Roman forearm handshake - true gesture or Hollywood codswallop?

Welcome to the home of the Roma Nova thrillers. Please look around while you are here.

When two people meet formally for the first time, it’s customary to shake hands. Similarly, it’s something you do on parting, offering congratulations, expressing gratitude, or completing an agreement. In sports or other competitive activities, it’s also done as […]

Governing Britain the Roman way

Ever since Julius Caesar had a pop at the northern isles in 55/54BC as part of his Gallic Wars campaign (and didn’t get very far), Britain has been difficult to govern. Whether wars of succession or civil wars, barons or peasants v. kings, Saxons v. post-Romans, constitutional government v. chartists, Fenians, suffragists, unions or agitators, […]

Lupercalia – Not an ancestor of Valentine's Day

Lupercales, Andrea Camassei (1602-1649), Prado Museum

Mid February, the time of roses and chocolate when romance is in the air… And isn’t it the quaint descendant of the old Roman festival of Lupercalia?

Er, no. ‘Quaint’ is definitely not the word.

In AD 495, Christian bishop of Rome, Gelasius, finally managed to […]