Roman Coin Depicting Caligula

The International  press is full of the news about the supposed discovery of the tomb of the Roman Emperor Caligula near Lake Nemi, some thirty kilometers from Rome.  Caligula was one of history’s most notorious monsters.  Cruel, vicious, and almost certainly insane,  his exploits, according to the Roman historian Suetonius, included  murdering his grandmother and brother, committing incest with all three of his sisters, proclaiming himself a god and demanding to be worshipped as such, and making his favorite horse a member of the Roman senate.  Born Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus in 12 A.D., he was given the name Caligula (“little boots” while with his father Germanicus during his campaigns in Germany.  He was murdered by a conspiracy involving the Praetorian Guard, the Senate and the Court in 41 A.D.

Italian police, acting on a tip , arrested a man who was trying to smuggle abroad a statue of the emperor that was recovered from the site.  The marble statue was depicted wearing  a god’s robes and “caligae,” the sandal-boots for which Caligula was named.  The discovery of the statue led the police to the tomb.

Not so fast, says Mary Beard, a professor of Classics at Cambridge University and a historian well-known for debunking myths about antiquity. “All the evidence we have from the ancient world suggests that this cannot be so,” she says. “There is no suggestion whatsoever, so far as I know, that this burial was at Nemi, or that it was a grand tomb. True, Caligula had a big villa there, but it is almost inconceivable that this assassinated symbol of imperial monstrosity would have been given a grand monument, plus a big statue there. Besides there is no evidence for that whatsoever.”

Excavations of the tomb have begun  and it will be fascinating to see what turns up.

A large Roman white marble statue of a headless, armless woman wearing a toga was revealed when a severe storm in Ashkelon, Israel,  in December knocked down part of a cliff.  The statue, which had been buried for centuries, is estimated to be some 1,700.  It measures 4 feet in height and weighs 440 pounds.  Believed to be an image of the goddess Aphrodite, the figure was discovered by someone walking along the shore on the coast west of Jerusalem  The incredible find will now be put on display in a museum.

Archaeologists lament the collapse of the House of Gladiators in Pompeii.”  The Italian newspaper, La Republica, called the collapse a “world scandal.”   The Italian government’s cutting funds for heritage conservation was blamed and 800 cultural institutions in Italy closed in protest.  Heritage experts claim that other monuments in Italy are on the brink of destruction. “With no maintenance and non-existent funds, the entire country is at risk. From Bologna’s twin towers to the dome of Florence’s Cathedral and Nero’s Golden House in Rome, many other monuments could be reduced to rubble,” Alessandra Mottola Molfino, head of the environmentalist lobby Italia Nostra, told the daily Corriere della Sera.

Ancient art lovers,  welcome all contributions that further our knowledge about the ancient world.  That is why it is such good news to learn that Google and the Israel Antiquities Authority are working together to digitalize the 2000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls.  It is a tremendous undertaking since the Collection includes some 30,000 fragments of the scrolls.  The project will make the scrolls accessible to everyone with a computer and will preserve our heritage for future generations.