Heloise and Abelard – Middle Ages in Europe
Heloise and Abelard Who was Heloise? The story of Heloise (HELL-oh-ees) and her husband Peter Abelard is one of the saddest stories of Western history. Heloise was born about 1100 [...]
Roman army from the Republic to the fall of Rome
Testudo formation on the Column of Trajan, Rome What did the Roman army do? The Roman army fought many wars over the long history of the Roman Empire. For hundreds [...]
Roman wars and warfare – the Roman military
Roman soldiers on the Column of Marcus Aurelius, Rome The Romans were (along with some Greek city-states) among the first people on Earth to pay their soldiers a regular salary so that they could be [...]
Roman sewers – ancient Roman toilets, poop, pipes
A Roman latrine, feeding into the Roman sewers. Why did the Romans build aqueducts and sewers? In larger Roman towns, people often got sick or died from drinking water that had sewage [...]
Roman sailing – boats in the Roman empire
Roman sailing ship with square sails (100s AD, Bardo Museum, Tunisia) Until the First Punic War, in 264 BC, the Romans had not been sailors, and had never had a navy. But [...]
Ptolemy – Roman astronomy – history of science
A copy of Ptolemy's map of the world Ptolemy was born in Egypt in about 90 AD, when the Romans were ruling Egypt. He was a Roman citizen. Probably he was the son or grandson of [...]
Medicine and doctors in the Roman Empire
Roman medicine: Galen used surgical instruments like these What do we mean by Roman medicine? Roman medicine is really West Asian and African medicine. That's because most of the great [...]
Roman numeral answers – Roman math
Roman tax collector calculating someone's taxes on an abacus (Metz, ca. 225 AD) Did you figure it out? Poor Claudia died when she was 25 years old, seven months, and [...]
Roman numerals – Ancient Roman numbers
Claudia Pieris' tombstone (CIL VI.15543) She lived 117-138 AD. Now in Copenhagen, at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. The Romans used several different systems for writing numbers. Sometimes they wrote numbers [...]
Roman science – What did ancient Romans invent?
Roman mold-blown glass (100s AD) West Asian/African science under Roman rule What we call Roman science is a mixture of two different things. The first is the discoveries and inventions [...]
