The Roman emperor Vespasian began construction of the Colosseum in AD 72. It was finished in AD 80, the year after he died. The huge amphitheater included an elevator that could lift elephants to the floor of the arena.… Read More
Since ancient times, salt has always been highly valuable. Roman soldiers were paid at certain times with salt—their salarium—from which we get the word “salary.”… Read More
In Roman bathhouses, bathers often had their clothing stolen. In the absence of a police force, victims wrote curse tablets, calling on the gods to retrieve the stolen clothing or, barring that, to punish the thief.… Read More
Deranged Roman Emperor Caligula (AD 37 – 41) was so sensitive about being bald that he made a law that no one could look down on him from a high place when he passed by, punishable by death.
… Read More
Emperor Nero tried to poison his mother three times. When that didn’t work, he rigged up a contraption over her bed designed to fall on her. When that didn’t work, he had a collapsible boat built. It sank, but she… Read More
The ancient Greeks and Romans knew how to refrigerate food. Snow was transported from mountain tops and packed into a “snow cellar,” which compressed it into ice blocks. It remained frozen for months.
source: Don Wulffson, The Kid Who Invented… Read More
The Canary Islands were named by the ancient Romans for the wild dogs that roamed there. (Canis is Latin for dog.) It was only later that they named the native songbirds “canaries.”… Read More
Wealthy women in Ancient Rome were so obsessed with their hair that they had portrait busts carved of themselves with detachable stone hairdos that could be replaced as fashions changed.… Read More