✨ We are SO delighted to release our guide to National 5 Classical Studies. ✨

It's completely free (unless you'd like to make a donation) and is the first Classics textbook written for the Scottish education system in two generations! ✊⚡

www.workingclassicists.com/national-5-c...

Sometimes it's nice to take a break from programming and system design to make some art assets

For #MosaicMonday this fantastic photo of a mosaic (and a lovely fish 🐟) that was discovered in the submerged ruins of #Roman Baiae.

Photo: Parco Archeologico Campi Flegrei

What a privilege to see the wild boar mosaic up close. The blood spot in the eye, the redness in the mouth and the blueish tesserae making up the diffused shadows.
Quite the welcome in the entrance hall of the recently conserved House of the Boar, #Pompeii

Fun facts about antiquity make easy & popular content on social media, even when they're not true. This "Medusa from Hadrian's villa at Tivoli"? Hadrian definitely never saw it, because it isn't ancient. Sadly, there is almost no info online about this sculpture that isn't repeated clickbait lies

Well, looks like Apple uses Julian Day Numbers to store their datetimes. A value of zero in the JDN epoch system is 12pm on 1 January 4713BCE, using a proleptic Julian calendar. Pretty useful if you want to record Ea-nāṣir's birthday in your calendar.

Throughout Late Antiquity Roman cities became increasingly vulnerable to attack. As a result many cities built walls and defences, and often hastily reused existing structures in their new defensive works, such as C. Cestius' pyramid tomb in Rome, or (ironically) Severus' victory arch at Ammaedara.

During his long reign, Justinian fought many enemies: insurgent mobs, Vandals, Goths, Lombards, Franks, Persians, Slavs, his own paranoia, pandemic plague, and so on. Perhaps his most unusual enemy was a whale, named Porphyrios, who terrorised the waters around Constantinople for decades.

The Basilica of San Lorenzo in Milan was built in Late Antiquity, and like many churches of the era it was richly decorated with mosaics. San Lorenzo's mosaics stand out for an unusual reason though - damage and neglect have exposed the ancient artists' original underdrawings

Theodoric, Gothic king of Italy, built Sant'Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna & decorated it with mosaics, incl. one showing the king and court in front of the palace. After Emperor Justinian's conquest of Italy, the Gothic king & court were erased from the mosaics, all except for a few disembodied hands

In the coming months Open Antiquities - a new library and research resource for the ancient and medieval Mediterranean - will launch. Updates and further information to follow.