UNRV Ancient Roman Empire History

In the long history of the Roman Empire there are few, if any, women whose lives can compare with the drama, intrigue, romance and success of Galla Placidia (GP). Daughter of Theodosius I and sister of the Western emperor Honorius, she spent most of her early years in the household of her sister-by-adoption Serena and [...]

Have you noticed that a drink tastes better when it matches what you are drinking it from? Instant coffee seems natural enough in a plastic disposable cup, but its practically sacrilege to drink Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee that way. Likewise, to be fully appreciated, fine whisky and wines need a correspondingly fine drinking vessel. In [...]

One of the largest questions in European history has always been: “Why did Rome fall?” But surely right behind that question is another one: “What if Rome hadn’t fallen?” Usually the second question is explored only in fiction (there was, for instance, a Star Trek episode where Captain Kirk visited an alternate earth where Rome [...]

I have the privilege of reviewing this short but delightfully informative book, The Frome Hoard. The Frome coin hoard was found by detectorist Dave Crisp in a field near Frome in Somerset, England in April 2010. Two days before finding the Frome Hoard, Crisp had discovered some scattered fourth century silver coins (silaquae) in the [...]

One of the main factors which have restricted study of the Late Roman Empire has been the nature of the sources. Fragmented, confused, brief, and often in languages – in this case Syriac – known only to a few specialists, the sources have either lacked reliable translations, or the translations themselves were produced a long [...]

I have oft walked the streets of Rome, admiring the numerous monuments of the Eternal city; most are far grander than anything any other place can boast. Great as they are, it is however still quite natural that our attention has not been evenly spread. Some ancient remains have received far less attention than other. [...]

Drusus the Elder is a shadowy figure. He is either remembered as the good looking Ian Ogilvy in the 1976 BBC television series of Robert Graves’ I Claudius, horsing around in the baths with his brother, George Baker’s Tiberius; or he is associated with the Drususstein, the haphazard-looking commemorative monument in the German city of [...]

The Siege – Agent of Rome – is screenwriter Nick Brown`s first foray into novel writing; the two are surprisingly different disciplines, but Brown has crossed the divide with some aplomb. Cassius Corbulo is a young officer whose well-connected family have landed him a commission in the Emperor`s secret service – one of the corn-men [...]

Just a casual mention of Athens National Archaeological Museum should make anyone with the slightest of interests in classical history look up. The national Museum you say – in Athens? Surely it holds treasures of unmentionable value and beauty! But have you been there? My answer would of course be yes. But it would be [...]

Warfare is a part of the human condition. It can erupt into bloody conflict because of greed, envy, aggrandisement, sometimes simply because there are too many people in one place. There remains however one cause above all others that has men flocking to the colours to bear arms against the other side. Hatred. Hannibal Barca [...]

Those who know Roman history might assume that the word ‘crisis’ has been accidentally left off the title of this book, for it is hard to think of the third century AD without considering how great a mess the Roman empire was in at that time. In fact this issue is the very first which [...]

Lindsay Powell is an historian and writer on the ancient world who regularly contributes to Ancient Warfare magazine, as well as to our own UNRV. Born in Wales, he graduated from the University of Aston in England, and divides his time between the UK and Austin, Texas. Powell is also a veteran reenactor. Powell has [...]

When I first picked up Theogony, I admit that I did not have high hopes. Being a very small book, written by a poet I never heard of before, with a lengthy introduction bigger than the poem itself, I considered putting it down in favour of Homer or Virgil. However, despite my initial misgivings, I [...]