1) Let's travel in time through this fascinating Roman denarius added to my collection, to the sacred grove of the goddess Diana on the mysterious shores of Lake Nemi – and into one of the most bloody and undeniably cinematic rites of the ancient world... 2) Situated in the Alban Hills south of Rome, Lago di Nemi is a circular crater lake nestled within the caldera of an extinct ancient volcano. The sheltered and tranquil body of water, which perfectly reflected the moon, came to be known by the Romans as 'Diana's Mirror'..

1) This bronze diploma was awarded to Marcus Surus Garasenus on 5th April 71 AD, recognising his completion of 26 years' service as an auxiliary marine in the Roman naval fleet based at Misenum. The prized diploma granted full Roman citizenship to Marcus, his wife and his heirs.. 2) Marcus Surus originally came from the Roman province of Syria, leaving his home in what is today Jerash, Jordan to join the Roman navy during the reign of Claudius in 46 AD...

1) An astounding survival from the Roman world. This silver bust of the emperor Galba is an incredibly rare example of an imperial imago, a reverential portrait of the reigning emperor mounted on a pole and carried into battle as a military standard... 2) The imago of the emperor was carried on campaign by a special standard-bearer known as the imaginifer. These precious metal busts ensured the symbolic presence of the emperor on the battlefield, and in the absence of the real ruler, could be used as...

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..

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...

1) The extraordinary Capitoline bust of the Roman emperor Commodus, presenting himself in the guise of Hercules. Sculpted towards the end of his egomaniacal reign, c.192, the audacious marble portrait shows the eccentric ruler with numerous attributes of the Greek action hero... 2) On his shoulder Commodus rests a gnarled wooden club, Hercules' weapon of choice, with which he subdued a number of beasts in his Twelve Labours such as the Nemean lion and the Lernaean Hydra...

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.

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...

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..

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..

1) Climbing the 124 steps to the Basilica of Santa Maria in Ara Coeli 'the Altar of Heaven' – especially hallowed ground for Roman coin enthusiasts, as the most probable site of the Temple of Juno Moneta, where for much of Rome's history the coins of state were struck into being. 2) Legend said that during the Gallic siege of Rome in 390 BC, the sacred geese of Juno honked the alarm when they spotted some sneaky Gauls scaling this northern spur of the Capitoline. Juno Moneta 'the Warner' would thereafter be worshipped in a temple on the lofty citadel..

1) On 10 May 1889, a pair of marble sarcophagi were unearthed on the banks of the Tiber during construction of Rome's Palace of Justice. Concerned the contents of the graves might be destroyed during transport to the Capitoline, archaeologists chose to open the coffins on site... 2) Two days later, a large crowd of curious Romans gathered to witness the opening of the sarcophagi. Deep in the construction pit, the famed archaeologist Rodolfo Lanciani gave permission for his assistants to cut the clamps sealing the first coffin and pull aside the lid...

1/9) Surviving sections of a spectacular and particularly ancient triumphal monument of the Roman Republic. The so-called Bocchus monument was dedicated on the Capitoline Hill around 100 BC by the future-dictator Sulla and the Mauritanian king Bocchus, in celebration of... 2/9) ..their defeat of the rebellious Numidian king Jugurtha, and the resolution of the Jugurthine War in North Africa. Though Gaius Marius was eager to claim credit for the victory himself and celebrated a triumph in 104 BC at which Jugurtha was executed, it was Sulla who..

1/5) Graceful female herms dating to the Augustan era, unearthed in the area of the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine Hill in 1869... 2/5) The surviving herms are thought to be some of the fifty herm statues known to have once adorned the temple precinct, representing the fifty daughters of the mythical king Danaus, known as the Danaids...

1) The breathtaking marble wings of Victory. One of two pairs of wings unearthed since 2008 in a spolia pit on the Palatine Hill, thought to have once belonged to a pair of winged Victory statues that adorned the Roman imperial palace... 2) Sculpted with stunning intricacy in snowy white Greek marble, the wings have left viewers awestruck with their extraordinary recreation of complex plumage and anatomical attention to detail...

1) A rare and spectacular Roman glass 'cage cup' unearthed in 2020 in Autun, France – shown during excavation and after careful cleaning and restoration. A raised Latin inscription circling the vessel reads 'Vivas Feliciter' – 'Live happily!'

2) Roman reticulated glass cage cups or vas diatreta are a rare form of luxury glass from late antiquity, with only around ten complete examples known to survive. While usually described as cups, a small number of the vessels have actually been discovered with...

1) Fragments of a painted glass cup, unearthed and reunited across five decades at the Roman fort of Vindolanda near Hadrian's Wall. The glass, likely imported to Britannia from Cologne, depicts two gladiators doing battle in the Roman amphitheatre.. 2) A secutor armed with a short sword and heavy shield faces off against his traditional opponent, the retiarius, armed with a trident. Both are watched closely by the stick-wielding referee known as the summa rudis (left), a figure absent in most modern gladiatorial depictions..

1) The Church of St Donatus, built in the 8th century directly onto the paving of the Roman Forum of Zadar (ancient Iader). The fascinating structure, the largest pre-Romanesque building in Croatia, is made almost entirely of spolia scavenged from the surrounding Roman ruins.. 2) The circular church stands at the northern edge of the colonnaded ancient forum square, adjacent to a row of tabernae shops, opposite the Roman basilica and near the Capitolium..

1) One of the most ambitious classical construction projects anywhere in the world is now in the final stages of its decoration. On a Caribbean island, the classical architecture firm Apollodorus are building a grand Roman maritime villa for a wealthy Roman history enthusiast.. 2) With the ocean-side setting and tropical climate – for which ancient colonnades work particularly well – architects have set out to recreate a sprawling Roman maritime villa like those that once hugged the shoreline of the Bay of Naples.

1) The Coin and the Omen: in 1658 Oliver Cromwell issued the largest portrait coin of his Protectorate, this magnificent silver Crown engraved by Thomas Simon. Almost as soon as they were introduced, however, an ominous defect began to appear on the coins... 2) Masterfully engraved though the coin dies were, a worrying crack quickly began to emerge at the bottom of the obverse (heads) die. The growing crack in the die manifested on the struck coins as an ugly raised flaw progressing gradually across the neck of Cromwell..

1) Just a few of the 627 Roman denarii from the Askerswell Hoard, discovered by metal detectorist Mike Smale at an organised detecting rally in West Dorset in 2017... 2) As is often the case, the jar containing the hoard of silver coins had been shattered by the farmer's plough and over the years the denarii had been dispersed over a wide area of the field..