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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.
Lanista was the trainer of gladiators. The lanista’s art was probably to train people to fight, and then put them against each other in interesting combinations: for example, the combination of “fishhead” (mirmillo) with “net-man” (retiarius).
Political violence has existed in Rome for a long time. Often there were fights or scuffles between supporters of various candidates. However, 57 BCE took the violence to a new level.
Roman cities that arose along with the development of the empire were characterized by a specific location resulting from economic premises. As a result of these location rules, it is believed that Roman cities were primarily consumer centres where goods were traded. However, in many cases the location of Roman cities did not coincide with already existing and favourably located settlements. This was due to some characteristics of the urban layout of the Roman city. This arrangement can be seen in preserved cities like Pompeii or Herculaneum.
Pliny the Younger was a Roman politician and magistrate during the Roman Empire. The most important position he took was the office of governor (legatus Augusti) of the province of Bithynia et Pontus (current Turkey), in 110 CE, during the reign of Emperor Trajan.
With the expansion of the Roman republic in the second and first century BCE intensified slavery. Some sources say that in the first century BCE in Italy alone there were 2-3 million slaves, which constituted 35-40% of the population on the Apennine peninsula.
As it turns out, the Roman way of counting and determining specific days in a month was different from what we use now. Ancient Romans used the following terms: calends, nones, ides.
Famous Carthaginian Great Harbour was an artificial protected water reservoir. In ancient times this type of port was called the Greek cothon (“drinking vessel”). These types of constructions were built especially in lands controlled by Phoenicians, e.g. Sicily or Cyprus.
Hannibal became famous not only for his great victories over disciplined Romans during the Second Punic War but also for his surprising march through the Pyrenees and the Alps. During his trip, he had 38 elephants with him – animals that were not used to the cold climate and mountains.
All the time we hear about sensational reports of observation of unidentified flying objects – UFOs. As it turns out, the ancient writers also left us interesting accounts.
In 1973, an unusual discovery was made in the Vindolanda Roman camp (England). Water-soaked tablets with Roman notes were extracted from the ground. After conservation, it turned out that the artifacts are a great source of information about the life of people who were in the camp in antiquity.
