instance, was in his fifties when he married eighteen-year-old Cornelia Metella. Widowhood also often brought economic hardship, especially for women without dowries, inheritances, or family support. In such cases, remarriage was a necessity, especially among the lower classes. Generally, a woman who…

AN INTRODUCTION TO ROMAN RELIGION By John Scheid Translated by Janet Lloyd Indiana University Press, 2003 ISBN: 978-0253343771 Originally published in French, An Introduction to Roman Religion, written by a leading authority on Roman religion, offers a concise overview of the mechanics of Roman cult practices. While Scheid omits discussions of non-traditional religions, the book provides an excellent springboard for readers wanting to learn more about traditional Roman religion. PANTHEON: A NEW HISTORY OF ROMAN RELIGION By Jörg Rüpke Translated by David M. B. Richardson Princeton University Press, 2018 ISBN: 978-0691211558 Pantheon offers a comprehensive history of Roman religion, from the Bronze Age through to Late Antiquity, placing Roman religion in its wider Mediterranean context, including discussions of Judaism and Christianity, and noting how individual worship contributed to the transformation…

3300-year-old Egyptian bone whistle discovered A 3300-year-old whistle carved from a cow's toe bone, unearthed in the ancient city of Akhetaten in 2008 but only recently analyzed, is believed to be the first bone whistle ever found in Egypt. The instrument has a single drilled hole and fits comfortably in the palm of the hand. When researchers recreated the whistle using a modern cow toe bone, they found its shape provided the ideal surface for blowing across the opening and making a whistling sound. Archaeologists speculate that it may have belonged to a police officer monitoring royal tomb workers. The researchers write: “Found at the Stone Village, a peripheral workers' settlement, this object fits with ideas that this community was heavily policed because of their proximity to the royal cemetery…

Many past writers, ancient and modern, have not viewed Sparta in militaristic terms. In the fifth century BC, Pindar and Herodotos depicted its military prowess as just one of many civic characteristics. In the fourth century BC, Xenophon, who knew Sparta well, expressed a similar balanced civic-military perspective. Assertions about Sparta's martial character originated largely from its imperial rival Athens. Perikles' claim in his Funeral Oration that the Spartan upbringing was primarily military came at a state funeral for fallen Athenian soldiers. Isokrates' and Aristotle's claim that Sparta had an exclusively martial orientation appeared only after the creation and rapid decline of its empire in the early fourth century BC. Many early modern thinkers also regarded Sparta's military qualities as underpinning civic goals such as political liberty and good laws.…

A small piece of lead, found at the temple of Mercury at Uley, Gloucestershire, in the 1970s, bears the following inscription: “To the holy god Mercury Arverius. I commit to you the execrable Manneius who has done me wrong concerning those denarii which he owed me. And from the money of this time, I give you 100,000 denarii, which I give, offer, destine, assign to the god Mercury Arveriacus, that he bring this to the temple and the treasury of the most powerful god … May his (family) languish in sleeplessness with unknown ailments, adverse indispositions, the law against them. May they repel everybody, half-naked, toothless, trembling, gouty, without pity of anyone. May they be finished out of the most disgusting state, and not find you merciful, Lord, before they…

Every Roman family had its own Lar (plural: Lares) looking after them. Each Lar Familiaris was charged with protecting a Roman home, from an apartment to a sprawling country villa with its fields, and the family who lived there, whether free or enslaved. When the family moved to a new house, the Lares would accompany them and not be left behind. In their earliest incarnation, the Lares seem to have been associated with agriculture or perhaps represented an ancestor who had become a god, although other spirits, such as those of the dead in the underworld (Manes) and the revered ancestors (Parentes), represented departed family members. Lares are mentioned in Roman mythology, although they lack stories of their own. According to Pliny the Elder, the birth of Servius Tullius involved…

In the early hours in modern-day Tunis, Ghassen draws up nets brimming with snails from the side of the harbour. He inspects every single one, throwing the small ones back into the sea and making sure that only suitable subjects come back with him. Ghassen is not collecting these murex sea snails for his evening dinner; he is using them to produce the most expensive colour of antiquity. Ghassen is the only person in the world who has reliably reinvented the process of Tyrian purple production. This colour was the most expensive and prestigious in antiquity. Its luxurious reputation rested on three defining qualities. Firstly, it was extremely expensive and difficult to produce; around 12,000 snails were needed to dye even the trim of a single tunic. Secondly, people considered…