When I was very young, and already a history buff, I loved to devour books about the history of dinosaur paleontology and play two groundbreaking MS-DOS turn-based strategy videogames on a clunky INTEL 80286, Centurion: Defender of Rome (Bits of Magic, 1990) and Sid Meier’s Civilization (MicroProse, 1991). Both videogames were early examples of what would have become known as “4X” empire-building strategy games, i.e., videogames that involved the exploration of a virtual map, expansion of territory with the conquest or annexation of provinces, exploitation of the resources available on the map, and extermination of (or diplomatic alliance with) enemy factions (Ghita and Andrikopulos 2009). As their names suggest, Centurion allowed the player to take active part in Roman military history as an army officer, while Civilization offered the exhilarating possibility of replaying history with several civilizations on ever-different scenarios and maps.
Read moreDid Ancient Romans Eat Pizza?
FIG.1. An astonishing seafood emblema (centerpiece mosaic) from Pompeii, ca. 100-79 CE. Definitely, not a single pizza in sight here. National Archaeological Museum, Naples, on loan for the Last Supper in Pompeii exhibition, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 10 November 2019 (CC BY-ND 4.0, Leonardo Ambasciano).
Last November – which in the current predicament seems like a lifetime away – my wife and I went to the Last Supper in Pompeii exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. The temporary exhibition, which closed on 12 January 2020, “include[d] about 300 objects loaned by Naples and Pompeii, many of which have never left Italy before” (Brown 2019). The exhibition gave us the unprecedented opportunity to see in person some of the most breathtaking remains ever discovered in the history of Roman archaeology.
However, during our visit we spotted a baffling passage in the caption of one terra sigillata pottery showcase (8.1).
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