In the gloom of a room in the House of Obellius Firmus, #Pompeii these three serene women huddle. It’s suggested that the fresco might represent Electra at the grave of her father Agamemnon but whoever they are there is a heavy sense of melancholia. #FrescoFriday

A new Cambridge Element volume on Linear A by Ester Salgarella, free to download for a limited window - grab it now! cambridge.org/core/elements/…

Mary Beard & Charlotte Higgins on Homer, Sappho, and more - sounds fab. Instant #Classics from 28th August. open.spotify.com/episode/0tyHBT…

Autumn = blackberry jamming. So delicious.

Oh look, adorable. Love a hoopoe. Its little tufts!

Pythika x.com/JAJafri/status…

Blackberries ripening in the sunshine🖤 'Going blackberrying' (in both Chaucer and Shakespeare) means playing truant or wandering wherever you like - I love that!🖤 #ShakespeareSunday

Aleph, Bet, Gimel🐪

Pompeii by night. A wonderful initiative by Pompeii Sites allowing visitors to visit a few houses by night. It’s an incredibly evocative experience as from the depths of darkness, light glows from rooms as if someone is at home. Info here: pompeiisites.org/comunicati/i-v…

Adorable stoat Or weasel. Mustelid!

Militant Christ from the Archbishop’s Chapel (Museo Arcivescovile) in Ravenna 6th-century mosaic with Christ dressed a military general, holding a cross, with a lion and snake under his feet. The Latin inscription from John 14:6 reads: Ego sum via veritas et vita I am the Way,

Ancient sculpture found in a sunk ship in Peiraeus, the port of Athens (Archaeological Museum of Peiraeus).

All the coolest, creative people are interested in and are inspired by classical antiquity.

Laid low with the news of Brian Patten’s death. My soul-mate. R.I.P. May he Rest In Poetry.

Did you know Servius the Grammarian wrote a massive commentary on the Aeneid back in the 4th/5th century, in which he goes line-by-line through the epic, providing backstory on the mythology and history and geography that Virgil takes for granted in his poem, discusses the

To protect you from evil forces. A Jewish incantation bowl with a demon and perhaps a sorcerer trapped by encircling text in Aramaic. Nippur, AD C7th-C9th Penn Museum penn.museum/collections/ob…

Neston girl made good Emma Hamilton shaking it up The Rest Is History linktr.ee/restishistory Portrait by Vigée Le Brun, 1790 Lady Lever Art Gallery liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/artifact/lady-…

An astonishing article by Andrew Graham-Dixon in The Sunday Times, summarising his new book on Vermeer. It’s full of what appear to be breakthrough discoveries, based largely on Vermeer making most of his pictures for one patron (or rather, matron). 1/4

The always excellent Joan Smith on Julio-Claudian women. Very much recommended!