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Roman Jokes
Ancient Roman jokes, as described by Cicero and Quintilian, are best employed as a rhetorical device. Many of them are apparently taken from real-life trials conducted by famous advocates, such as Cicero. Jokes were also found scrawled upon washroom walls of Pompeii as Roman graffiti, graffiti. Romans sought laughter by attending Theatre_of_ancient_Rome#Roman_comedy, comic plays (such as those of Plautus) and mimes (such as those of Publilius Syrus). Jokes from these sources usually depended on sexual themes. Cicero believed that humour ought to be based upon "ambiguity, the unexpected, wordplay, understatement, irony, ridicule, silliness, and pratfalls". Roman jokes also depended on certain stock characters and stereotypes, especially regarding foreigners, as can be seen within Plautus' ''Poenulus''. Roman culture, which was heavily influenced by the Greeks, had also been in conversation with Greek humour. Examples One of the oldest Roman jokes, which is based on a fictitious stor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhetorical Device
In rhetoric, a rhetorical device, persuasive device, or stylistic device is a technique that an author or speaker uses to convey to the listener or reader a meaning with the goal of persuading them towards considering a topic from a perspective, using language designed to encourage or provoke an emotional display of a given perspective or action. They seek to make a position or argument more compelling than it would otherwise be. Sonic devices Sonic devices depend on sound. Sonic rhetoric is used as a clearer or swifter way of communicating content in an understandable way. Sonic rhetoric delivers messages to the reader or listener by prompting a certain reaction through auditory perception. Alliteration Alliteration is the repetition of the sound of an initial consonant or consonant cluster in subsequent syllables. Assonance Assonance is the repetition of similar vowel sounds across neighbouring words. Consonance Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds acro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saturnalia (Macrobius)
''Saturnalia'' (, "Seven Books of the Saturnalia") is a work written after 431 CE by the Roman provincial Macrobius Theodosius. The ''Saturnalia'' consists of an account of the discussions held at the house of Vettius Agorius Praetextatus during the holiday of the Saturnalia. It contains a great variety of curious historical, mythological, critical, antiquarian and grammatical discussions. Background ''Saturnalia'' is a late example of the Symposium genre pioneered by Plato and Xenophon. Görgemanns, Herwig (Heidelberg). "Symposium literature". ''Brill's New Pauly Online''. Brill, 2006. It is written as a series of scholarly dialogues at fictional banquets held over the eve of Saturnalia and three days of the holiday, December 16–19. In each book, one of the characters does the bulk of the speaking on the topic. Principal Characters Macrobius threw together characters from different times and places in an anachronistic gathering. Some are historical figures, primarily from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jokes
A joke is a display of humour in which words are used within a specific and well-defined narrative structure to make people laughter, laugh and is usually not meant to be interpreted literally. It usually takes the form of a story, often with dialogue, and ends in a punch line, whereby the humorous element of the story is revealed; this can be done using a pun or other type of word play, irony or sarcasm, logical incompatibility, hyperbole, or other means. Linguist Robert Hetzron offers the definition: It is generally held that jokes benefit from brevity, containing no more detail than is needed to set the scene for the punchline at the end. In the case of riddle jokes or one-liners, the setting is implicitly understood, leaving only the dialogue and punchline to be verbalised. However, subverting these and other common guidelines can also be a source of humour—the shaggy dog story is an example of an anti-humor, anti-joke; although presented as a joke, it contains a long d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poetics (Aristotle)
Aristotle's ''Poetics'' ( ''Peri poietikês''; ; ) is the earliest surviving work of Greek dramatic theory and the first extant philosophical treatise to solely focus on literary theory. In this text, Aristotle offers an account of , which refers to poetry, and more literally, "the poetic art", deriving from the term for "poet; author; maker", . Aristotle divides the art of poetry into verse drama (comedy, tragedy, and the satyr play), lyric poetry, and epic. The genres all share the function of mimesis, or imitation of life, but differ in three ways that Aristotle describes: # There are differences in music rhythm, harmony, meter, and melody. # There is a difference of goodness in the characters. # A difference exists in how the narrative is presented: telling a story or acting it out. The surviving book of ''Poetics'' is primarily concerned with drama; the analysis of tragedy constitutes the core of the discussion. Although the text is universally acknowledged in the West ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philogelos
''Philogelos'' (), also titled or subtitled ''The Jests of Hierocles and Philagrius'', is a Greek-language book published in late antiquity that is the oldest known surviving collection of jokes. Context Although the ''Philogelos'' is the oldest surviving joke book, there are known to be prior joke books that have since become lost. Athenaeus wrote in the '' Deipnosophistae'' that Philip II of Macedon paid for a social club in Athens to write down its members' jokes for him, and joke books are mentioned by characters in ''Persa'' and '' Stichus'', two comedies by the 2nd century BC Roman playwright Plautus. Attribution Authorship of the ''Philogelos'' is traditionally attributed to two men, Hierocles and Philagrius (also spelled Hierokles and Philagros), who are otherwise unattested and have no known works. It has been posited that the Hierocles mentioned is Neoplatonist philosopher Hierocles of Alexandria, but there is no evidence to connect the two beyond similarity of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dream Interpreter
Dream interpretation is the process of assigning meaning to dreams. In many ancient societies, such as those of Egypt and Greece, dreaming was considered a supernatural communication or a means of divine intervention, whose message could be interpreted by people with these associated spiritual powers. In the modern era, various schools of psychology and neurobiology have offered theories about the meaning and purpose of dreams. History Early civilizations The ancient Sumerians in Mesopotamia have left evidence of dream interpretation dating back to at least 3100 BC in Mesopotamia.Seligman, K. (1948), ''Magic, Supernaturalism and Religion''. New York: Random House Throughout Mesopotamian history, dreams were always held to be extremely important for divinationOppenheim, L.A. (1966). ''Mantic Dreams in the Ancient Near East'' in G. E. Von Grunebaum & R. Caillois (Eds.), ''The Dream and Human Societies'' (pp. 341–350). London, England: Cambridge University Press. and Mesopotami ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quadriga
A quadriga is a car or chariot drawn by four horses abreast and favoured for chariot racing in classical antiquity and the Roman Empire. The word derives from the Latin , a contraction of , from ': four, and ': yoke. In Latin the word is almost always used in the plural and usually refers to the team of four horses rather than the chariot they pull. In Greek, a four-horse chariot was known as . The four-horse abreast arrangement in a ''quadriga'' is distinct from the more common four-in-hand array of two horses in the front plus two horses behind those. ''Quadrigae'' were raced in the Ancient Olympic Games and other contests. They are represented in profile pulling the chariot of gods and heroes on Greek vases and in bas-relief. During the festival of the Halieia, the ancient Rhodians would sacrifice a ''quadriga''-chariot by throwing it into the sea. The ''quadriga'' was adopted in ancient Roman chariot racing. ''Quadrigas'' were emblems of triumph. Victory or Fame ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient Olympic Games
The ancient Olympic Games (, ''ta Olympia''.), or the ancient Olympics, were a series of Athletics (sport), athletic competitions among representatives of polis, city-states and one of the Panhellenic Games of ancient Greece. They were held at the Panhellenic sanctuary, Panhellenic religious sanctuary of Olympia, Greece, Olympia, in honor of Zeus, and the Greeks gave them a aition, mythological origin. The originating Olympic Games are traditionally dated to 776 BC. The games were held every four years, or Olympiad, which became a unit of time in historical chronologies. These Olympiads were referred to based on the winner of their ''Stadion (running race), stadion'' sprint, e.g., "the third year of the eighteenth Olympiad when Ladas of Argos won the ''stadion''". They continued to be celebrated when Greece came under Greece in the Roman era, Roman rule in the 2nd century BC. Their last recorded celebration was in AD 393, under the emperor Theodosius I, but archaeological evidenc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fortune-teller
Fortune telling is the spiritual practice of predicting information about a person's life. Melton, J. Gordon. (2008). ''The Encyclopedia of Religious Phenomena''. Visible Ink Press. pp. 115–116. The scope of fortune telling is in principle identical with the practice of divination. The difference is that divination is the term used for predictions considered part of a religious ritual, invoking deities or spirits, while the term fortune telling implies a less serious or formal setting, even one of popular culture, where belief in occult workings behind the prediction is less prominent than the concept of suggestion, spiritual or practical advisory or affirmation. Historically, Pliny the Elder describes use of the crystal ball in the 1st century CE by soothsayers (''"crystallum orbis"'', later written in Medieval Latin by scribes as ''orbuculum''). Contemporary Western images of fortune telling grow out of folkloristic reception of Renaissance magic, specifically assoc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roman Censor
The censor was a magistrate in ancient Rome who was responsible for maintaining the census, supervising public morality, and overseeing certain aspects of the government's finances. Established under the Roman Republic, power of the censor was limited in subject matter but absolute within his sphere: in matters reserved for the censors, no magistrate could oppose his decisions, and only another censor who succeeded him could cancel those decisions. Censors were also given unusually long terms of office; unlike other elected offices of the Republic, which (excluding certain priests elected for life) had terms of 12 months or less, censors' terms were generally 18 months to 5 years (depending on the era). The censorate was thus highly prestigious, preceding all other regular magistracies in dignity if not in power and reserved with rare exceptions for former Roman consul, consuls. Attaining the censorship would thus be considered the crowning achievement of a Roman politician on the ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gellius
Aulus Gellius (c. 125after 180 AD) was a Roman author and grammarian, who was probably born and certainly brought up in Rome. He was educated in Athens, after which he returned to Rome. He is famous for his ''Attic Nights'', a commonplace book, or compilation of notes on grammar, philosophy, history, antiquarianism, and other subjects, preserving fragments of the works of many authors who might otherwise be unknown today. Name Medieval manuscripts of the ''Noctes Atticae'' commonly gave the author's name in the form of "Agellius", which is used by Priscian; Lactantius, Servius and Saint Augustine had "A. Gellius" instead. Scholars from the Renaissance onwards hotly debated which one of the two transmitted names is correct (the other one being presumably a corruption) before settling on the latter of the two in modern times. Life The only source for the life of Aulus Gellius is the details recorded in his writings. Internal evidence points to Gellius having been born between AD 125 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Augustus
Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian (), was the founder of the Roman Empire, who reigned as the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. The reign of Augustus initiated an Roman imperial cult, imperial cult and an era of regional hegemony, imperial peace (the or ) in which the Roman world was largely free of armed conflict. The Principate system of government was established during his reign and lasted until the Crisis of the Third Century. Octavian was born into an equites, equestrian branch of the plebeian Octavia gens, Octavia. Following his maternal great-uncle Julius Caesar's assassination of Julius Caesar, assassination in 44 BC, Octavian was named in Caesar's will as his Adoption in ancient Rome, adopted son and heir, and inherited Caesar's name, estate, and the loyalty of his legions. He, Mark Antony, and Marcus Lepidus formed the Second Triumvirat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
