Anthony Majanlahti

#EpigraphyTuesday takes into the #CapitolineMuseums to find this #tombstone of a #Praetorian, found in the early C18 just outside Porta Pinciana. The #PraetorianGuard was, in the second half of the C1 CE, a good economic proposition, enough to tempt a veteran out of retirement.

#ReliefWednesday takes us back to an exhibition about the #Roman idea of #time, held in the usually-closed Aula IV of the #BathsofDiocletian in #Rome. These dancers moving around a cylindrical #marble monument may imply the circular passage of the seasons, in a #Bacchic context.

#EpigraphyTuesday reminds us of the great patron of #Augustan #Herculaneum, M. #NoniusBalbus, from the slab on the base of a #statue of Nonius made by his grateful fellow citizens. The Nonii Balbi were everywhere in the ancient coastal town, both descendents and freedmen.

#MosaicMonday invites us to enter the beautiful #HouseofCupidandPsyche in #OstiaAntica, built on #Hadrian-era structures. This is one of the few remaining examples of #mosaic #polychromy in the city, but step in and you'll find the staggering #opussectile floors of the #domus.

#SpoliaSunday takes us into the crypt of the #SSApostoli in #Rome, where a judiciously reused #spolia #sarcophagus subtly underlines the skill of the C15 sculptor of the #tomb of the brother of one pope and the father of another, both colossi of #Renaissance patronage of art.

#SarcophagusSaturday brings us back to the church of #SantaMariaAntiqua to find a mid-C3 CE #sarcophagus of imported #Greek #marble reused to bury a C6-C9 #Christian under the church floor. The #spolia #sarcophagus front was put here as a lid after it was found in the early C20.

There's something fishy this #MosaicMonday, in this #emblema from #Pompeii via #Naples. This food-focused #mosaic was found in a #cubiculum or bedroom, but it really seems to belong to a #triclinium or dining room.

Centuries of #spolia went into the construction of the two central basilicas of #Mediolanum, later #Milan, and here for #SpoliaSunday we can admire the (broken) corner of an #ancient #Roman #tomb reused in the church's last #medieval rebuilding. @ChezCirce

This beautiful black-grounded #fresco is now on display at the #MuseodellArteSalvata in the #AulaOttagona of the #BathsofDiocletian in #Rome. It dates to around the reign of #Nero and might come from the region of #Pompeii, but we don't know. Illegal #excavations destroy context.

#ReliefWednesday takes us to the #MuseodellArteSalvata at the #BathsofDiocletian to admire an #amber #relief of a goddess embracing a mortal with lustful intent. The figures' eyes are strangely reminiscent of #Mesopotamian art.

Lots of text for this week's #EpigraphyTuesday, but don't get scared off: this is an interesting #epitaph found in 1733 in a #columbarium just outside #Rome by the #PortaSalaria, for a #freedwoman, written by her mother, also a #liberta, but in the voice of the deceased.

For #MosaicMonday in the heat of summer, we seek in vain for somewhere cool and shady in the ruins of #VillaAdriana at #Tivoli outside #Rome, but in the C1 BCE a #peristyle offered protection from the sun, and it survived #Hadrian's rebuilding, along with its floor #mosaic.

#SpoliaSunday takes us into the C9 basilica of #SantaPrassede in #Rome, which was built with grandiloquent intentions by pope #Paschal I in the early C9. Part of his program here was to evoke the splendour of #Constantine's basilicas using similar materials, including #spolia.

#SarcophagusSaturday takes us to the Octagonal Hall of the #BathsofDiocletian in #Rome, where a fresh catch of repatriated and captured #antiquities has reopened the #MuseodellArteSalvata. The traces of #polychromy on this #Etruscan #cinerary #urn add to the beauty of the work.