Dr Carolyn La Rocco 🏺🍃

Roman baby shoe 🥹

Do the Visigothic kings Recceswinth and Wamba need a state funeral? (answer: no, no they do not)

A close up of a page of the manuscript with a drawing of a tiny animal in the bottom margin / next to the last line of text on the page

It also had this on one of the pages ☺️

A close-up photo of a page of the manuscript, showing the script as well as the different colors - red for headings, the majority of the font (written in Carolingian minuscule?) in black, and in the middle of the page, there is a very large decoration in blue, red, violet, and gold leaf at the start of one section

A photo showing the same opening page of the manuscript, just not cropped / zoomed in, so more of the gold, red, blue, and violet is visible

Got to have a look at this 12th-century copy of Orosius’ History in the library at St John’s 🙂 (St John’s College MS 95)

A photo of one page of the manuscript (fol. 43v), which has illustrations of various scenes from the story. For me the point of the photo was not the scenes themselves, but the overall effect of the page, which is very intricately and elaborately decorated, with a lot of gold, elaborate patterns and borders, etc. The manuscript is lit so that the gold in particular catches your eye.

A photo of the manuscript open to the previous page (fol. 43v) and the page to the right of it (fol. 44r), which contains text of the story, as well as more illustrations bordering the text. The overall effect (to me) is very intricate and impressive.

A 14th-century manuscript of the Romance of Alexander (the Great) that I saw in the Treasured exhibition at the Weston Library. [Shelfmark: Bodleian Library MS. Bodl. 264; fols. 43v-44r].

For the digitized book: digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/ae9f...

A photo of one page of the manuscript (fol. 43v), which has illustrations of various scenes from the story. For me the point of the photo was not the scenes themselves, but the overall effect of the page, which is very intricately and elaborately decorated, with a lot of gold, elaborate patterns and borders, etc. The manuscript is lit so that the gold in particular catches your eye.

A photo of the manuscript open to the previous page (fol. 43v) and the page to the right of it (fol. 44r), which contains text of the story, as well as more illustrations bordering the text. The overall effect (to me) is very intricate and impressive.

A 14th-century manuscript of the Romance of Alexander (the Great) that I saw in the Treasured exhibition at the Weston Library. [Shelfmark: Bodleian Library MS. Bodl. 264; fols. 43v-44r].

The whole point of being an academic is that you need to be willing to spend three days creating a 700-word footnote that you will later delete. And you need to LIKE IT.

Hot on the heels of our 1st webinar of this season comes the 2nd:
‘Mobility and Cult of Relics in the Mediterranean from Late Antiquity to the Islamic Period: The Case of the Iberian Peninsula’
Wednesday 3 December, 17.00 (UTC)

All welcome, please register here: tinyurl.com/4zns7deh

Photo of a library with brown and white striped ceilings (brown from the wooden beams), old globes, manuscripts, and rugs

Still feel so lucky that I get to do my research in the Old Library at St John’s (@stjohnsox.bsky.social) 🙂 Such a beautiful place.

Photo of an auditorium with a large projector screen on the stage, and a slide on the screen showing the poster of the 1960 film La Vendetta dei Barbari and the title ‘Late Roman and Visigothic women in visual media’ which depicts Galla Placidia, Honorius, and various other figures.

Was happy to give a talk on late Roman and Visigothic women in cinema + other art at St John’s College @stjohnsox.bsky.social, this weekend, as part of a panel on the Ancient World in Digital Media for Oxford Open Doors 2025. I talked about, e.g., Galla Placidia in Revenge of the Barbarians (1960).

a university is not for generating profit, it provides cultural enrichment via weird little gremlin people who love visigoths or haikus, and very occasionally a scientist who figures out faster than light travel

Dr Carolyn La Rocco: Female patronage in the late Roman and post-Roman west In this article, Dr Carolyn La Rocco (CDRF in Classics and Ancient History) discusses her research on female patronage in Late Antiquity (c. 250-750 CE).

A (very short) look at some of what I’m working on during my fellowship at St John’s: www.sjc.ox.ac.uk/discover/res...

Dr Carolyn La Rocco: Female patronage in the late Roman and post-Roman west In this article, Dr Carolyn La Rocco (CDRF in Classics and Ancient History) discusses her research on female patronage in Late Antiquity (c. 250-750 CE).

A (very short) look at some of what I’m working on during my fellowship at St John’s: www.sjc.ox.ac.uk/discover/res...

ACADEMIC READING ALREADY COMES WITH A SUMMARY IT IS CALLED THE ABSTRACT

We in academia are being inundated with a new fallacy: The all-tech-is-the-same fallacy.

As educators, part of our job is to evaluate different technologies, using some & rejecting others based on their actual utility (or potential harm) in meeting properly *educational* goals.

Spotted this extraordinary comparandum on the Twitter account of @persiaantigua.bsky.social

Drawing of the outside of the tablet by RSO Tomlin - only a couple of lines of Roman cursive are visible

Drawing by RSO Tomlin of the inside of the tablet - many more lines of cursive are visible

I’ve been reading through Latin curse tablets (defixiones) and thought this one from Roman-period Britain was neat: someone seemingly cursing the person who stole their beehive ‘vas apium’)! 🐝 (Brit. 48.10 10; text and images: romaninscriptionsofbritain.org/inscriptions...; images by R.S.O. Tomlin)

Tomorrow!! 🏺🏛️

Thank you! :)

Sharing Perspectives on Late Antiquity: Granada-St Andrews International Meeting Hybrid event. **Programme** 10.00-10.25 Antonio López García: Transforming Belief: Religion and Urban Change in Late Antique Trans Tiberim

events.st-andrews.ac.uk/events/shari... for the program

Group photo of nine people in front of a projector screen with the graphic / title of the workshop projected onto it

I was happy to speak at the Granada-St Andrews International Meeting ‘Sharing Perspectives on Late Antiquity’ at the University of St Andrews yesterday (@staclassics.bsky.social); I spoke about some aspects of the relationship between monasteries and crisis in late Roman and Visigothic Iberia

(Accession number: AN1941.808)

Maybe portrait, she has an elaborate ‘updo’ hairstyle and you can see hints of color in the portrait’s eyes

Went to see the newly-reopened Roman gallery of the Ashmolean @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social; liked this marble portrait of Livia (wife of Augustus). Left to the museum by Sir Arthur Evans.

Mosaic with portrait of Medusa in the center; she looks unimpressed. There is a white circular background behind her, with a wavy border around the edge, and that rounded is set within a square with another border

For #MosaicMonday: a throwback to this unimpressed Medusa from late 2nd-early 3rd century Tarraco (Tarragona). MNAT 2921. 🏺

kermit the frog is sitting on a bench and smiling . ALT: kermit the frog is sitting on a bench and smiling .

"The Dark Ages" violates the rule that historical periods are discretionary but not arbitrary. Periods can be redefined but not contrary to the evidence. Calling the period after the transformations of the Roman Empire "DA" is a value judgment inconsistent with the evidence. 13/

Late Roman historian here. Please stop perpetuating the narrative of a fall of Rome triggering Dark Ages. That’s not what happened at all.

Promotional image titled 'Roman Britain from Cambridge' featuring two people walking along the remnants of Hadrian's Wall in a lush, green landscape.

Published in #Cambridge's #ClassicalStudies and #Archaeology journals, articles in this free-access collection bring together recent scholarly research on the #history, archaeology and cultural dynamics of #RomanBritain: ✅➡️ cup.org/3YMP1hO

trove.scot home page

So I think I need to do a sober thread on just how disasterously bad the new trove.scot website is, in comparison to the sites - especially Canmore - that it's replacing.

tl:dr - the new site is not fit for purpose; switching off the old sites on 24 June 2025 is way way way premature.

Epistolae Epistolae is a collection of letters to and from women in the Middle Ages, from the 4th to the 13th century. The letters, written in Latin, are linked to the names of the women involved, with English ...

A great resource :)
“Epistolæ: Medieval Women's Letters… a collection of medieval Latin letters to and from women. The letters collected here date from the 4th to the 13th centuries, and they are presented in their original Latin as well as in English translation...” (epistolae.ctl.columbia.edu)