Ten unknown facts about ancient Rome.




Rome was not the first republic. The Phonetician city of Carthage had a republican system in place when Rome was nothing more than a village of mud & stick houses.
Originally, the Romans refereed to themselves as “the people of the toga”, a garment they adopted from the ruling Etruscans to the North.

a Chinese admiral discovered the Romans while exploring the western seas but, according to his ship’s logs, chose not to make contact with them because they were too primitive.

Roman citizens were typically executed by decapitation and rarely crucified. Being too gruesome a death for a civilized Roman, crucifixion was reserved for foreigners, slaves and prisoners of war

Professionally trained gladiators did not often kill one another. Their training was expensive and few became famous so as long as they put on a good show, the loser was often spared. Plus, there were plenty of untrained fighters thrown into the arena to kill.

Julius Caesar would not have been called Julius Caesar-his name was Gaius Julius Caesar. He would have been called Gaius by his wife and close relatives and Caesar by his friends and colleagues. Julii was the name of his “tribe”

Emperor Tiberius had his private swimming pool filled with naked little children he called his “Little Fishes” which he would swim through, naked, encouraging them to nibble on him.

When Tiberius died, his successor, Caligula, had all of the Little Fishes thrown off a cliff.

Hannibal’s army killed 1 out of 4 Roman males of military age.

There is no report of Caesar saying anything as he lay dying.

Ok, some of these are not so shocking, but interesting.

Cc: Richiez, Fynestboi, olawalebabs