Every morning in the reign of Tiberius, a raven left a shoemaker’s shop and flew into the Roman Forum. It settled at the Rostra, greeted Tiberius, then Germanicus and Drusus by name, acknowledged the passing Roman people and returned to the workshop. Pliny says the attendance continued with remarkable consistency for several years. A neighbouring … Read more
A boat carrying marble reached the edge of a large lake near Nicomedia and stopped where the cheap part of its journey ended. Fruit, timber and other local goods could cross the water with little labour or expense. The sea was still beyond the high road, however, and everything had to be unloaded, placed on … Read more
Three philosophers arrived in Rome carrying a problem measured in five hundred talents. Athens had lost a case connected with Oropus and wanted the Senate to reduce or reverse the punishment. Its ambassadors in 155 BC were not routine envoys: Carneades led the Academy, Diogenes represented the Stoics, and Critolaus headed Aristotle’s Peripatetic school. Roman … Read more
Long after Rome’s first naval triumph had ended, its sound could still be heard after dinner. An old Gaius Duilius walked home through the city with two attendants: one playing a flute, the other carrying a wax torch. Cicero says he saw this more than once as a child. The detail is small enough to … Read more
An architect in Ephesus did not merely announce what a public building ought to cost. In the ancient rule reported by Vitruvius, he handed his estimate to a magistrate and put his property behind it. The estate remained security until the work was finished. Only then could the forecast be judged against the completed bill. … Read more
Antiochus IV approached the Roman delegation as a king close to possessing Egypt. Near Eleusis, four miles from Alexandria in Livy’s account, he greeted the envoys and extended his right hand to Gaius Popilius Laenas. The Roman did not take it. Instead, he put a written decree of the Senate into the king’s hand and … Read more
Antiochus was starving himself under the cover of illness. His physician Erasistratus believed that the prince was in love, but that diagnosis left the most dangerous question unanswered: with whom? Plutarch says the doctor remained in the chamber day after day and watched what happened when different people entered. Most visitors produced nothing. Stratonice produced … Read more
Roman women gave up gold, and the gift changed what could be said when a woman died. On that outcome Livy and Plutarch agree. They do not agree on the transaction that produced it. Livy places the contribution in the panic over ransom after the Gallic attack. Plutarch weighs the ornaments at eight talents and … Read more
Pompey knew how to move an army, secure a command and turn victory into public stature. As he approached his first consulship, however, he admitted that another Roman institution could defeat confidence alone. Aulus Gellius says the consul-elect asked Marcus Varro for a handbook explaining how to convene the senate, consult it and bring a … Read more
Demosthenes built a room beneath the ground and turned embarrassment into its lock. He shaved the hair from only one side of his head, then withdrew to practice. If restlessness tempted him toward the street, the unfinished appearance made going out costly. Plutarch says he sometimes remained below for two or three months. The half … Read more
