Maps and Rome

The old clichéd saying that ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’ is true, but so was its ‘decline and fall’ equally slow. Going from its traditionally accepted date of foundation the Roman Empire in the West of 753 BC, it lasted 1229 years in the West until the abdication of Romulus Augustulus in 476 AD.

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Isca Dumnoniorum, or Exeter to you and me

Isca Dumnoniorum c. AD 350

I’ve been over in Devon staying with my writing friend Helen Hollick for a week and yesterday we visited Exeter, including the museum. Of course, I went for the Roman stuff!

The Romans established a large castrum (fortified camp) named Isca around AD 55 at the southwest end […]

Roman women in late antiquity - a slippery fish to catch

Helena, mother of Constantine the Great (author photo, Naples Museum)

I set out to write a piece about women in the late Roman period – ambitious for a blog post I know, but I thought I could pull some threads out of a big subject and produce a digest. Not that easy, as […]