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Iris Online New eyes for old worlds

An ancient mosaic of London in 2012

The forthcoming Olympic Games in London has produced a wide range of creative responses, in the form of art, music and writing, long before its arrival. One such initiative is being driven by a ...

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Urban Hymns: Horace and city life

Horace’s first experience of Rome was as a schoolboy. His father, a freedman who had risen to be a regional banker in Apulia, did not want him to go to the local school, where sons of the local ...

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Scary stories and tales of the dead

Do you think Halloween, with its tradition of trick-or-treat, is a relatively modern holiday? Or maybe you've heard it associated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain? Would you be surprised ...

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Ancient spellcasting

Magic was widely practised in the ancient world; archaeology and written texts provide considerable evidence for it. And what is fascinating about examining the many and varied rituals that ...

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Interviews

(Not Quite) Thoroughly Modern Martha.

The clock struck thirteen as I stormed the ominous portals under the battlements of the British...

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A chat with Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye

In the midst of the apocalyptic storms that March had sent to whirl around the streets of London,...

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A Day in the Life of a Classicist

Classics is immensely transferable as a subject, and its students go on to almost every walk of...

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Travel

Great Cities of the Roman Empire - Tarragona, Spain

Welcome to Colonia Julia Urbs Triumphalis Tarraco. Better known to us today as Tarragona, it is...

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Samothrace - Moving to a remote Greek island

The 180 km squared Greek island of Samothrace in the North Aegean is dominated by the 1600 metre...

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Dougga By Day

Tunisia, a richly historical land at present under-going a (one hopes, short) period of political...

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Great Cities of the Roman Empire - Nîmes

Le Midi is the name the French have given to the beautiful, southern region of their country and if...

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When in Rome use the underground

It isn’t surprising that Rome’s Underground/Metro system is smaller than that of London’s - after...

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Bacchus in France

Philippa Williams searches for the god of wine in Aquitaine.

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