Sergius Orata’s oyster beds began with a stretch of water at Baiae and ended with a claim about taste. Pliny the Elder calls him the first person to form artificial beds, then immediately explains how the invention made money. Orata established them shortly before the Social War, promoted oysters from nearby Lake Lucrinus as the … Read more
Fifty pounds of flax in the sheaf did not become fifty pounds of dressed fibre. Pliny the Elder gives fifteen pounds as a fair return after combing. The missing thirty-five pounds make the craft easier to understand than a finished fold of pale linen does. Manufacture was a controlled loss of seed, moisture, skin, broken … Read more
The offer arrived in a Roman camp as a letter from the other side. Pyrrhus’s own physician promised the consuls that he could kill the king with poison. In exchange, he wanted a reward for ending the war without exposing Roman soldiers to another battle. Plutarch places Caius Fabricius in the consulship when the messenger … Read more
At midday the soldiers began pointing him out. Socrates had been standing in the same place since dawn, absorbed in a problem that had refused to yield. Hours passed, the camp moved through its routines, and still he did not leave. By evening, curiosity had become an overnight watch. Some Ionian soldiers finished supper, carried … Read more
A young tree at the edge of a Roman nursery carried two landscapes at once. Its crown stood in the air of the road ahead, but its roots still needed the ground it was leaving. Pliny the Elder preserves Cato’s practical answer to that problem: move the tree in a basket, keeping as much of … 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
A greeting kiss usually looks like the least political gesture in a household. In one Roman account, however, it could become an inspection. Aulus Gellius says that women of Rome and Latium were expected to kiss their kinsfolk so that the smell of wine might expose anyone who had been drinking it. The face came … Read more
The strongest man in the assembly wrapped both hands around an old horse’s tail and pulled. He had height, muscle and what looked like the easier animal. The tail stayed where it was. Nearby, a much smaller man began taking hairs from the thick tail of a powerful horse, one after another. Plutarch says the … Read more
No knot could remain on the clothing of Jupiter’s priest. Not in his head-dress, not in his girdle, not anywhere else on what he wore. The prohibition followed him through ordinary movement because it was built into the things resting against his body. Aulus Gellius records an even stranger consequence. If a person in fetters … Read more
The small iron object left the fire glowing, held at a distance by tongs. A basin of water could cool it fast and leave it hard. That was not always the finish a smith wanted. Pliny the Elder says workers quenched smaller iron articles in oil because hardening them in water might make them brittle. … Read more
