Egypt was once the Roman Empire’s source of wheat. Disruption of this source of food had major impacts on the stability of the Empire. Rebellions, barbarian invasions, epidemics, and droughts played a role in this instability. Researchers are now investigating the impact of climate change on the wheat supply by examining wood samples from mummies buried during the Roman era:

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University of Geneva analyzed more than 300 wooden tags that had been affixed to Egyptian mummies during the Roman era in an effort to study the eastern Mediterranean's ancient climate. Much of the wheat consumed in the Roman Empire was grown in Egypt, so climate fluctuations in the region would have had a wide influence. The labels, inscribed by family members with the name of the deceased, the names of the person’s parents, and sometimes a short religious message, would have been sent with the body to the embalmer. For today’s scientists, the wooden tags also hold clues to the climate of the past in the form of the tree’s growth rings. Broad rings indicate rapid growth in a wet year, while narrow rings can be the result of drought.

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Thus far, wood from the Ptolemaic (332–30 BCE), especially the Roman (30 BCE–395 CE) period, has remained much less documented than that of the Ancient Egyptian (3150–332 BCE) period. However, rich collections of hitherto unexplored Greco-Roman wood objects are preserved in many museums worldwide. A study of these collections is therefore key for the construction of absolutely dated conifer chronologies, but is also considered to have a high potential to enhance our understanding of practices and customs during the Roman period in Egypt. Considered a pivotal time, the Roman period experienced large-scale transformations and external threats (i.e., military anarchy, civil wars, galloping inflation, famines, raids, and invasions; Alföldi 1938; Blois 2002); epidemics (Elliott 2016; Huebner 2021) and a succession of droughts (Manning 2013; Harper 2017).

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“Mummy labels are just a proxy tool that we are using to reconstruct the climate of Roman Egypt, the breadbasket of the Roman Empire, and understand how climate fluctuations influenced changes in society, government and the economy”. It is a perfect example of how questions raised by ancient history can be of pressing importance to the modern-day world.

Mummy labels of different quality from the BNU collection in Strasbourg were used to acquire dendrochronological measurements. Top left: Growth rings on mummy label HO87 cannot be measured easily due to tool marks and surface coating. Top right: Mummy label HO66 has a clean surface and perfectly readable rings. Bottom left: growth rings on label HO59 are only partly visible as a result of the cutting method applied and tool marks, the central part is illegible. Bottom right: Growth rings on the transverse plane of mummy label HO43 as seen on a X-ray tomography image with perfectly legible rings

https://www.archaeology.org/news

https://www.snf.ch/en/XlYUJjBFhCvE38RC/news/mummies-provide-the-key-to-reconstruct-the-climate-of-the-ancient-mediterranean
 

The scholarly article:

https://brill.com/view/journals/ijwc/aop/article-10.1163-27723194-bja10017/article-10.1163-27723194-bja10017.xml

Distribution of the 599 labels for which the location of finds is known, as well as the distribution by label type: Type I, Stela shape rectangular; Type II, Stela shape trapezoidal; Type III, Stela shape close to square; Type IV, Stela shape with handle; Type V, Tabula Ansata

So I'm asking does rowing actually require a lot of knowledge and specialized skills? Obviously its already a hard thing to do just going by movies but is it more than just brute force? Why not just teach slaves the skills? Since most rowers were paid professional crews I'd assume that means the specific knowledge needed for moving large ship with oars is far more complicated than just lifting, dropping, and pushing the oar backwards?

Sebastian Todor at Maiorianus has done an excellent video on the last days of the Roman Senate. The Roman Senate persisted after the “fall of Rome” in 476 AD, but it eventually disappeared from history in the 600s AD.

Sonic (Ian Hughes) has written a wonderful book about Constantius III. Above is a gold coin (solidus) depicting Constantius III.
 

Below is a nice video on this little-known but important emperor by Sebastian Todor (Maiorianus):

http://www.ancient-origins.net/history-famous-people/veni-vidi-scripsi-literary-conquests-gaius-julius-caesar-009060

So I am curious of how Romans stereotyped themselves in appearance during their times and how foreigners such as Germanic pictured a typical Roman. Modern Hollywood portrays them as fair skinned as your typical Anglo Saxon Whites. Even Italian actors are used, they still show Romans as milky white as your average American and Brit despite the fact the movie was made during the time of Eugenics and Racism being so bad even "lesser whites" such as Hungarians faced discrimination and physical stereotypes were made to demean them namely Italians being olive skinned almost bordering brown skin that the stereotypical Mexican looks like, they hired Italians movie stars who would easily pass for WASP (white Anglo-Saxon Protestant) in America with extremely light skin. Biggest offender of this being Sophia Lauren who was frequently casted into leading ladies in ancient era movies such as The Fall of the Roman Empire.

Were Romans given stereotypes like "olive skinned" by their enemies? I know Romans were written to be 5'3-5'5 range on average and barbarian warriors as 6 footers. But even this is flawed since they are typically comparing barbarian retainers who were not only the cream of the crop of Germanic society but also often made up a significant, if not most, of the forces in some battle. While the Romans they were using as a base for comparison was the AVERAGE pleb.

Did Roman appearance vary on region (like modern Italy today) and social classes (such as how Hindu Brahmins and Ksatriya Princes are often lighter skinned than Hindus of lower class, many even passing for what constitutes as "white skin" in America)? 
 

Or were Romans different in appearance today than many modern people in Rome (who are often medium toned skin-not olive nor white as snow but can still pass for a white person who intentionally tans)? Were most Romans as fair as movies would have you believe and the Roman gene pool got diluted by barbarian invasions (which brings stuff like some dark skinned people in Rome and also blondes in the same city with most people being in between)?

There have been numerous posts about the destruction of the library of Alexandria (see below). Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook had an interesting discussion about that subject on their recent podcast “The Rest is History.”

The academic started with a broad description of the Roman Empire, basically claiming that Augustus was an undeclared emperor and pretended that Rome was still a Republic. This is the foundation of the 'Standard Model' of Roman imperial government. I have never heard anything sound so false in all my life.

Does that academic seriously expect anyone to believe that Augustus was able to fool the Romans into thinking the Republic was still in place for fifty years? In a society based on tradition and  obsessed with politics and debate? Is he seriously suggesting nobody noticed?

It may seem suprising that in spite of their vigilant Republicanism many members of the Italian governing class were satisfied by what seems to us a fiction. Yet the Romans, although their intense anxiety to preserve everything good in the past made them instinctively averse to open changes, had a fairly impressive record for modifying their institutions when this was necessary.
The World Of Rome (Michael Grant)

Okay, so why does the Republic seem like a fiction? There was no actual 'fall of the Republic', it doesn't exist in the Roman sources. It's because people like the idea Rome was ruled by emperors. It's been imposed on education since the Middle Ages based on the revisionist later writings of Roman authors and the experience of dealing with the Graeco-Roman Byzantines. Take Augustus himself. Paterculus gushes in praise and reminds us that Augusts was the saviour of the Republic. Yet five hundred years later Zosimus dismisses Augustus as an absolute monarch who abolished the aristocracy. This reflects changes in Roman culture during the imperial era, not the career of Augustus. But not everyone is so blinded by the Standard Model.

The overwhelming importance of tradition in Roman society is a warning for the historian tempted to consider Roman history in terms of turning points and separate periods. Persistent obsession with tradition fosters continuity even within a broad framework of change. In other words, while the terms 'Republic' and 'Principate' suggest separation and change, we should expect continuity, mitigating and to an extent denying this change. It is not only that the Republic conditioned the Principate: it also continued into the Principate - The Legacy of the Republic (David C Braund) from The Roman World (Ed. John Wacher)

Also, rather than using the word 'birth', we should perhaps speak of emergence, since the features of the Augustan monarchy that were adopted by its successors took shape gradually, bit by bit, within the Republican institutional edifice. For the Principate was not created ex nihilo, but put slowly into position using existing forms, and following no preconceived plan but, rather, added to and modified according to circumstance... - A History of Rome (Le Glay, Voisin, & Le Bohec)

I actually go further. It hasn't escaped my attention that the Romans still referred to their state as SPQR, Senatus Populous Que Romans (Senate and People of Rome) right to the end in the west in 476, which is an arbitrary date based on the takeover launched by Odoacer as he became King of Italy. The Senate may have been functionally powerless in the Dominate (the later Roman imperial period) but they still represented traditional authority, and rather than the imperatores (Victorious Generals) simply admit they had become monarchs, they required senatorial acceptance, awards of privilege, and legitimisation.  Why would they need to if Rome was the Empire rather than the Republic? Exactly who were they trying to kid?

The facts are startlingly obvious if you set aside the much loved but medieval 'Emperor of Rome'. Rome remained a Republic with evolving leadership. The Polybian hybrid government of aristocratic Senate, democratic people, and executive Magistracy had changed to Dominatal Magistracy with Senatorial acceptance - but it was the same nation state.

When Augustus stated in his Res Gestae that he was Princeps Senatus he meant it. That was his day job. Yes, he was particularly powerful, but never absolute, and in any case power alone does not make you a monarch. His powers were based on a series of privileges, titles, and honours, not any existing position in Roman society, these powers given him by the Senate, and as an ambitious man of course he used them.

However if you notice young Octavian had been invited into the Senate on the promise he would protect the Republic. He did exactly that. Yes, he profitted personally from doing so - he was an elite Roman, of course he did. Augustus even refers to this success as a statesman as the 'fruit of his labours'. If power wasn't his primary objective, as indeed Aurelius Victor claimed it was,  then what was it? A prosperous Republic. There is no other answer that fits.
 

Here's an interesting video that supports the theory that Augustan Rome had a greater population density than the modern Manhattan borough in New York City.

First, one needs to assume that the population at the time of Augustus was 800,000 to 1,200,000.

Using the layout of the city of Rome outlined in the Severan Map created in 203-11 AD (known as Forma Urbis Romae), one is able to calculate the area of Rome 24 km2

FRAGMENT OF THE FORMA URBIS ROMAE. DATE: A.D. 203–211. MATERIAL: Marble, DIMENSIONS: 26 inches by 23.6 inches. FOUND: Rome, Italy.

Using population calculated from records of grain and pork supplied to the city, the video proposes that the population density of Augustan Rome was greater than modern Manhattan. 

Augustan Rome: 41,500 persons / km2

Manhattan, NYC: 28,000 persons / km2

Hong Kong: 6,300 persons / km2 

Even if this is a gross exaggeration, Ancient Rome was incredible for its infrastructure planning and services. The video suggests how the population of Ancient Rome could be so dense:

Brief article on the Forma Urbis Romae:

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The Forma Urbis Romae, or map of the city of Rome, was a massive plan of the layout of the city under the emperor Septimius Severus (r. A.D. 193–211). Although only a small portion of the plan survives, scholars are relatively certain it illustrated most of the city. This fragment shows commercial structures on the southeastern slope of the Viminal Hill. The Forma Urbis adorned the wall of a room in Rome’s Temple of Peace that might have served as an archive of maps and records.

https://www.archaeology.org/issues/337-1905/features/7547-maps-rome-forma-urbis-romae

Octavian was already powerful, by accident of birth, by becoming the inheritor of Caesar's estate and status, and by forming an illegal army from Caesar's veterans which brought him to the attention of the Senate. They wanted him punished, but Cicero persuaded them the youngster would be useful.

At the age of nineteen, on my own initiative and at my own expense, I raised an army by means of which I restored liberty to the republic, which had been oppressed by the tyranny of a faction. For which service the Senate, with complimentary resolutions, enrolled me in its order, in the consulship of Gaius Pansa and Aulus Hirtius, giving me at the same time consular precedence in voting; it also gave me the imperium. As propraetor it ordered me, along with the consuls, "to see that the republic suffered no harm." - Res Gestae (Augustus)

Octavian rose to dominance by manipulation of popularity, by acting against Marc Antony whose association with Egypt made him a traitor in the eyes of the Senate and People of Rome, by defeating the Romano-Egyptian threat to Rome, by annexing Egypt by conquest, and by returning the supreme power he had been awarded to defeat Cleopatra to the Roman state, then by a series of intense negotiations with the Senate.

But please realise Augustus was not powerful in one title. He held a number of magistracies, priesthoods, and privileges that together added up to some serious influence. He was effectively manager of republican government, but never an emperor despite the popularity of that idea. He retained Egypt as his own personal province where the Senate could not legally go, he had direct influence over regions with military garrisons thanks to his senior imperium (right to command an army), but a third of the empire remained under senatorial oversight.

For ten years in succession I was one of the triumvirs for the re-establishment of the constitution. To the day of writing this I have been princeps senatus for forty years. I have been pontifex maximus, augur, a member of the fifteen commissioners for performing sacred rites, one of the seven for sacred feasts, an arval brother, a sodalis Titius, a fetial priest. - Res Gestae (Augustus)

Also please note that descriptions of Augustus changed over time. He was regarded as the saviour of the Republic during his day (which to be fair he was only too keen to encourage), but five hundred years later he was being described as an absolute monarch who abolished the aristocracy. Little wonder the Middle Ages decided to call him an Emperor however wrong that was.

May it be my privilege to establish the State in a firm and secure position, and reap from that act the fruit that I desire; but only if I may be called the author of the best possible government, and bear with me the hope when I die that the foundations which I have laid for the State will remain unshaken. - Augustus
 

Consul - One of two annually elected senior magistrates of Rome, also originally military commanders of a legion each.

Imperator - Victorious General, described by Cassius Dio and Varro.

Princeps Senatus - First Senator

Propraetor - Former leader

Supreme Power - Not defined by anyone but indicates the powers of a Dictator without the title, which had been abolished by Marc Antony after Caesar's death.

Triumvir - Member of a council but in Octavian's context, a reformer of the state.

1. Must contain city of Rome

2. Latin official language of government

3.  Roman Senate active

4. Army using Roman terms. Legion = division, Cohort = battalion, century = company.  Dux = 3-star general, etc

Further questions:

1. Would there be an official religion?  I don’t think there would have to be.  Maybe nominally Catholic in the west.  Tolerance for all faiths would probably be the law.

2.  Who would be considered a citizen?  Everyone?

3.  Would slavery exist?  It’s hard to imagine Rome without it but the point of this experiment, after all, is a modern Rome.

There have been threads about the Roman circuses in the past. (Below is an older thread about the investigation of the Roman circus in Britain.)

Below is one of the best description on the city of Rome’s Circus Maximus:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/museumwales/5950606340/   Every emperor needs a rudder. We know this because of Plutarch: Caesar 28.4.

'Often, too, they would defile the rostra with blood and corpses before they separated, leaving the city to anarchy like a ship drifting about without a steersman, so that men of understanding were content if matters issued in nothing worse for them than monarchy, after such madness and so great a tempest.'

Here’s a short article on the Limes Arabicus:

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The Limes Arabicus was a desert frontier of the Roman Empire, running north from its start in the province of Arabia Petraea. It ran northeast from the Gulf of Aqaba for about 1,500 kilometers at its greatest extent, reaching northern Syria and forming part of the wider Roman limes system. (Wikipedia)

https://www.heritagedaily.com/2021/03/the-limes-arabicus-the-desert-frontier-of-the-roman-empire/138363

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limes_Arabicus

https://historycollection.com/7-reasons-byzantine-empire-lasted-long/3/

Edward Gibbon - The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.  I found his name frequently when reading about current events when I was in highschool.  Orignally in English.  By an Englishman.

Saint Gregory of Tours - A History of the Franks.  Disappointing.  Modern material is better.  Specifically, The Dark Ages and Clovis.  Originally in Latin

Seutonius - The Lives of the Twelve Caesars - this is a historical work as well and I have no idea when it was first published in English.  It dates from the 2nd century.  Originally in Latin

Herodotus - The Histories.  About ancient Greece before the fall of Athens in the Peloponnesian War.  His name is very famous and I've known it since I was a child.  His name appears in the game Civilization and its sequels along with several variations on it partly as a running gag that produces rankings in various metrics for each civilization as the game progresses.  In fact, the running gag depends heavily on how well you do.  If you do really well you'll get a list of civilizations written by Herodotus or say, Bill Clinton.  If you do badly, you get something like Ryu-odotus.   

Originally in ancient Greek

Herodotus does not claim that Etruscans came from Asia Minor.

Thucyides - History of the Peloponnesian War.  Originally in ancient Greek.

There have been a few posts about trade between Rome and India before (see threads below). Here is a good summary article:

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Large hoards of Roman coins have been found at many coastal trading settlements in India that date from the 1st, 2nd, and 5th centuries AD. The scale of Roman coinage flowing into India led to the Tamilakkam kings reissuing Roman coins in their own name, defacing the coins in order to signify their own sovereignty.

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An example of a Roman trading settlement can be found in Arikamedu, a major Chola port, first described in the mid-first-century Roman manuscript, “Periplus of the Erythraean Sea”. The port was known as Poduke, which is believed to be a corrupted version of the Tamil name Potikai, meaning a “meeting place”.

Excavations at Arikamedu by archaeologist, Sir Mortimer Wheeler, uncovered a large number of amphorae bearing the mark of Roman potter schools (VIBII, CAMURI and ITTA), as well as Arretine ware (Roman ceramics from Arezzo in Italy), Roman lamps, glassware, glass and stone beads.

 

https://www.heritagedaily.com/2023/02/evidence-of-indo-roman-relations/146284