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.
Ancient Romans believed that their ancestors gave them a catalogue of values to live by. They called him the term mos maiorum, or “the customs of the ancestors.” In practice, the Roman believed that the old is good because it has already been used in practice. In turn, “new things” (res novae) were, according to the Romans, a form of revolution that they associated with chaos and violence.
Horologium Solarium Augusti was the largest sundial and calendar of all time. The monument was located in Rome on Field of Mars. Currently, this obelisk is located in Piazza Montecitorio in Rome in front of the Chamber of Deputies.
The conquests of Gnaeus Pompey in the east were so spectacular that the living at that time compared the Roman commander to the famous Alexander the Great – hence he later adopted the nickname “the Great”, meaning Magnus. His strength and political significance grew so much that in practice he was the independent king in the years 66-62 BCE.
During the rule of Augustus (27 BCE – 14 CE), the inhabitants of the capital of Rome “produced” 60,000 tonnes of waste every day. It was a huge call to remove all debris from the city.
There is a popular belief that ancient Romans after defeating Carthage in 146 BCE not only razed the city to the ground but also sprinkled it with salt, in order to make sure that nothing would grow in these hated areas.
Emperor Commodus – reigning in 180-192 CE – often fought as a gladiator in the arena, armed with an iron sword. His rivals wielded a heavier lead weapon to make it harder for them to hurt the ruler.
In the famous “Periplus of the Erythraean Sea”1 – a manuscript from the turn of the 1st century CE, which served merchants navigating the waters between East Africa and India – we can find a place called “Rhapta”, which is described as “the last marketplace of Azania” and was located two days south of the so-called Menouthias Islands (it is suspected that it could have been Zanzibar, Mafia or Pemba).
