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The world of the ancient Romans was rich in extraordinary, and sometimes even surprising, facts. We draw our knowledge of Roman daily life, customs, and mentality primarily from works left by ancient writers and historians. It is thanks to them that we discover information that is astonishing today – sometimes even hard to believe. Below are some interesting facts that reveal a lesser-known and less obvious side of the Roman world.
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Left-handed Romans were considered unlucky and untrustworthy. In Roman culture, left-handedness was associated with bad luck, impurity, or betrayal — the word sinister in Latin meant “left,” but over time it took on the meaning of “ominous.” In many religious rituals, the appearance of a bird on the left side was considered an unfavorable omen.
One of the disgusting ideas of Emperor Elagabalus was to marry a Greek slave, Hierocles. Officially, their relationship did not have legal force, because the ancient Romans did not envisage the institution of homosexual marriage.
By the end of the 2nd century CE (for over 5 centuries), Roman engineers built about 48,500 Roman miles (71,700 km) paved roads. Less than 100 years later, the inventory of Emperor Diocletian showed the existence of 372 roads in the area of the empire with a total length of 53,000 Roman miles (over 78.3 thousand km).
In the ancient Greco-Roman world, fulling machines were involved in both the production and washing of fabrics. During the excavations at Pompeii destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE several great fulling workshops were discovered, and the best-preserved and located at the so-called Abundance Street belonged to a certain Stefanus.
