Curiosities of ancient Rome

Nowadays, many emigrants who come permanently to other countries bring with them their cultural achievements, their language, traditions and customs. Whole districts of emigrants arise, which are reminiscent of their home sides.

Opium – a narcotic substance produced from opium poppy capsules (Papaver somniferum) – was already known in antiquity, from about 1000 BCE. We also have evidence that the cultivation of these plants was also present in ancient Rome.

Titus Livius mentions that the two great generals of the Second Punic War: Scipio Africanus and Hannibal Barkas met at the gymnasium in Ephesus. Then Scipio asked Hannibal who he thought is the best commander in history.

The ancient Romans had a strange approach to the Greeks. On the one hand, they considered them worse, but on the other hand, due to their culture, they placed them on a higher pedestal, next to the Persians, and lower than the northern peoples: Gauls or Germans.

Proscription (proscriptio, pl. proscriptiones) was originally in ancient Rome announcing the auction of the debtor’s property, and later enlisting of outlaws – political opponents and in consequence depriving them of their citizenship, property and sentencing to exile. Prudential children and grandchildren were marked with infamy.