The Roman Sense Of Humor

[Ursus]

 

 

" a Roman commissioner had paused in Athens on his way to Asia. Gellius Publicola was a man who combined a taste for Greek culture with the sensibility of a joker. Wishing to meet the philosophers for which Athens was still celebrated, he had summoned the various representatives of the squabbling schools and urged them, with a perfectly straight face, to resolve their differences. If this proved beyond their abilities, he added, then he was very graciously prepared to step in and settle their controversies for them. Forty years later, Gellius* s proposal to the Athenian philosophers would still be remembered by his friends as a prize example of wit. "How everyone roared!"

Exactly when the philosophers realized that Gellius was joking we are not told. Nor do we know whether they found the joke quite so rib-tickling as Gellius himself seems to have. One suspects that they did not. Philosophy was still a serious business in Athens. The very idea of being lectured by a bumptious Roman prankster must surely have struck the heirs of Socrates as a humiliating indignity. All the same, they no doubt laughed politely, if hollowly; Roman offers to settle squabbles had a certain ominous resonance in Greece.

Tom Holland. Rubicon.

[FLavius Valerius Constantinus]

Gellius is sure quite a fun guy to hang with. Is it really true that the philosophers are like that, especially in Athens? I mean really, 40 years!

Edited January 27, 2006 by FLavius Valerius Constantinus

[M. Porcius Cato]

Judging by Roman literature, not everyone shared Gellius' rustic, cracker-barrel sense of humor. I imagine the many Romans who were educated in Greece (like Cato and Caesar) would have rolled their eyes too.

[sullafelix]

Judging by Roman literature, not everyone shared Gellius' rustic, cracker-barrel sense of humor. I imagine the many Romans who were educated in Greece (like Cato and Caesar) would have rolled their eyes too.

 

 

Quite so, no intellectual snob quite like a roman one...there is in fact a satire of Horaces where they take the mick out of a local town mayor for being a social climber and in fact they mock him dreadfully, laughing in his face in a way we would find repellently cruel. Their sense of humour was harsh, after all they loved nothing better in later times then to se people dressed up as clowns goading prisoners or indeed being eaten themselves in the arena...oh how we laughed!!

[Primus Pilus]

I suppose I'm a simple one-liner kind of guy, but I love Suetonius' account of Vespasian and the comedian... (liberty taken with the translation for effect in English) look at the picture first.

 

...Vespasian asked a comedian, who was known to make jokes at the expense of many, why he never made jokes on him. The comedian replied, "I will, when you have finished your bowel movement. "

 

When one sees the bust of Vespasian we can understand why Suetonius described his appearance as 'strained'. LOL

[M. Porcius Cato]

...Vespasian asked a comedian, who was known to make jokes at the expense of many, why he never made jokes on him. The comedian replied, "I will, when you have finished your bowel movement. "

[FLavius Valerius Constantinus]

Sorry, I don't get it. Does he mean when Vespasian is dead or something?

[Primus Pilus]

Sorry, I don't get it. Does he mean when Vespasian is dead or something?

 

Alas.. Vespasian has a rather uncomfortable look on his face, resembling the look of someone who may be... ahem... having a bowel movement.

 

At any rate, he was well known for his sense of humor and a comedian willing to say such a thing to the emperor without fear of reprisal attests to this fairly well.

[FLavius Valerius Constantinus]

Oh....I get it.

 

Did his son Titus have the same kind of humor?

Edited February 21, 2006 by FLavius Valerius Constantinus

[caldrail]

Many romans enjoyed a good joke, even at their own expense didn't they? A few certainly didn't. I don't imagine making fun of Caligula, Commodus, Domitian, or Caracalla would have done much for your life expectancy. At the end of the day, romans varied in character just as we do. Some laughed, some got annoyed.

 

I get the impression that a clever roman jest was something you simply had to grin and bear with good grace. There was always tomorrow, and a chance to even the score!

[Neos Dionysos]

I suppose I'm a simple one-liner kind of guy, but I love Suetonius' account of Vespasian and the comedian... (liberty taken with the translation for effect in English) look at the picture first.

 

...Vespasian asked a comedian, who was known to make jokes at the expense of many, why he never made jokes on him. The comedian replied, "I will, when you have finished your bowel movement. "

 

When one sees the bust of Vespasian we can understand why Suetonius described his appearance as 'strained'. LOL

 

 

Wow... outstanding...

 

hmmm I wonder what would have happened had such a comedian said a similar remark to other imfamous Romans... I can see Trajan just sitting there and taking it with a look of contempt but not harm the man... Hadrian might laugh... Caligula would laugh and then laugh as the man was tortured to death... and I think Aurelius would laugh as well...

[Ingsoc]

The Talmud preserve a piece of Roman pun joke:

 

"A certain master came into the house of learning, and said that the man of the nose was being looked for R. Gamaliel understood that he was meant thereby, and hid himself." (Babylonian Talmud, Ta'anit 29)

 

Now the Roman refer to Gamliel as the "man of the nose" because at the time he was the head of the Jews in the Land of Israel and as such hold the title of Nasi (a term that translated to Greek by the church fathers as Ethnarcos - a leader of ethnic group) which in Latin is the genativus of the word Nasus (Nose) and hence the Romans jokely named the Jewish leader the "man of the nose".

[Caesar CXXXVII]

From 23.03.396 CE (a stolen one)

 

Marcus - "How was the Roman Empire cut in half?"

 

Gaius - "With a pair of Caesars!"

[Ovidius Naso]

I love Roman comedy. Plautus and Terence with their misers, swaggering soldiers, clever slaves, twins, mistaken identity, and cross dressing. Petronius' Satyricon is hilarious too with it's mock Odyssey and protagonist who's name translates as The Crotch. You have the last words of Vespasian, joking about the Roman public's tendency to deify dead emperors Væ, puto deus fio, "Oh dear! I think I'm becoming a god!" I've also enjoyed the Pumpkinification of Claudius by Seneca the Younger, where instead of becoming a God like other Roman emperors the pantheon decides that Claudius would make a better pumpkin.

 

Apocolocyntosis by Seneca

The last words he was heard to speak in this world were these. When he had made a great noise with that end of him which talked easiest, he cried out, "Oh dear, oh dear! I think I have made a mess of myself." Whether he did or no, I cannot say, but certain it is he always did make a mess of everything. - (I think it's E.F. Watling's translation but I can't be sure.)

 

Then there's that victory chant by Caesar's soldiers during his Gallic triumph in Suetonius.

 

Home we bring our bald whoremonger;
Romans, lock your wives away!
All the bags of gold you lent him
Went his Gallic tarts to pay.
-Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, Robert Graves translation, p. 36.

 

And Catullus' line Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo always makes me chuckle. I didn't find Apuleius' The Golden Ass as funny as some, but the ribald parts tickled my fancy. Also, Ovid has his moments of cleverness, like when he wrote:

 

We which were Ovids five books, now are three,
For these before the rest preferreth he:
If reading five thou plainst of tediousnesse,
Two tane away, thy labor will be lesse:

-Marlowe's translation

 

I'm not really a fan of Juvenal or Martial though. I haven't read Horace's satires, so I can't comment on them but the Greek satyrist Lucian was active during the imperial period and his True Story is great. It's just a concotion of fabulous lies, full of fantastic imagery.

[guy]

I'm not really a fan of Juvenal or Martial though.

I always thought this epigram of Martial rather timeless:

 

"I felt a little ill and called Dr. Symmachus.

Well, you came, Symmachus, but you brought 100 medical students with you.

One hundred ice-cold hands poked and jabbed me.

I didn't have a fever, Symmachus, when I called you –but now I do."

 

 

guy also known as gaius

Edited June 13, 2014 by guy