The Roman World

Ancient Rome and its culture still exerts an enormous influence on modern culture, particularly in the west. Through med... Read more

Buried under the ash from the cataclysmic eruption of the volcano Vesuvius in AD 79, Pompeii and other sites around the ... Read more

Amphitheatres are notorious as the places where the Romans held their more gruesome forms of "entertainment", including ... Read more

After Nero's suicide in 68 CE Rome was plunged into civil war again, as successive military commanders were declared emp... Read more

Nero’s subversive courtier, Petronius, is almost certainly the Petronius Arbiter who wrote the satirical work Satyricon,... Read more

Work is represented as something dirty and sordid by the Roman elite, particularly Cicero, while freedmen always retaine... Read more

Work is represented as something dirty and sordid by the Roman elite, particularly Cicero, while freedmen always retaine... Read more

Nero seems to have encouraged innovative art and architecture (including his own extravagant houses), and to have foster... Read more

Claudius is famous as the survivor of the Julio-Claudian family – an unlikely emperor according to both ancient historia... Read more

When Augustus died in 14 CE, he had successfully established a dynastic form of monarchy which was confirmed by the cont... Read more