Culture
The Mighty Thor and the Failure of Masculinity
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There are plenty of options for pushing back on this culture of weak man-children using anger to puff themselves up. One of them is to turn to myths of mighty Thor.
Arts & Culture
Danish museum returns a Roman emperor’s head to Turkey
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A bronze head of the Roman emperor Septimus Severus, illegally trafficked from a shrine where he had been worshiped as a deity in antiquity, will be repatriated from Denmark to Turkey.
Arts & Culture
Review: Gladiator II and the chaos at the heart of empire
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“Nearly everyone in this film is obsessed with the Rome that was, where the emperor was a scholar instead of a syphilitic club kid in a toga,” writes Meg Elison in her review of Ridley Scott’s new film. “It is much easier to complain about a bad government than to build one that works. See Virgil for more on this. See Hannah Arendt. See Marija Gimbutas. See all of human history. See the news.”
Europe
The Queen of Roads recognized by UNESCO
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The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization has recognized the Appian Way as a World Heritage site. The Appian Way, sometimes called Europe’s first expressway, was a major strategic and commercial route for the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire, and houses many sites sacred to Roman deities along its path.
Culture
A newly discovered statue of Apollo marks continuity in Phillipi
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Archeologists have uncovered the marble head of a figure believed to be Apollo in Phillipi, a find that shows how Roman statuary continued to be used and appreciated in the Christian Byzantine era.