Bread & Circuses

It doesn't really need repeating, but Neil MacGregor's Radio 4 show Germany: Memories of a Nation is superlative on many levels. It is both pleasurable and essential listening. Although the focus of the series is the past six hundred years,...

I mentioned yesterday the news that the Antonine Wall is going to be scanned as part of the Scottish Ten project. It is worth looking at how the media has picked up on it. There has been no mention yet...

Here is a final excerpt from the Weather Channel documentary Lost Legions of Rome, on the Battle of Teutoburg Forest, part of the series Weather That Changed the World:

I was involved in the third episode - "Christians" - talking about Julian the Apostate, and Christianity and late Roman politics. On at 2100ET in the US tonight. For those interested in such things, the press release is here. Download...

For those with German, Deutschlandradio Kultur had an in-depth documentary on the Battle of Teutoburg Forest in AD9 yesterday. It is particularly strong on how the battle between Varus and Arminius fits into European/German culture. The site is here, but...

Potentially exciting news, sadly only so far in Spanish, but Spanish archaeologists from the University of Jaen claim to have found the site of the Battle of Baecula. The battle, in 208BC, was the first major field battle of Scipio...

An important exhibition, because it is a subject still rarely addressed in Germany, is the new one in Bremen that looks at the role of archaeology during the Third Reich. Called "Graves for Germania" (Graben für Germanien) it is at...

From Britain you get a slightly skewed perspective on heritage cuts. Scotland, disaster, England, not much better... but thank heavens you are neither Greece nor Italy. Depressing to get news therefore of budgetary problems even in Germany. A long piece...

I didn't comment on this story earlier in the week because I had presumed that it would be covered to death in the broadsheets. It is a sign in itself that it hasn't had a mention. The annual report for...

Good radio piece on dradio.de on the first Roman camp on what is now German soil - a recently discovered camp in Hermeskeil in the Hunsrück, south of Trier built between 53-51BC, in the aftermath of Caesar's Gallic War. See...

Nice radio piece for those with German on Deutschlandfunk on the battle that took place around AD235 between the Romans under Maximinus Thrax and the Germans on the Harzhorn, near Kalefeld. The text is here and you can download the...

Dorothy King at Lootbusters passed over details of a crossbow fibula which was stolen from the Museo d'Antichita in Turin. It can be dated fairly precisely to AD306-307 thanks to the two inscriptions: CONSTANTINE CAES VIVAS and HERCULI CAES VIVAS....