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The world of ancient Romans abounded in a number of amazing curiosities and information. The source of knowledge about the life of the Romans are mainly works left to us by ancient writers or discoveries. The Romans left behind a lot of strange information and facts that are sometimes hard to believe.
Lucius Cornelius Sulla (138-78 BCE) became famous as the first Roman politician who gained unlimited power in practice. After winning the civil war in 82 BCE he appointed himself a dictator without a time frame. Finally, however, of his own free will, he resigned in 79 BCE from office and retired.
Emperor Vespasian was extremely stingy. This feature may seem bizarre and preposterous, considering that during his reign, construction began on the largest and certainly the most expensive public structure – Colosseum. Vespasian was once criticized for his excessive parsimony by an old shepherd who asked him for deliverance.
Slave revolts in ancient Rome were not uncommon. However, a more interesting event is certainly the slave uprising in Campania in 104 BCE, which was started by a Roman citizen and equestrian – a certain Titus Vettius.
The first century BCE was an extremely turbulent period in the history of ancient Rome. During this time, there were struggles for power and influence between the populares and the optimates. The main enemies were Gaius Marius and Lucius Cornelius Sulla, who committed a huge number of murders.
Lucius Cornelius Sulla is the first Roman citizen who, after the fall of the monarchy, practically took over full power in the Roman state. His rivalry with the populares led by Marius and Cynna led to the death of many Italians.
According to Pliny the Elder, already in ancient times jealousy and disbelief towards other people were visible if they achieved great success. A great example is Gaius Furius Cresimus – a farmer from Italy.
After Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, consul for 238 BCE, commanded the Roman army in the fights with the Gauls, and Iberians, and then pacified Sardinia, a huge number of slaves began to flow to Rome. The saturation of the Roman market was so great at that time that, especially after the conquest of Sardinia, the phrase “cheap as Sardinians” began to be used, which referred to the situation that the price was extremely low and the supply exceeded the demand.
The son of Septimius Severus, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, known by the nickname Caracalla, after the Gallic coat he willingly wore, was greatly fascinated by the figure of king Alexander III of Macedon. His fascination was so great that from what the historian Cassius Dio described, he created troops of legionaries, who not only referred to the formation of troops of the conqueror of the Achaemenid Empire with the name phalangarii, but were also recruited from the territories of Macedonia and Thrace, and even their armament was supposed to imitate Macedonian ones (wearing cloth armour and using long spears).
Domitian was nearly 18 when his father was proclaimed emperor by the legions in the east, and his brother Titus suppressed the Jewish uprising. For several months before his father came to the capital, the young member of the imperial line became the de facto master of the capital.
Pliny the Elder left a message that the former consul Titus Petronius1 had a cup made of fluorite, an extremely valuable mineral for which he paid 300,000 sestertii. Before committing suicide, he smashed the vessel, not wanting the precious item to end up in the hands of a greedy ruler Nero.
