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Dr Carolyn T. La Rocco 🏺🍃

@carrielarocco.bsky.social

Classics / early medieval research fellow at Oxford. Female patronage in the late antique west; Roman + Visigothic Iberia; religion and ‘magic’; epigraphy; mosaics; Classical reception in film / video games. Sometimes I make Roman recipes :) ♾️

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Dr Carolyn T. La Rocco 🏺🍃@carrielarocco.bsky.social · yesterday

Rough translation: “Happy Eugenia, servant of God, built a new doorway, whose dedication contains the virgins’ vows. Every faithful person will be permitted over the threshold to this hall of the Lord. This virgin mother of virgins completed this sacred work under Bishop Orontius, Era 699 [661 CE]”

Dr Carolyn T. La Rocco 🏺🍃@carrielarocco.bsky.social · yesterday

For #EpigraphyTuesday, my illustration of a 7th-century inscription found near Mérida’s Basilica of Santa Eulalia, which documents refurbishment of a monastery by a woman named Eugenia, the abbess (‘virgo virginum mater’). ☺️ One of my favorite examples of female patronage from Iberia.

Drawing of inscription, which is on a long (horizontally) rectangular piece of stone, containing six lines of Latin text, but beginning with a chi rho with an Alfa and Omega
Chaucer Doth Tweet@levostregc.bsky.social · 2d ago

Academics and scoleres are not gate-keeperes. Thei will talke to you about their topiques. For dayes. Thei will sende lynkes. Thei will order bookes. Thys ys why thei lyve. Thei are the route bitwene past knowledge and future knowledge.

Dr Pat Witts@wittspat.bsky.social · 5d ago

Early for #MosaicMonday. Arguably Neptune to whom Oceanus's claws have been added, for reasons in open access article here: dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/jmr/a...

Neptune and Oceanus in Romano-British Mosaics: A Special Case?

Journal of Mosaic Research | Issue: 18

dergipark.org.tr

Chapps@chapps.bsky.social · 6d ago

This wonderfully wonky mosaic from Withington Roman Villa in Gloucestershire, England, depicts a sea deity displaying attributes of both Oceanus and Neptune. He holds a trident, and has crustacean claws at his temples, with two dolphins emerging from his mouth. 🏺 1/ 300-400 CE. #BritishMuseum 📸 me

Irregular rectangle floor mosaic in red, orange, dark grey, and ecru-colored tesserae, framed by a band of wave pattern and a single fillet enclosing an aquatic scene flanked by sparsely leaved trees with hollow bases. Off-center is the head and upper torso of Oceanus/Neptune with a straggling beard, a convoluted mustache and three sets of lobster claws at each temple. His trident is placed obliquely across his body. His torso is truncated by a band of small checkers, which is not quite parallel to the border. Dolphins emerge from either side of his mouth, shaded predominantly white but with some shading in grey and have red fins and streamers. Below them are two more dolphins swimming in the opposite direction, smaller than those above but with red three-fluked tails. In the space above the dolphins and flanking Oceanus/Neptune are two simple 8-petalled flowers; the space on the northern side is filled by two sea-creatures both with outstretched forelegs and coiled tails; the upper one has bold spots on a buff body to identify it as a sea-leopard, and the other is perhaps a Capricorn (a sea-goat).
Dr Carolyn T. La Rocco 🏺🍃@carrielarocco.bsky.social · 2y ago

A c. Mid-5th-century funerary mosaic portrait from Tabarka (طبرقة), Tunisia. Now in the Bardo Museum. It reads 'DARDANIVS INNOCE[N?]S IN PACE' or '[May] Dardanius the innocent/virtuous rest in peace'. Image from P. Silvio Moreno's article: ⁦‪https://shs.hal.science/halshs-03197569 🏺🗃️ ancientbluesky

photo of a funerary mosaic of Dardanius, with an image of Dardanius as well as various floral imagery and an inscription (Dardanius innoces in pace)
Dr Carolyn T. La Rocco 🏺🍃@carrielarocco.bsky.social · 2y ago

More late antique Iberian funerary inscriptions! This time, Anduires, a distinguished (inlis) woman who founded a church (hanc ecle[siam]) with her husband (viro suo) in Casa de Vildé (Burgos de Osma, Soria, Castilla y León) in the 6th or 7th century. (Illustration: me, after image from AEHTAM.) 🏺🗃️

A drawing of a tall, thin stone with a Latin inscription ‘† in nomine Domin[I // loc]us Anduires inlis // [femina]e qui hanc ecle // [siam] cum viro suo // [. . .]uiro inluste // [---] fecerunt // [fue] runt par //[ticipes an]nos XXX // [quat]er nutri[vera]nt filios re // [cessit] supradicta // matrona in pace // et in summa ca[s] // titate cum cert[o.. .. ] //.’
Alex von Tunzelmann@alexvont.bsky.social · 2w ago

This thread is right that the convention that historical films written in English are performed with English/Brit accents makes no logical sense. It’s a fascinating quirk of English language film, though – over the last century it became such a norm that people find it jarring when films don’t do it

Paul Cornish@paulgcornish.bsky.social · 2w ago

Interesting bit in this Variety article about The Odyssey where the American writer takes issue with the characters' American accents, dismisses Greek accents as "a bit much", & argues that British (I assume he really means English) accents would have been fine. variety.com/2026/film/ne...

Every character in Nolan’s film not only has an American accent but does little to adjust their tone of voice. It’s especially jarring in the cases of Benny Safdie’s ruthless warrior Agamemnon, since Safdie doesn’t exactly have the most imposing of voices (the film also goes through great pains to avoid showing Safdie’s face), and Jon Bernthal’s Menelaus, king of Sparta, who sounds just like, well, streetwise Jon Bernthal. Having every actor affect a Greek accent would be a bit much, so perhaps the British-accent route, a la “I, Claudius,” would prove less distracting.
Dr Carolyn T. La Rocco 🏺🍃@carrielarocco.bsky.social · last wk.

My review of ‘Bishops, community and authority in late Roman society. Northwestern Hispania, c. 370 – 470 C.E’ by Rebecca A. Devlin for the Journal of Ecclesiastical History! ☺️ www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Bishops, community and authority in late Roman society. Northwestern Hispania, c. 370 – 470 C.E. By Rebecca A. Devlin. (Late Antique and Early Medieval Iberia.) Pp. 409 incl. 18 figs. Amsterdam: Amste...

Bishops, community and authority in late Roman society. Northwestern Hispania, c. 370 – 470 C.E. By Rebecca A. Devlin. (Late Antique and Early Medieval Iberia.) Pp. 409 incl. 18 figs. Amsterdam: Amste...

cambridge.org

Dr Carolyn T. La Rocco 🏺🍃@carrielarocco.bsky.social · last wk.

I recently had an article on food and patronage by women in late antique and early medieval Iberian monasteries published in the newest issue of Medieval People. ☺️ scholarworks.wmich.edu/medpros/vol4...

Monastic Patronage by Women in Late Antique and Early Medieval Iberia

This article explores monastic patronage by women in sixth- and seventh-century Iberia. It presents literary (hagiographic, epistolary, poetic) and epigraphic evidence of women exercising various form...

scholarworks.wmich.edu

Dr Carolyn T. La Rocco 🏺🍃@carrielarocco.bsky.social · last wk.

I recently had an article on food and patronage by women in late antique and early medieval Iberian monasteries published in the newest issue of Medieval People. ☺️ scholarworks.wmich.edu/medpros/vol4...

Monastic Patronage by Women in Late Antique and Early Medieval Iberia

This article explores monastic patronage by women in sixth- and seventh-century Iberia. It presents literary (hagiographic, epistolary, poetic) and epigraphic evidence of women exercising various form...

scholarworks.wmich.edu

Dr Carolyn T. La Rocco 🏺🍃@carrielarocco.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I had such a great time at the conference on ‘The Concept of Paganism and the Construction of Christian Identity and Alterity in the Early Medieval Mediterranean’ at the Villa Vigoni by Lake Como! ☺️ I learned a lot, and spoke about weather magic in late Roman and early medieval Iberia and Gaul.

Photo of my title slide with an inscription of the martyr saint Eulalia as the background Photo of the lake from the Villa during a sunny day, with lots of trees in the foreground and a few mountains in the backgroundPhoto of the villa in the evening, with the porch / patio area lit up
Dr Lindsey Fitzharris@drlindseyfitz.bsky.social · 3mo ago

The digitalisation of historical records used to be a net positive. But with the rise of AI, digitalised records now run the risk of being scraped, which leads to misinterpretations and erasure of key information. You cannot replace historical analysis with a machine.

Caitlin G. DeAngelis@caitlindeangelis.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Recently, FamilySearch digitized and uploaded tons of microfilmed records, including many from 18th-century Massachsuetts. They're using some sort of AI to transcribe/summarize the handwritten documents. I've noticed that the AI strips out references to race and enslavement in 18thc documents.