Fascinating History

Today we have various social and/or professional networking sites (i.e. Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, etc.).  The Romans would have liked this but they would have wanted to ensure that 'friends' and 'connections' would be of use to each other. On meeting a stranger a Roman would express intense interest in where he comes from and what they do.  (How this Roman would react on any potential second meeting would very much depend on how convinced he was after that first one, that the amicitia (friendship) of the new acquaintance would be worth having.)   Amicitia , which is often translated as 'friendship' was best described by the Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca as "mutual serviceability" .  Therefore, amicitia  would mean trading gifts and favours with an amicus  (meaning something between 'friend' and useful contact').  Roman society relied on interlocking networks of such 'friendships' and the favours Romans did for one another ( benefi...

A Roman woman was expected to be educated just enough in order to understand her husband's opinions and work.  Anything more than this was frowned upon and considered off-putting and  therefore an intelligent woman would have to be particularly careful not to exhibit this (in fact she would have to go to great pains to mask her cleverness) as this might show her as being more clever and / or educated than the men around her which was definitely not on for Roman men.  (Any of this sound familiar?  Hm.  It seems some things never change!  Anyway, getting back to the Romans....)   The Roman poet Juvenal even went so far as to write a caustic attack on women, thus revealing to us the precise forms of behaviors which vexed Roman men.  For instance, the men would be greatly embarrassed by and indeed dislike women who were more learned or clever than they were.  Juvenal writes the below particularly misogynist foul passage, which openly conveys the fierce contempt and loathing with which ...