Tag: Rome

The Punic Wars is the generally used term for the lengthy conflict between the two main centres of power in the western Mediterranean, Rome and Carthage. Carthage was originally a Phoenician colony. The Latin name for a Phoenician is 'Poenus' which leads to our English adjective 'Punic'. Carthage Th...

Nestled in the scenic Bay of Naples in Italy, Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius stand as timeless witnesses to the dual forces of human history and nature's wrath. Join us on a captivating journey as we explore the archaeological wonders frozen in time by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD and the maj...

Plutarch's Lives: Caius Gracchus Caius Gracchus, at first, either for fear of his brother's enemies,or designing to render them more odious to the people, absentedhimself from the public assemblies, and lived quietly in his ownhouse, as if he were not only reduced for the present to liveunambitiousl...

Gaius Marius Before Marius was back in Rome he was re-elected to the consulship (104 BC), though the law forbade re-election and required the candidate to be present in Rome.But Marius was the soldier of the hour, and the hour demanded Rome's finest soldier of the day.For during the Numidian war a t...

Archaeologists in Luxembourg have discovered a remarkable hoard of Roman gold coins dating back around 1,600 years. The collection, featuring the portraits of nine Roman emperors from the fourth and fifth centuries C.E., includes three particularly rare coins depicting Eugenius, a short-lived and il...

In the years that followed the fall of Perseus, Macedon and Greece had sunk into a increasing misrule. In 149 BC there appeared a new Macedon claimant to the throne, Andriscus, calling himself Philip and pretending to be the grandson of Philip V and son of Perseus. The pretender had soon been allow...

With the Lucanians and Bruttians renewing their attacks on Greek cities, the Greek colonies, distrusting Tarentum, in 283 BC appealed to Rome for help. The Romans sent help promptly and effectively. The wiser heads in Tarentum saw no reason to object, but the popular party was furious and began agai...

Plutarch's Lives: Tiberius Gracchus Having completed the first two narratives, we now may proceedto take a view of misfortunes, not less remarkable, in theRoman couple, and with the lives of Agis and Cleomenes,compare these of Tiberius and Caius. They were the sons ofTiberius Gracchus, who, though h...

The Carthaginians had not lost everything, though they had been driven out of waters where they had collided with Greeks and increasingly with Italian traders also. There were two paths still open to them. their original exploitation of Africa, both the mountainous north and the oases and caravan r...

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After her defeat of Pyrrhus Rome was recognized as a major power in the Mediterranean, nothing makes this clearer than the opening of a permanent embassy of amity by the Macedonian king of Egypt in Rome in 273 BC. In 272 BC, the year of Pyrrhus'' death, the powerful Greek city of Tarentum in the so...