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Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book

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Celebrated classics professor Mary Beard has brought to light a volume more than 1,600 years old, which she says shows the Romans not to be the "pompous, bridge-building toga wearers" they're often seen as, but rather a race ready to laugh at themselves.

 

Written in Greek, Philogelos, or The Laughter Lover, dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes which Beard said are "very similar" to the jokes we have today, although peopled with different stereotypes

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Celebrated classics professor Mary Beard has brought to light a volume more than 1,600 years old, which she says shows the Romans not to be the "pompous, bridge-building toga wearers" they're often seen as, but rather a race ready to laugh at themselves.

 

Written in Greek, Philogelos, or The Laughter Lover, dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes which Beard said are "very similar" to the jokes we have today, although peopled with different stereotypes

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That is some of the funniest stuff I have read all week! Thanks for sharing!

Edited by Fulvia

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I would love to read that book! Thanks for the post Viggen!

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I'm testing this Forum thing - Why am I a slave? :)

 

Mary Beard gave the 2008 Sather Classical Lectures at Berkeley on the subject, so there will be a book forthcoming.

Edited by Placida

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I'm testing this Forum thing - Why am I a slave? :)

 

http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=4365

 

Welcome to UNRV!

 

-- Nephele

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There's some Hellenic dark humor too:

 

"An intellectual got a slave pregnant.

At the birth, his father suggested that the child be killed.

The intellectual replied: "First murder your own children and then tell me to kill mine"."

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