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More from @OptimoPrincipi

Gareth Harney

@OptimoPrincipi

14 Nov

1) May 6th, 319 AD. A normal spring day across Roman Britain. Little do the inhabitants of Britannia's towns and cities know they are about to witness one of nature's most awesome cosmic events. At around 2:15pm as we know it, the quality of the afternoon light begins to change..

2) The bright afternoon sky begins to darken. The spring birdsong falls silent. The hustle and bustle of the busy marketplaces draws to a standstill. To the sheer disbelief of people across most of Roman Britain over the next hour, the sun is slowly wiped from the sky..

3) Totality hits around 3:25pm as the sun is completely concealed, leaving nothing but a fiery halo high in the sky. Moving west to east across Aquae Sulis, Glevum, Corinium, Verulamium and Londinium, darkness descends over Roman Britain for a spellbinding 3 minutes..

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Gareth Harney

@OptimoPrincipi

26 Oct

1/4) In 75 BC, a band of pirates captured a young Roman nobleman who was on his way to study in Rhodes. From the start the 25-year-old Julius Caesar refused to behave like a captive. When the pirates told him that they had set his ransom at the sum of 20 talents of silver...

2/4) ..he laughed at them for not knowing who it was they had captured and demanded they raise his ransom to 50 talents! Settling in to wait for the ransom to arrive, Caesar bossed the pirates around, made them listen to his speeches and shushed them whenever he wanted to sleep..

3/4) ..always addressing the pirates as if he were their commander and they were his subordinates. In the 38 days it took for the ransom to arrive, Caesar would often tell his captors that after his release he would return and crucify them all - at which they would merely laugh..

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Gareth Harney

@OptimoPrincipi

10 Oct

Thread: A breathtaking aerial view of Nero's vast Domus Aurea, completed in 68 AD. Nero's sprawling urban pleasure-palace covered by some estimates over 300 acres of central Rome, on real estate conveniently cleared by the catastrophic Great Fire in 64 AD. (Images by Katatexilux)

2) Construction of Nero's extravagant 'Golden House' scandalised the age; Tacitus wrote that Nero "treated the entire city as his own palace", while Suetonius called the palace complex "ruinously prodigal"..

3) At the heart of the palace, bordered by magnificent porticoed colonnades, lay a huge artificial lake (stagnum Neronis) - upon which Nero held floating feasts on boats. With the completion of his Golden House, Nero claimed he could "finally begin to live like a human being."

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Gareth Harney

@OptimoPrincipi

27 Sep

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..

@GBlayney

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."

(Roman shop-front reconstructed by @GBlayney)

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Gareth Harney

@OptimoPrincipi

26 Sep

1) An ancient Roman-dinosaur-monster-bones thread! Yes you read that right - did you know the Romans were keen fossil hunters, fascinated by the bones of ancient "monsters". Augustus liked to decorate his holiday-villa "not so much with statues and pictures but with..."

2) "...the bones of monstrous beasts, famed for their antiquity and rarity. He called them the bones of the giants". Later, during the reign of Tiberius an earthquake opened gaps in the earth, exposing fossil remains. The people were too frightened to move the bones but they...

3) ..sent a single tooth to Tiberius in Rome as an example, more than a Roman foot in length! The messengers showed Tiberius the amazing tooth and "asked if he wanted the whole epic skeleton brought to Rome." Tiberius was curious but did not want to rob the bodies of the dead...

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Gareth Harney

@OptimoPrincipi

23 Sep

@YouTube

Okay, colour me intrigued.. a new show dramatising the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD.
“Barbarians” streaming 23 October | Official Teaser | Netflix via @YouTube