#MosaicMonday takes us deep into the #Vittoriano in #Rome to discover a rarely-seen and spectacular late antique #opussectile floor from an unknown building in the southern part of piazza #Venezia. #AncientBluesky 🏺

For #SpoliaSunday we have a monumental head of #Caligula in the #VaticanMuseums, from the so-called Basilica of #Otricoli. After Caligula's damnatio memoriæ, this head was recarved as a portrait of his uncle and successor #Claudius. #AncientBluesky 🏺

This seemed like a belated (or early) #PhallusThursday post waiting to be made. But in fact it's a sort of early #SpoliaSunday post drawing attention to the beautiful #granite basin of one of the #fountains of piazza #Farnese. #AncientBluesky 🏺

This #SarcophagusSaturday we're in the porch of #SanSaba on the #Aventine hill in #Rome to find a magnificent C3 #sarcophagus with a husband and wife joined in marriage by #Juno. #AncientBluesky 🏺

#FrescoFriday in the #DomusAurea of #Nero takes us into the immense #cryptoporticus, which is divided by this bridge. It carried water down into the central bay of the great Octagonal Hall, and its #fresco decoration is a delicate series of #frames and nautical motifs. #AncientBluesky 🏺

#ReliefWednesday finds us at the #Colosseum where this massive #Corinthian #capital testifies to the exuberant #Flavian #Baroque of the original decoration. From a base of #acanthus emerges a shield with a #Gorgon head, and #Pegasi at the corners, a real flight of fancy. #AncientBluesky 🏺

#EpigraphyTuesday returns to the #BritishMuseum for an excellent example of #rustic capitals in the unusual medium of #bronze, in this #inscription from c. 200 CE commemorating one S. Pompeius Maximus, priest of the cult of Sol Invictus and #Mithras. #AncientBluesky 🏺

For #MosaicMonday at the #BritishMuseum, an #emblema from an unknown #domus in #Naples with a #Dionysiac theme. A bound #lion is taunted by four #Erotes as the god himself watches from a hilltop. A bowl in the foreground may have contained wine. Strength cannot resist #Dionysus. #AncientBluesky 🏺

#SpoliaSunday takes us to the #Pantheon in #Rome, where in a new display in the rooms of the #BasilicaofNeptune we find two #Hadrianic relief panels which were once part of the decoration of the #porch. They were found face down in front of the building, reused as steps. #AncientBluesky 🏺

#SarcophagusSaturday this week gives us the monumental #sarcophagus "of the Two Brothers", from about 350 CE, in the #VaticanMuseums. Two registers of Biblical scenes have a scalloped portrait #clipeus inserted at centre, originally a married couple but recarved to show two men. #AncientBluesky 🏺

#FrescoFriday in #Pompeii brings us to the #HouseoftheVettii, one of the most splendid #domus in the city. In the room of the #Cupids, the dominant colour is red #cinnabar with floating couples, 50-79 CE. Heat from the volcano's pyroclastic flow has altered the red wall at right. #AncientBluesky 🏺

For #ReliefWednesday, among the splendours of the #BritishMuseum we find this quite large #sardonyx #cameo showing a goddess in a chariot pulled by two restless bulls. The size suggests an imperial commission of the #Severan period. Maybe Julia #Domna as #Selene or the Dea Syria. #AncientBluesky 🏺

A surprisingly interesting #tomb #inscription for #EpigraphyTuesday: M. Cocceius Ambrosius, known as Alvius, made a family tomb for himself, his wife Nike, and his son Rufinus, but then added extra text on two edges of the slab, stating that he bought this while alive, as a vow. #AncientBluesky 🏺

#MosaicMonday at the #BritishMuseum speaks for all of us with this C4 floor #mosaic from #Halicarnassus with the face of #Phobos, Fear, blossoming like an evil flower within a series of classical #frames. Fear radiates outward. The symbolism is clear: step on your fear and go on. #AncientBluesky 🏺

#SpoliaSunday at the #OspedaleSanGiovanni in #Rome presents us with a truncated C4 #Christian #sarcophagus that has been reused as a washbasin for the #medieval #hospital. Here we can see the brutal hack through the central tabula and the marble panel insert to close it off. #AncientBluesky 🏺

#SarcophagusSaturday at the #VaticanMuseums presents us with this wonderful little #sarcophagus of a boy, from 270-290 CE, with his reclining #portrait on the lid and another portrait of him on the side, as a philosopher #Apollo with other children as #Muses at either side. #AncientBluesky 🏺

Makes no difference what you say / you're still a lyre. Another #fresco for #FrescoFriday, this one from the #BritishMuseum but originally from #Pompeii, with a beautiful girl playing a #kithara in an atrium, as her adoring lover sits next to her and a standing woman looks on. #AncientBluesky 🏺

For #FrescoFriday this week, which has been focused on the #Pantheon in #Rome, here's a #fresco fragment from around 1200, which once decorated the eastern curved chapel. It has an intriguing scene of roofed houses below a complex #geometric band that imitates #opussectile work. #AncientBluesky 🏺

#ReliefWednesday takes us to the #BritishMuseum to find four #pilaster #capitals from the upper register of the #Pantheon in #Rome, from c. 124 CE, after the whole band of decoration was removed in 1757 and replaced with a series of faux marble panels and ædicules. #AncientBluesky 🏺

#EpigraphyTuesday takes us into the #cloister of S. Paolo fuori le Mura in #Rome, to find the #epitaph of a #senator, L. Sinicius Reginus, decorated with six #fasces and a #sella #curulis. C2-C3 CE. The script is strangely tiny and sparse for such a large #tabula. Is this a fake? #AncientBluesky 🏺

#MosaicMonday gives us a rare example of Roman dolphins *not* conveying menace. This #mosaic in the #BritishMuseum was once part of a #frame for a huge floor in #Carthage from c. 375 CE with the months and seasons. Here's a different take on #Roman #dolphins: toothless beaks! #AncientBluesky 🏺

#SpoliaSunday continues at the #Pantheon in #Rome, where in the rooms behind the rotunda we find this #Flavian funerary altar to one Flavia Tyche hollowed out and used as an #alms box for the chapel of St Joseph of the Holy Land from the early C17 in the Pantheon itself. #AncientBluesky 🏺

#SarcophagusSaturday at the #Pantheon. In the rooms behind the #BasilicaofNeptune a lapidarium was arranged after the buildings clustering around the Pantheon were demolished. One piece, which had been used as a paver, turned out to be part of a #sarcophagus from c. 250 CE. #AncientBluesky 🏺

#FrescoFriday brings us back to the #BritishMuseum, where a wall #fresco from #Pompeii shows us a tiny framed scene of #Odysseus and the Sirens, from 50-79 CE. Though I love the Sirens and the ship with the hero tied to the mast, my favourite detail is the tiny skeletons. #AncientBluesky 🏺

This detached #fresco in the #Pantheon is by an unknown artist from the local scene. It dates from 1470-1480 and was once on the façade, under the porch, in the right-hand niche, behind an iron grating. Hence its name the Madonna della Cancellata, the Lady of the Grille. #Rome #Renaissance

#ReliefWednesday reintroduces us to those toothy charmers, evil #Roman #dolphins, on the #frieze of the #BasilicaofNeptune at the back of the #Pantheon in #Rome. These marine elements, including shells and tridents, allude to the victory of #Augustus at the sea battle of #Actium. #AncientBluesky 🏺

For #EpigraphyTuesday, a #brickstamp from the #Pantheon in #Rome, "ex figlinis Marcianis", from the Marcian brickyards of C. Calpetanus Favor, with a palm symbol at centre. This brickstamp, now on display in the rooms behind the Pantheon, is dated 100-120 CE. #AncientBluesky 🏺

#MosaicMonday brings us to #Roman #Carthage in 375 CE, to a well-appointed #domus with a floor #mosaic showing the #seasons and #months. This fragment now in the #BritishMuseum shows #November as a priestess of #Isis, with a #sistrum in her hand. See the ALT text for why. #AncientBluesky 🏺

#SpoliaSunday takes us to #palazzoBraschi to recognise a small but persistent #spolia genre, the ancient relief sheared off a #sarcophagus fragment to adorn a statue base in the C18. The scene here is a bucolic one, of four cows, apparently enjoying a good gossip. 250-275 CE. #AncientBluesky 🏺

The most #Baroque #frame in #Florence can be found in the #AnticaFarmacia di S. Maria Novella, founded in 1221 and for centuries run by the #Dominican monks of the convent. This 1658 painting of St Peter Martyr by Lorenzo Lippi was a gift of the #Medici Grand Duke Ferdinando II. #BaroqueBluesky

#SarcophagusSaturday today offers us a terracotta #cinerary #urn from #Athens, now in the #BritishMuseum. It dates from c. 300 BCE, and the painted and gilded #griffins show a strong #Persian influence, an inheritance from the by then divided empire of #Alexander the Great. #AncientBluesky 🏺

#FrescoFriday takes us back into the White Bedroom of the #domus of the #Farnesina in #Rome, where an illusionistic shuttered window opens into a boudoir where a woman whose dress is slipping off her shoulder is kissing... another woman? A lesbian moment in Agrippa's bedroom? #AncientBluesky 🏺

Is that a broken piece of chalk in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me? This #PhallusThursday we're deep underground in the new #Rome subway station Colosseo-Fori Imperiali to find a snapped-off terracotta #phallus #exvoto from Well 3, C4-C2 BCE. #AncientBluesky 🏺

For a belated #MosaicMonday, a detail from the ceiling #mosaic of #SantaCostanza in #Rome, 340-345 CE. Here we have a grape harvest with tiny blue children climbing along the vines with a hooked staff, in competition with birds to get the fruit. Below, a child drives a tiny cart. #AncientBluesky 🏺

For #ReliefWednesday, the end of a #balustrade from the #Colosseum, a late restoration from the C3 or C4, with a close look at a #Roman #dolphin. I don't want to cause controversy but this dolphin, in my opinion, is unambiguously evil. #AncientBluesky 🏺

#EpigraphyTuesday surprises us with an #epigram from Pope Damasus I, from 366-384, in the stairway to the basilica of S. Agnese fuori le Mura along the via #Nomentana outside #Rome. The beautiful precision of the #epigraphy makes it essential to the history of #calligraphy. #AncientBluesky 🏺

For #SpoliaSunday, a ghostly #bronze #statue of a #togatus, probably an #emperor, of the C1 CE, found in shards in the #Tiber at the site of the #pons Valentiniani in #Rome, rebuilt as the #PonteSisto: its head had been replaced by a portrait of #Valentinian I, from 365-366 CE. #AncientBluesky 🏺

For #SarcophagusSaturday, the magnificent #sarcophagus of #Grottarossa, in which a little girl's #mummy was found intact with her jewelry and doll. The main scene shows a stag hunt from the #Æneid, with Dido and #Aeneas with #Ascanius at left, and a lid with a #lion hunt. #AncientBluesky 🏺

Anyone for a game? This #FrescoFriday we're admiring a detail from the splendid White Bedroom of the #domus of the #Farnesina in #Rome, 30-20 BCE. A tall lady, gowned and crowned, holds a baton or scroll case against her shoulder like a racquet handle. She may be a statue. #AncientBluesky 🏺

For #ReliefWednesday, a magnificent #jasper #intaglio depicting #Athena Parthenos in profile, in #palazzoMassimo. A tiny signature in Greek running vertically behind her helmet names the artist as one Aspasios. The artist took inspiration from the great statue in the #Parthenon. #AncientBluesky 🏺

#EpigraphyTuesday comes to us from #Florence this week, where we find this #altar with a dedication by a head postman to the Undefeated Sun and #Mithras from 183 CE. It first appeared in the #Maffei collection in #Rome and then entered palazzo #Medici #Riccardi. #AncientBluesky 🏺

For #MosaicMonday, a #clipeus portrait of a daughter of the emperor #Constantine, either #Constantina or #Helena, wife of the emperor #Julian, from the anular corridor of #SantaCostanza in #Rome, 340-345 CE. She's oddly masculine, with short tousled hair and eyes looking upward. #AncientBluesky 🏺

For #SpoliaSunday, a medieval #domus "solarata" or of two floors stands in the #Forum of #Nerva, made up entirely of found #spolia stone from the vicinity in the C9. In front of its portico, the ancient street called the #Argiletum was repaved with spolia, including horse bones. #AncientBluesky 🏺

#SarcophagusSaturday for this week presents us with the marvellous terracotta #sarcophagus of an #Etruscan lady, Seinanti Hanunia Tlesnasa, from 150-130 BCE. Now in the #BritishMuseum, this was found with its occupant still inside, or at least her #skeleton. She died at about 50. #AncientBluesky 🏺

#FrescoFriday shows us a tender maternal scene of the care of the Holy Child. Yes, it's the infant #Dionysus in the care of the nymphs of Mt Nysa, into whose care #Zeus consigned the baby, from Cubiculum B of the #domus of the #Farnesina, 30-20 BCE, in #palazzoMassimo. #AncientBluesky 🏺

#ReliefWednesday gives us this lovely flat disc cut from a larger scene, with a #cameo in white and blue #glass, which in antiquity replaced the original pointed base of the #PortlandVase in the #BritishMuseum. It may show the #Trojan shepherd prince #Paris. 15 BCE - 25 CE. #AncientBluesky 🏺

#ColosseoForiImperiali station has something rare for #EpigraphyTuesday: a wine #amphora with a painted #inscription, a "titulus pictus" in faint red paint (here artificially clarified). It says "A CL P SER COS", or "Appius #Claudius (Pulcher) and P. Servilius consuls", 79 BCE. #AncientBluesky 🏺

#MosaicMonday takes us deep under the #Velia in #Rome, into the #ColosseoForiImperiali subway station, to find a #mosaic pavement from the late #Republic with black tesseræ, once on the floor of the changeroom of a balneum or private bathhouse destroyed in the fire of 64 CE. #AncientBluesky 🏺

A composite capital from the temple of #Venus and #Rome now in the subway station #ColosseoForiImperiali, c. 125-130 CE, for #SpoliaSunday. We can see how marble was broken up for the kilns: the acanthus leaves knocked off, then the corners. The capital itself has burn marks. #AncientBluesky 🏺

Be careful: these lethal predators hunt in pairs. For #SarcophagusSaturday we have a box on display in the new #subway station #ColosseoForiImperiali in #Rome, which shows three groups of two men hunting three lions. It comes from the #Palatine, where it was used as a #fountain. #AncientBluesky 🏺