Roman

  • Roman Statues Weren’t White; They Were Once Painted in Vivid…

    [ad_1] The idea of the clas­si­cal period—the time of ancient Greece and Rome—as an ele­gant­ly uni­fied col­lec­tion of supe­ri­or aes­thet­ic and philo­soph­i­cal cul­tur­al traits has its own his­to­ry, one that comes in large part from the era of the Neo­clas­si­cal. The redis­cov­ery of antiq­ui­ty took some time to reach the pitch it would dur­ing the…

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  • The Samurai Who Became A Roman Citizen

    [ad_1] Last year, we fea­tured here on Open Cul­ture the sto­ry of how a samu­rai end­ed up in the unlike­ly set­ting of sev­en­teenth-cen­tu­ry Venice. But as com­pelling­ly told as it was in video essay form by Evan Puschak, bet­ter known as the Nerd­writer, it end­ed just as things were get­ting inter­est­ing. We last left Haseku­ra Rokue­mon…

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  • The Roman Empire’s Vast Road Network—186,000 Miles of It—Has…

    [ad_1] Every­where you look, you can find traces of the ancient Roman civ­i­liza­tion from which the mod­ern West descends. That’s espe­cial­ly true if you hap­pen to be look­ing in Europe, though echoes of Latin make them­selves heard in major lan­guages used all over the world. Take, for exam­ple, the com­mon Eng­lish word itin­er­ary, mean­ing a…

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  • Mythology Expert Reviews Depictions of Greek & Roman Myths i…

    [ad_1] It’s safe to say that we no longer believe in the gods of the ancient world — or rather, that most of us no longer believe in their lit­er­al exis­tence, but some of us have faith in their box-office poten­tial. This two–part video series from Van­i­ty Fair exam­ines a vari­ety of movies and tele­vi­sion shows…

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