THE MEDIEVAL ERA
1 Æthelberht of Kent 2 St Hild 3 Lindisfarne 4 William Rufus 5 John 6 13th 7 Master James of St George 8 Ely 9 Owain Glyndŵr 10 Pontefract
GLOBAL CITIES
1 Prague 2 Lord Byron 3 Paris, called Lutetia by the Romans, from the word lutum – mud 4 Rome. Monte Testaccio is a huge ancient Roman rubbish tip of shards of discarded amphorae used to store and transport olive oil 5 Madrid. Gato is a nickname for a Madrileño, from the traditional story of a lithe soldier who, during the 1085 Christian attack on the Moorish stronghold of Magerit, scampered up a wall and put up the Christian flag. He became known as El Gato – ‘the cat’ 6 Amsterdam 7 Dublin 8 Split. The citadel known as Diocletian's Palace was built from the late third century in preparation for that emperor's retirement 9 Florence 10 Lisbon. The name of the Roman settlement Olisipo was a corruption of Allis Ubbo – ‘port of enchantment’ – used by the Phoenicians for the fortified base they founded there in the seventh century BC
THE ANCIENT WORLD
c. Or to be precise, he recommended working while on a boar hunt – but out of the office, anyway. Pliny wrote a letter to his friend, the historian Tacitus, telling him how it enlivens the imagination c. Vespasian announced he was about to die by saying that he was “becoming a god”; Claudius (at least according to a a. A Hertfordshire museum said Elagabalus had identified as a trans woman and that it would use female pronouns for the young emperor. Not entirely without cause: Elagabalus is said to have told a potential lover “Call me not Lord, for I am a Lady” c b. The physician Galen used to adjust the dose for him depending on whether he wished to sleep, or just feel better about the burdensome task of being emperor b b. The ever-inventive Elagabalus created a form of whoopee cushion he liked to use on his dinner-party guests; and Hero, in Alexandria, invented a form of steam engine c b. Actresses and prostitutes were forbidden from wearing gems, and only the imperial family were allowed to wear purple – but absolutely everyone was forbidden from wearing trousers, as they were considered too barbarian c. Professor James Diggle spent years producing a new to replace Liddell and Scott's , which had tactfully toned down rude words. Diggle translated them into frank English
