We are used, thanks to literature and cinema, to the image of medieval horsemen engaged in chivalry tournaments. Although this type of competition and its rules are exclusively of medieval invention, in reality similar exercises existed long before, such as the one practiced by the Roman cavalry, probably due to Greek influence. It was called…Continue readingHippika gymnasia, the Roman cavalry tournaments
Roman Empire
On 103 A.D. emperor Trajan ordered to build a bridge over Danube river to be used for the crossing and supply of troops in the imminent Second Dacian War against Decebalus, for which he was preparing the biggest army since Augustus’ times, about 150,000 men. The architect Apolodorus of Damascus, to whom the Pantheon is…Continue readingWhen Emperor Hadrian destroyed the world’s longest bridge
In 1898 the Venetian archaeologist Giacomo Boni was appointed director of the excavations of the Roman Forum at the Italian capital, a position he held until his death in 1925. Among the discoveries he made during that period are an Iron Age necropolis, the Regia (first a barracks and then the seat of Rome’s highest…Continue readingLapis Niger, the shrine where the first known Latin inscription was found, was already a mystery to the Romans themselves
Historically, the year 476 A.D. is considered to be the end of the Western Roman Empire, its last emperor being Romulus Augustulus. It was not something that happened suddenly but as a result of an evolutionary process initiated centuries ago, along which Rome suffered a progressive weakening for many reasons, some external and others internal,…Continue readingThe 5 Great Last Battles of the Western Roman Empire
The history of cryptography is almost as old as that of human language. It is known that the ancient Egyptians, Chinese, Indians or Greeks used more or less sophisticated methods of encrypting messages, as shown by some documentary examples that have survived. Generally associated with the military field, the need to send messages also produced…Continue readingHow the ancient Greeks invented a telegraphic system for transmitting messages