Salapia did not repair its way out of an unhealthy site. It moved. Vitruvius says the inhabitants of the old Apulian city were continually unwell beside a stagnant marsh, so they petitioned Marcus Hostilius for permission to seek a healthier place. What followed was more than an evacuation. Hostilius bought an estate near the sea, … Read more
A Roman hand carried more than decoration. A ring could press an identity into wax, close a store against tampering, or announce a rank in metal. Yet Aulus Gellius paused over a smaller question: why did Greek and Roman men so often place it on the finger of the left hand beside the little finger? … Read more
The grammarian had the highest reputation as a teacher in Rome. Aulus Gellius approached him with a question he considered sincere: what did the Latin word obnoxius mean, and where had it come from? The teacher looked at him and laughed. The problem, he said, was so difficult that it must demand sleepless nights—then supplied … Read more
A peacock from Samos. A woodcock from Phrygia. Cranes from Media. By the time Marcus Varro’s remembered menu reaches oysters from Tarentum, dates from Egypt and acorns from Spain, dinner has become a tour of the known world. Aulus Gellius preserves the list in Attic Nights 6.16, drawing it from Varro’s satire On Edibles. He … Read more
A buyer approaching a Roman sale did not always need to wait for a clerk to unroll or read the terms. One sign could sit directly on the head of the person being sold. According to the jurist Caelius Sabinus, a plain cap announced that the seller accepted no responsibility for that enslaved person. Aulus … Read more
A child arrived after the lamps were lit but before the household slept. Which date belonged to the birth? For Aulus Gellius, the answer did not depend on whether darkness felt like the end of yesterday or the beginning of tomorrow. It depended on the invisible line Romans drew through the middle of the night. … Read more
Pigeons swept toward a tall farm building and vanished through protected openings. Inside, the walls rose under a vault in rows of round nests. Every pair had a chamber. Boards ran beneath the entrances. Water waited below, while grain entered troughs through pipes filled from outside. Varro says a single peristeron, or pigeon house, could … Read more
The olive trees were ready, but the first act in Cato’s harvest was not picking. It was control. Nobody was to pluck or beat down fruit without an order from the owner, his representative or the purchaser of the crop. Work done against that instruction would not be paid for the day. Then came an … Read more
Aulus Gellius came ashore at Brundisium and found a cargo more tempting than the amphorae and rope around it. Bundles of books had been spread out for sale in the port. They were Greek, old, filthy from neglect and physically unattractive. Their price was unexpectedly low. Gellius bought a large number for a small sum. … Read more
A boy came to greet Pliny the Younger in his native district and left behind a funding problem. Asked whether he continued his studies, the boy said yes. Asked where, he answered Mediolanum. His father supplied the reason: their own town had no teachers. Other fathers happened to be listening. Pliny turned the small exchange … Read more
