The ancient Romans lived more shamefully than historians say
Rome is still remembered for its splendor and ignorance, even though that great civilization has collapsed for centuries. Although Roman culture produced many great men such as Cicero, Caesar, and Augustus, there were also many absurd characters such as Caligula, Nero, and Elagabalus.
However, ancient Rome was not just made up of great men and great deeds, but ordinary ordinary people who worked to improve their lives and those of their families.
Although the ancient Romans were known for their seriousness and poise, they showed a unique side at funerals. They believe that the more people who attend the funeral and the more ornate the funeral procession, the more respected the deceased will be.
However, the overexpression of grief, especially for the Roman upper-class family, was considered undignified. To resolve this contradiction, the pragmatic Romans hired professional mourners who made the funeral both solemn and dignified with professional attitude and appropriate grief.
Roman society strictly ruled that nobles were not allowed to express excessive grief in public. Therefore, they hired professional mourners to express their deep grief by performing extreme acts such as crying, wailing, pulling hair, tearing clothes, etc.
However, this kind of performance gradually becomes excessive, and it is considered to be an act that is inconsistent with the concept of a peaceful life. Therefore, ** legislation prohibits the employment of professional mourners in order to maintain social order and public image.
Lead was widely used by the ancient Romans, but we modern people know that lead is harmful to health, especially in children's toys and paints. However, in ancient Rome, people knew nothing about the dangers of lead.
For example, they use lead to make hair dyes, lead pipes for water, and even lead in amphorae, cooking utensils, and jewelry. All of this led to an unusually high chance of exposure to lead in ancient Rome, which led to excessive lead intake.
The latest research has found that lead levels in Roman pipes may not be as dangerous as they might think, but that doesn't explain why so many Romans lost their minds.
In conclusion, the ancient Romans were exposed to lead in various ways, which made their lives full of lead hazards.
The ancient Roman poet Catullus used to brush his teeth with urine and once insulted a man who didn't smile well. This lifestyle was not uncommon in the Roman world, where they used to clean their mouths with urine.
Catullus even said, "There's nothing more stupid than a stupid smile." However, this is a common phenomenon in Spain, where many Spanish men are accustomed to brushing their teeth with urine and cleaning their red and swollen gums.
So, if your teeth are shiny, it just means that you have more urine.
Although Egnesios was condemned for laughing too much, smiling was not an abnormal behavior in Roman culture. In fact, urine contains a component called ammonia, which the body excretes in the form of urea.
Today, ammonia is used in a wide range of fields, from manufacturing to the production of clean products to the manufacture of agricultural fertilizers. In addition, ammonia has the effect of removing stains from bathtubs and ovens, making dishes and cups brighter.
In ancient Rome, due to the lack of modern scientific knowledge, people obtained ammonia from the most readily available ** - urine. Urine is not only used to clean the mouth, but also plays an important role in the laundry industry.
In large public laundries, dirty laundry would be soaked in stale urine, and workers (usually slaves) would trample on laundry to remove stains. Nowadays, the extraction of ammonia is no longer dependent on urine, but is carried out through a chemical process that does not involve urine.
Urine was a very important and versatile resource in ancient times. In addition to its heavy use in agriculture and the tanning industry, the collection of urine is also an important business. Public potty pots and large buckets were ubiquitous at the time, and anyone could conveniently stop and urinate at the time.
In addition, urine was also widely used in the field of medicine during the ancient Roman period. According to Pliny the Elder, fresh urine can be used for sores, burns, infections, chapping, and scorpion stings, while stale urine is used for diaper rash.
Although the use of urine has been relatively rare in modern times, these historical accounts can still provide us with some interesting and unique perspectives.
While it is now generally accepted that the use of urine in drugs is disgusting, this medical application may actually be beneficial given the sterile nature of urine, especially the ammonia it contains.
During the ancient Roman period, the collection and resale of urine was a major business. Just like any industry capable of generating revenue, the urine industry is not immune to the attention of **taxes**.
At this point, the world of ancient Rome is not much different from ours.
*Taxes are levied directly on urine donors, but there are merchants who specialize in collecting urine and are granted special licenses and taxes. Emperor Vespasian tried to tax public urinals, but was ridiculed.
He proved that money has no smell by having his son smell a coin, a phrase that later became a Latin proverb. Farts are produced by the conversion of undigested food from the lower part of the colon into intestinal gas, and more than 99% of farts are odorless, but a small percentage of farts are very smelly and are made up of substances such as ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and skatole.
Even if it only takes up 1/100 million of the air, that unpleasant smell can still be captured. The most notorious and devastating fart in history occurred on Passover in 44 C.E., when Jews gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate the death of King Herod Agrippa.
A Roman soldier farts on the temple and looks at the crowd, triggering horrific consequences.
It is said that the blasphemy and insult of a Roman soldier in the temple sparked the wrath of the Jewish population. In order to quell the riots, the Roman authorities sent soldiers, but the situation escalated, eventually resulting in the death of about 10,000 people.
The cause of all this turned out to be just a fart. The first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus once recorded a series of events triggered by this deadly fart.
According to him, there was a group of Romans standing in the cloister of the temple at that time, guarding the crowd at the feast in order to avoid any accidents. However, one of the soldiers pulled up his clothes and bowed down to the Jews in a ** posture, saying something in such a posture that made the Jews very displeased.
As a result, a catastrophic riot broke out. As the chart below illustrates, the consequences of this incident were extremely severe.
Joseph tells the story of Roman soldiers in Jerusalem that caused the outrage of religious populations, leading to the beginning of a mass violence. The radical part of the young people began to fight with each other, attacking the soldiers with stones.
The Romans took drastic measures to suppress the Jews, and they never acted lightly when riots broke out in the provinces. The chaos sparked mass deaths and became a footnote to a piece of history.
When the Roman prosecutor heard about Jerusalem**, Joseph described what happened next. Cumanus was afraid that everyone would come against him, so he sent people to gather more people.
When they came to the House in droves, the Jews were terrified. They were driven out of the temple and ran into the city. As they fled, they trampled and crushed each other, resulting in 10,000 people being killed.
The tragedy filled the whole country with grief and every family was crying.
Marius's military reforms reshaped the Roman army. Until then, the Roman legions had been multi-class until the time of Marius' reforms, when they were replaced by a larger queue of 480 men.
However, the invasion of the Germanic tribes sent the Italian peninsula into a panic, which forced Rome to make changes. Marius opened the ranks of the Roman legions to all citizens, including the poorest, transforming the nature of the army from a middle-class and aristocratic institution to a professional force.
Now, Rome **provided the legionnaires with ** and armor, and paid them salaries, turning military service into a career. This change made the soldiers more identified with their generals than with the Romans.
In Rome, legionnaires expected their generals to cash in on rewards during their service, as well as severance pay and retirement benefits upon discharge. However, some unscrupulous generals took advantage of this and used the loyalty of their soldiers against other generals and Rome itself in order to create their own private armies.
The result was a civil war that lasted for a century, culminating in the collapse of the Roman Republic and its replacement by the Roman Empire. When Augustus became the first emperor of Rome, he immediately began reforms to make the legions more professional in order to reduce dependence on generals.
He extended the length of military service from 10 to 25 years, established a uniform pay scale, and guaranteed soldiers land or cash as compensation at the end of their service.
In addition, the oath of allegiance of the legion, the sacrament, was changed from general to emperor.
The rise of the Roman Empire stemmed from its tenacious spirit of war. The Romans won the glory of the empire by upholding military discipline and showing great tenacity and perseverance.
They defeated many enemies with outstanding generals, such as the Carthaginians and Hannibal, demonstrating their excellent ability to gather resources, pursue enemies, and persist in their missions.
The Roman conquest of the Iberian Peninsula was a two-hundred-century affair that began in 220 BC and ended in 19 BC. The tenacity of the Romans was their greatest asset in war.
In the social wars of Rome and the Italian allies in 91-88 BC, a spirit of resilience provoked the most tragic counterattack in history.
In this conflict, the Samknights did not forget their hard war with Rome centuries ago, when they captured the town of Nora and strengthened its defenses. In 91 BC, Roman troops were sent to recapture it.
But its commanders tried to negotiate with the rebels, but ultimately failed to reach an agreement. After the Romans left, the Samnet leader declared that the city of Nora would never be conquered.
They believed that the fortifications inside the city were strong enough to withstand the storm and that the defenders could withstand the siege because they had stockpiled food for up to ten years. To this, the answer of the Roman commander was shocking and epic.
It is well known that the Samknights' many wars with the Romans were full of confrontations and contradictions. The Samnites, who were known for their stubbornness, were even more incredibly stubborn in their insistence on Nora, and would continue to fight unless the Romans offered a plan to improve conditions.
However, the Romans seemed to be more stubborn than the Samnites, and their commanders ridiculed Nora for having enough supplies for ten years, while the Romans decided to conquer Nora in the eleventh year, with a very serious attitude.
The Roman general Sulla, the future leader, was sent to take charge of the siege of Nora, leaving the city under tight siege. The social war ended in 88 BC, however, the siege of Nora continued.
A fierce Roman civil war began between Sulla and Marius. Sulla marched eastward, leaving behind an army to besiege the city of Nora. He forced Marius to leave Italy, executed some of his supporters, and then turned east to engage Pontus King Mithridates.
However, the siege of Nora continued. The Marians made a comeback and regained control of Rome, executing more Sulla supporters before Marius died.
And the siege of Nora City did not stop. Sulla returned again, successfully regained control of Rome, and became the leader. At the same time, he also carried out a brutal ** against the Maria, and thousands of people lost their lives.
In this war, the siege of the almost forgotten city of Nora lasted for 11 years, and by 80 BC, the starving defenders were forced to surrender due to the depletion of supplies.