JULIUS CAESAR CAME, SAW, MASSACRED 150,000 WARRIORS AT DUTCH BATTLEFIELD

DUTCH archaeologists say they have proven for the first time that Julius Caesar set foot on what is now Dutch soil, annihilating two Germanic tribes in a battle which left around 150,000 people dead.

The two tribes were massacred in the fighting with the Roman emperor in 55 BC, on a battle site now at Kessel, in the southern province of Brabant.

A wealth of skeletons, spearheads, swords and a helmet have been dug up at the site over the past three decades.

But now carbon dating as well as other historical and geo-chemical analysis had helped to prove they dated back to the 1st century BC, the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam said in a statement.

"It is the first time that the presence of Caesar and his troops on Dutch soil has been explicitly shown," said archaeologist Nico Roymans.

The two tribes, the Tencteri and the Usipetes, had originally come from an area east of the Rhine and had asked Caesar for asylum.

But Caesar refused and ordered his eight legions and calvary to destroy them, the Amsterdam university said.

Caesar had written about the battle in his firsthand account of the Gallic wars, "De Bello Gallico", but the exact location had remained a mystery until now.

Caesar said he wiped the tribes out, which would have meant more than 400,000 dead, but the university said the death toll was more likely to be closer to 150,000-200,000.

ACCOMPANY ANTINOUS INTO ROME WITH THE NEW APPIAN WAY APP

THE Appian Way, ancient Rome’s "queen of roads," enters the digital age as a revolutionary new app launches this coming week, enabling you to see the sights that Antinous saw as he entered Rome.

The audio-only Verba Appia app is available for free on iOS, Android and Windows Phone both in the Italian and English version. Produced by Rome’s archaeological superintendency, with Mondadori Electa publishing house, the app lets visitors leave geolocalized audio messages ... similar to the graffiti left in the past ... while being entertained with finely crafted audio dramas.

The aim is to get more visitors to the historic area while creating a social audio network that will be treated as a permanent cultural addition to the site.

"Forget audio guides. This is a totally new way of interacting with the cultural heritage," Fabrizio Funtò, executive producer of Studio MCM, who conceived and developed the app, told Discovery News.

Rome's gateway to the east, the Appian Way, or Regina Viarum (the queen of all roads) was Europe's first super highway. Paved with blocks of lava or stone, it was originally created as a large military road in 312 BC by Appius Claudius Caecus and stretched for some 350 miles to the Adriatic port of Brindisi.

The app focuses on the part of the Appian Way running from the Colosseum to the outermost suburbs of Rome over about 10 km (6 miles). A concentration of ruins of Roman villas, tombs, mausoleums, inscriptions, towers, catacombs and aqueducts make this area the world’s largest archaeological site.

"With Verba, the ancient road becomes a superhighway of communication.

Visitors are taken into a universe of localized contents and stories," Funtò said.

Using the smartphone's GPS sensor, the app localizes the user's position and sends dedicated content.

"We are not talking of the usual information offered by audio guides, but rather mini audio dramas that will make visitors experience the best of this site," Rita Paris, the Italian state archaeological official responsible for the Appian Way, told Discovery News.

"There is just one requirement to use the free app: you must visit the Appian Way at least once," Paris said.

Following the visit, people can virtually repeat their tour on a dedicated social site. There they can record new comments, participate in the story cloud and continue the conversation with other visitors.

THE BRAVE HOPLITE BUGLER BOY WIELDS HIS PIPES AS A SONIC WEAPON

HOPLITES invade Holborn in the heart of London! We love this photo of historical men in full Hoplite gear on their way to a historical reenactment event. They form a phalanx which commuters can't get through.

The "phalanx" of Ancient Greece was a formation in which the "hoplites" (warriors) would line up in ranks in close order. 

The hoplites would lock their shields together, and the first few ranks of soldiers would project their spears out over the first rank of shields. 

The phalanx therefore presented a shield wall and a mass of spear points to the enemy, making frontal assaults against it very difficult. 

It also allowed a higher proportion of the soldiers to be actively engaged in combat at a given time (rather than just those in the front rank).

This image is from the Chigi Vase, found in an Etruscan tomb. This famous frieze shows Greek hoplites marching into battle. 

Note the brave bugler boy just behind the front row, channeling all his terror into his pipes, creating a banshee wail which amplifies all the fear.

Wielding his pipes like a sonic weapon, he sends the sound into the ranks of the enemy ... penetrating their skulls and deep, deep into their hearts and souls.

The bugler boy wields the sound of his horn as a powerful weapon ... blaring his own fear through the trumpet ... into the heart of the enemy. 

This is one of the great mystery teachings of the SACRED BAND OF THEBES ... the "Army of Gay Lovers" 

CARDINAL ALESSANDRO ALBANI SAINT OF ANTINOUS

ON December 11th we honor Saint Allesandro Albani, who was an Italian aristocrat and cardinal, and a collector and patron of the arts. 

It is largely thanks to Cardinal Albani that Antinous experienced a resurgence of interest in the 18th Century which continues to this day.

It is also believed that Albani secretly worshiped the Beauteous Boy as a gay god.

Albani became a trend-setter and an arbiter of taste. Albani, whose sexuality was ambivalent, and the openly gay Winkelmann more or less single-handedly launched a craze throughout the European aristocracy for Classical art.

When he was 29, by special dispensation from his uncle Pope Clement XI, Alessandro Albani was made a Cardinal, although he had never been a priest or member of a lower order. 

Indeed, he would have preferred to pursue a military career. But chronic eye problems, which eventually resulted in total blindness in old age, convinced him to take up his uncle's generous offer.

He is said to have been a continuing cause of great concern to his uncle, due to his worldly and irreligious obsessions, first among these his passion for art.

Cardinal Albani used his vast wealth to collect Classical art, and to patronize artists of his day, such as Anton Raphael Mengs, and the "Father of Archaeology" Johann Joachim Winckelmann, who was an open homosexual.

The art collection of Cardinal Albani contained an extraordinary number of statues of Antinous, and these were studied by Winckelmann, who had taken up residence in the sprawling and very lavish Villa Albani outside of Rome (pictured at right).

And Antinous was the pre-eminent example of male beauty in Classical art.

Every aristocrat in Europe wanted a statue or Antinous. And monarchs such as Frederick the Great of Prussia (who never married and favored intimate friendships with males) sent out experts to find statues of Antinous.

Thus, the science of archaeology was born largely through a desire by aristocrats to furnish their palaces with the sort of Antinous-style Classical art which Albani had made fashionable.

By the time he died on December 11th in the year 1779, it was rumored that Cardinal Albani, along with his intimate friends Winckelmann and neo-classicist painter Anton Mengs, had been secret worshippers of Antinous and Priapus.

It was asserted that they reinstated the religion of the Beloved Boy as a kind of underground cult along with other, unnamed persons.

For this reason, though based largely on rumor, Cardinal Alessandro Albani is sanctified as a Saint of the Religion of Antinous.

Although he was a Cardinal of the Catholic Faith, he may in fact have been the first High Priest of Antinous since the extermination of the ancient religion 1,300 years before. 

Albani's secret cult ... assuming it truly existed ... is the only known predecessor since ancient times to the current Religion of Antinous.

NEW ANTINOUS STAGE PLAY PERFORMED IN LOS ANGELES

A new stage play about the power struggles between Christians and adherents of the religion of Antinous has been staged in Los Angeles.

The play ANTINOUS by actor/playwright Carolyn Almos was presented as a dramatic reading at Loyola Marymount University (LMU) over the weekend.

The play takes place in both the ancient and contemporary world with two plots that don't necessarily intersect. Almos says she was inspired to write the play because of the importance of the story of Antinous and Hadrian for modern times. 

Part of the play takes place in the ancient world with a group of Christians who are living in Antinoopolis, the city established at the spot on the Nile where Antinous drowned. 

The city is the center of the religion of Antinous and radical minority Christians are in despair over whether Christianity will ever have an impact on the world. 

The modern portion of the play is a mix of a comedy and platonic love story between a youth pastor and a young man and focuses on their male friendship.

In the contemporary story, Anthony is a teenage boy whose family still worships Antinous. He forges an unlikely friendship with a Presbyterian youth minister, a relationship which transforms and destroys them both. 

In the ancient plot, a group of radical fundamentalist Christians make comic attempts to bring down the wildly popular new cult of Antinous, with parallels to religious wars taking place today.

500 ARTEFACTS FROM ANCIENT GREECE BROUGHT TOGETHER IN ONE EXHIBITION

IF time, money and logistics were no issue, you could conceivably fly to Greece, visit 21 different museums in Athens, Thessaloniki, Pella, Mycenae, Vergina, Delos, Sparta and Herakleion, and see 500 priceless, widely varied artifacts that span 5000 years of history — from the Neolithic period of the early 6th millennium B.C., to the Alexandrian empire of the first couple of centuries B.C.

But, between now and 10 April 2016, you can make just such a "once-in-a-lifetime" trip in record time and at very low cost simply by heading to the Field Museum in Chicago.

There a new exhibition, "THE GREEKS: Agamemnon to Alexander the Great," brings together sculpture, masks, vases, jewelry, armaments and archeological treasures rarely permitted to leave their country of origin. 

More importantly, the show will use these objects to explore the evolution of ancient Greek politics, economics and culture, and provide a better understanding of the fertile soil out of which grew the democratic concepts, literature, theater, art, architecture and athletics considered foundational elements of Western civilization.

It was developed in conjunction with the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Education and Religious Affairs in Athens, two Canadian museums (the show already has been seen in Ottawa and Montreal), and the National Geographic Museum in Washington, D.C. (where it will head following its U.S. debut at The Field). 

THE GREEKS: AGAMEMNON TO ALEXANDER THE GREAT
When: Nov. 25, 2015 – April 10, 2016
Where: Field Museum, 1400 S. Lake Shore Dr.
Info: (312) 665-7100 www.fieldmuseum.org

THIS STUNNING VIDEO RECREATES LOCATIONS IN HADRIAN'S LIFE

A stunning video by the ALTAIR4 team of 3-D archaeological recreations portrays locations in Emperor Hadrian's life.

The video shows portions of Hadrian's Villa, Nero's Golden House, the Acropolis in Athens, the Temple of Isis at Philae and Karnak in ancient Thebes....

Click HERE for more 3-D archaeological recreations.