Latest news with #RomanEmpire
Fox News
3 days ago
- Health
- Fox News
Ancient Roman emperor Caligula had an unexpected interest in medicinal plants, historians find
Caligula, the ancient Roman emperor infamous for his insanity and cruelty, may have had a soft spot for plants, according to recently published research. A new study co-authored by Trevor Luke, a professor of classics at Florida State University, centers on an overlooked anecdote by the Roman historian Suetonius involving Caligula and an ailing senator. The account indicates that the unnamed Roman senator traveled to the Greek town of Antikyra to be treated with the medicinal plant hellebore, which is now considered poisonous. Though the treatments were not necessarily expensive, reaching Antikyra – and staying there – was. When the senator asked Caligula if he could stay longer, the much-hated leader had him executed — claiming it was "necessary, for one whom hellebore had not benefited in all that time." The story indicates that Caligula had some knowledge of medicinal plants – a prospect that intrigued Luke, who spoke with Fox News Digital about his research. When asked if he was surprised by Caligula's interest in plants, Luke replied, "Yes and no." "I knew Caligula had a reputation for being a prolific poisoner, and such a murderer might be expected to possess a detailed knowledge of the properties of toxic plants," Luke said. "Antikyra may be the first known destination in Greece for Roman medical tourists." "That said, murder by poisoning was a common theme in ancient literature about bad rulers and their families," the historian added. Luke said that, as he dug into more ancient sources and archaeological studies, he noticed mounting evidence of Caligula's interest in medicinal plants – which he wasn't expecting. Alexander the Great, Attalus III of Pergamon and Mithradates VI Eupator are other ancient leaders who took an interest in plants, Luke said — with Caligula possibly consulting pharmacological a text attributed to Mithradates. Study co-author Andrew Koh noted that Antikyra was similar to the modern-day Mayo Clinic, drawing faraway people to the port by offering treatments for relentless illnesses. "In other words, Antikyra may be the first known destination in Greece for Roman medical tourists," Luke said. "When we think of a brand-name destination for innovative and effective medical treatments, the name Mayo Clinic immediately springs to mind, just as the name Antikyra did in the minds of ancient inhabitants of the Roman Empire for similar reasons." He notes that Antikyra healers added a locally grown plant called sesamoides to their hellebore recipes, making them the safest and most effective purgative treatments at the time. So, was the Roman emperor a "plant nerd" in the modern sense? Luke told Fox News Digital that he doesn't mind that label, but added that Caligula's interest in the healing and harming power of plants wasn't just a hobby. "At the same time, any concern he had regarding assassination by poison was justifiable in the circumstances," Luke said, pointing to the suspicious deaths of several family members, including his father-in-law Germanicus and brother-in-law Lepidus. The classicist added, "[Caligula's] family members took up the study of poisons and their antidotes … It seems to me that the motive of self-defense behind Caligula's study of plants is different from just being a nerd." Above all, Luke suggested that modern readers should read ancient sources like Suetonius with a critical eye, noting that his stories about Caligula were "skillfully organized … in such a way that they shocked readers." "Shock does not lead to a clear perception of the facts," Luke said. "When I pursue the facts behind some of the most outrageous stories about Caligula, I often find Suetonius has deftly distorted what likely happened."
New York Times
4 days ago
- Politics
- New York Times
An Ancient Law Could Shape the Modern Future of America's Beaches. Here's How.
If you go to a beach this summer, you might end up sunbathing in disputed territory. That's partly because of climate change and partly because of a legal principle from the Roman Empire. Most beaches have a natural defense against rising seas: The sandy area simply moves landward. But when property owners install sea walls or other barriers to protect beachfront homes and other buildings, the beach has nowhere to go. So it vanishes underwater. Geologists call it coastal squeeze. It's not a new problem, but it's been accelerating recently as climate change causes sea levels to rise. And that's prompting urgent questions about how coastal landscapes should be managed. Richard K. Norton, a professor at the University of Michigan School of Law, described the situation with a question: 'Are you going to save the beach house, or do you want to save the beach?' he said at a recent conference in New York City organized by Columbia University. 'Because you cannot save them both.' At issue is a legal concept from the sixth century A.D., when Emperor Justinian ordered the codification of Roman laws. The resulting code declared that features of nature like the air, running water, the sea and 'the shores of the sea' must be held in trust for the use of the public. That idea passed into English common law, and then to the United States. Today, most states define the beach below the high-tide line as public trust property, meaning members of the public have free access. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
CNET
5 days ago
- CNET
You Can Detect AI Writing With These Tips
As long as there's been learning in the world, there's been cheating. But it's evolved in 2025, and students who would once have completed their assignment using someone else's work can now just use an AI writing tool for free in 30 seconds flat. There's no need to shell out cash for a shady essay-writing services where an unscrupulous person writes 1,200 words for you on the fall of the Roman Empire when you've got free access to AI. As a professor of strategic communications, I encounter students using AI tools like ChatGPT, Grammarly and EssayGenius on a regular basis. It's usually easy to tell when a student has used one of these tools to draft their entire work. The telltale signs include ambiguous language and a super annoying tendency for AI to spit out text with the assignment prompt featured broadly. How to tell if it was written by AI Some of the most common ways to tell if something was written using AI are: Key terms from your assignment prompt are used repeatedly. Inaccurate facts are included, thanks to the AI chatbot hallucinating. Sentences don't sound natural. Explanations are generic and repetitive, rather than actually leading anywhere. The tone doesn't sound like their usual writing style. For example, a student might use ChatGPT -- an AI chatbot that uses large language model learning and a conversational question and answer format to provide query results -- to write a short essay response to a prompt by simply copying and pasting the essay question into the tool. Take this prompt: In 300 words or fewer, explain how this SWAT and brand audit will inform your final pitch. This is ChatGPT's result: Screenshot by Rachel Kane/CNET I have received responses like this, or those very close to it, a few times in my tenure as a teacher, and one of the most recognizable red flags is the amount of instances in which key terms from the prompt are used in the final product. Students don't usually repeat key terms from the prompt in their work in this way, and the results read closer to old-school SEO-driven copy meant to define these terms rather than a unique essay meant to demonstrate an understanding of the subject matter. But can teachers use AI tools to catch students using AI tools? I devised some ways to be smarter in spotting artificial intelligence in papers. Catch AI cheaters Here's how to use AI tools to catch cheaters in your class. Understand AI capabilities There are AI tools on the market that can scan an assignment and its grading criteria to provide a fully written, cited and complete piece of work in a matter of moments. Some of these tools include GPTZero and Smodin. Familiarizing yourself with tools like these is the first step in the war against AI-driven integrity violations. Do as the cheaters do Before the semester begins, copy and paste all your assignments into a tool like ChatGPT and ask it to do the work for you. When you have an example of the type of results it provides specifically in response to your assignments, you'll be better equipped to catch AI-written answers. You could also use a tool designed specifically to spot AI writing in papers. Get a real sample of writing At the beginning of the semester, require your students to submit a simple, fun and personal piece of writing to you. The prompt should be something like "200 words on what your favorite toy was as a child," or "Tell me a story about the most fun you ever had." Once you have a sample of the student's real writing style in hand, you can use it later to have an AI tool review that sample against what you suspect might be AI-written work. Ask for a rewrite If you suspect a student of using AI to cheat on their assignment, take the submitted work and ask an AI tool to rewrite the work for you. In most cases I've encountered, an AI tool will rewrite its own work in the laziest manner possible, substituting synonyms instead of changing any material elements of the "original" work. Here's an example: Screenshot by Rachel Kane/CNET Screenshot by Rachel Kane/CNET Now, let's take something an actual human (me) wrote, my CNET bio: Screenshot by Rachel Kane/CNET The phrasing is changed, extracting much of the soul in the writing and replacing it with sentences that are arguably more clear and straightforward. There are also more additions to the writing, presumably for further clarity. Can you always tell if something was written using AI? The most important part about catching cheaters who use AI to do their work is having a reasonable amount of evidence to show the student and the administration at your school if it comes to that. Maintaining a skeptical mind when grading is vital, and your ability to demonstrate ease of use and understanding with these tools will make your case that much stronger. Good luck out there in the new AI frontier, fellow teachers, and try not to be offended when a student turns in work written by a robot collaborator. It's up to us to make the prospect of learning more alluring than the temptation to cheat.
Yahoo
12-07-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Giant shoes found near Hadrian's Wall spark mystery around the soldiers of ancient Rome
An ancient Roman mystery is afoot in the rolling hills of northern Britain. Archaeologists have unearthed a stash of unusually large shoes at the ruins of a first-century military fort along Hadrian's Wall, a 73-mile (117-kilometer) stone barrier that famously shielded the Roman Empire's northwestern perimeter from foreign invaders. The discovery is raising new questions about the lives and origins of the fort's inhabitants. The giant leather soles were found at Magna Fort in May among 34 pieces of footwear, including work boots and baby-sized shoes, that are helping to paint a picture of the 4,000 men, women and children who once lived in and around the English site just south of the Scottish border. Eight of the shoes are over 11.8 inches (30 centimeters) in length — a US men's size 13.5 or greater based on Nike's size chart — making them larger than average by today's standard and sparking suspicions that unusually tall troops may have guarded this particular fortress at the empire's edge. By contrast, the average ancient shoe found at a neighboring Roman fort was closer to a US men's size 8, according to a news release about the discovery. 'When the first large shoe started to come out of the ground, we were looking for many explanations, like maybe it's their winter shoes, or people were stuffing them, wearing extra socks,' recalled Rachel Frame, a senior archaeologist leading the excavation. 'But as we found more of them and different styles, it does seem to be that these (were) just people with really large feet.' As digging continues at Magna Fort, Frame said she hopes further investigation could answer who exactly wore these giant shoes. A basic sketch of the site's past is just starting to come together. When the Magna Fort was in use, multiple different Roman military troops and their families moved into the site every few years after it was built around AD 85, archaeologists suspect. Inscriptions on the fort's walls and altars recount settlements of Hamian archers from what is now Syria, Dalmatian mountain soldiers from Croatia and Serbia, and Batavians from the Netherlands, but the length of time each group stayed at the stronghold remains unknown. Likely following orders from the Roman army, the troops would often leave the fort for distant regions and in their haste, ditch shoes, clothing and other belongings in the surrounding trenches, Frame explained. Additionally, new occupants requiring more space would have built larger structures on top of the existing fort, packing rubble and clay between the walls and trapping any belongings left by the previous tenants, Frame said. 'As archaeologists, we like trash,' said Dr. Elizabeth Greene, an associate professor of classics at the University of Western Ontario. 'You get those habitational layers where things were just left behind, maybe forgotten about, and that tells us more about the space.' Greene has studied thousands of shoes collected from the nearby Vindolanda Roman Fort, which has been excavated since the 1970s and is among the most well-studied of the Roman forts along Hadrian's Wall. The recently discovered Magna shoes share some similarities with those in the Vindolanda Fort collection, said Greene, who was not involved in the Magna excavation process, but has viewed the artifacts. For one, the soles of the shoes from both sites are made from thick layers of cowhide leather held together with iron hobnails, she explained. While only a couple of the shoes discovered at Magna have some of the upper portions still intact, the Vindolanda Fort shoe styles include closed military boots and open work boots, as well as sneaker-like shoes reaching just below the ankle and sandals with leather fasteners. It's likely that the leather soles of the Magna shoes survived thousands of years in the ground thanks to ancient tanning techniques that used crushed up vegetative matter to create a water and heat resistant coating, Greene said. Testing is still underway to confirm this hypothesis. The length of the extra-large Magna shoes suggests the original owners may have been exceptionally tall, Greene said. At Vindolanda, only 16 out of the 3,704 shoes collected measured over 11.8 inches (30 centimeters). Ancient Roman military manuals often described the ideal recruit as being only 5 feet, 8 inches or 5 feet, 9 inches in height, according to Rob Collins, a professor of frontier archaeology at Newcastle University in England. But the soldiers stationed around Hadrian's Wall came from all around the far-reaching empire, bringing a wide diversity of physical traits to their settlements, he said. Still, why Magna specifically might have needed troops of towering stature remains unclear. To piece together the shoe owners' identities, researchers will examine the Magna shoes for any signs of wear, Frame said. Any foot impressions left in the shoes could be used to model the feet of the original wearers. Linking the shoes to real human remains, however, could prove difficult. For one, the Romans near Hadrian's Wall generally cremated their dead, using a headstone to mark the graves, Collins said. Any bones that remain around the settlements are likely from enemy, illegal or accidental burials. So far, the few bones that have been found at the Magna site were too soft and crumbly to provide insight, Frame said, but the team continues to search for new burial spots. Pottery and other artifacts found around the site may also help with dating and matching the timelines of the known occupants, she said. But the researchers worry they could be running out of time. The 2,000-year-old leather found at both the Vindolanda and Magna sites is preserved by the anaerobic, or low-oxygen, conditions of the soil, Frame said. The 34 shoes found at the Magna fort, however, are in worse condition than those retrieved from Vindolanda decades ago — a problem Frame attributes to the changing climate. 'The more our climate changes, the more we get heat waves and droughts, or months' worth of rain in one weekend type (of) scenarios, the more that influences the underground soil conditions and introduces more oxygen into these environments,' Frame explained. In oxygen-rich soil, microbes thrive, contributing to decay, and acidic pH levels erode natural materials like leather. Frame said the rapid weather changes only make their excavation of Magna more urgent. 'I'm not saying I don't get excited about the shiny objects and precious treasures, but for me, archaeology is about the story of everybody else … the stories of the people whose lives weren't written down, who weren't kings or emperors or famous heroes,' she said. 'These personal objects really put the real human people back into the picture.'
CNN
12-07-2025
- General
- CNN
Giant 13-inch shoes found in ancient Roman fort near Hadrian's Wall
An ancient Roman mystery is afoot in the rolling hills of northern Britain. Archaeologists have unearthed a stash of unusually large shoes at the ruins of a first-century military fort along Hadrian's Wall, a 73-mile (117-kilometer) stone barrier that famously shielded the Roman Empire's northwestern perimeter from foreign invaders. The discovery is raising new questions about the lives and origins of the fort's inhabitants. The giant leather soles were found at Magna Fort in May among 34 pieces of footwear, including work boots and baby-sized shoes, that are helping to paint a picture of the 4,000 men, women and children who once lived in and around the English site just south of the Scottish border. Eight of the shoes are over 11.8 inches (30 centimeters) in length — a US men's size 13.5 or greater based on Nike's size chart — making them larger than average by today's standard and sparking suspicions that unusually tall troops may have guarded this particular fortress at the empire's edge. By contrast, the average ancient shoe found at a neighboring Roman fort was closer to a US men's size 8, according to a news release about the discovery. 'When the first large shoe started to come out of the ground, we were looking for many explanations, like maybe it's their winter shoes, or people were stuffing them, wearing extra socks,' recalled Rachel Frame, a senior archaeologist leading the excavation. 'But as we found more of them and different styles, it does seem to be that these (were) just people with really large feet.' As digging continues at Magna Fort, Frame said she hopes further investigation could answer who exactly wore these giant shoes. A basic sketch of the site's past is just starting to come together. When the Magna Fort was in use, multiple different Roman military troops and their families moved into the site every few years after it was built around AD 85, archaeologists suspect. Inscriptions on the fort's walls and altars recount settlements of Hamian archers from what is now Syria, Dalmatian mountain soldiers from Croatia and Serbia, and Batavians from the Netherlands, but the length of time each group stayed at the stronghold remains unknown. Likely following orders from the Roman army, the troops would often leave the fort for distant regions and in their haste, ditch shoes, clothing and other belongings in the surrounding trenches, Frame explained. Additionally, new occupants requiring more space would have built larger structures on top of the existing fort, packing rubble and clay between the walls and trapping any belongings left by the previous tenants, Frame said. 'As archaeologists, we like trash,' said Dr. Elizabeth Greene, an associate professor of classics at the University of Western Ontario. 'You get those habitational layers where things were just left behind, maybe forgotten about, and that tells us more about the space.' Greene has studied thousands of shoes collected from the nearby Vindolanda Roman Fort, which has been excavated since the 1970s and is among the most well-studied of the Roman forts along Hadrian's Wall. The recently discovered Magna shoes share some similarities with those in the Vindolanda Fort collection, said Greene, who was not involved in the Magna excavation process, but has viewed the artifacts. For one, the soles of the shoes from both sites are made from thick layers of cowhide leather held together with iron hobnails, she explained. While only a couple of the shoes discovered at Magna have some of the upper portions still intact, the Vindolanda Fort shoe styles include closed military boots and open work boots, as well as sneaker-like shoes reaching just below the ankle and sandals with leather fasteners. It's likely that the leather soles of the Magna shoes survived thousands of years in the ground thanks to ancient tanning techniques that used crushed up vegetative matter to create a water and heat resistant coating, Greene said. Testing is still underway to confirm this hypothesis. The length of the extra-large Magna shoes suggests the original owners may have been exceptionally tall, Greene said. At Vindolanda, only 16 out of the 3,704 shoes collected measured over 11.8 inches (30 centimeters). Ancient Roman military manuals often described the ideal recruit as being only 5 feet, 8 inches or 5 feet, 9 inches in height, according to Rob Collins, a professor of frontier archaeology at Newcastle University in England. But the soldiers stationed around Hadrian's Wall came from all around the far-reaching empire, bringing a wide diversity of physical traits to their settlements, he said. Still, why Magna specifically might have needed troops of towering stature remains unclear. To piece together the shoe owners' identities, researchers will examine the Magna shoes for any signs of wear, Frame said. Any foot impressions left in the shoes could be used to model the feet of the original wearers. Linking the shoes to real human remains, however, could prove difficult. For one, the Romans near Hadrian's Wall generally cremated their dead, using a headstone to mark the graves, Collins said. Any bones that remain around the settlements are likely from enemy, illegal or accidental burials. So far, the few bones that have been found at the Magna site were too soft and crumbly to provide insight, Frame said, but the team continues to search for new burial spots. Pottery and other artifacts found around the site may also help with dating and matching the timelines of the known occupants, she said. But the researchers worry they could be running out of time. The 2,000-year-old leather found at both the Vindolanda and Magna sites is preserved by the anaerobic, or low-oxygen, conditions of the soil, Frame said. The 34 shoes found at the Magna fort, however, are in worse condition than those retrieved from Vindolanda decades ago — a problem Frame attributes to the changing climate. Discover your world Go beyond the headlines and explore the latest scientific achievements and fascinating discoveries. Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. 'The more our climate changes, the more we get heat waves and droughts, or months' worth of rain in one weekend type (of) scenarios, the more that influences the underground soil conditions and introduces more oxygen into these environments,' Frame explained. In oxygen-rich soil, microbes thrive, contributing to decay, and acidic pH levels erode natural materials like leather. Frame said the rapid weather changes only make their excavation of Magna more urgent. 'I'm not saying I don't get excited about the shiny objects and precious treasures, but for me, archaeology is about the story of everybody else … the stories of the people whose lives weren't written down, who weren't kings or emperors or famous heroes,' she said. 'These personal objects really put the real human people back into the picture.'
