Useless Facts on The Ancient Greeks & Romans
Nero did not fiddle while Rome burned. The fiddle had not yet been invented. Nor was Nero there. He was at his villa in Antium, 50 miles away.
The Colosseum of ancient Rome was occasionally filled with water and an entire naval battle was staged there, complete with armed vessels and fights to the death.
The ancient Greeks were the first to use bed springs. They fashioned them out of braided leather thongs and hung them between opposite sides of the bed.
At the time of Titus in fourth-century Rome, the Circus Maximus held 380,000 spectators.
According to several Greek historians, the great playwright Aeschylus was killed by a tortoise dropped on his head from a great height by an eagle.
The Roman pantheon included a God whose only function was to rule over milden. His name was Robigus. Each year on April 25th a procession wound through the streets of Rome to Robigus' sacred grove, where a red puppy was sacrificed in his name. The Romans hoped the sacrifice would appease the mildew God's hunger for their crops.
Until the time of the Caesars, all Romans were vegetarians.
Suetonius Tranquillis reported in his Life of Augustus that the great Roman poet Vergil once held a funeral for a dead fly, complete with pallbearers and lengthy eulogies. In ancient Rome, cemetery land was not taxible. By interring a fly on the land surrounding his private villa, the wily poet turned his home into a burial ground and thus made it tax-exempt.
Ancient Romans always entered the home of a friend on their right foot—the left side of the body was thought to portend evil. The Latin word for “left” is sinister—thus our English word “sinister” for anything threatening or malevolent.
Christmas-tree ornaments date back to the time of the Romans. During the Saturnalia, which coincided roughly with our Christmas holiday, the Romans hung little masks of Bacchus on pine trees. Vergil refers to these dangling ornaments as oscilla, and describes how during the December season evergreens were laden with them.
Roman statues were made with detachable heads, so that one head could be removed and replaced by another.
The month of July is named after Julius Caesar. The month of August is named after Augustus Caesar.
The Roman emperor Caligula bestowed the rank of Consul First Class on this favorite horse, Incitatus. The horse was provided with a gold goblet for drinking wine and with an ivory manger.
In ancient Rome it was considered a sign of leadership to be born with a hooked nose.
Roman coins minted during the reign of Diocletian have been excavated in remote parts of Iceland. No one is quite certain what this signifies historically, as the very existence of Iceland was unknown to the ancient Romans.
The ancient Greek leader Pericles was so self-conscious about his pointed head that he would only pose for portraits wearing a helmet.
A stone phallus was set above the city gates of many ancient Roman towns as a protection against bad luck. Under the phallus appeared the inscription Hic Habit Felicitas--”Happienss Dwells Here.” The Romans often hung small phalli around children's necks as a protection against the evil eye.
The level and the claw hammer, found in every modern carpenter's tool chest, were invented by the ancient Romans.
Atomic theory was known the the ancient Greeks. It formed the basis of the Greek philosopher Democritus' theory of “atomism” and his “materialistic” explanation of the universe.
In ancient Greece, no one was born or died on the island of Delos. Whenever someone became pregnant or ill, she or he was quickly removed from the sacred island and was kept away until nature took its course.