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) 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..

1) A mutinous band of Roman auxiliaries and their bloody misadventures..

In 80 AD an auxiliary cohort of soldiers was recruited from the Germanic Usipii tribe, and sent to Britannia to assist in Agricola's campaign against the fierce Caledonians of what is today Scotland... 2) The Germanic recruits quickly took exception to the brutal training regime and harsh discipline of the Roman army, soon deciding that a full-scale mutiny was their only means of escape..

1/4) The burial of the 'first Roman Londoner'. This magnificent cinerary urn carved in sumptuous Egyptian basalt was unearthed in Warwick Square, London, in 1881. The urn was found to contain the cremated bones of an adult male, revealed by modern analysis to have been.. 2/4) ..around 30 years old, tall and muscular in build, with particularly strong legs. The relatively complete preservation of his remains suggests that after cremation they were left to cool on the pyre before being carefully collected by hand and deposited in the urn..

1) On a summer's day in 2015, building contractors were excavating the foundations of what was to be a luxurious housing development in Tarrytown, New York, thirteen miles north of Manhattan. That was until the mechanised digger struck a mysterious stone object... 2) Excavator Tom Peterson used heavy machinery to haul the weighty, fridge-sized block out of the ground. Wiping away the soil that clung to the stone, he realised the block was actually made of ivory-hued marble and inscribed with Latin letters. Letters that seemed ancient...

1) A 20th century Roman temple to transportation.

The demolition of New York's original Pennsylvania Station in 1963 has been called 'an American tragedy' and 'an act of monumental vandalism'... 2) The iconic original Penn Station was constructed in 1910, not by the city or state but by the private Pennsylvania Railroad Company who spent $114 million on the station and associated tunnels – roughly equivalent to $2.5 billion today...

While serving as quaestor in Sicily in 75 BC, a 30-year-old Cicero set out to discover the lost tomb of the great mathematician Archimedes:

'During my magistracy I discovered the Syracusans knew nothing of the tomb, and even denied that there was any such thing remaining. I,… https://t.co/YOchCAxbvutwitter.com/i/web/status/1…
'When I had carefully examined all the monuments - for there are a great many tombs near the Achradina Gate - I observed a column standing out a little above the overgrown shrubs and briars, with the figure of a sphere and a cylinder upon it. Immediately, I called out to the… https://t.co/arljeCShddtwitter.com/i/web/status/1…

Nicomedia, 111 AD:
He bounded through the winding alleys and crowded streets of the city, his pursuers close behind. As a runaway slave, Callidromus knew that capture would mean chains, torture - and likely worse. If he could only make it to the statue of the emperor Trajan... 2) Reaching the refuge of the imperial statue narrowly ahead of his hunters, Callidromus gripped the emperor's bronze foot and called out breathlessly to the crowds all around; to witness that here he had the right of asylum - the right to demand his remarkable story be heard...

1) The skeleton of a man found in 2005 near the town of Otterup, central Denmark. He had stood 6ft tall and died in his 50's, likely from an infected stab wound in his pelvis. Researchers suspected the man was an elder Viking who succumbed to his injury on returning from a raid.. 2) Later, during construction of Oxford University's Kendrew Quadrangle in 2008, a mass grave of 35 male skeletons was unearthed. Forensic analysis showed they were men aged between 16-25 who died extremely violently, many stabbed several times before being decapitated...