If you have found a spelling error, please, notify us by selecting that text and pressing Ctrl+Enter.
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.
Crates of Mallos, the Greek Stoic philosopher and grammarian of the ruler of Pergamon, is known as the creator of the first globe (c. 150 BCE) – a spherical model of the Earth. His globe differs from the modern ones for a simple reason – in his time people did not know as much about all the continents as they do today.
Seneca the Younger, a Roman philosopher and writer from the 1st century CE, mentions in his letters Calvisius Sabinus – a wealthy and respected Roman who had such a bad memory that he couldn’t even remember the names of Homeric heroes.
In ancient Rome, the brutal, violent death of the ruler was inscribed in the logic of power to such an extent that today it is often said that the profession of “emperor” was the most dangerous profession in the world. Of the twelve emperors who died in the first century CE, only four died naturally. Murder as a way to change power was so obvious that natural death always aroused suspicion and was a source of conjecture as to whether no one had contributed to it.
Calgacus was the first Caledonian (inhabitant of present-day Scotland) mentioned in Roman sources. Tacitus describes him as the leader of the Caledons, a man of self-respect and an excellent orator. He had red hair and a powerful build. His name in the Celtic language meant “having a sword”.
Attila – the leader of Huns, one of the most important figures in the history of the late-antique world. Together with his brother Bleda, he inherited power from his uncle – Ruas. In the year 445 CE killed his brother while hunting, allegedly mistaking him for a bear. He then became the independent ruler of the Hunnic Empire. In the 40s of the 5th century, the Eastern Roman Empire paid Attila several thousand pounds of gold of various kinds of tribute and tribute.
For hundreds of years in Rome and around the world, a model of civic virtue was one Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus (“Curly”), also known as Cincinnatus. He was a patrician and Roman consul in 460 BCE. In 458 BCE he was proclaimed dictator of Rome by the Roman Senate during the war with the Aequi people. According to legend, the senate made the choice while Cincinnatus was ploughing the field.
Living at the turn of the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, Apollodoros of Damascus was one of the most famous architects of antiquity. He worked for Emperor Trajan, for whom he was extremely useful, e.g. during the so-called Dacian Wars – designed a bridge that was thrown over the Danube to enable the Roman legions to cross the river. In addition, he designed the Trajan’s Forum, the emperor’s triumphal arches in Benevento and Ancona, perhaps he participated in the creation of one of the wonders of ancient architecture – Pantheon1.
Poppea Sabina was the mistress and then the second wife of Emperor Nero. Poppaea led a lavish lifestyle and was known as a beautiful, calculating woman. Some of her beauty treatments gained great fame (e.g. baths in donkey’s milk). It was she who persuaded Nero to murder his own mother – Agrippina the Younger. Probably Nero himself led to the death of Poppaea in 65 CE.
An uprising of Spartacus in 73-71 BCE was a very serious threat that the Roman state had to deal with. It was then that Cato the Younger and probably Julius Caesar took their first steps into the Roman army.
