Heliodromus

What a fantastic location!

Related to Rome's anniversay, here's a nice video from Darius Arya showing some of the celebrations and reinactments in Rome. https://x.com/DariusAryaDigs/status/1782350732324221250

Shame? They don't want customers to see fake coins that they didn't detect?

This is one of my favorite busts of Constantine, and what I use as my avatar. This depicts a young Constantine, and from style is presumably of Italian origin shortly after his victory over Maxentius. It closely matches what we see on coins from the Italian mints at this date of c.313 AD. I like to think of this as Constantine the general, as opposed to his later in life Constantine the flamboyant eastern Lord. They've just added a virtual 3-D walkthough to the Prado museum website, so I was interested to see if I could find the statue there, but as it turns out it's not currently on display, although they do have a half dozen photos of it, including profile and rear (hollowed out) views which I hadn't seen before. In this profile view, it's noticeable how recessed his eyes are relative to the bridge of the nose. It also seems that his contemporary nickname of "Trachala" (thick/bull-necked) might better have been changed to a Monty Pythonesque "big nose".

It depends on the metal. Gold is mostly non-reactive, so you are not losing anything by surface cleaning. On silver coins, toning is basically surface level, but it still involves a reaction with the metal - creation of silver oxide/sulphide/chloride etc. If you remove this then you are removing a small amount of silver. Polishing is a lot worse than just removing toning by chemical means, since it implies abrasion, and the coin will never be the same. On bronze coins, patina is more than skin-deep, and the goal of cleaning is to remove surface dirt/etc deposits without touching the patina. If you remove the patina from a bronze coin (e.g. by electrolysis) then you will lose a noticeable amount of the coin itself - for some worn coins an appreciable amount of the surviving design has become part of the patina layer.

These seem to be two different types of spears. When we see a soldier/emperor with one spear, it's invariably a long spear, aka a "pilum". Apparently they would often carry two of these rather than just one, although the coins only show one. The coins where the emperor is holding multiple shorter spears are presumably depicting "plumbata" which were more dart-like, with the name deriving from a lead (plumbum) weight near the front of the projectile to give it more momentum and make it self-correcting in flight.

https://www.sothebys.com/en/videos/discover-the-williamson-pink-star-a-dazzling-fancy-vivid-pink-diamond It is kinda pretty though. I wonder what an antimatter ring would look like if one could be assembled? Probably not something you'd want to put on your finger though.

No - I threw the rock out! Still have the three slugs though, in my desk drawer A weird ensemble - how/why did a roman coin get bundled together with three (Mexican?) slugs and a rock ?!

Someone in NYC happened to be filming inside when it happened ... I think we were all thinking the same thing! 😃

Epicenter was Whitehouse Station, NJ - close by Morristown and Basking Ridge. 4.7 Km underground!

Just had a small earthquake here in NJ a few min ago! Friends in NY and CT felt it too. All windows rattling/etc - thought something was going to break! Anybody else feel it ?

What's interesting about the rectangular scutum design is that it was specific to the roman army, supporting one of their battlefield tactics - the "testudo" (tortoise) formation, where the rectangular scutum allowed a group of soldiers to hold their shields side-by-side, both in front and above them, giving protection from arrows/spears raining down on them, or other projectiles thrown at them during siege warfare. Rome's enemies, not using this tactic, used smaller round/oval shields that were presumably more convenient to the thrust and parry of man-to-man combat. Here's a depiction of the testudo formation being used from Trajan's column (which also shows the oval shields of the enemy), and another from a reenactment group. When we see images on coins of Romans spearing fallen enemy, any enemy shield depicted is usually an oval one as is appropriate for a foreign/barbarian adversary. Here's an example on a coin of Constantine (issued by Maxentius). The coin below, an unlisted type (VIRTVS AVGGG - triple-G) issued by Constantine after his victory over Maxentius, with my specimen being for Maximinus II, is interesting in that it instead accurately depicts the fallen enemy with a rectangular scutum shield, since this was a civil war and the enemy were Romans (Maxentius' army). While the Romans loved celebrating victories, a civil war, with Romans killing their own, was obviously a bit of a touchy matter, which may account for the rarity of a type showing such an explicit scene.

The word "meme" originated as a riff on "gene", basically a memory/mind gene - an idea that is culturally transmitted and thrives or fails based on it's ability to capture peoples imagination (i.e. the world in which it exists), similar to the way genes are propagated and tested by the evolutionary environment in which they exist. Not to get too philosophical, but people like things that are familiar, and society is built on shared experience and beliefs, which seems to be why repeated genres of jokes exist, such as knock-knock jokes ,or "a man walked into a bar", etc. I think memes are enjoyed for similar reasons - a familiar and shared type of humor that are instantly recognizable and infinitely adaptable. They also help communicate, since you already understand the type of humor/POV being expressed as soon as you see the meme!

wojak is the name of the guy (some internet poster) who originally came up with this character. Pepe originated (or at least was popularized - not sure) on the 4chan website (a cesspool of anything-goes subculture), where despite the locale he was just used as a harmless sad character, often accompanying ironic "greentext" humor. He then went mainstream, but apparently has more recently been adopted by the alt-right including Trump.

I've never seen them used like that. When used together these characters are normally used to represent opposing points of view, as done by OP. Depending on context the bearded guy represents the rational / successful (also chad, alpha-male) POV, and the "wojak" his emotional counterpart. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/yes-chad