Tessera

Anthony Majanlahti

@anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social

Historian living in Rome. 🏳️‍🌈 Author of "The Families who Made Rome, a history and a guide" (Chatto, 2004). Currently writing a single-volume urban history of Rome for OUP. Only by knowledge of history can we know our context. Plus, it's fun!

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Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 16h ago

For #MosaicMonday, a brand-new discovery from just days ago at the #VillaCelimontana. This shows a beautiful #Antonine black and white floral #mosaic overlaid and cut by later #Severan modifications. Was this a domus, or the barracks for the 5th Cohort of Vigiles? #AncientBluesky 🏺

BLACK AND WHITE ANTONINE MOSAIC, C. 150 CE. VILLA CELIMONTANA

This is a newly-excavated Roman black and white Antonine floor mosaic revealed only a few days ago, when archaeologists digging behind a C16 retaining wall in the old Villa Mattei found a series of eight ancient rooms. The main section features a delicate floral design with large dark leaves and blossoms on a white background, bordered by a geometric guilloche pattern that has been cropped by the edge of the excavation. This mosaic section is interrupted on both sides by a successive floor base of significant thickness. This successive floor has a much larger upper mosaic from the early C3, illustrating the typical Roman habit of laying a new floor directly over an old one in a building that had a long life. This upper layer, which is barely visible in the photo, is coarser but still stylish, featuring a grid of black roundels and a central emblema of a kantharos surrounded by fish, suggesting the space may have served as a triclinium during the C3.

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 2d ago

The Camposanto Teutonico is perhaps #Rome 's greatest invisible example of #spolia. Legend holds it was founded on earth imported from #Golgotha. Centuries of burials have since transformed this geographic recycling into a rich, beery #German loam. #SpoliaSunday #AncientBluesky 🏺🧵

GENERAL VIEW OF THE CAMPOSANTO TEUTONICO, VATICAN CITY
A sunlit view looking down a cobbled path within the lush, walled cemetery of the Camposanto Teutonico, shaded by tall cypresses and a large palm tree. The ground in the foreground is paved with flat marble grave slabs inscribed with German names, adorned with small potted flowers. Dense green ivy spills over low stone borders on either side. Beneath these peaceful monuments lies what is traditionally believed to be sacred earth imported directly from Golgotha, making the very ground a conceptual piece of spoliated geography. This historic cemetery also serves as the final resting place for the 147 Swiss Guards who fell defending the city during the Sack of Rome in 1527, alongside important clerics and other personages from within the German-speaking lands.

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 3d ago

Woe to the vanquished. Roman clementia wasn't modern mercy. It was the power to decide the fate of the defeated. On this #Vatican #sarcophagus from 150-160 CE, a grieving barbarian family is the necessary raw material for a chilling display of state power. #SarcophagusSaturday #AncientBluesky 🏺🧵

VÆ VICTIS SARCOPHAGUS, 150-160 CE, VATICAN MUSEUMS

This mid-Antonine sarcophagus from the Belvedere courtyard depicts a victorious Roman general seated on a sella castrensis or camp stool at the right, being crowned by the winged figure of Victoria. Before him, a tragic procession of captured barbarians is paraded in submission. The scene focuses heavily on the intact family unit: captive fathers, grieving mothers, and small children are brought forward. Their palpable sorrow is not meant to elicit pity, but to emphasise the complete subjugation of the enemy and the absolute power of the Roman victor to choose between death and enslavement. This was clementia, quite different from modern clemency. You will notice that there is no good option for the captured.

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 4d ago

Found in an #Esquiline domus in 1848, this mid-C1 BCE fresco shows #Odysseus' men meeting the #Laestrygonian princess. The lounging figures are not mere mortals; they are Greek-labelled personifications of the living landscape, like the shores (Aktai). #FrescoFriday

FRESCO OF THE LAESTRYGONIANS, C. 60-40 BCE. VATICAN MUSEUMS

This segment of the famous Odyssey Landscapes was discovered in 1848 during excavations of an elite domus on the Via Graziosa (modern Via Cavour) on the Esquiline Hill. Dating to the mid-first century BCE, these Second Style frescoes originally adorned the upper portion of a wall, framed by painted red pilasters to create the illusion of looking outward through a grand portico. The scene depicts an episode from Book 10 of the Odyssey: Odysseus' men encounter the daughter of the Laestrygonian king, Antiphates, as she draws water from the spring Artacia. The lounging figures surrounding the action are Hellenistic personifications of the geography, like Aktai (the shores) on the lower left. Interestingly, the artist labelled the three scouts in Greek. While Eurybates correctly matches Odysseus' herald in the epic, the names Antilochos and Anchialos are not in Homer's account of this scene, showing the painter embellished the text with familiar names to give the anonymous crewmen epic gravitas.

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 6d ago

Found in an #Esquiline pit, this #Silenus antefix of c. 500 BCE was imported from #Veii, while the roof tiles were local, and both were painted locally. This was state patronage under the #Tarquins: importing high-end Etruscan art to augment local work. #ReliefWednesday #AncientBluesky 🏺

ANTEFIX OF SILENUS, C. 530-500 BCE. CAPITOLINE MUSEUMS

This terracotta antefix of a Silenus was excavated from a sacred pit or favissa near Sant'Antonio Abate on the Esquiline. Mineral analysis reveals this piece was made from a mold using clay from Veii, proving it was a high-status import from Etruria, while the roof tiles found alongside it were fashioned from local sources, but both were painted locally, a sign of the itinerant groups of artisans moving easily between Etruscan and Latial towns. Patronage likely came from the Tarquin kings, who were happy to import high-quality terracotta art to decorate a local temple in the Esquiline's archaic sacred landscape. Nearby stood the temple of Libitina, a death goddess, conveniently near the vast Esquiline necropolis, home to burials of both rich and poor. Functionally, the antefix capped convex tiles to protect the timber edifice. On the roofline, this wild Dionysian figure alternated with female Mænad heads. The wide-eyed Silenus served an apotropaic function, glaring down to frighten away spirits, whilst the welcoming Mænads offered an inviting presence, broadcasting a unified message: let evil stay away, let joy approach.

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 7d ago

To secure his seat on a burial club board in exactly 1 CE, Nepos paid for the ossuary's new mosaic floor out of his own pocket. It is a masterful display of status: funding local infrastructure so your peers literally walk all over your name in perpetuity. #EpigraphyTuesday #AncientBluesky 🏺

MOSAIC INSCRIPTION OF NEPOS, 1 CE. VATICAN MUSEUMS

Here we see a rectangular mosaic panel featuring a Latin text in black tesserae against a white background, mounted on a wall among various marble funerary plaques. Originally excavated from the subterranean Columbarium of the Volusii Saturnini, the text reads: NEPOS DEC PAVIMENTVM IN OSSVARIO ET SVBSCALARIA D S P D D C CAESARE L PAVLLO COS. The inscription translates to record that Nepos, a decurion of a burial club, funded the pavement of the ossuary and the area under the stairs with his own money. The consular date line specifically anchors this public works gift, or summa honoraria, to the year 1 CE under Gaius Cæsar and Lucius Paullus. Nepos did not act alone: two other decuriones, Mellax and Lucrio, funded additional decorations for this exact same stairway. Setting his name in stone was therefore not merely a selfish desire to be remembered, but rather reflected a profound urge to embellish a shared, sacred space for the fellow members of his sodality.

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · last wk.

The Athena of Tusculum. I'm tempted to claim a late Republican date for this #mosaic in the #VaticanMuseums to suggest a Cicero connection, but the lunar symbolism is Severan, c. 200 CE. A tablinum centrepiece meant to intimidate, later padded with fake C18 borders. #MosaicMonday #AncientBluesky 🏺

ATHENA-GORGON MOSAIC, C. 200 CE. VATICAN MUSEUMS

Here we see a large circular floor mosaic featuring a central tondo of the goddess Athena wearing a golden-crested Corinthian helmet. Her protective ægis forms a scalloped backdrop in sea-green and gold, with the apotropaic head of Medusa at her collarbone. Encircling the goddess is a deep-blue ring of rare lapis lazuli detailing the phases of the moon and stars. Excavated in 1741 beneath a Renaissance villa built over ancient Tusculum, it probably comes from a tablinum, to intimidate clients with a display of cosmic order. The Vatican assigns it an Augustan date, or even earlier. But the astonishing lapis lazuli and specific cosmic lunar symbolism heavily indicate a Severan date around 200 CE. While the central tondo and lapis ring are authentic, the outermost square frame with leafy scrolling vines and masks is an entirely fake C18 neoclassical addition.

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · last wk.

The Martyrdom of St Nobody. This stone on an ancient capital in S. Sabina is merely meant to evoke the ancient domus that preceded the basilica. Yet, posed on a pedestal, it allows a pilgrim’s relic-seeking eye to manufacture awe out of nothing. Throw your coins! #SpoliaSunday #AncientBluesky 🏺

SUBTERRANEAN COLUMN AND MASONRY FRAGMENT, C2-C3 CE. S. SABINA

Here we see an excavated subterranean well beneath the modern floor level of the C5 basilica of S. Sabina on the Aventine hill. When the C5 builders levelled the site, they sheared off the walls of the underlying C2 domus, leaving the smooth, pale grey marble Roman column seen here plunging far below the illuminated section down to the original street level. The column likely belonged to the domus of a wealthy Roman benefactress named Sabina who donated the site. To justify the "titulus Sabinae", the early Church simply invented a homonymous saint to dedicate the building to, commemorating the benefactress under a veneer of martyrdom. The weathered Corinthian capital bears a jagged, roughly triangular block of stone dead centre, perhaps the springstone for two arches crossing the space between the columns of an atrium. It was likely placed there by C20 excavators to give a sense of the building preceding the church. Yet in the spatial grammar of a Roman basilica this isolated stone, framed by plastered retaining walls and modern black iron railings, seems to demand veneration. The Church understands this visual vocabulary perfectly: leaving a piece of ancient masonry perfectly positioned atop a column in an excavated well is a brilliant passive manipulation of the human instinct to find the sacred in the city's ruins. This is all too fitting: Saint Sabina herself is about as real as the "relic" resting atop this column.

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · last wk.

This Aswan granite sarcophagus may reflect a C3 revolution. Emperor Gallienus stripped the senatorial aristocracy of military command, rewarding talented equestrian soldiers instead. Could this imperial gift have belonged to one of these newly powerful men? #SarcophagusSaturday #AncientBluesky 🏺

RED GRANITE SARCOPHAGUS, C3 CE. BATHS OF DIOCLETIAN

Here we see a sunlit sarcophagus in the roofless Aula IX of the Baths. Carved from red Aswan granite, the bathtub-shaped box features a heavy lid with lifting bosses and has been pieced back together from large fragments. The precise findspot is unknown, but it was recovered from the Roman suburbium, possibly from the imperial estate of Ad Duas Lauros along the Via Labicana. We know nothing about the occupant, but the material allows us to guess. Because Aswan granite was an imperial monopoly, this stone was a direct gift. It may have belonged to a newly powerful equestrian soldier, someone like Aurelius Theodotus, prefect of Egypt in 262–263 CE, promoted after Gallienus removed the senatorial aristocracy from military command. Any inscription was likely displayed on a lost brick mausoleum. The unbroken lid suggests the tomb was robbed and the lid cast to the floor long before the vault collapsed and smashed the empty basin.

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 2w ago

A miracle of survival in the Domus Aurea. This precarious #Ganymede floats in the darkness, painted on a narrow surviving bridge of a false ceiling that has otherwise completely fallen away. A delicate Neronian illusion suspended over a cavernous void. #FrescoFriday #AncientBluesky 🏺

FRESCO FRAGMENT OF GANYMEDE ON A DROP CEILING, 65-67 CE. DOMUS AUREA

Looking up into the dark cavernous vaults of the Domus Aurea, we see a narrow, jagged bridge of a painted false ceiling suspended across the void. The plaster is decorated with intricate geometric borders framing a central, floating figure of Ganymede holding a shallow cup. The delicate, bright fresco work contrasts sharply with the raw, heavy shadows of the unpainted structural vault looming in the background where the rest of the drop ceiling has collapsed. As the mythological cupbearer to the gods, Ganymede was a natural subject for the Oppian pavilion, a structure specifically designed as a series of lavish banqueting spaces. However, his presence here was likely no coincidence. This specific room is small, intimate, and easily curtained off. The depiction of the beautiful youth suggests the space may have been designed for a more private encounter with a flesh-and-blood Ganymede, serving as a reminder that Nero's banquets were feasts for all the pleasures.

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 2w ago

When Lord #Elgin stripped the Treasury of #Atreus at #Mycenae in 1802, he left its monumental entrance a bare, undecorated skeleton. We look at these fragments today and forget they were once part of a dazzling Late Bronze Age façade. #ReliefWednesday #AncientBluesky 🏺

STONE RELIEF FRAGMENTS FROM THE TREASURY OF ATREUS, C13 BCE

Here we see three carved stone fragments from the Treasury of Atreus. The top and bottom pieces feature running spirals above roundels, while the middle rosso antico fragment shows opposed half-rosettes separated by a vertically banded triglyph. The lowest piece is carved from greyish-green limestone. The deep carved centres of the spirals were originally drilled to hold bright blue glass inlays. Despite its name, this was a royal tholos tomb, not a treasury. The long approach and towering façade were accessible stages for public funerary rituals. The lavish decoration served as dynastic propaganda, overawing subjects and rivals with imperial power. While such conspicuous wealth was an open invitation to theft (it was heavily looted in antiquity), the immediate political need to project dominance outweighed the risk of desecration.

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 2w ago

C19 scholars dismissed freedmen as tacky parvenus, but the portrait of #Atistia and #Eurysaces reveals a true partnership. She has the quiet grace of a Roman matrona, sharing equal dignity in a household built on flour and commercial ambition. #EpigraphyTuesday #AncientBluesky 🏺🧵

RELIEF PORTRAIT OF ATISTIA AND EURYSACES, LATE C1 BCE. CENTRALE MONTEMARTINI

Here we see the funerary relief of Atistia and her husband, the baker Marcus Vergilius Eurysaces. Originally rendered in full polychromy, Atistia was likely draped in a pink palla, her posture evoking Tanagran grace. She looks ready to entertain guests with Opimian wine in the oecus while her husband hammers out state contracts in the tablinum. Eurysaces could have left her with a standard 'DIS MANIBUS' on her ash urn. Instead, this portrait and her dedicated inscription frame her not merely as a dutiful wife, but as an equal partner in their formidable commercial enterprise.

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 2w ago

Imperial rest stops were far from drab military barracks. In this bathhouse along the Via Prenestina, travelling officials soaked next to #Odysseus and the #Sirens in #mosaic form. Like the hero, the emperor's messengers were bound to enjoy their brief stay. #MosaicMonday #AncientBluesky 🏺

FLOOR MOSAIC OF ODYSSEUS AND THE SIRENS, C2 CE WITH LATER LATIN ADDITIONS. BATHS OF DIOCLETIAN

Here we see a large black-and-white floor mosaic from a thermal suite in a roadside waystation (mansio) at Quarto di Corzano, depicting Odysseus bound to the mast of his ship while his crew rows past a Siren playing a lyre. The main C2 scene incorporates Greek tituli including ΟΔΥΣΣΕΥΣ (Odysseus) and ΣΕΙΡΗΝ (Siren), displaying the elevated literary culture expected by high-ranking travellers on official state business. Along the bottom border, later Latin panels convert the floor into a lively roadside billboard, praising the proprietor Precionus, wishing good luck with [N]OBIS FORTVNA ("good fortune to us"), and alluding to rainy weather and abundant warm bathwaters. Rather than an austere government post, this state-funded highway complex provided civilised comfort, allowing weary officials to take refuge from the road outside and toast their host.

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 2w ago

Step under the C12 portico of Santa Cecilia in #Trastevere and you find medieval #spolia use at its finest. Symmetrical ancient shafts, with two central rose granite columns flanked by dramatic breccia, are topped with new C12 classicising Ionic capitals. #SpoliaSunday #Rome #AncientBluesky 🏺

PORTICO COLONNADE WITH SPOLIA COLUMNS, C12 CE. S. CECILIA

Here we see a C12 church portico that showcases the medieval penchant for turning ancient architectural elements into a refined medieval entrance. A pair of smooth Egyptian rose granite columns sits between two outer shafts of richly brecciated Africano marble, creating a deliberate symmetry that treats salvaged stone as a luxury material, exactly as it had been in antiquity. The C12 masons topped these antique shafts with newly carved, classicising Ionic capitals to ensure a harmonious rhythm. Beyond its material prestige, the portico served a vital liminal function as a sacred insulator from the physical world. It provided a deliberate architectural buffer where worshippers could pause and shed the chaotic distractions of daily existence, casting off the heavy curtain of the flesh before crossing the threshold into the quiet, spiritual radiance of the church interior.

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 2w ago

For #SarcophagusSaturday, Rome’s most prominent outdoor #sarcophagus, the "Tomba di Nerone" on the via #Cassia. It’s actually the C3 CE box of one P. Vibius Marianus. After Paschal II destroyed the real tomb of #Nero in 1099, medieval pilgrims attached the legend here. #AncientBluesky 🏺

TOMB OF PUBLIUS VIBIUS MARIANUS ("TOMBA DI NERONE"), C. 200–230 CE, VIA CASSIA

This is a gabled marble sarcophagus on a high masonry plinth. The chest features a central Latin epitaph on a large tabula, flanked by relief carvings of two soldiers in parade cuirasses. The disproportionately large, roof-like lid features carved tiles and oversized corner acroteria showing winged Victories. Dedicated by Vibia Maria Maxima to her father, a former governor of Sardinia and prefect of Legio II Italica, the tomb's heavy drill work, rigid frontality, and architectural scale anticipate the style of C4 and C5 late antiquity. In 1099, after Pope Paschal II cleared Nero’s real burial site on the Pincian Hill to build the predecessor to Santa Maria del Popolo, medieval pilgrims on the via Francigena misidentified this prominent roadside monument as Nero’s tomb, despite its inscription. Nero’s remains were probably tossed into the Tiber.

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 3w ago

For #FrescoFriday, a masterpiece of ancient collaboration. In the #DomusAurea ’s Hall of the Owls, painter Fabullus flooded the vault with costly Egyptian blue and cinnabar to capture flickering light. In the central pinax, Hermes steals Apollo’s cattle. #AncientBluesky 🏺

HALL OF THE OWLS CEILING FRESCO, DETAIL, 64–68 CE. DOMUS AUREA

Here we're looking up at a detailed view of a barrel-vaulted ceiling fresco from the Hall of the Owls in Nero’s Domus Aurea. Along the lower plaster arch, small blue songbirds sit perched on delicate reddish vine tendrils flanking a central dark diamond motif. Above this, a curved architectural band features eagles with outstretched wings silhouetted against panels of vivid Egyptian blue. The upper vault contains a central framed pinax likely depicting the youthful Hermes stealthily driving away the cattle of Apollo. The overall decorative scheme blends symbols of divine authority (the eagles of Jupiter), wisdom (the room’s namesake owls of Minerva), and bucolic peace (the songbirds and pastoral myth), creating a Neronian allegory of Golden Age harmony and imperial abundance for banqueting guests. Saturated mineral pigments of Egyptian blue, gold ochre, and cinnabar red accentuate the ceiling architecture.

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 3w ago

In the #DomusAurea of #Nero, low-relief stucco links military power and divine indulgence. An armed figure stands in a niche while #Dionysiac dancers leap along a delicate pediment above. Here is a theatrical vision of empire: you need strength to bolster otium. #ReliefWednesday #AncientBluesky 🏺

FAÇADE DECORATION WITH STUCCO RELIEF, 64–68 CE. DOMUS AUREA

Here we have a vertical slice of Fourth Style wall decoration from the porticoed façade of Nero’s Domus Aurea, combining painted panels with delicate stucco in low relief. In the central red niche of the lower register, an armed military figure in silhouette anchors the composition, symbolising the martial power that underpins the state. Above him, semi-draped seated figures occupy the middle zone in quiet contemplation, while four ecstatic Dionysiac dancers leap in stucco across the sloped pediment of the upper register. To the right, traces of a blue-green landscape peeking behind the frame open the wall into floating atmospheric space. The entire scheme articulates a Neronian ideal: military force giving rise to cultivated otium and joyful, divine celebration. On the left edge, the fragile plaster skin has sheared away to expose the raw brickwork beneath.

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 3w ago

Found under the #DomusAurea, these in situ C2–C1 BCE floors likely belonged to a single Republican domus in the Carinæ. #Rome resisted "Greek luxury" while it could, but this "a stuoia" mosaic with crustae reflects the style born at the Temple of Capitoline Jupiter. #MosaicMonday #AncientBluesky 🏺

PAVEMENT A STUOIA WITH CRUSTAE, C. 80-70 BCE. TRAJANIC GALLERY LEADING TO THE DOMUS AUREA

An in-situ Late Republican pavement constructed in an "a stuoia" pattern, imitating woven matting with stone tiles set in alternating perpendicular blocks, punctuated by irregular chips of coloured stone and marble (crustae). Discovered beneath the later foundations of Nero's Domus Aurea and Trajan's Baths on the Oppian Hill, this design directly mirrors the earliest pavement of the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline Hill. While conservative moralists like Cato fought against orientalising "Greek luxury," noble households in the Carinæ were quietly adapting sacred architectural precedents to introduce permanent visual texture into their domestic spaces. This was probably an atrium or œcus floor, a public room to display the family wealth. Just not too much.

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 3w ago

"In your beautiful houses, be mindful of the graves." This #medieval #Roman tower-house uses spolia not as romantic nostalgia, but as a response to rivals. Amid weak papal authority, these fortifications filled the Forum Boarium with a menacing aura of force. #SpoliaSunday #AncientBluesky 🏺

$CASA DEI CRESCENZI, C. 1150, WITH SPOLIA CORBELS, C2-C3 Rough medieval brickwork anchors a dense, vertical alignment of intricately carved ancient Roman marble consoles. These classical corbels project outwards like rhythmic syllables in a line of Latin poetry. This architecture is a calculated message to a competitive ruling class. Niccolò di Cencio, a rising noble of the filii Baruncii clan, was speaking directly to his aristocratic neighbours. In a fractured city where private towers signalled danger for the weak, he seems to have chosen a different method to validate and assert his power: reference to the classical past. This is now the only remaining tower-house in the area, but the neighbourhood around the bridgehead of what we now call the Ponte Rotto, until 1598 an essential artery for commercial traffic, was bristling with the fortified mansions of other families like the Corsi, the Pierleoni, and the Normanni.$

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 3w ago

"Leave the nuts behind." Look closely at the bottom register of this C3 CE child's sarcophagus in the Vatican: those tiny triangular piles are walnuts set up for castellatae, a game of knocking down pyramids, here an elegiac tribute to a childhood cut short. #SarcophagusSaturday #AncientBluesky 🏺

CHILD'S SARCOPHAGUS, C3 CE. VATICAN MUSEUMS

This small marble sarcophagus was found in 1822 in an dig along the via Appia near S. Sebastiano. It features a detailed relief of children playing. Along the bottom register are triangular piles of walnuts for the game of "castellatae". Walnuts were ubiquitous toys in Rome, making the phrase "reliquere nuces", "to leave the walnuts behind", the standard term for growing up. At left, girls crouch over the game before a curtain, the peripetasma, hinting the deceased was a little girl. At centre-left, play becomes a conflict as two boys grapple with each other. To the right, other boys carry bags of walnuts or watch with intense concentration. The emotional contrast between the private world of the girls on the left and the kinetic, competitive space of the boys on the right makes this one of the finest, most complete visual documents of Roman childhood games in existence. The little occupant never got the chance to leave the walnuts behind.

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 4w ago

For #FrescoFriday, let’s trace how #Rome systematically rewrote its early history to erase humiliating #Etruscan victories. We begin in Vulci at the François Tomb (340-330 BCE), where vivid murals depict a brutal truth Roman historians later spent centuries trying to suppress. #AncientBluesky 🏺

MACSTARNA FRESCO FROM THE FRANÇOIS TOMB, 340-330 BCE. VILLA GIULIA

A C4 BCE Etruscan wall painting from the François Tomb in Vulci. It depicts a dramatic combat scene where the Etruscan hero Macstarna (traditionally identified as Rome's future king, Servius Tullius) uses a small dagger to cut the ropes binding the wrists of his ally, Caelius Vibenna (Caile Vipinas). Both figures are rendered with muscular, athletic frames and intense expressions, set against a pale background. The scene captures a historical reality of Etruscan warlords actively dominating early Rome, an inglorious truth that later Roman historiography completely suppressed or sanitised.

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 4w ago

#Rome, boxing capital of the empire. This #ReliefWednesday takes us to the #VaticanMuseums, where this spectacular capital from the Baths of Alexander Severus replaces the acanthus of an ordinary Composite capital with the figures on a victor's podium, centred around a boxer. #AncientBluesky 🏺

FIGURED CAPITAL FROM THE BATHS OF ALEXANDER SEVERUS, C. 227 CE. VATICAN MUSEUMS

Of all the capitals from the frigidarium of the Baths of Alexander Severus, the rebuilt successor of the Baths of Nero on the same site between the Pantheon and the Stadium of Domitian, only this one survives, and now passes largely unnoticed in the Cortile della Pigna in the Vatican Museums: it holds up the huge bronze pinecone that gives the courtyard its name. Yet this capital is an extraordinary work of art. At the centre stands a muscular nude boxer whose head is now missing. On his forearms he wears cæsti, thick leather and metal "gloves" designed to cause maximum damage, unlike today's padded gloves. Behind his missing head is a strange bump, part of the capital called a fleuron that now has a sinister, monstrous aspect. The boxer stand with a herald and an attendant at his sides, and further out are two agonothetai, directors of the games.

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 4w ago

An absolute feast for #MosaicMonday. This C3-C4 #Roman fishing scene from #Utica now in the #BritishMuseum is a marvel of contrasts: the fishermen are stylized almost as caricatures, yet the sea life is rendered with magnificent, near-photorealistic detail. #imperialism #AncientBluesky 🏺

FLOOR MOSAIC WITH FISHING SCENE, C3-C4 CE. UTICA (TUNISIA), NOW BRITISH MUSEUM

Excavated by the Reverend Nathan Davis, an eccentric Victorian missionary who insisted this Roman pavement was "Punic" work, this Utica mosaic survives to teach us about its makers' priorities. Against a field of creamy tesserae, two stylized fishermen in a golden boat navigate waters teeming with marine life. The human figures are treated as rough caricatures with large, staring eyes and crude features acting merely as functional operators of the fishing nassa or hoop net held at the bow. In stark contrast, the surrounding Mediterranean species, including a beautifully curved dolphin and meticulously scaled bream, are rendered with exquisite detail and precise naturalism. The owner of the villa cared about showing the infinite abundance of his estate. Today, this fragment hangs in the British Museum as a vivid monument to both Roman economic display and Victorian archaeological delusion.

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 4w ago

Remember me. #SpoliaSunday brings a fragmentary C3 CE inscription from S. Crisogono in #Rome. But who are we remembering? The iron law of #spolia privileges utility over memory. The stone itself is a slab likely sliced from an earlier sarcophagus. #AncientBluesky 🏺

SPOLIA COSMATESQUE PAVEMENT WITH C3 INSCRIPTION, C. 1124. S. CRISOGONO

Cardinal John of Crema, famous in England where he was papal legate for being caught in flagrante with a courtesan directly after Mass, commissioned this floor for his cardinalate church from the workshop of the Cosmati clan, who used nothing but spolia marble to create magnificent Oriental rugs in stone. Inset among complex geometric patterns of green, porphyry, and yellow stone triangles is a rectangular block of recycled white marble. The stone bears a clear, two-line Roman inscription. The top line reads CLAVDIA ATVLEIA ALEXA, featuring an elongated crossbar on the T that stretches over the subsequent V, and the bottom line reads MACEDON in large letters. Because "Claudia Atuleia" is in the nominative, she is not the deceased but the dedicant. She likely raised this monument to her husband, Alexa[nder] the Macedon[ian].

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · last mo.

In the paranoid imperial court of the C4 CE, a lavish #sarcophagus was more than personal piety. For officials standing within the immediate, potentially lethal gaze of the emperor, it was a political shield and an insurance policy written in marble. #SarcophagusSaturday #AncientBluesky 🏺 🧵

SARCOPHAGUS OF JUNIUS BASSUS, 359 CE. TREASURY OF SAINT PETER'S BASILICA, VATICAN CITY

A high-relief marble sarcophagus is divided into ten distinct niches across two tiers, separated by elegant columns decorated with vintage harvesting motifs and straight fluting. The figures perform key biblical narratives, establishing a dense, heavily structured visual manifesto that completely dominates the front facade of the tomb. This luxurious monument demonstrates how Bassus, the urban prefect, deployed a highly visible, state-vetted Christian vocabulary to signal absolute submission to the regime. By setting this monument into the apse of Old St Peter's, an imperial foundation, he transformed the sarcophagus into a permanent political shield designed to preserve their hereditary wealth during a period of intense courtly paranoia.

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · last mo.

For #FrescoFriday, step into the François Tomb at Vulci. Forget the comparatively unthreatening #Charon of classical myth, because the Etruscan afterlife belonged to #Charun: a menacing, blue-skinned demon whose terrifying presence guarded the ultimate threshold. #AncientArt #AncientBluesky 🏺

CARLO RUSPI, FULL-SCALE FACSIMILE OF A SCENE FROM THE FRANÇOIS TOMB, 1857–1863. MUSEO GREGORIANO ETRUSCO, ON LOAN TO THE MUSEO NAZIONALE ETRUSCO DI VILLA GIULIA

This is a crisp watercolor facsimile reconstructing the sprawling narrative fresco of the Achilles sacrifice scene. The image presents a striking, brightly illuminated lineup of mythological figures. On the far left, a youthful warrior stands near the serene, golden-winged goddess Vanth, who wears a high-waisted tunic and looks on with an air of detached, solemn authority. In the centre, the composition shifts violently as Achilles thrusts a sword directly into the neck of a bound, nude Trojan prisoner, whose dark beard and cowering posture project absolute vulnerability. Immediately to the right of this slaughter looms the blue-skinned demon Charun. He holds a massive, heavy wooden mallet upright, his face fixed in an unyielding, grim stare. To the far right, a bearded Greek warrior in an elaborate cuirass stands sentinel, completing a scene that feels intensely theatrical and heavy with the dread of the underworld.

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · last mo.

Speak, goddess. For #ReliefWednesday, a C5 BCE terracotta head from the Santuario dei Sassi Caduti at Falerii Veteres. Likely from a high-relief pedimental scene, possibly Aphrodite in a divine assembly welcoming the Faliscan god Titos Mercus. #VillaGiulia #AncientBluesky 🏺

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · last mo.

I'm thinking of skipping #EpigraphyTuesday from now on. It doesn't seem to interest people much - though for those who are interested, thank you for reading!

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · last mo.

"So he spoke, and thought of foul treatment for glorious Hector. He pierced the tendons of both feet behind from heel to ankle, and bound them with ox-hide thongs to the chariot..." In this #emblema, an oddly undramatic depiction of the Iliad's climax for #MosaicMonday. #AncientBluesky 🏺

Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · last mo.

Why does #SpoliaSunday matter? Too often, casual onlookers treat it as a collection of random bric-a-brac rather than what it truly was. In medieval Rome, looting ancient ruins was a high-stakes institutional battle. Take the early C13 porch of S. Giorgio in Velabro. #AncientBluesky 🏺 #Rome

PORTICO, EARLY C13. S. GIORGIO IN VELABRO

Here we see the early C13 brick portico and Romanesque campanile of S. Giorgio in Velabro. The view looks up from the cobblestones, focusing on a row of ancient Roman marble columns with classical capitals protected by an iron gate. Above the columns, the long marble architrave features a crisply carved medieval Latin inscription. The text, translated, reads "Stefano della Stella, desiring to capture heavenly things, rare in eloquence, illustrious with the light of virtues, spending his gold, was eager to renew this porch. At his own expense he made it for you, Saint George, he who was a cleric and prior of this church. This place is called by the name of the Golden Sail." This poetic phrase was a grand medieval mistranslation of Velabrum, the actual name of this ancient marshy district situated between the Forum Boarium and the Forum Romanum.