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Curiosities of ancient Rome (People)

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.

Gaius Petronius known as Arbiter

Gaius Petronius called Arbiter, who is credited with the authorship of the anonymously published novel Satyricon, gained a great influence on Emperor Nero, bored with the stoic Seneca. For the emperor, fascinated with Greek culture and who considered himself an artist, and his mannered court, he became an oracle in matters of good taste and artistic values.

Gaius Petronius

Vibia Perpetua – Christian martyr

Vibia Perpetua lived at the turn of the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE. She came from a wealthy Roman home, and her parents professed various faiths: her father was a pagan, and her mother was a Christian. Vibia went down in history as a Christian martyr from Carthage.

Vibia Perpetua with her son

Decency according to Valerius Maximus

In the work Factorum et dictorum memorabilium libri novem by Valerius Maximus, we can see the characters and behaviours that the author distinguished in the context of decency and dignified life.

Death of Aemilius Paulus, John Trumbull

Secret “weapon” against Emperor Trajan

Cassius Dio has left a message that King Abgarus, who ruled in the small country of Osroene on the Euphrates, tried at all costs to remain neutral during the invasion of Trajan’s Roman troops on the Parthia. In order not to offend any of the parties and in the future not to worry about the fate of the kingdom, he decided to use his secret “weapon”.

Trajan's bust

Trajan’s uncompromising attitude in fight for Armenia

The throne of Armenia, a country at the confluence of Roman and Parthian influences, was informally consulted and established between the two then powers over the years. When in 110 CE king Osroes I of the Parthians appointed his nephew Axidares, son of former king Pacorus II, to the throne of Armenia, there was a breach of an unwritten rule, and Rome was not asked to accept the new candidacy.

Trajan

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