The most useful detail in the story of Archytas’s flying dove is not that it flew. It is that it could not take off again. Aulus Gellius reports a wooden model made by Archytas of Tarentum. Balanced by weights and moved by a hidden current of enclosed air, the dove crossed the boundary between crafted … Read more
A Roman pantry could not be defined simply by opening a door and naming what stood inside. Aulus Gellius records a conversation in the entrance hall of the imperial palace on the Palatine. An overconfident grammarian was discussing the gender and declension of penus, a Latin word for household stores. The philosopher Favorinus interrupted with … Read more
The rhetoric lesson began after the students had left their formal clothes behind. Aulus Gellius says his teacher Titus Castricius encountered several pupils who had become senators. It was a holiday, and they crossed Rome in tunics, cloaks and open Gallic slippers. Castricius stopped them. Long custom might excuse the relaxed garments, he conceded. Yet … Read more
The gilded horses above Trajan’s Forum were not trophies lifted whole from an enemy city. Their inscription pointed to a less visible route. Aulus Gellius remembered walking through the Forum with the philosopher Favorinus while a consul heard cases nearby. Along the roofs of the colonnades stood gilded horses and representations of military standards. Beneath … Read more
Rome protected one sacred shield by making it impossible to tell which shield was sacred. Plutarch says a bronze buckler fell from the sky during a pestilence in Numa’s reign. The king treated it as a pledge of the city’s preservation. A unique object, however, invited a simple danger: a thief needed to steal only … Read more
The red clod did not enter the house as paint. First it sweated silver liquid under blows from iron bars. Vitruvius describes mineral material from the Ephesian region with red veins and dust. Workers struck it until drops of quicksilver appeared. More metal condensed from furnace fumes, too fine to gather individually, so it was … Read more
Before water entered a conduit, Vitruvius wanted the architect to look at the people already drinking it. Were their limbs strongly formed? Did they have fresh colour, sound legs and clear rather than blear eyes? Then came tests on the water itself. A drop from a new spring should leave no stain on good brass. … Read more
Spurius Carvilius reportedly loved his wife. The marriage ended anyway. Aulus Gellius says a physical condition prevented children from being born from her. Carvilius, a man of rank, had sworn before the censors that he married for the purpose of begetting children. He placed that oath above affection and sent his wife away. Gellius presents … Read more
The censors did not need an account book. They had the horse and the rider standing beside each other. Aulus Gellius preserves a story from Masurius Sabinus about an equestrian review conducted by Publius Scipio Nasica and Marcus Popilius. One mount was thin and poorly kept. Its rider was plump and thriving. The contrast made … Read more
The younger poet did not send a finished scroll and wait for applause. He stood in an old man’s house and read. Aulus Gellius places Lucius Accius in Tarentum on his way to Asia. Marcus Pacuvius, already weakened by age and illness, had withdrawn there from Rome. He welcomed the visitor, kept him for several … Read more
