![]() ![]() "But my father did." (Sit very still - that's the echo of an ancient rim shot.) Curious about a possible connection, the emperor asked him, "Did your mother ever work at the palace?" "No," the man said. It went something like this: Augustus once spotted a man from out of town who looked an awful lot like himself. "The tolerance of the Emperor Augustus in the face of quips and banter of all sorts," Mary Beard tells us, "was still being celebrated four centuries after his death."Ī favorite joke concerned the emperor's paternity. The Imperial Roman people had a healthy sense of humor, and the big guy seems to have known how to take a joke. ![]() By Mary Beard (Liveright 310 pages $28.95)ĭid you hear the one about the emperor? If you lived in Augustus' Rome, chances are you heard several of them. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |