And here it is! After many recommendations that she come on as a guest, @sarahebond.bsky.social stopped by to talk about her book Strike and labor in Roman Antiquity. Apologies for the somewhat esoteric Roanoke talk, but Roanoke is the best for a reason!
classicalantiquitypod.com/2025/12/15/s...

It’s been fab being on Channel 5’s Pompeii: Life in the City with @k8lister.bsky.social & @thehistoryguy.bsky.social. As well as talking all things #Roman, I got see the House of the Vettii before opening hours. Amazing 😍 @royalholloway.bsky.social @rhulhistory.bsky.social @rhulclassics.bsky.social

Now let's head out of Crotone towards Capocolonna, the coastal promontory the Romans once called Lacinium, and where the Greeks had built a sanctuary to Hera in the 8th c. BCE. Its name ("Cape of the Column") comes from the single column of the temple that is still standing.

photo: flic.kr/p/fPCMgk

Welcome Aprilis!
April was sacred to Venus. On the Kalends of Aprilis, the Romans celebrated the Veneralia, a festival honouring Venus Verticordia. According to Ovid, the cult image of Venus was bathed in the ritual act of lavatio. The celebrants bathed communally, crowned in wreaths of myrtle.

#ReliefWednesday - The Hadrianic reliefs (tondi) that adorned the Arch of Constantine's north and south sides. The common theme suggests they belonged to a lost monument for Hadrian, likely a tetrapylon. The tondi depict Hadrian, Antinous and court members hunting and offering sacrifices to deities.

#FrescoFriday - The magnificent Garden Fresco from the triclinium of Livia's villa at Prima Porta. This Second style fresco presents a variety of plants, fruits, flowers and birds rendered in a naturalistic way. It is one of the most stunning frescoes from the Roman world!

#SarcophagusSaturday - The Pashley Sarcophagus, a sarcophagus showing the triumphal return of Dionysos from India. A Satyr carries a child behind an elephant, while two Maenads play the 'aulos' and two Satyrs sit on it. Found in Arvi (Crete), dated AD 125-150.

Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (UK).

For an extra-special treat, I've cleaned up these lithographs depicting the women of the Villa Arianna by Wilhelm Johann Karl Zahn. The reason the lines look so exact is that he traced them in situ in the villa. Some artistic license in the details. 🏺

'Pompeji, Herculanum und Stabiae' 1842.

A limestone #ReliefWednesday from the 18th Dynasty that depicts blindfolded #musicians performing in a palace. Vocalists standing on the left, string players kneeling on the right. From a tomb in el-Amarna, now at the British Museum.

Walk with me around Linlithgow Palace in West Lothian, Scotland. Mary QoS was born here, as was James V. Pictures taken this morning.

For #ReliefWednesday, we are off to the Louvre to see a 2nd century sarcophagus that was reworked in the 14th century. Armed with a spear and holding a shield, this military figure is said to be a saint, although his identity (George? Theodore?) is based on speculation. Found in Asia Minor.

A fragmentary marble #ReliefWednesday from the #Louvre, wherein a gallus priest named #Soterides thanks his patron goddess #Cybele for reassuring him in a dream that his partner Marcus survived the Battle of #Thapsus...wow.
Inscription in alt text, found near #Cyzicus in Turkey.