Submitted by Nick Gilbert on Wed, 02/10/2010 - 20:07
Valentine's day is approaching and those of us who are still single are being bombarded from all sides with pressure to find a soulmate in time for the weekend. I thought I'd pile the misery on a bit more with a list of some of the great romantic couples of ancient history. Some are known to us all, others are little known stories with sometimes touching and sometimes sordid details. Over the years these relationships have been dramatised and become legendary. They are the templates for modern fictional romance, and stories that will live forever in their own right.
Senator and historian, Tacitus, wrote two major works, Annals and the Histories. He was an author writing in the latter part of the Silver Age of Latin literature. Portions of these works survived dating back to the Roman Empire. The works examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius and Nero and others who reigned in the Year of the four Emperors. Tacitus also had a successful political course, becoming senator, consul and eventually governor of the Roman province of Asia.
Ancient history is full of blood-curdling bad guys and ghoulish girls, from the all-conquering Mongol chief Genghis Khan to the vengeful Queen of the Britons Boudicca.
With Halloween approaching – a celebration which has ancient roots in the pagan Celtic festival of Samhain – we give our run down of 10 top horrors from days gone by.
Better still, we give you some tips on how to get into costume and character for each too, so you can terrorise friends’ Halloween parties.
Submitted by Bija Knowles on Fri, 10/23/2009 - 19:49
While London's tube had much of its 12 lines and 250 miles of track in place well before the mid 20th century, Rome is still struggling to add its third metro line. The problem is an age-old one: the metro runs deep underground and is deep enough so that the tunnels themselves do not interfere too much with Rome's layers of buried civilisations. The stations and air vents, however, need to come to the surface and, much to the frustration of the construction company, they more often than not strike valuable archaeological areas.
Submitted by Bija Knowles on Mon, 10/05/2009 - 14:26
Experts think that the head of a marble statue depicting a young boy, found at Fishbourne Roman Palace in Sussex 45 years ago, might actually be the emperor Nero. This theory has yet to be proven and a 3D laser scan of the marble head on 15 October may provide further evidence.
Submitted by Bija Knowles on Mon, 09/28/2009 - 18:47
Amid all the excitement over the return of HBO's Rome to our cinemas in 2011, as well as ongoing whispers about a remake of I, Claudius, it is only natural that our thoughts turn to those Roman emperors immortalised in a way they would never have dreamed possible. In Rome, Pullo and Vorenus stole the limelight but Ciarán Hinds was a dark and charismatic Julius Caesar. So how does he compare to other screen versions of the character? Rex Harrison was overshadowed in the role in 1963 by Richard Burton's Mark Anthony in Cleopatra, and who could out-beef John Gavin's Caesar in the 1960 film Spartacus?
While London's tube had much of its 12 lines and 250 miles of track in place well before the mid 20th century, 
Experts think that the head of a marble statue depicting a young boy, found at 
