Effaced: the missing noses of classical antiquity
October 23, 2015
Mark Bradley explores an important cross-cultural phenomenon. A display cabinet in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen, exhibits scores of disembodied noses (and various other appendages) from its Greek and Roman sculpture collections. This macabre collection of body parts was assembled in 1981 out of marble and plaster noses that had been deliberately removed by the …
Death at York
February 4, 2015
As part of the Nottingham ‘Anniversaries through Coins’ project, Larissa Ransom describes how on this day, 4 February 211, the Roman emperor Septimius Severus died in York. Lucius Septimius Severus was born in April 145, the son of the equestrian Publius Septimus Geta, in Lepcis Magna, North Africa. In March 193 Pertinax, the successor …
A Reign of Terror
January 20, 2015
As part of the Nottingham ‘Anniversaries through Coins’ project, Larissa Ransom describes how, on this day, 20th January 175AD, Commodus was enrolled into all sacred colleges as priest Commodus (Caesar Marcus Aurelius Commodus Antoninus Augustus) was born on 31st August 161AD to Marcus Aurelius and his wife, Faustina the Younger. He was the sole surviving …
Res publica restituta?
January 16, 2015
As part of the Nottingham ‘Anniversaries through Coins’ project, Matthew Myers describes how on this day, the 16th January in 27 BC, Octavian became Augustus. Following the defeat of his former ally Marc Antony and the Egyptian queen Cleopatra at the battle of Actium in 31 BC, Octavian emerged as the victor of civil war …
Caesar Crosses the Rubicon!
January 10, 2015
As part of the Nottingham ‘Anniversaries through Coins’ project, Michael Welbourn reports how, on this day the tenth of January, in 49 BC, Julius Caesar crossed the river Rubicon and precipitated the final crisis of the Roman republic. Tracing the roots of this momentous decision requires us to go back eleven years to 60 BC. …
Drama or History?
December 15, 2014
Victoria Moore, a part-time student on the MA in The Visual Culture of Classical Antiquity, reflects on her experience of The Coronation of Poppea by Monteverdi, performed by Opera North at the Royal Theatre, Nottingham. I have to say that I am not familiar with any of Monteverdi’s operas, so my main expectation was of …
Julian ‘the Apostate’ Comes to Power
December 11, 2014
As part of the Nottingham Anniversaries through Coins project, Robert Stone describes how on this day, 11th December, in 361, the last pagan emperor Julian II (also known as Julian the Apostate) entered Constantinople as the sole ruler of the Roman Empire. Following the death of Constantine I (337), the Empire was divided between his …
We have two blog entries today, both from doctoral students in Classics: in the first, Peter Davies, reflects on the legacy of the poet Simonides’ words in commemorating the fallen…
November 11, 2014
After the battle of Thermopylae – immortalised by Herodotus and, in our own time, given new fame by Snyder’s epic 300 – the Lyric poet Simonides wrote an encomium for the Greek dead. In 1838 John Sterling would translate some of his words thus: Of those who at Thermopylae were slain, Glorious the doom, and …
On this day, November 8th, in AD 30, Marcus Cocceius Nerva was born.
November 8, 2014
As part of the Nottingham Anniversaries through Coins project, Mike Welbourne offers some thoughts on Nerva, Rome’s twelfth emperor, on the anniversary of his birth. According to Aurelius Victor (Epitome de Caesaribus, 12.1) Nerva was born in the Italian town of Narnia. On his father’s side he came from a family that had been intimately …
Greek for the Globe
September 21, 2014
Requests for translation into ancient Greek are understandably rare. But one was passed on to Oliver Thomas recently from a friend-of-a-friend at the Globe Theatre. For their production of Julius Caesar the Globe’s creative team wanted to mark the three main deaths (those of Caesar, Brutus and Cassius) by adding a small female chorus of …
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