For viewers it must have seemed as if a window into the past had opened. In the harbor of Cannes in October 2023, a wooden Roman cargo sailor bobbed amidst an armada of steel luxury yachts. The faithfully reconstructed ship was christened “Bissula” – after the lover and later wife of the 4th century Roman poet Ausonius. Day after day, weather permitting, the crew of scientists and students sailed all over the bay in front of the French tourist hotspot. Past modern cruise ships, colossuses with thousands of passengers on board.

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