When In Rome ....

Still in Rome, there have been some interesting archaeological discoveries in the Roman World recently and I thought I might round them up.

The Villa where the Roman Emperor Vespasian was born has been uncovered. The ruins were found in the Roman city of Falacrine, about 80 miles (130km) north-east of Rome and stretches over 14,000 sq m (16,750 sq yards) and seems to have been the home of the Flavians. Vespasian was maybe most famous for crushing the Jews in 66 AD, and being the general who led the invasion of Britain in 43 AD. He also built the Colosseum.

The statue head of Faustina the Elder, wife of Emperor Antoninus Pius has been uncovered in the Roman town of Sagalassos (in Modern Turkey), this is the same site where where the statue head of Emperor Hadrian was uncovered a couple of years ago, and promises some more brilliant finds in the next few years.

The Tomb of General Marcus Nonius Macrinus (the basis for the character Maximus Decimus Meridius in the film Gladiator) has been uncovered .... there aren't actually that many similarities but General Macrinus was a favourite of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, helping him achieve major victories in Europe.

And finally, for some reasons archaeologists have often under estimated the sheer scale of the Roman Empires influence beyond its borders (think British Empire or Modern US and Russian 'spheres of influnece'), either that or Scottish romantics really believed the guff that the Picts were totally immune from the Romans power.

The truth is that once the Romans beat the Caledonians at Mons Graupus, they found out that they were near the north of an island (they had thought Britain was part of the continent), and lost interest in further warfare as there was nothing to steal in the impoverished north of Scotland. Tacitus mentions the Roman fleet conquering the Orcades and knowledge of Thule.

In any event, there has been a lot of evidence that Scotland, even the far north, was much under Roman influence, and another dig at Birnie, near Elgin, is showing this. Earlier finds such as the coins found on Uist in the Western Isles show how far Roman traders and military force could stretch.