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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.
Marcus Gratidianus was a Roman politician born around 125 BCE. In 85 BCE he held the office of praetor. During this period, Rome struggled with an economic crisis caused by civil wars. It manifested itself, inter alia, in the destabilization of the exchange rate of silver coins (denarii) to bronze coins (asses).
Roman silver tray, known as “Corbridge Lanx”. There are scenes from Greek mythology on the vessel. It is located in the British Museum and was found in the 18th century in northern England. Dated to the 4th century CE.
The knowledge of the origins of universities is mostly found in the Middle Ages, referring to the founding of the first university in Bologna, which took place around 1088. Of course, this university achieved great success in the process of restoring the former splendor to the Roman legal system, represented by Irnerius and the school of glossators he founded, however, it must be realized that the ancient Romans were pioneers in the field of organized law teaching and the study of its functioning.
Gaius Julius Zoilos was born in the first half of the 1st century BCE in the Roman city of Aphrodisias (today’s southern Turkey). The excavations carried out there over the last fifty years have revealed his magnificent tomb. At first, archaeologists thought they were dealing with an aristocratic person until an inscription was discovered identifying him as “Gaius Julius Zoilos, freedman of the divine Julius Caesar”.
Roman priests, in addition to their cult activities, sometimes played another role – representing the function of “their” deity. A special case of such a priest was the flamin of Jupiter, the most venerable of the college of fifteen. He was concerned with observer rules, orders and prohibitions, which contained an extremely complex symbolism. On the surface it may seem that Jupiter’s flamin is a man like all the others: here he is an ordinary citizen and does not need to undergo any initiation in order to attain his dignity.
William Shakespeare, the famous English playwright, known to schoolchildren mainly as the creator of Hamlet and Macbeth, wrote many plays about the lives of historical figures, mainly of the old English kings. Among his works, however, there are also some directly related to ancient Rome, such as the drama about the life and the death of Julius Caesar. How faithfully did the writer render the events of March and the days after them? Did he change and colour the story, or did he base his work on detailed accounts of ancient historians?
Reconstruction of the famous ancient sculpture depicting a boxer in rest. It shows a naked boxer resting. The man was presented extremely realistically: you can see the furrows under the eye and blood on his body.
