Lowest of all were bankers and auctioneers, who made money without actually producing anything—activities that, to right-thinking people, had the aspect of a species of magic.
True to a unique tradition of Rome, all the nearby walls had been slathered with that unique institution of the Latin race: graffiti. Daubed in paint of every color were slogans such as Death to the a...
This led to a discussion of whether volcanoes were really the fires from Vulcan’s forge or some sort of natural phenomenon, like storms and floods. I was of the latter opinion, because Vulcan is reput...
Think nothing of it, I said. We’ve all wanted to kill Clodius from time to time.
The Sublician is the oldest of our bridges, although it has been destroyed and rebuilt several times. The very name refers to the heavy timbers of which it was once built, but the present bridge is of...
Some were encased in gold leaf hammered to an incredible thinness. We were supposed to eat these, gold and all. Some were still in their shells, and when cracked open these proved to contain the sort...
Some men care only about power. That's Caesar. He wants to accomplish things and he has to have power to do so, so he has pursued power with a single-mindedness as I've never seen. It makes him uncomf...
ROME AWOKE TO THE GREAT, collective hangover of the day after Saturnalia. All over the city hundreds of thousands of bleary eyes opened, the merciless light of morning pierced through them, and a vast...
Pugilism is the silliest of all combat arts. It consists of taking the human hand, with its multitude of tiny, frangible bones, and smashing it against the human skull, a most unyielding target.
One forced to live in surroundings that might have been devised by Plato must seek relief and an outlet for the human urges despised by philosophers. Wickedness and debauchery may not be the only answ...
About seven hundred years ago, a pack of bandits arrived in central Italy, led by two brothers named Romulus and Remus. They despoiled the nearby peoples of land and women and set up their own little...
It is one of the most annoying aspects of conspiracy that it compels one to blunder about the streets at night. I got lost several times trying to find the house of Laeca, and it is always embarrassin...
I tipped young Hylas with a sesterce and turned away discreetly while he disposed of it somewhere about his person. Slaves, especially small ones, must resort to certain subterfuges in order to preven...
I feel that my best work is ahead of me. I am embarrassed to look at my earlier writing now.
I WAS LOOKING FORWARD TO A good year. I always surveyed each new year with optimism, and events almost always proved my outlook mistaken. This year was to be no exception.
Don’t bother trying to tell me you’re unbribable. You are a Greek, after all. Do I look like I need money? he asked. I’ve already paid for my funeral, and I’ve bought a very decent tomb for my family...
At this time, about the only thing that was still regarded as perverted was a public display of affection toward one’s wife.
At least, when the great Temple of Jupiter had burned twenty years before, Sulla had had the good taste to restore it to its original design and condition. They don’t make tyrants like Sulla anymore.
And so, forbidden by a Roman official and warned by a slave, I went forth at dusk to meet with a high-class Greek prostitute.