#ClassicalMythology #ClassicsBluesky #AncientBluesky #History #JulioClaudian #Trojan #Aeneas #Britons #Brutus #Frankish #Francus

Nero: Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, We Hardly Knew Ye For eons, the life, times, and alleged crimes of Roman emperor Nero have been exaggerated — either embellished or tarnished but ever sensationalized. Nero (2004) shamefully brings that uncritical t…

A three-hour attempt to turn Nero into a misunderstood hero ends up torching the history it claims to honor.
#Nero2004 #RomanHistory #HistoricalAccuracy #FilmCritique #AncientRome #HistoryVsHollywood #MovieReview #Nero #JulioClaudian #CinemaHistory
pablohoneyfish.wordpress.com/2025/11/15/n...

FUNERARY ALTAR OF T. APUSULENUS ALEXANDER, 41-68 CE. CAPITOLINE MUSEUMS D(is) M(anibus). / T(itus) Apusulenus Alexander / v(ixit) a(nnis) LXXIIX. T(itus) Apusulenus Lucrio, / T(itus) Apusulenus Ianuarius, / T(itus) Apusulenus Iucundus, Apusulena Methe fec(erunt) patr(ono) suo / bene de se merenti. "To the departed shades. Titus Apusulenus Alexander lived 78 years. (His slaves) Lucrio, Ianuarius, Iucundus, and Methe made this for their master, good in himself." Oddly, the rote phrase "et benemerenti", "and well-deserving", seems to have been scratched out. They must have bought a pre-made urn, because the scene doesn't show a man, but a woman at right seated on a klismòs or chair, either releasing or holding onto a dove that is offered her by an Eros. At right, a little girl with a dog leaping up onto her also releases a dove. Alexander must have been a Greek freedman of someone called T. Apusulenus, and his slaves took his former master's name too. The scene and inscription are framed by a Lesbian kymation, the top one having been cut away to make a field on which to belatedly inscribe "D M", "to the departed shades". Is it just me, or does this Alexander not seem to have been truly mourned?

This #funerary #altar for #EpigraphyTuesday and #ReliefWednesday is of late #JulioClaudian date. It names one T. Apusulenus Alexander and his slaves, and the delicate #relief shows a seated woman releasing a dove, helped by an #Eros, while a little girl at left is doing the same. #AncientBluesky 🏺

Unknown Artist
Portrait of Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (10 BC-54 AD), Emperor of Rome as #Claudius, who was #BornOnThisDay
41-54 AD
British Museum
#JulioClaudian

ENTRANCE INSCRIPTION TO THE BATHS OF CRASSUS FRUGI, 50-67 CE. MUSEO ARCHEOLOGICO NAZIONALE DI NAPOLI Marcus Crassus Frugi, consul in the year of the Great Fire, 64 CE, was a bathhouse entrepreneur. Not only did he own the thermae named in this inscription from Pompeii, but another in Stabiae which featured natural hot springs. This beautiful epigraph says "Thermae of M. Crassus Frugi. Seawater and freshwater baths. The doorkeeper is a freedman." But Crassus, scion of the family of the triumvir, fell from grace with Nero and was executed in 67, his properties forfeit to the state. This tablet was removed, turned over, and carved with a shield, when it was reused in the so-called Villa of Cicero as the back of a lararium.

For #EpigraphyTuesday something not related to Christmas Eve, because I'm sick of the whole holiday already: a beautiful late #JulioClaudian #inscription from #Pompeii, now in #Naples, with its own tiny history of a nobleman's downfall.

#ancient #julioclaudian