Ancient History - Blog Posts

Achilles and Patroclus are asteroids

There are two trojan asteroids named after Achilles and Patroclus. Discovered 22 February 1906 by Max Wolf at Heidelberg, 588 Achilles was the first-ever Jupiter trojan found. Only eight months later (17 October 1906), August Kopff discovered the Binary Trojan 617 Patroclus at Heidelberg. 

They are reunited in the stars.

Cleopatra was once smuggled to Caesar in a bed-sack

It’s a well known story recounted by Plutarch that Cleopatra, aided by her confidant Apollodorus the Sicilian, hid herself “full-length inside a bed-sack” to elude her brother Ptolemy’s guards and gain secret access to Julius Caesar at Alexandria in 48 BC. Allegedly, Cleopatra landed at the palace when it was already dark and Apollodorus tied up the bed-sack before carrying it indoors to Caesar. Cassius Dio notes simply that Cleopatra “sent for Caesar in secret” and that he was captivated by her beauty and wit, but he omits any smuggling device. This story may be victim to Plutarch’s signature dramatisation, but it is compelling nonetheless.

The other day I was telling someone about the Five Good Emperors of Rome. She looked at me like I was crazy and replied: “There were five of them?! I didn’t even think there was one!”

There’s a butterfly called Morpho achilles patroclus

So, the other day, I just found out that the butterfly Morpho achilles has a subspecies called Morpho achilles patroclus. There’s also a butterfly called Morpho deidamia.

Julius Caesar once received a graphic love letter in the Senate

According to Plutarch, when Caesar and Cato were standing and debating in the Senate chamber, a messenger showed up and gave Caesar a small note. Cato was suspicious about the note and wanted it to be read out to the assembled senators. Caesar handed the note to Cato, and when he opened the note, he discovered it contained a graphic love letter from Servilia (his maternal half-sister), detailing her passionate desires for Caesar. Embarrassed, Cato read the it aloud, then threw the letter back at Caesar, saying, "Take it, thou sot," before continuing his speech as if nothing had occurred.

Your month, your insult told to Julius Caesar due to his alleged homosexual affair with Nicomedes IV

January - Dolabella: "the queen's rival, the inner partner of the royal couch”

February - Licinius Calvus: "Whate'er Bithynia had, and Caesar's paramour."

March - Bibulus: "the queen of Bithynia”, "of yore he was enamoured of a king, but now of a king's estate." 

April - Cicero: "No more of that, pray, for it is well known what he gave you, and what you gave him in turn."

May - Caesar’s soldiers: “Caesar subdued Gaul, Nicomedes subdued Caesar”

June - A random Octavius: greeted Pompey as "king" and Caesar as "queen." 

July - The elder Curio: "the brothel of Nicomedes and the stew of Bithynia." 

August - Gaius Memmius: said that he acted as cup-bearer to Nicomedes with the rest of his wantons at a large dinner-party, and that among the guests were some merchants from Rome. 

September - Cicero: said that Caesar was led by the king's attendants to the royal apartments, that he lay on a golden couch arrayed in purple, and that the virginity of this son of Venus was lost in Bithynia

October - Caesar’s soldiers: "All the Gauls did Caesar vanquish, Nicomedes vanquished him; / Lo! now Caesar rides in triumph, victor over all the Gauls, / Nicomedes does not triumph, who subdued the conqueror."

November - The elder Curio: Every woman’s husband and every man’s wife.”

December - Cicero: “I wish it may be true about the Queen and that Caesar of hers”

I love bog bodies, they’re so interesting

Lindow Man

The Lindow Man (officially Lindow III) is the top half of a male body, found preserved in a peat bog in Cheshire, England.

The peat bogs at Lindow Moss date back to the last ice age and were formed by holes of melting ice; they are now a tenth of their original size. Bogs often lead to the preservation of organic materials, particularly human remains, being acidic, cold, and devoid of oxygen. The brown colour of the skin, leathery texture, and appearance of human remains preserved in a bog are due to a type of moss that grows in bogs and when dead, lets out a substance that causes a tanning process.

During 1980s CE a series of finds were made at Lindow Moss by workers at a peat shredding mill (peat was then being harvested as fuel). These discoveries were small parts of the human anatomy, for example, a head known as the Lindow Woman and several limbs of other individuals. The most famous, largest, and important of these discoveries is the top half of a male body (the bottom half possibly lost when a digger cut up the bog) found in the summer of 1984 CE and called the Lindow Man. What is noticeable about this example and significant for study is that the hair, skin, and several of his integral organs were preserved. The body and surrounding section of peat were removed whole and taken away for study by a team led by British Museum scientists. Once safe in a laboratory it was the focus of analysis and has caused a great deal of excitement, producing an unprecedented investigation.

The beard, sideburns, and moustache made it instantly clear that the body was male. By calculating the length of his upper arm bone, it was estimated that he would have been between 1.68 m and 1.73 m tall. He was also well built, weighing around 64 kg. He was radiocarbon dated to between 2 BCE and 119 CE and was about 25 years old at the time of death. He was unclothed, apart from a fox fur armband. Using scanning electron microscopy researchers found that his hair and beard had been trimmed with a pair of scissors or shears. It is thought that he did not do any rough work or hard labour, based on his nails which were all manicured. Although the acid in the bog had removed all of the enamel from his teeth, there were no visible cavities, and what was left looked normal. Overall he appears to have been fairly healthy, but had slight osteoarthritis and an infestation of parasitic worms. It has even been possible to discover his blood group, O. Food residue discovered in his upper alimentary tract shows that his last meal was a griddle cake made from wheat and barley.

The reasons and cause of death have caused debate between scholars. There are signs of two blows to the top of the head with a heavy and bladed weapon and also a knife wound to the throat. There is also evidence for a blow to the back, by a broken rib. He had a thin cord around his neck which may have been used to strangle and break his neck, but some have argued that it was simply a necklace, because it is knotted in a decorative manner. Once dead he was placed face down in the bog. This horrific death may have been a ritual killing, a human sacrifice carried out, perhaps by the Druids. Or he could have been executed as a criminal or murdered by thieves, or if he was someone of stature, by his enemies. It is almost impossible to know for sure why he died, but the Lindow Man has provided valuable information and been subjected to more tests than any other ancient human being.

He was conserved by immersing him in a mixture of polyethylene glycol to prevent shrinking and then wrapped in cling film, frozen, and then finally freeze-dried. He is now on display in the British Museum.

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I hate when people say that “humans discovered fire”. No we didn’t. We didn’t discover ice or plants. We discovered how to make it and use it. Fire is natural and naturally occurring and we probably used it before we knew how to make it.

And I know some of you are gonna say “obviously, everyone knows that” but no! I’ve seen people talk about it as if humans just magically made fire one day and now we have fire.

And humans didn’t just show up one day. There weren’t humans who never saw or heard of fire in their life. Monkeys know about fire, pre historic humans knew about fire and we know about fire.

People are stupid and we didn’t discover fire.