No matter how many novels and films have dealt with his figure, some in a fantastic tone, others more realistic, it is very difficult to establish King Arthur’s degree of historicity. Some historians consider him to be more myth than anything else, while others believe they see a series of authentic characters that could have […]
Roman Empire
Posted inAncient Rome
Hippika gymnasia, the Roman cavalry tournaments
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 […]
Posted inAncient Rome
When Emperor Hadrian destroyed the world’s longest bridge
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 […]
Posted inAncient Rome
Lapis Niger, the shrine where the first known Latin inscription was found, was already a mystery to the Romans themselves
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 […]
Posted inAncient Rome
The 5 Great Last Battles of the Western Roman Empire
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, […]
Posted inAncient Greece, History
How the ancient Greeks invented a telegraphic system for transmitting messages
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 […]