Translated from french (please notify us of errors) A piece of engraved limestone, found in the Netherlands at the turn of the 20th century, has kept its secret until today. The object, from the Roman site of Coriovallum (present-day Heerlen), bore a geometric pattern that did not match any known game. By combining the analysis […]
Abracadabra! Or how to cure a fever in Rome
Translated from french (please notify us of errors) In the 3rd century AD, had you been suffering from a fever in Rome, a physician might have prescribed a surprising treatment: wearing around your neck an amulet inscribed with the word ABRACADABRA, repeated eleven times with one letter removed at each line until only a solitary […]
Drink and love today… for tomorrow is uncertain
Translated from french (please notify us of errors) Two drinking cups found in a tomb at the Penna necropolis, in Falerii Veteres, bear a message of disarming simplicity. The inscription, over 2,300 years old, is written neither in Latin nor in Etruscan, but in another ancient language, far less well known: Faliscan. The Faliscan people […]
Kykeon, or homeric coke
Translated from french (please notify us of errors) This is certainly the most mysterious of ancient beverages. Its very name sows confusion: kykeon (κυκεών)[1] , derived from a verb meaning “to stir so as to mix, to muddle”. The kykeon is therefore a blend, a mixture. To discover its composition, we can go back to […]
The social ascent of Eros the cocus
Translated from french (please notify us of errors) It is the cocina that conceals the cocus. In other words, it is the “kitchen” that conceals the “cook”. Historians and commentators of ancient Rome have shown great interest in the preparation of dishes, but far less in those who prepared them. “Those”, because they were probably […]
Alphabetical guide to foods that did not exist in the Roman world
Translated from french (please notify us of errors) Today, the tomato, aubergine and pepper are inseparable from Mediterranean cuisine, but all these products were unknown in the Roman world two thousand years ago… You will therefore find none of them in Roman dishes! These absences are explained by the isolation of continents until the Age […]
The satyrs’ secret garden
Translated from french (please notify us of errors) For the peoples of Antiquity, plants had multiple virtues: gustatory, but also medicinal, religious, magical and… aphrodisiac. In this last domain, three of them deserve the Pantheon. Savory Savory (Satureja) first, a Mediterranean plant, close to thyme, used since time immemorial as a condiment. In the Greek […]
Fifty shades of sow
Translated from french (please notify us of errors) Obélix had his wild boars¹, the Romans their pigs. Omnivorous animals requiring little upkeep, they were widespread in the countryside, including on modest farms. Professor Paolo Poccetti, a linguistics scholar at the University of Rome 2–Tor Vergata, describes the pig as “an animal at the centre of […]
August 24 or October 24? The date of Vesuvius’ eruption is debated
Translated from french (please notify us of errors) “October 24, 79”: this is what the first results show today when searching for the date of Vesuvius’ eruption on the internet. For centuries, however, historians and archaeologists accepted August 24, the date transmitted by Pliny the Younger. In 2018, the discovery at Pompeii of a charcoal […]
Julius’s New Year
Translated from french (please notify us of errors) Why does the year begin on January 1st? The answer lies in a reform carried out at full speed by Julius Caesar. At the end of the Republic, the Roman calendar had become a real headache. Heir to a very ancient organization, originally based on only ten […]