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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.
In ancient Rome, contrary to popular belief, human sacrifices were made. We are talking here, especially about the period of the wars with Carthage in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE, when numerous failures were explained by the disapproval of the gods.
The cat in ancient Egypt was an extremely respected animal. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, the Egyptians, as a sign of mourning after the death of their cat, mourned and shaved their eyebrows.
In 52 CE on Lake Fucine at the behest of Emperor Claudius, there were naumachiae. At the famous cry of the convicts about to take part in the naval battle: Hail, Emperor, those who are about to die salute you, Claudius replied sarcastically: Or not (“Aut non”).
Children up to the age of fourteen wore a medallion called a “bulla” around their necks. The medallions were designed to protect children from evil spirits and forces.
The end of the Greek and Macedonian phalanxes brought clashes with Roman legions fighting in a more flexible manipular formation. The defeats of the Hellenistic armies at Cynoscephalae (197 BCE), Magnesia (190 BCE) and Pydna (168 BCE) ended the centuries-old reign of the phalanx on the fields of an ancient battle.
The defeat of the Jewish uprising (years 66-73 CE) was influenced by the internal division of the insurgents. Jerusalem was torn apart by an internal civil war between four factions: the Jerusalem zealots led by Eleazar Ben-Simon (2,400), the Galilean zealots under John of Gishala (6,000), the Sicarians led by Simon bar Giora (10,000) and the Idumeans led by Jacob ben Sosa and Simon ben Cathlas (5000 people).
Praised by Christian sources Emperor Constantine the Great in 326 CE ordered his wife – Fausta killed. The cause of her death has been interpreted differently; either as a result of the alleged organization of the coup and an attempt to seize power or as a consequence of the affair between the emperor’s wife and the emperor’s son – Crispus. Faust was strangled in an overheated bathhouse.
The Phoenician colonization of the western Mediterranean, the controversial rivalry with the Greek settlers and the wealth of Phenicia are issues that are well known to people, even if only superficially interested in antiquity. But what was the process like? How has the community changed, creating new Semitic settlements on unknown lands?
