Quiz

[Robert Vermaat]

Anyway - once more over to Jona... mile:

C'mon Jona, delve into that vast archive of yours - don't keep us waiting!!

[Jona Lendering]

I think Duncan was the first to realize it. But here's a new one, and I hope Duncan can win it. Caracalla has been building something. Partly illegible, fortunately, because otherwise you would be able to read the place name.

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[D B Campbell]

... I hope Duncan can win it.

No pressure, then. hock:

Caracalla has been building something.

I suppose the short answer must be "a road", although -- being unfamiliar with the locale -- I do not know whether, in building it, Caracalla could really be said to have "threatened the mountains" (montibus inminentibus) and "vanquished the River Lycus" (caesis fluminis Lyco) ... if I have read it correctly. (It is late, and it wouldn't be the first time that a glass of wine has interfered with my Latin translation skills. :wink: )

[Jona Lendering]

The reading is correct, so that narrows it to: where is the river?

[Nathan Ross]

it wouldn't be the first time that a glass of wine has interfered with my Latin translation skills.

It doesn't seem to have interfered with your ability to read extremely small and blurred text though. I doubt I could have deciphered that if it'd been written in plain English!

[D B Campbell]

where is the river?

The inscription calls it flumen Lycus, the River Lycus ("wolf river"). Dessau (ILS 5865) places it prope Berytum, Byblum versus, ad ostia fluvii Nahr-el-Kelb, in rupe ad viam, "near Beirut, opposite Byblus, at the mouth of the River Nahr-el-Kelb, on the cliff by the road". I shall have to take his word for it!

It doesn't seem to have interfered with your ability to read extremely small and blurred text

Sometimes wine helps with small and blurred text! :wink:

[Jona Lendering]

Yep. Duncan is right. The Nahr al-Kalb has some twenty inscription of armies passing along. You can see them here.

Over to you Duncan.

[D B Campbell]

Over to you Duncan.

How well do you know your famous ancient sculptures? Here's a detail. Who is it?
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[Thersites]

Talking about Caracalla and Commodus... Now the second one posing as Hercules

[Jona Lendering]

You seem to be right Fernando.

If you look at a detail like that, you can see how exquisite it is.

[D B Campbell]

Commodus ... posing as Hercules

That was fast, Fernando. I thought you might need a second detail of his curly beard! Now ... what tricky Iberian photo do you have for us? :wink:

[Thersites]

An easy one, I believe, when you identify the iconography... but fact is I -almost- found it!

BTW, Close to lifesize

[Jona Lendering]

It looks like the god Hypnos or Morpheus, but where it's been excavated? I don't know.

[Thersites]

Indeed it's Hypnos. Very few have been found in bronze that are almost life-size. This one is almost complete and comes from Hispania. I dug part of that site some decades ago, I left because of other commitments at University... and the sculpture was found in a rescue excavation the following year... pity!

[D B Campbell]

An easy one, I believe, ...

Er, no!

It looks like the god Hypnos ...

Well done, Jona -- I would never have guessed that. :oops: