On This Day in Ancient History: Caracalla came to power honestly enough, but when he succeeded his father, Septimius Severus (of the Severan Dynasty), in A.D. 211, he was supposed to share the imperial purple with his brother, Geta. Caracalla soon put an end to his competition and started a bloodbath.

The tondo of the Severans shows Septimius Severus, his wife, Julia Domna, and their two sons, Geta and Caracalla. The face of the younger brother has been obliterated, presumably after Caracalla's fratricide and damnatio memoriae.

In 217, Caracalla himself died violently.

• Caracalla

Also on this day in modern history, classicist E.R. Dodds, author of The Greeks and the Irrational (see Shame Culture) died.

Severan Dynasty Tondo photo courtesy of Wikipedia

You may have heard someone described as an Adonis.

Aphrodite, Bathing, and Eros. Roman, based on Greek original 3rd century B.C. Marble. CC Flickr User thisisbossi

It's almost like saying the man is godlike in his beauty. The goddess of beauty herself fell for the original, gorgeous, Adonic mortal. She also fell for another mortal "comely as the gods," who came from a race with men so beautiful two of the other gods/goddesses abducted them. (Can you guess who?) Read about these famous love affairs from Greek mythology:

• The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite V
• Adonis and Aphrodite (From Ovid Metamorphoses X)
• Fast Facts About Aphrodite
• Limits to Aphrodite's Powers

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Guess who was hiding behind the curtain.

Answer.

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Wordless Wednesday and About.com's Wordless Wednesday

Lesbian originally referred to something or someone from the Greek island of Lesbos. The Online Etymology Dictionary says the term was used by the philosopher Aristotle to refer to a type of pliant lead:

"And this is the nature of the equitable, a correction of law where it is defective owing to its universality. ... For when the thing is indefinite the rule also is indefinite, like the leaden rule used in making the Lesbian moulding; the rule adapts itself to the shape of the stone and is not rigid, and so too the decree is adapted to the facts." [Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics]

But that's not what we think of when we think of lesbians. Read More...

He was thought to have written the first beast fable, preceding Aesop. He was credited with inventing both iambics and elegiac poetry and he is called the father of satire. POxy. LXIX 4708 contains the publication of one of his poems found among the Oxyrhynchus papyri. Do you know who he is?

Answer.

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On this day in ancient history, Romans celebrated the Megalesia. At first, Rome was just one small city-state in the area of Latin-speaking people known as Latium, on the west side of the peninsula of Italy. She soon spread out, Read More...

April is poetry month. There are many features on this site on the ancient Greco-Romans poets. These men and women experimented with music, meters, and words to create genres of poetry, some of which are still familiar. Here is a timeline of the early Greek Poets. Among the Greek poets are Homer and Sappho. This early Greek poets timeline should be looked at as a way to visualize who lived at the same time as, or before or after whom, within the same genre: Greek Poets Timeline.

• Prosody - The Systematic Study of the Meter of Poetry
• Dactylic Hexameter
• Epic Literature
• Lyric Poetry

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Contributing Writer Cynthia Astle writes:

"Relics of saints and sanctuaries have played major roles for two millennia in making New Testament history concrete to generations of believers. This role continues through one of the most exciting finds of recent years - the August, 2010 discovery of a tooth, parts of a cranium and an arm bone purported to be those of John the Baptist, a key figure in Christian biblical history."

• Read her article: Have the Bones of John the Baptist Been Found?
• Comment on her article on the forum in this thread: Relics of John the Baptist

Constantine (aka Emperor Constantine I or Constantine the Great):

1. Decreed tolerance for Christians in the Edict of Milan,
2. Convened an ecumenical council to discuss Christian dogma and heresy, and
3. Constructed Christian edifices in his new capital city (Byzantium/Constantinople, now Istanbul),

but was he actually Christian?

Here's my opinion: Constantine and Christianity. Should you care to weight in, join the forum thread on Constantine at: Why Was Constantine So Important?

On the Kalends of April, the Romans celebrated not April Fool's Day, but the Veneralia, a festival to honor Venus.

More on Venus