QV Hunter

Author of 'The Embers of Empire' 4th-century spy series. Sign up to the Castra for 'leaks' and special book offers at

[QV Hunter @qv_hunter]

'Farewell of the Gods' Editor's Choice of Historical Novel Society, "compelling, closely-researched account of the Gothic crisis, characters vivid, dilemmas harrowing, pacing swift as calamities crowd upon one another. I now want to read the entire series." Keira Morgan, reviewer

[rogueclassicist ~ david meadows @rogueclassicist]

2,500-year-old tomb of a 'warrior prince' with chariot and helmet discovered on Italy's Adriatic coast | Live Science
https://t.co/UqwBV40pTs

[Emo Philips @EmoPhilips]

strangling assassins with a phone cord

[Gareth Harney @OptimoPrincipi]

2/2) 'I, who loved hunting, and did not cause resentment to anyone, was unbearably snatched away in the land of Macedonia. If you are looking for my name, bless you, call me Pyrilampes, who lived unmarried, a short life.'

[Decimus Claudius @decimusclaudius]

Roman ‘Felix gem’ dated to AD 1-50 regarding the Trojan War. “…Greek inscriptions engraved onto the gem tells us that the original owner was a Roman official named Calpurnius Severus...Inscribed onto the altar beneath Diomedes is the phrase ‘Felix made this’…” Ashmolean Museum

[Boze Herrington, Library Owl 😴🧙‍♀️ @SketchesbyBoze]

“Gambling has become a more common leisure activity than reading a book.” This is just unimaginably bleak.

[Darius Arya @DariusAryaDigs]

Join me and @twhiddleston for a time- traveling adventure: Out of Time Pompeii - July 22 on @DisneyPlus @NatGeoTV!

[Boze Herrington, Library Owl 😴🧙‍♀️ @SketchesbyBoze]

The most disturbing anecdote in this essay is from a grade-school teacher saying that on their first day of school kids used to cry because they missed their moms, and now they cry because they don’t have their tablets. If this isn’t fixed, it means civilizational collapse.

[Darius Arya @DariusAryaDigs]

S. Vitalis, Ravenna

[🪔 TimeTravelRome @TimeTravelRome]

🪔The House of Augustus on the Palatine preserves Second Style frescoes: the Room of the Masks, a studiolo with painted trompe-l'œil architecture. Suetonius describes a modest home for the first emperor — far from the splendor often assumed. @ColosseumRome
#Rome #Augustus

[Dr Jo Ball @DrJEBall]

A #Roman clay tile, on which someone wrote out in Latin cursive the first lines of the 'Aeneid' before it was fired - well, that's one way to get some handwriting practice in! It was found in Italica (Spain) & dates to the 1st century AD #Archaeology

[Wanted in Rome @wantedinrome]

The collapse of a carriage horse in Rome sparks renewed calls for a ban on the outdated practice. The incident, which occurred amid extreme heat and city traffic, is the latest in a series of similar cases over the years.

[Wanted in Rome @wantedinrome]

Bologna opens a new library containing more than 32,000 books from Umberto Eco's private study - arranged exactly as he left them - a decade after his death.
https://t.co/6dp3fteK6R

[QV Hunter @qv_hunter]

@mcgillmd921 Hope that version doesn't cut out so many of the key episodes I used in Embers of Empire, e.g. the Penguin one vol. edition cut out the history of Count Theodosius' campaign in North Africa..."The Liars of Leptis Magna" was about those months...

[Nick Mark MD @nickmmark]

Of course a plane full of people who have never read a book has a bookshelf of fake books with titles like “Library”

[Archaeo - Histories @archeohistories]

The excellence of Roman engineering, even the intense rainfall could not defeat the advanced urban planning; as the rain water running down the gutters on a street in Pompeii. 2000+ years later and the angled slope of the stones still funnel the water and animal and human waste to the sides.

Stepping stones for pedestrians to cross the Streets (2nd-1st Century BC), without having to set foot on them are a common feature of Pompeii. It boasts 20 times more crossing stones than are known at any other Roman city, a provision that may speak volumes about the quantity and quality of water draining through Pompeii’s streets ...

Pompeii, a thriving Roman colony in Italy when it was destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, is in many respects a symbol of what archaeologists yearn to discover, an intact image of what life was like in the past. But in some respects, Pompeii is dangerous, because although the buildings look intact, they've been reconstructed, and not always carefully. In fact, the rebuilt structures aren't a clear vision of the past at all but are clouded by 150 years of reconstructions, by several different excavators and conservators.

The streets in Pompeii might be an exception to that rule. Streets in Pompeii were extremely varied, some built with solid Roman engineering and underlain with water conduits; some dirt paths; some wide enough for two carts to pass; some alleys barely wide enough for pedestrian traffic.

Imagine the streets filled with horse-drawn carts, rainwater, human waste chucked from second story windows and horse manure. One of the duties of the Roman officer called an aedile was responsible for keeping the streets clean, helped along by occasional rainstorm. Only few of the streets were wide enough for two-way traffic, and some of them had stepping stones midway. This street forks off to the left and right. None of the streets in Pompeii were wider than 3m across. This one shows clear evidence of Roman engineering as seen in many Roman roads which connected the various cities of the Roman empire. If you look closely at the center of the fork, you'll see a round opening at the base of the wall. Scholars believe holes like that were used to tether horses in front of shops and homes.

Many streets in Pompeii were not wide enough for two-way traffic. Some researchers believe that some of the streets may have been permanently one-way, although markers indicating a traffic direction have not as yet been identified. Archaeologists have identified predominant directions from some of streets by looking at the patterns of the ruts. It is also possible that the one-way direction of some streets was 'as needed', with a consistent movement of carts assisted by the clanging of loud bells, screaming merchants and small boys running around leading traffic.

Some streets in Pompeii can't possibly have held any but pedestrian traffic. Notice the residents still required a deep trough to let water flow down; the detail in the elevated sidewalk is entrancing. At some houses and businesses, stone benches and perhaps awnings afforded a resting place for visitors or passersby. It's hard to know exactly, no awnings survived the eruptions.

Romans were well known for their elegant aqueducts and carefully engineered water control. The water tower, or castellum aquae, that collected, stored and dispersed rainwater. It was part of a complex water system installed by Roman colonists about 80 BC. Water towers there are about a dozen of them in Pompeii were built of concrete and faced with brick or local stone. They stood up to 6m in height and had a lead tank at the top. Lead pipes running underneath streets took the water to residences and fountains. At the time of the eruptions, waterworks was being repaired, perhaps having been damaged by earthquakes in the months before the final eruption of Mt. Vesuvius.

🎥© gabrielzuchtriegel (IG)

#archaeohistories

[Chapps @chapps]

@ClerkofOxford @HistoryToday And - very important to note - peasants are shown wearing colorfully dyed clothing. Not the dull, mud-spattered rags modern movies sell to the masses.

[QV Hunter @qv_hunter]

@DrFrancisYoung @letemps yesterday ran a page-long feature including a Jesuit discussing 4th century schisms, adding the Valais breakaway sect not knowing their church history, the schimatics' repeated defiance amidst Vatican warnings of auto-excommunication...who said the Church was dead?

[Dr Francis Young @DrFrancisYoung]

We need a ruling from Rome on whether watching the livestream of the schismatic consecrations counts as participation and incurs the penalty of excommunication. Or is it only participation if you watch with the intention of participating rather than out of morbid curiosity?

[Hy Bender @hybender]

Coolest use of a drone

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

We need more inventions like this