Legatus legionis

A legatus was a high-ranking Roman military officer in the Roman Army, equivalent to a modern general. The term was formalized under Augustus as the officer in command of a legion, generally serving 3–4 years. The Legatus legionis held supreme authority over a legion, often reporting directly to the provincial governor. (legatus Augusti pro praetore) From the Roman Republic, legates received a large share of the military's spoils at the end of a successful campaign. This made the position extremely lucrative, able to attract consuls or senators.

There were two main positions; the legatus legionis was an ex-praetor given command of one of Rome's elite legions. The legatus pro praetore was an ex-consul given the governorship of a Roman province. He held powers of a praetor, which in some cases included command of four or more legions. The legatus in the field would be recognized by his elaborate helmet and body armour, as well as a scarlet paludamentum (cloak) and cincticulus (a waist-band tied around the waist in a bow). A legatus legionis could and often did order executions.

Great torc from Snettisham

The Great Torc from Snettisham or Snettisham Great Torc is a large Iron Age torc or neck ring in electrum, from the 1st century BC.

It is one of the finest pieces of early Celtic art known. It was the most spectacular object in the Snettisham Hoard, found in 1950 near the village of Snettisham in Norfolk, East Anglia. The perfectly intact torc is noted for its high level of craftsmanship and artistry. Soon after its discovery it was acquired by the British Museum.It had been buried with a bracelet and a French coin, which helped date the torc to around 75 BC.

The hoard consists of metal, jet and more than 150 gold/silver/copper alloy torc fragments, more than 70 of which form complete torcs. The Great Torc weighs slightly more than 1 kg and is mostly made of gold alloyed with a small fraction of silver. The torc was made in two ways: complex threads of metal were grouped into ropes and twisted around each other to create the crescent shaped necklace; the ends of the torc were cast in moulds with La Tène designs and welded onto the metal ropes to create the whole composition. It has been conjectured that the area around Snettisham may have been connected with royalty from the Iceni tribe. The Great torc from Snettisham could belong to no one else.

Research by the British Museum reveals the wear patterns in the torcs, the chemical composition of the metal and the cut marks that reduced many of them to fragments. One hypothesis suggests the deliberate destruction of valuable items was a form of votive offering.

Chemical warfare is ancient history - Dura-Europos

Researchers claimed in 2009 to have found the first evidence of chemical weapons, dating from a battle fought at the ancient Roman fortress of Dura-Europos. 20 Roman soldiers unearthed beneath the town's ramparts didn't die of war wounds, but from poison gas.

War in antiquity rarely matched the heroism of myth. To stave off a Roman siege in A.D. 189, the defenders of the Greek city of Ambracia built a flamethrower that coughed out smoking chicken feathers.

At Themiscrya, another Greek outpost, Romans tunneling beneath the city contended with not only a charge of wild beasts but also a barrage of hives swarming with bees. Roman armies routinely poisoned the wells of cities they besieged.

Roman general Sertorius in 80 B.C. had his troops pile mounds of gypsum powder by the hillside hideouts of Spanish rebels. When kicked up by wind, the dust became an irritant, smoking the insurgents out.

In 332 B.C., the citizens of the doomed port of Tyre catapulted basins of burning sand at Alexander the Great's advancing army.

Poisoned arrows appear in classical literature. The epics of Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey both insinuate the use of the poisoned arrows in the Trojan War. The myths of Hercules also allude to the use of poisoned arrows; after he slew the Hydra he dipped his arrowheads in the venom. Scythians were famed for their poisoned arrows; the poison was a concoction of decomposed poisonous snakes and human blood incubated in a manure heap. One of the terms that the Greeks used to describe this poison was toxikon, which stemmed from toxon meaning a bow. Our modern word toxicology derives from this.

Greek fire was an incendiary weapon developed c. 672 and used by the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire. The Byzantine formula was a closely guarded state secret. The composition of Greek fire remains a matter of speculation with proposals including combinations of pine resin, naphtha, quicklime, calcium phosphide, and sulfur. Byzantine use of incendiary mixtures used pressurized nozzles or siphōn to project the liquid onto the enemy.

Even in antiquity, some feared the lurking consequences of unleashing what we call chemical weapons. The ancient Greek tale of Pandora's box offers a metaphor for their use. Pandora's box is an artifact in Greek mythology which contained all the evils of the world. The phrase "to open Pandora's box" means to perform an action that may seem small, but that turns out to have severely detrimental and far-reaching consequences.

The Dura-Europos shield is the only surviving fully intact rectangular "long shield" (scutum) from the Roman Empire. It was discovered in the 1930s in the ancient Roman city of Dura-Europos in modern-day Syria. The artifact dates to the mid-3rd century CE (about 250–256 CE)

The rectangular arched shield is mainly made of wood. It was found broken up into thirteen parts. It is made from strips of wood that are 30 to 80 mm wide and 1.5 to 2 mm thick. They are put together in three layers, so that the total thickness of the wood layer is 4.5 to 6 mm.

In the center of the shield is a hole that was cut into the wood after the board was made, the umbo (central boss) is missing.

The Coggalbeg hoard

The Coggalbeg hoard is an Early Bronze Age hoard of three pieces of Irish gold jewellery dating to 2300–2000 BC. It was found in a bog at Coggalbeg, County Roscommon in 1945, and consists of a gold lunula and two small gold discs. It's thought that the objects were ritually deposited as an offering to gods. The lunula is of the "Classical" type, considered the earliest and finest of three types of lunula. Of the estimated 100 lunula known in Western Europe, some 80 originate in Ireland.

The priceless gold was first discovered by farmer Hubert Lannon. He found it in a bog while cutting turf and kept it at home. In March 2010, two men pleaded guilty to burglary and were given three-year suspended sentences. Working with police, curators from the National Museum’s Irish Antiquities Division found out that the jewelry had been left in a dumpster in Dublin. The police had hours to locate the dumpster before the trash would be collected. The detectives waded through a dumpster and found the treasures. The necklace and two discs are among the most important archaeological discoveries in Ireland for many years.

The Roman gold ring that inspired J.R.R Tolkien

In 2016 the UK National Trust and the Tolkien Society put an artifact on display for fans of "The Lord of the Rings" to decide for themselves whether this was Tolkien's precious ring of power. The Vyne Ring or the Ring of Silvianus is a gold ring, dating to the 4th century, discovered in a field in Hampshire, England, in 1785.

Weighing 12g and featuring a ten-faceted design with a Venus-inscribed bezel, it's linked to a curse tablet. It was originally the property of a wealthy British Roman called Silvianus.

The large gold ring is inscribed in Latin, "Senicianus live well in God," and inset with an image of the goddess Venus. The ring is believed to be linked to a curse tablet found separately at the site of a Roman temple dedicated to a god named Nodens in Gloucestershire.

The tablet says a man called Silvianus had lost a ring, and it asks Nodens to place a curse of ill health on Senicianus until he returns it. An archeologist who looked into the connection between the ring and the curse tablet asked Tolkien, who was an Anglo-Saxon professor at Oxford University, to work on the etymology of the name Nodens in 1929.

Brutus aureus brings $2m

An aureus of Marcus Junius Brutus sold for €1.9 million ($2 million) at a Geneva auction in 2025, far exceeding its €800k estimate. Described as “one of the most iconic and historically significant coins in all of Roman history” it is one of 17 known to exist.The coin was minted following Brutus’s 44 B.C.E. murder of Julius Caesar, and before his suicide following defeat in the Battle of Philippi in 42 B.C.E.

Brutus on an Ides of March coin, issued shortly before his death.

The Battle of Philippi, involving up to 200,000 men was the largest of the Roman civil wars. It consisted of two battles in the plain west of the ancient city of Philippi. The first occurred in the first week of October. Brutus faced Octavian, and Antony's forces fought those of Cassius. Cassius comitted suicide after losing, but the overall battle was a draw. A second encounter, on 23 October, finished off Brutus's forces after a hard-fought hand to hand battle. Brutus took his own life in turn.

Mars Ultor 'the Avenger'

At the battle of Philippi, Octavian vowed to avenge the assassination of Caesar.

Augustus, 27 BCE – 14 CE, Denarius (Silver, 3.85 g)

Octavian set plans in motion to build a temple honoring the god Mars Ultor 'the Avenger'. While Rome had succeeded in conquering most of the civilized world, they had never succeeded against Parthia. The Parthian Empire was spread across Central Asia and posed a formidable challenge. Rome fought and lost to Parthia three times, the most devastating in 53 BCE. Crassus, the leader of the Roman army, was killed and Rome was humiliated, with the Roman standards of the Legions lost to the Parthians.

Carrhae was a horrible defeat for the Romans; leader at the battle had been Crassus, Rome’s richest man. The Parthians captured him and allegedly had him killed by pouring molten gold down his throat.

The loss of a legion's standard the Aquilae (Eagle) was taken as a huge moral defeat. Romans would spend decades fighting to recover them. Julius Caesar and Mark Antony both attempted to reclaim the Roman standards by force but failed due to heavy battlefield losses. After ascending the throne, Augustus wanted to reclaim them. Through conquering Armenia, he was able to secure a strong offensive position against the Parthians. The Parthian king felt threatened, and proposed a truce to Augustus, offering to return the Roman standards and any surviving prisoners of war. Augustus agreed and he hailed the return of the roman standards as a major victory against the Parthians. He used his coinage to celebrate the triump.

Although promised in 42 BCE, the temple’s construction only began in 20 BCE. The Temple of Mars Ultor was constructed in Augustus’ new forum and paid for using the spoils of war.

Objects inside the temple included the standards and Augustus’ chariot. (often shown with a legionary eagle.)

Engravers weren’t aiming for photographic accuracy with images of famous Roman buildings. Coins showing the Temple are sometimes labelled MAR VLT.

Aegina’s Sea Turtle

Aegina is a rocky island in the Saronic Gulf located about 25 miles southeast of Athens. It was settled around 900 BCE and was named after the daughter of the Greek river god Asopos. The inhabitants became expert merchants and tradesmen, dominating the shipping industry early in the sixth century BCE. Their success brought the island great wealth and power. The first coins were thought to be made by the king of Argos, Pheidon. Coins with the turtle design were an important early global trade currency.

Aegina became the first of the Greek city-states to issue coined money, starting in the mid-sixth century BCE. Their common didrachm “stater” coinage weighed about 12.6 grams. Their status as the first international trade currency was aided by consistent design. Aegina’s coins spread far throughout the known world.