Antiquities Exhibits

Distinctive gladiator helmet found in the Flavian Amphitheataer (Colosseum) in Rome, Italy, 300-500 CE at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada. Spectators preferred to watch highly skilled, well matched gladiators with complementary fighting styles. These were the most costly to train and to hire. A general melee of several, lower-skilled gladiators was far less costly, but also less popular. Even among the ordinarii, ma tch winners might have to fight a new, well-rested opponent, either a tertiarius, "a third choice gladiator," by prearrangement, or a "substitute" gladiator (suppositicius) who fought at the whim of the editor of the games as an unadvertised, unexpected "extra". This yielded two combats for the cost of three gladiators, rather than four. Such contests were prolonged, and in some cases, more bloody. The emperor Caracalla chose to test a notably skilled and successful fighter named Bato against first one supposicitius, whom he bea...

Carthago: The Immortal Myth September 27, 2019 through March 29, 2020 at the Colosseum and Forum Romanum in Rome, Italy. The history and culture of one of the most powerful and fascinating cities of the ancient Mediterranean will be celebrated in the Colosseum, the Temple of Romulus, and the Imperial Ramp at the Forum Romanum beginning September 27, 2019. The exhibition will feature reconstructions and multimedia installations  alongside artefacts displayed in public for the first time, highlighting a series of historical events uniting the two great powers of the ancient world: Carthage and Rome. Objects on display include items from the collections of archaeological museums in Italy as well as the Carthage National Museum and the Bardo in Tunisia, and the national museums of Beirut in Lebanon, and Madrid and Cartagena in Spain. Visitors will be greeted by a reconstruction of the terrible deity Moloch, featured in the 1914 film Cabiria, stationed at the entrance to the Colosse...

Roma Universalis - the Severans, at the Colosseum in Rome, Italy through August 25, 2019.  A new exhibition at the Colosseum pays tribute to the Severans, Rome’s fourth and final dynasty which ruled from 193-235 CE.  Sculptures include portrait heads of Domna Julia, a young Geta, Heliogabulus, and the infamous Caracalla.  Artifacts include a tray-handle engraved with the triumph of Bacchus on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, calyxes, cups and beakers from Germany and Tunisian earthenware.  Along the Forum, Romulus’s temple hosts 33 artifacts from the recent excavation of Eliogabalus’s Baths (between the Arches of Titus and Constantine).  A multimedia presentation entitled "Time's vortex" is also included in the admission ticket. Image: Marcus Aurelius through the Severans from the exhibition Roma Universalis.  Courtesy of Roma Universalis.