We are all familiar with joke books in some form or another, but did you know that the oldest surviving one was written around 1,600 years ago? It is called Philogelos (Φιλόγελως; Philógelōs), which means “The Laughter-Lover” in Ancient Greek. It was probably written in the late fourth or early fifth century AD and contains 265 jokes written in a crude dialect of Ancient Greek.
Category: Ancient Rome
No, Emperor Nero Did Not Play the Fiddle as Rome Burned
It is one of the most iconic illustrations of the Emperor Nero’s decadence: the story that, during the Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD, the maniacal emperor stood atop his balcony, playing the fiddle and rejoicing at the sight of the burning city below him. The story, however, is completely false. Not only did Nero not play the fiddle as Rome burned, his reaction to the fire won him great praise and admiration, even from his enemies.
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The Most Depressing Book Ever Written: Death by Starvation by Hegesias of Kyrene
When they hear the words “most depressing book ever written,” most people probably think of a novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky or Émile Zola. While works by these writers are well-known for being depressing, just wait until you hear about a book written by the early third-century BC Greek Cyrenaic philosopher Hegesias of Kyrene. The book was called Death by Starvation or The Death-Persuader. According to the Roman orator Cicero (lived 106 – 43 BC), the entire book was essentially an argument for why everyone should just give up on life and kill themselves.
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The Not-So-Pagan Origins of Easter
If you have been on the internet at all around this time of year, you have no doubt at some point encountered claims that Easter is actually a pre-Christian pagan holiday and that popular modern Easter traditions such as the Easter bunny and painting Easter eggs are actually thinly-veiled pagan customs. I am here to tell you that these claims are essentially bunk. Although the holiday of Easter takes its name in English from an obscure Anglo-Saxon dawn goddess, the holiday itself is of Christian origin and there is no evidence to support the notion that popular traditions such as the Easter bunny and the painting of Easter eggs were ever pagan.
Caesar’s Real Last Words
On 15 March 44 BC, an event happened that changed history forever: a group of over thirty conspirators led by Gaius Cassius Longinus, Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger, and Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus assassinated the Roman politician and general Gaius Julius Caesar in the Theater of Pompey. It is an assassination that has gone down as one of the most famous in history. The assassination of Julius Caesar has been the subject of countless plays, books, films, television shows, and even video games.
Partially reinforced by these takes on Caesar’s assassination in popular culture, many people mistakenly believe that Julius Caesar’s last words were, “Et tu, Brute?” which means, “And you, Brutus?” in Latin—allegedly an expression of shock and horror at Marcus Junius Brutus’s betrayal. In reality, however, the historical Julius Caesar never uttered these words; no one knows what Caesar’s real last words were, but ancient writers attribute a number of different phrases to him in the moments leading up to his death.
Continue reading “Caesar’s Real Last Words”No, Julius Caesar Was Not Born by Cesarean Section
Everyone knows that a cesarean section, also known as a “C-section,” is when a child is removed from the uterus via surgery rather than by the natural birthing process. The name of the procedure, however, is misleading. Although the term cesarean section most likely does indeed come from the name of the famous ancient Roman general and dictator Gaius Julius Caesar (lived 100 – 44 BC), this is not because Julius Caesar was actually born by cesarean section, but rather because of a later legend with no factual basis claiming that he was.
Continue reading “No, Julius Caesar Was Not Born by Cesarean Section”No, Vomitoria Were Not Places for Vomiting
There is a popular story that has been circulating for a long time that claims that people in ancient Rome would routinely gorge themselves on food and then go to places called vomitoria, where they would deliberately vomit up everything they had eaten so they could gorge themselves some more. This fanciful tale has been referenced in popular culture, repeated on the internet, and even taught in schools. Unfortunately, it is completely false. We have no evidence that gorging and vomiting was ever a common practice in ancient Rome, vomitoria were not really places for vomiting, and the word vomitoria itself is not even attested in Roman sources until very late.
Continue reading “No, Vomitoria Were Not Places for Vomiting”The Ancient Greek Cinderella
The story of Cinderella is a classic European folk tale that almost everyone in the western world has known since childhood. Most people here in the United States were first introduced to the story through the classic Walt Disney animated film Cinderella (1950), which was based on a French version of the story published in 1697 by the French writer Charles Perrault in his book Histoires ou contes du temps passé (“Stories of Past Times with Morals”). The story of Cinderella itself, however, is far, far older than Perrault. In fact, the oldest known version of the story of Cinderella was actually first recorded by a Greek writer in Hellenistic Egypt during the early first century AD.
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