Curiosities of ancient Rome (Unknown facts)

The Capitoline and Albanian Agon were competitions, first of all, poetry. The very word agon translated from the Greek (ἀγών) means competition, competition. Their tradition referred to Greek culture and the local sports and literary competitions.

The 1st-century Roman historian, Pliny the Elder and Claudius Aelianus, a 2nd-century writer, describe that one of the best defences against elephants was pigs. Their smell made the animals panic.

Gauls were Rome’s great northern enemies many years before Gaul was conquered by Julius Caesar. In the 4th century BCE, they conquered and plundered Rome, which was a trauma and a humiliation for the Romans. Titus Livy mentions another tragedy of Rome that was almost unnoticed.

Vegetation and love of greenery were known to ancient peoples, especially the Greeks and Romans. The Romans, as a typically agricultural people, referred to nature and appreciated the presence of plants in their surroundings.

Clivus Capitolinus (“Capitoline Ascension”) road was the main road to the Roman Capitol. The road continued Via Sacra and stretched from the Forum Romanum to the Temple of Jupiter the Greatest. Clivus Capitolinus was the last and most important leg of the Roman triumphal route. It is worth mentioning that this road was one of the oldest in Rome.

In antiquity, salt, resin, honey and mouse droppings were considered abortives. At the Queen’s court, Cleopatra VII also used extracts of white poplar, juniper berries and fennel. Interestingly, modern medicine has confirmed the strong contraceptive properties of these plants.

Ancient Romans used two methods to count the past years.

Laughter in ancient Rome could be met in religious rituals (ritual laughter). The combination of laughter with sacrum was seen in many peoples. He performed at the ancient Romans during Lupercalia, agrarian (Liberaria) festivals, Consualia – in honour of Consus, triumphs, wedding processions and funerals.

The decline of the Roman republic changed the iconography of coins. During the reign of Julius Caesar, he first appeared in 44 BCE on the Roman coin as an image of a living man – the dictator of the time. This custom quickly found numerous followers. During the battles fought after the death of Caesar by the leaders of the falling Republic, almost all: Mark Antony, Octavian, Sextus Pompey, and even the defender of republican traditions – Marcus Junius Brutus, put their own image on the coins.

The sarcophagi were created in order to be able to hide the bodies in stone coffins that could stand on the surface of the earth. In this way, it was possible to save space on valuable land in rocky surroundings – there was no need to “waste” them on cemeteries because stone sarcophagi could be placed on unprofitable, from the agricultural point of view, rocks.