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Articles

The Roman state existed in practice for XIII centuries, being the power which was impacting the history. Therefore, I decided that I would tell the history of ancient Rome in the articles below, which will not necessarily cover only the Eternal City.

I encourage you to send articles and point out any corrections or inaccuracies.

Roman moneyboxes

Almost every child learned the difficult art of saving on the example of piggy banks. They come in various shapes and sizes – the best-known one is the honest “piggy bank”.

A terracotta piggy bank from Priene

Mauritania in Roman times

Currently, Mauritania is a country in northwest Africa, on the Atlantic Ocean. It has a land border with Senegal, Mali, Algeria and Western Sahara, and most of its territory is occupied by the Sahara Desert. In antiquity, however, Mauritania was called the land on the Mediterranean coast in what is now the northern part of Morocco and the northwest of Algeria.

Ruins of the Arch of Caracalia in the Mauritanian capital of Tingitana Volubilis

Hannibal’s revenge plans

The figure of Hannibal as Rome’s greatest enemy is fairly well known to that learning ancient history. Recognized as one of the greatest leaders of antiquity, the winner of Kann, Trebia or Lake Trasimeno, however, disappears from textbooks with the final defeat of Carthage in the Second Punic War and defeat at Zama in 202 BCE Sometimes it seems as if Hannibal died in this battle because in school notebooks it is often the last event related to a Punic chief.

Painting by Claudio Francesco Beaumont, Hannibal swearing hatred of the Romans (painting from 1730), Musée des beaux-arts de Chambéry, France

Roman provinces in Asia Minor

When reading about events in the history of the Roman Empire, you sometimes come across geographical names that cannot be intuitively defined on the map of modern countries. Names of lands, such as: Pont, Bithynia, Cilicia, Phrygia, Galatia, Lydia, Pamphilia or Paflagonia are not to be found on the maps of contemporary school geographic atlases.

Location of the geographic lands of antiquity on the Asia Minor peninsula

Shield of Achilles, Shield of Aeneas

In the 18th book of the Iliad, there is a description of Achilles’ shield, made for him by Hephaestus at the request of the hero’s mother – Tethys. Virgil, the entire “Aeneid” modelled on both epics of Homer (“Iliad” and “Odyssey”), did not fail to include in his work (in book VII) an analogous description of the shield Aeneas. The differences between them illustrate well the different goals and characters of the works of the two poets.

The scene where Achilles was handed the shield

Fortune telling in ancient Rome

For centuries, people have tried to find out what the future holds. Hence, it was common to refer to all kinds of fortune-tellers or priests – augur or haruspices who they foretold from the entrails of animals. Special attention was also paid to all kinds of fortune-telling, which, as it was believed, were not a coincidence, but were interfering with the gods.

Publius Claudius Pulcher, ordering the chickens to be thrown into the water

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