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Unknown Facts are curiosities revealing little-known, surprising, or rarely discussed information from the world of ancient Rome and antiquity. This category includes unusual details, curiosities, and facts that offer a less obvious perspective on the Roman Empire.
After murdering his brother Geta, Caracalla ordered removing his name from public life. Originally, 174 records of his name survived, however, 37 have survived to our times. Many of the inscriptions are found on the water pipes, which were probably located underground before the edict of Caracalla.
Apparently, Nero loved to perform as famous hero Hercules. His opponent was to be a lion, who was prepared and trained in such a way that the naked ruler could kill him with one blow of a club or by suffocation.
After the tragic defeat of the Romans at Cannae in 216 BCE Rome was so deprived of recruits that there were even enlisted slaves to the army. They were called voluntarii or volones.
Ancile was the oval shield of the same the god Mars, which Jupiter offered to the king Numa Pompilius, the second in the history ruler of Rome. According to the messages, the capital city was to exist for as long as ancile was safe. On the advice of the nymph Egeria, Numa had eleven identical shields to prevent theft.
Elian Claudius, a Roman writer and rhetoric teacher who lived in the times of Septimius Severus, noticed that if someone is wearing a shoe, the animal behaves exactly the same. Hunters wanting to catch an animal used a trick.
Cats in ancient Egypt were sacred. In the middle of the first century BCE Diodorus Siculus witnessed how the Egyptian crowd lynched a member of the Roman embassy who accidentally killed a cat. People did not respond even to the request of Pharaoh Ptolemy XII.
Ovile was a separate space on the Campus Martius in Rome, where votes were cast. The name literally means “sheep’s farm”. Originally, the place to vote was a wooden structure, which in time was replaced by a larger and more prestigious, marble building Saepta Julia.
Chamber pots in ancient Rome were not designed for both sexes equally. Both men and women had their own versions: the female sex was using scaphium when gentlemen matella. The larger chamber pots on the streets were for men whose urine was then collected and sold. Urine was used by fullones for cleaning fabrics.
Roman patrician beds (lecti cubicidares) were located in the bedroom (cubiculum), usually in niches. They were high, so as needed a stool (scamnum) to climb them. The Roman going to sleep usually put his sandals on the footstool, which then faded under the mass of the cover (the stool was so fitted that it was under the bed).
