A Cabinet of Roman Curiosities: Strange Tales and Surprising Facts from the World’s Greatest Empire

Here is a whimsical and captivating collection of odd facts, strange beliefs, outlandish opinions, and other highly amusing trivia of the ancient Romans. We tend to think of the Romans as a pragmatic people with a ruthlessly efficient army, an exemplary legal system, and a precise and elegant language. A Cabinet of Roman Curiosities shows that the Romans were equally capable of bizarre superstitions, logic-defying customs, and often hilariously derisive views of their fellow Romans and non-Romans.
Classicist J. C. McKeown has organized the entries in this entertaining volume around major themes--The Army, Women, Religion and Superstition, Family Life, Medicine, Slaves, Spectacles--allowing for quick browsing or more deliberate consumption. Among the book’s many gems are:

BL Romans on urban living:
The satirist Juvenal lists ＂fires, falling buildings, and poets reciting in August as hazards to life in Rome.＂
BL On enhanced interrogation:
＂If we are obliged to take evidence from an arena-fighter or some other such person, his testimony is not to be believed unless given under torture.＂ (Justinian)
BL On dreams:
Dreaming of eating books ＂foretells advantage to teachers, lecturers, and anyone who earns his livelihood from books, but for everyone else it means sudden death＂
BL On food:
＂When people unwittingly eat human flesh, served by unscrupulous restaurant owners and other such people, the similarity to pork is often noted.＂ (Galen)
BL On marriage:
In ancient Rome a marriage could be arranged even when the parties were absent, so long as they knew of the arrangement, ＂or agreed to it subsequently.＂
BL On health care:
Pliny caustically described medical bills as a ＂down payment on death,＂ and Martial quipped that ＂Diaulus used to be a doctor, now he’s a mortician. He does as a mortician what he did as a doctor.＂

For anyone seeking an inglorious glimpse at the underside of the greatest empire in history, A Cabinet of Roman Curiosities offers endless delights.

J. C. McKeown is Professor of Classics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the author of Ovid’sAmores.