1) Romans saw the home (domus) as an extension of their character and felt it important that a house match the station of its owner. The architect Vitruvius described the types of home needed for those of different status: "Men of everyday fortune do not need an entrance court..
2) "..they don't need a grand atrium or tablinum because these men fulfil their social obligations by going round to others, not having others come to them. Those who sell their own produce must have shops and stalls at their entrance..
3) "As well as shops they need store-rooms and so forth in their houses, all constructed more for keeping their produce in good condition, rather than for ornamental beauty."
4) "For businessmen and landowners, comfortable showy apartments must be constructed, that are secure against robbery..
5) "Men of rank that hold offices and magistracies have social obligations to their fellow-citizens and need handsomer, more roomy homes to accommodate meetings. Lofty entrance courts in regal style, spacious atriums and peristyles, extensive gardens and walks...
6) "..all these are appropriate to their dignity. They also need libraries and galleries, finished in a style similar to great public buildings, since councils, hearings and private law suits are often held in the houses of these men."
Vitruvius, On Architecture, VI.5.2
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1) The fascinating Roman grave memorial of Sextus Vettius Geminus, veteran of the Third Augustan Legion based at Lambaesis, Algeria. The stele with its striking portrait is compelling in its own right – but is made even more so by an intriguing added function that it served...
2) Sextus Vettius Geminus lived sixty years and was a veteran of Legio III Augusta, in which he served a crucial role as signifer or standard-bearer. The old, bearded veteran is shown wearing his toga in a powerful frontal portrait that extends beyond the limits of its frame..
3) The memorial to Vettius Geminus was probably set up by his wife Licinia Muciana and a son also called Vettius, whose names are both damaged in the inscription. It is when we look at the top of the gravestone that we see something very surprising...
1) This incredible Roman bronze victory trophy is a unique survival from the ancient world, unearthed in the forum of Hippo Regius in Algeria where it once stood in celebration of a Roman military triumph...
2) The tropaeum, standing eight feet tall and weighing over a quarter of a ton, is sculpted in emulation of temporary trophies erected near the site of a victorious battle, taking the form of a tree trunk decorated with captured armour and weapons...
3) The cast bronze trophy shows a general's cuirass armour draped in a cloak, with precisely sculpted leather pteruges strips that provided some defence at the hips. Captured enemy weapons may have also been fixed to monument in ancient times...
1) The massive Trier Gold Hoard: 2,516 Roman aurei coins weighing 18.5 kg, unearthed in 1993 in the cellar of a Roman administrative building of ancient Augusta Treverorum. The hoard was deposited during the Antonine Plague or 'Plague of Galen' in the late 2nd century AD..
2) The gold hoard was unearthed by chance during the excavation of an underground parking garage in Trier. Sadly, hundreds of coins were stolen before the hoard could be secured by authorities, but an estimated 95% was preserved – the largest surviving Roman imperial gold hoard.
3) Study has shown the Trier hoard was first deposited in 167 AD at the height of the Antonine Plague: a catastrophic pandemic that may have killed upwards of 10 million people across the Roman Empire including, in all likelihood, the Roman emperor Lucius Verus..
1) Cato the Younger took his own life, rather than submit to Julius Caesar, on this day in 46 BC. Seneca writes:
'Cato drove the sword into his sacred breast, but the wound was not well aimed or mortal. I am inclined to think there was good reason for this...
2) 'The gods were not satisfied with seeing Cato die once. His courage was kept in action and recalled to the stage, so that it might be displayed even more powerfully – for it needs a greater mind to return a second time to death...
3) 'Cato therefore reached into himself and tore out his own vitals, and with that one hand cleared for himself a broad path to freedom. Men are raised to the level of the gods by such a death, which even their worst enemies cannot help but admire.'
1) An extraordinary Roman bust thought to represent Mark Antony, carved in rare Egyptian basanite from the Wadi Hammamat quarries in the Eastern Desert – among the most highly prized stones used in ancient sculpture, known for replicating the metallic appearance of aged bronze..
2) The commanding late-Republican portrait was discovered near the Egyptian city of Alexandria in around 1780, where Mark Antony was based with Cleopatra in their final years waging war against Octavian..
3) Though the identification of Mark Antony cannot be certain, the robust features, prominent chin, and aquiline nose do resemble Antony's appearance on coinage; here compared to a denarius from my collection. Basanite stone was also reserved for the most important sitters..
1) Having taken a leading role in the assassination of Julius Caesar on this day in 44 BC, aided by as many as sixty fellow conspirators, Brutus would commemorate the events of the Ides of March with this, the most infamous and enigmatic of all coins from the ancient world...
2) The coin shows the weapons and the motive of the assassins, with two daggers flanking a pileus cap of liberty, placed on the heads of those being freed from slavery. The blades of the Liberatores had, in the eyes of Brutus, released the Republic from a tyrant's stranglehold..
3) Rather than a lone dagger, the coin depicts a pair of blades that viewers would have most likely understood to represent the weapons of both Marcus Junius Brutus and his fellow assassin, Gaius Cassius Longinus – now the leaders of the Republican cause in the East.