Rome was a beacon of civilization in a dark world. In the words of one of their own, Rome was “the seat of virtue, empire, and dignity,” ruled by laws so just that they could “surpass the libraries of all the philosophers.”

The Romans, though, had a different definition of “virtue” and “dignity” than we do today. Some of the laws the Romans were so proud of were a little bit strange, and some of them were outright insane.

10Wearing Purple Was A Crime

Purple, in ancient Rome, was viewed as the most dignified and majestic of all colors. The emperors would dress themselves up each morning in the finest of purple togas, and they looked so good in it that they wouldn’t let anyone wear it.

The law against wearing purple was a “sumptuary law,” a Roman law designed to keep lower classes from making extravagant displays of wealth. Romans wanted to be able to take one look at somebody and know their social standing, to make sure they didn’t go around accidentally being polite to peasants. These laws were strict. If you weren’t a citizen, you weren’t allowed to put on a toga.

Purple togas were reserved for the emperor, because purple dye was incredibly expensive. It had to be imported from Phoenicia, where they made the dye from mollusks. To make enough dye for one toga, they had to crush 10,000 mollusks, so a purple toga was literally worth its weight in gold.

9Women Were Forbidden From Crying At Funerals

A Roman funeral started with a procession, where people would walk your body down the street, weeping as they went. The more people you had weeping, the more popular people figured you were. So, to impress their neighbors, some people hired professionals to pretend to cry.

Women who didn’t even know the deceased would be paid to walk in the procession, literally ripping out their hair and scratching their own faces in make-believe sorrow as they went. It got so bad that they had to outlaw crying at Roman funerals, just to keep people from hiring actors.

8Fathers Could Murder Their Daughter’s Lovers

If a man caught his wife having an affair, he was encouraged to lock his wife and her lover up and call every neighbor he could to come see. He had 20 hours to call as many neighbors as he could and invite them to check out the guy his wife has been sleeping with.

He then had three days to make a public declaration describing where he found his wife, who was having sex with her, and any extra juicy details he could supply. He was also legally required to divorce his wife, or else he would be charged with pimping.

He could murder his wife’s lover if he was a slave or a prostitute. If it was a citizen, though, he would have to talk to his father-in-law. Fathers, in Rome, could legally murder their daughter’s lovers no matter how nice of a toga they wore.

If a woman caught her husband having an affair, pretty much the only thing she could legally do was cry about it. As long as there weren’t any funerals going on nearby.

7The Ultimate Punishment Was Drowning In A Sack Filled With Animals

If you did something sort of bad, you’d get away with a simple beheading. If it was really bad, they’d take you up to the roof of the prison and throw you off. And if you killed your own father, you were sentenced to something truly horrible.

If someone was found guilty of patricide, they were blindfolded and told that they were unworthy of light. They would then be taken to a field outside of the town, stripped naked, and beaten with rods. When you couldn’t take anymore, then put you in a sack, throw in one serpent, one dog, one ape, and one rooster, and you and your whole menagerie would all be sewn in there together and thrown into the sea.

6Prostitutes Were Required To Dye Their Hair Blonde

Roman ladies all had naturally black hair. Natural blondes, in Roman time, were barbarians, especially the Gauls. Since the prostitutes couldn’t be associated with the dignity of a proper Roman woman, they had to make themselves look like barbarians, so they made them dye their hair.

It didn’t totally work, though. Roman women were jealous of all these blonde barbarians. Some started dying their hair blonde, while others forcibly chopped the hair off of slaves to make them into wigs, and, once again, the high-class ladies were indistinguishable from prostitutes.

5Suicidal People Could Apply To The Senate For Permission

In some circumstances, committing suicide was just considered prudent thinking. Kings typically kept poison on hand in case things turned bad, and sick people would be encouraged to drink hemlock to put an end to their suffering.

The only people who couldn’t commit suicide were soldiers, slaves, and prisoners, and this was just for economic reasons. Soldiers were useful and couldn’t be allowed to quit. Criminals couldn’t be allowed to die before they were convicted because if they did, the state couldn’t seize their property. And if a slave committed suicide, the owner was often entitled to a full refund.

In one area, they even had a formalized system to request suicide. A depressed person could file a petition to the senate requesting death, and if the senate agreed they really were better off dead, they received a free bottle of poison.

4People Killed By Thunderbolts Couldn’t Be Buried

Lightning strikes, the Romans believed, were acts of god performed by Jupiter. If something got hit by a lightning bolt, it wasn’t bad luck. Jupiter just really hated it. Whether it was a tree or a person, Jupiter had decided it was time for it to go.

If it was your friend who got hit, you were legally forbidden to lift the body above the knees, and you definitely couldn’t bury his body. If you did, you’d stolen a sacrifice from Jupiter.

They let people make up for it, though. If you buried someone who got hit by a lightning bolt, the Romans would sacrifice you to Jupiter instead.

3Fathers Could Only Sell Their Sons Into Slavery Three Times

Fathers in Rome had the legal right to temporarily sell their kids. An agreement would be made between the father and a buyer, and the son would become the buyer’s possession. The buyer, as part of the bargain, was expected to bring the kid back home.

Anyone who sold their child into slavery three times, though, was considered an unfit father. Their child would have to finish his third session as a slave because a deal is a deal, but afterward, he would be legally emancipated from his parents.

The limit, though, was three sales into slavery per child. So if you’d already sold your eldest twice, you could always move on to the next kid.

2Women Had To Leave Home Three Days Each Year Or Become Property

Romans had a set rules they called “usuacpio,” which were laws on how long you had to possess something before it became your property. If you held onto anything long enough, it could become legally yours, including people.

Wives, legally, became their husbands’ property if they stayed in his house for one straight year. But if she really wanted her freedom, she could have it—as long as she left her house for three continuous days each year. So, every year in Rome, women would leave their homes and hide somewhere else for a few days, or else become possessions.

1Fathers Could Legally Murder Their Whole Families

In the early days of Rome, there was no limit to what a father could do to his family. He could dole out any degree of abuse he could imagine. That didn’t just mean he was allowed spanking: If his children misbehaved, he could straight up murder them.

Fathers held on to those rights even after their kids grew up. Daughters still had to fear their fathers after marriage, and his sons only earned independence when their fathers died.

In time, Rome relaxed these laws a little bit. The right to murder family members ended in the first century BC, although, even then, they kept a few exceptions. Now, the law said, fathers could only murder their sons if they’ve been convicted of a crime.

Ancient Rome wasn’t known for its enlightened attitude toward women. They were expected to be homemakers and to stay out of public life. Yet some women did manage to gain political power behind the scenes—even if they had to be ruthless to keep it.

10Messalina

Messalina is best remembered for accusations about her wild sexual escapades, which Roman writers tended to throw at anyone they didn’t like. Pliny the Elder even claimed that she had sex with 25 men in a row to win a contest with Rome’s most famous prostitute.

This hostility probably came from the fact that Messalina was the most powerful woman in Roman history up to that point. Her husband was Claudius, who became emperor mostly because his ambitious relatives considered him a drooling idiot and never bothered having him murdered. When Caligula was assassinated, Claudius was found hiding behind a curtain and took the throne as the last man standing.

Messalina dominated her meek husband and soon controlled his administration. Anyone who opposed her risked being arrested on false charges. She even persuaded Claudius to execute her stepfather by saying she’d dreamed he was plotting against the emperor.

But she went too far in AD 48, when she married another man. It was probably a coup attempt, with Messalina and her new husband planning to replace Claudius entirely. Unfortunately, Rome’s bureaucrats preferred the easily manipulated Claudius and persuaded him to put the conspirators to death. They prevented Messalina from seeing Claudius before her execution, fearing she would be able to talk him out of it.

9Agrippina

After Messalina’s death, Claudius rewrote Rome’s incest laws and married his niece, Agrippina, a hardened veteran of imperial intrigue. (Her sister had been starved to death on Messalina’s orders.) As before, Claudius was easily pushed around by his new wife, who quickly took control of the empire. Agrippina even signed government documents and officially dealt with foreign ambassadors.

Agrippina had a son, Nero, from a previous marriage, and she was determined to make him emperor. She talked Claudius into adopting Nero and favoring him over his biological son, Britannicus. Anyone who opposed Nero was systematically eliminated.

After Claudius granted Nero equal imperial power, Agrippina decided that she no longer needed Claudius and served him a tasty dish of poisonous mushrooms. Lucky to the end, Claudius suffered a massive bout of diarrhea, which saved him from the poison. But Agrippina’s allies were everywhere, and Claudius’s doctor pushed more poison down his throat with a feather. Nero became emperor, and Agrippina’s triumph was complete.

8Poppaea Sabina

After Nero became emperor, Agrippina continued to exert influence behind the scenes. However, she met her match in her son’s lover, Poppaea Sabina.

Poppaea wanted Nero to marry her, but he was already married to Octavia, daughter of Claudius and Messalina. Agrippina had worked hard to secure the match (even framing Octavia’s first fiance for treason) and refused to allow her son to get divorced. Meanwhile, Poppaea (whose mother had been forced into suicide by Messalina) hated Octavia and demanded that Nero stand up to his mother.

Trapped between the women in his life, Nero chose Poppaea and gave his mother a boat designed to collapse and kill her. But Agrippina survived and swam to safety. Worse, she knew it was an assassination attempt because she had seen the crew of a “rescue” ship clubbing survivors to death with their oars. In a panic, Nero gave up on making it look like an accident and had his mother hacked to death. She supposedly went out bravely, telling the her son’s henchmen to strike the first blow at her womb.

7Julia Domna

After a male-dominated century, powerful women made a major comeback in Rome during the Severan dynasty, which was arguably a dynasty of women. The trend started with Julia Domna, wife and trusted adviser to Emperor Septimius Severus.

Domna really came into her own following Septimius’s death in AD 211, when he was succeeded by their sons, Caracalla and Geta. Domna played a dominant role in their administration and officially ran the empire while Caracalla was on campaign.

Although Domna was an excellent administrator, she was unable to prevent tragedy from stalking her family. First, Caracalla killed Geta in a fit of rage. Then, Caracalla was murdered by the prefect Macrinus. This was too much for Domna, who chose to commit suicide after hearing the news.

6Julia Soaemias

After murdering Caracalla, Macrinus seized power and declared himself emperor. But he underestimated the Severan women. Julia Maesa (Domna’s sister) and her daughter, Julia Soaemias, were determined to get revenge on Macrinus and restore their family to power.

In a campaign of furious intrigue, Soaemias and Maesa persuaded the legions of the East to support Soaemias’s son, Elagabalus. Since Elagabalus wasn’t actually a blood relation of Septimius Severus, they started a rumor that he was Caracalla’s illegitimate son by incest, which somehow worked in their favor.

Macrinus raced to put down the rebellion, but he was defeated and executed outside Antioch. Elagabalus became emperor, but the 14-year-old was uninterested in governing. Maesa and Soaemias were the real rulers of Rome during his reign.

5Julia Maesa

While Soaemias helped rule the empire, Elagabalus was allowed to indulge his every whim and soon developed a reputation for wild debauchery. He supposedly prostituted himself in the imperial palace and married a charioteer named Hierocles. Cassius Dio claimed that he offered a fortune to any surgeon who could give him a vagina.

On another occasion, he fell for an athlete named Zoticus, who supposedly had a huge penis. The jealous Hierocles spiked his rival’s drink, and “after a whole night of embarrassment, being unable to secure an erection, he was driven out of the palace, out of Rome, and later out of the rest of Italy.”

Whether these stories are true is debatable, but it’s clear that Elagabalus quickly alienated most of Rome, and his mother was unwilling to rein him in. His grandmother, Maesa, eventually stepped in and staged a coup, deposing Elagabalus in favor of his cousin Alexander, the second emperor she’d put on the throne. In a shocking show of ruthlessness, Maesa had her daughter and grandson executed to secure Alexander’s power base.

4Julia Mamaea

Maesa died shortly after putting Alexander on the throne. She was succeeded by her daughter, Julia Mamaea, Alexander’s mother and the last of the dynasty of women who effectively ruled Rome. Historians agree that Mamaea “totally dominated” her young son and ran the empire with the help of a council of senators.

She even joined the army on military campaigns, which was unheard-of for a woman. Unfortunately, the wars went badly, and the legions eventually mutinied. Soldiers murdered Alexander and Mamaea as they clung together in their tent, ending the Severan dynasty.

3Ulpia Severina

Ulpia Severina was the wife of Emperor Aurelian, a renowned general who was murdered by his own soldiers in AD 275. Other than that, almost nothing is known about her. We’re only aware of her existence from monuments and coins, which suggest that she ruled for a brief period after Aurelian’s death.

During Aurelian’s reign, Roman mints issued some coins in his name and some coins in Severina’s name. (This was standard practice.) However, coins from the time of Aurelian’s death only appear to have been issued in Severina’s name. The coins also bear images consistent with Severina trying to shore up her power.

Ancient sources mention a gap between Aurelian’s death and Tacitus taking the throne, and some historians speculate that Severina ruled during this period, only to be erased from history after Tacitus took charge. However, her coins were already in circulation and couldn’t be erased. Severina may have been the first woman to rule the Roman Empire in her own right.

2Aelia Pulcheria

Aelia Pulcheria was a childhood prodigy who declared herself regent for her brother when she was 15—only two years older than her brother. She kept a tight grip on power for the next four decades. To shore up her position, she took a vow of perpetual chastity and cultivated a religious reputation.

However, Pulcheria ran into problems when her brother died in 450. Although she had long been the true power in the Eastern Roman Empire, it was unheard-of for a woman to rule alone. The easiest solution was for Pulcheria to get married, but she refused to violate her vow of chastity. In an unusual move, she eventually did marry a senator named Marcian, who became her co-emperor after he publicly agreed that they would never have sex.

1Galla Placidia

The daughter of Emperor Theodosius, Galla Placidia lived during the dying days of the Western empire. As a young woman, she proved her toughness by confirming a death sentence for the woman who had raised her. A few years later, the Visigoths sacked Rome and kidnapped Placidia. They intended to ransom her to her brother, Emperor Honorius, but he declined to pay, and the Visigoths dragged Placidia around Europe for the next six years.

In 414, Placidia married the young Visigoth king Athaulf. They were supposedly genuinely in love, but Athaulf was murdered within the year. Placidia returned to Rome, where she married Emperor Constantius. After Constantius died, a usurper tried to steal the throne from the couple’s infant son. Placidia fled to Constantinople, where she persuaded her niece, Pulcheria, to give her an army.

Returning to Rome, Placidia made her son emperor and ruled as regent for the next 14 years.

In ancient Rome, the general rule was that slaves could be freely tortured. In fact, it was highly recommended that any free man accused of a crime would have his slaves tortured in his place, often to the death, so that a verdict could be reached. That didn’t stop Rome’s elite from torturing the free men and women of their country, though. There were always loopholes in the laws of ancient Rome, and the elite rulers exploited each and every one of them.

10 Sewn Into a Donkey

If you’re looking for cruel and unusual forms of torture, you don’t have to look any further than ancient Rome. Take, for instance, a torture that was described by both Apuleius (The Golden Ass) and Lucian (Lucius, or the Ass):

A donkey would be killed, its belly sliced open, and the entrails removed. The accused was then stripped of clothing and stuffed into the animal’s belly. The belly was stitched closed, leaving only the accused’s head outside, preventing suffocation but prolonging suffering.

The donkey’s body was kept in the sun. It would begin to decompose—with the living victim inside being cooked by the heat. Maggots would crawl all over the accused, and vultures would peck at the animal’s decaying flesh. Death, while welcomed, came slowly for the victim of this torture.

9 Fed to Wild Hogs

Saint Gregory described a heinous torture that was performed on young women by the people of Heliopolis while under Roman rule:

Any virgin who was to undergo this torture was first given to the gladiators. After the young woman was no longer a virgin, she was publicly stripped, and her belly was sliced open, spilling her innards out. Handfuls of barley were stuffed into her, and she was sewn back up—only to be given to wild hogs. She would then be torn apart.

8 Cut Off

In ancient Rome, the higher your status, the more people you were allowed to bone without consequence. For example, the emperor would get it on with anyone he wanted. A general could make a move on a lieutenant or a common citizen, and soldiers could go after common citizens.

Climbing up the social ladder was forbidden. If a common citizen decided to penetrate an unwilling soldier, the punishment was public castration. If the soldier willingly allowed the common citizen to penetrate him, he would be publicly disemboweled.

These rules, coupled with true love between men, really muddied up the waters. It was easy for anyone to accuse a man of breaking rank or willingly giving in to penetration by a man of lesser status.

7 Poena Culle

The Romans also ushered in the use of the poena cullei, meaning Penalty of the Sack. The criminal was sewn up in a basic leather sack—and drowned, with death being the ultimate goal. The general consensus is poena cullei first appeared in Titus Livy’s History of Rome. In it, Livy describes how Marcus Publicius Malleolus was sewn into a sack and thrown out to sea in 101 BC for killing his mother. Livy’s version of events appears tame compared to later versions of the punishment, which included the use of live animals.

According to Emperor Justinian’s laws from AD 530: “This is not execution by the sword or by fire, or any ordinary form of punishment, but the criminal is sewn up in a sack with a dog, a cock, a viper, and an ape, and in this dismal prison is thrown into the sea or a river…” Luckily, the ancient Romans reserved this rarely given punishment for parricide—killing a parent or other close relative.

6 Tortured Senator

Emperor Caligula was just as cruel as old Tiberius. At one point, he had a senator slit open. The senator survived, and Caligula ordered that his eyes be removed. After that, hot pincers were used to take out his internal organs. To add to the degradation, the senator was cut in half and torn to pieces.

According to Roman belief, death was not a punishment, but a release. The torture was punishment, and death was only allowed after a certain amount of pain and terror had been felt.

5 Nailed Into Barrels

Some people were meant to suffer longer than others before the sweet release of death. Under Emperor Domitian, Christians were tortured in the most horrific ways.

One of the most disgusting tortures performed involved smearing a Christian in honey and milk. The victim was then nailed into a barrel and force-fed parasite-ridden food. The parasites feasted on the insides the of victim, whose body began to rot inside the barrel. After about two weeks of this torture, the victim would finally die and become a martyr for the Christian religion.

4 Buried Alive

Emperor Nero took delight in having people buried alive. He almost exclusively saved this punishment for vestal virgins who broke their vows of chastity. In one account, Nero forced himself on the priestess Rubria. For her punishment, she was entombed inside a small cave and left to starve to death.

Another torture supported by Nero involved the accused digging his own grave. After it was dug, a stake was set inside the grave. The accused was then bound and pushed into the grave. If his crime were minor, he would be pushed so that the stake pierced through his heart. Anyone convicted of a heinous crime was pushed so that the stake mortally wounded him. He was then left to die in excruciating pain or was buried alive.

3 Eaten Through the Middle

Executioners often used animals to carry out their barbarity, as was the case with the cauldron torture. For this particular cruelty, a starved animal, such as a rat, a dog, or a cat, was placed inside a small cauldron. The opening of the cauldron was then fastened to the belly of the accused.

The executioner would hold a flame to the back of the cauldron, making the inside extremely hot. The animal would panic and try to escape. The only soft “ground” for it to dig its way out was through the belly of the accused.

2 Bee Basket

One bizarre form of torture involved stripping a person down and stuffing him into a large, loosely woven basket. The basket was then hoisted up into a tree containing a large, active beehive. The bees were quickly angered, and the person inside the basket was then stung to death.

The accused was meant to suffer in agony for as long as possible. However, there were cases where the victim of this torture died relatively quickly due to being allergic to bee stings.

1 Crucifixion

Ancient Romans loved a good crucifixion. It was at one time the primary method used to tortured and kill countless numbers of slaves.

Crucifixion didn’t always involve nailing the accused to a cross. Sometimes, the accused was stripped, his head was covered, and he was tied down onto a cross or fork. He was then flogged, sometimes until he died.

If the accused was not supposed to die by continuous flogging, the next course of action involved nailing his hands to the cross beam. He was then hoisted onto a planted post, and his feet were nailed to the post. He might be left there to die a slow death, or his thighs might be broken to help speed his end.

In some cases, the accused might be hung upside down on the post. Other times, the executioner had the post driven through the accused’s private parts. The methods used differed from executioner to executioner, with no one set method of crucifixion for all.

Elizabeth spends most of her time surrounded by dusty, smelly, old books in a room she refers to as her personal nirvana. She’s been writing about strange “stuff” since 1997 and enjoys traveling to historical places.

Roman civilization grew by destroying hundreds of others. In this process, many brave men and women challenged the almighty Roman army in the name of freedom, and even the Romans expressed their admiration for their deeds and courage. Today, many of these names are still considered a symbol of independence, determination, and national pride.

10 Pyrrhus Of Epirus

In 280 BC, as Rome was conquering Southern Italy, the Greek city of Taras (modern-day Taranto) called for the aid of Pyrrhus (c. 319–272 BC), a Greek commander and king of the city of Epirus in present-day Northwest Greece.

Pyrrhus answered Taras’s call and crossed the Adriatic with his army. His military talent defeated the Romans in two battles. In doing so, Pyrrhus paid a high price, exhausting his military resources.

By 275 BC, Pyrrhus understood that it was pointless to carry on the fight against an enemy with access to a seemingly inexhaustible supply of manpower. Pyrrhus returned home, Rome gained control of Southern Italy, and ever since, the expression “Pyrrhic victory” has been used to refer to a successful accomplishment earned at far too high a cost.

9 Hannibal

Polybius (Histories, 3.11) tells us that Hamilcar called his son, Hannibal (247–c. 183 BC), “by the hand and lead him to the altar, where he commanded Hannibal [ . . . ] to swear that he would never be a friend of the Romans.” Hamilcar was a Carthaginian commander who fought during the First Punic War. Although the Carthaginians lost that war, they were determined to rebuild their empire.

Hannibal led Carthage’s vengeance against Rome during the Second Punic War. From Carthago Nova (present-day Cartagena), he marched with his army, famous for having many war elephants, north to the Pyrenees and then crossed the Alps, sweeping everything in his path as he entered into Roman territory. Battle after battle, his legendary military campaign threatened the growing Roman republic, but his defeat at Zama (North Africa) in 202 BC by the Roman general Scipio Africanus brought Hannibal’s retaliation to an end.

Hannibal returned to Carthage. He went into exile in 195 BC and died around 183 BC. Ancient sources are contradictory about the time and circumstances of his death.

8 Mithridates VI

Mithridates VI (132–63 BC) ruled a small but wealthy realm on the Black Sea in present-day Turkey. His father was assassinated, and his own mother posed a threat to his life. He went into exile but returned as a grown man several years later. With the support of many tribes, he reclaimed the crown and murdered many members of his family, who had plotted against him.

Between roughly 115 BC and 95 BC, his kingdom tripled its size. Rome and Mithridates fought a “cold war,” confronting each other indirectly through diplomacy, propaganda, and political conspiracies. In 89 BC, the Roman consul Manius Aquillius went to war against Mithridates. The following year, Mithridates coordinated the murder of about 80,000 Roman men, women, and children in about a dozen Asian cities. The war lasted until 63 BC, when Mithridates lost both it and his life not by the sword, but by the betrayal of his own son, Pharnaces.

7 Jugurtha

As the illegitimate son of Masinissa, the king of Numidia (North Africa), Jugurtha (c. 160–104 BC) had to make his way into the throne. In 118 BC, he decapitated one of the heirs to the crown. The other heir, Adherbal, fled to Rome, where he asked the Senate for help.

Jugurtha played the Roman system by bribing everyone he could and buying as much time as he could. He captured the city of Cirta in 112 BC. In 109 BC, Rome sent an army led by Metellus, a fine commander who was also incorruptible and indifferent to Jugurtha’s gold. The Romans, with the aid of the king of Mauritania, finally defeated and captured Jugurtha after six years of war.

Plutarch (Life of Marius, 12) wrote that Jugurtha was pushed naked into the Tullianum, a pit-like dungeon that had formerly been a water cistern. Some versions say he was strangled; others say he died of starvation.

6 Spartacus

Spartacus (c. 111–71 BC) was a Roman slave of Thracian origin who escaped from a gladiator training camp in 73 BC. He took 78 other slaves with him and profited from the unhealthy inequalities of Roman society by recruiting thousands of other slaves and destitute country folk. Frontinus (Stratagems: 1.5.22) reported that Spartacus’s army would attach dead bodies to stakes outside their camp and equip them with weapons to give the impression that they were more numerous and better organized than they were.

Spartacus’s revolt lasted two years and was crushed by the Roman general Crassus. Plutarch (Life of Crassus, 11) reports that during his last attack, Spartacus launched himself at Crassus and almost killed him: “Through the midst of arms and wounds, he [Spartacus] missed him [Crassus], but killed two centurions who attacked him together.”

Spartacus was killed, but his deeds turned him into a legend. Around 5,000 of his men fled north after the defeat, and over 6,000 were crucified.

5 Vercingetorix

Years of brutality perpetrated by Julius Caesar in Gaul persuaded Vercingetorix (c. 82 BC–46 BC) that the Gallic tribes had to either unite against Rome or die trying. He tried to convince the council of his native town to fight the Romans, but he was expelled. He went to the countryside, raised a force against Gergovia, and took the power.

In 52 BC, Vercingetorix took Cenabun (present-day Orleans), where he massacred many Romans and seized all the provisions. Most Gallic tribes joined him, but they were no match for the highly organized Roman army, so Vercingetorix instructed to always fight the Romans from an advantageous land position. If that wasn’t possible, his army would retreat and burn all the land, leaving nothing behind and depriving the Romans of supplies.

His last stand against Rome was during the siege of Alesia. Vercingetorix came to Caesar asking for mercy, hoping to prevent more Gallic casualties. Some Gallic tribes were allowed to leave, but many soldiers were turned into slaves. Vercingetorix was kept in Rome as a prisoner for six years and finally put to death.

4 Boudicca

Boudicca (c. AD 33–c. 60) was the queen of the Iceni, an eastern Brittonic tribe. When the king died, the Romans tried to seize the kingdom, and the Iceni joined their queen and triggered a rebellion. Some neighboring tribes joined them, and together, they launched an attack against the city of Colchester, where many Romans were massacred.

From there, they marched to London, the heart of Roman commerce in Britain, and burned it to the ground. Cassius Dio (History 62.7) describes the gruesome retribution of Boudicca: Most distinguished women were hung up naked, their breasts cut and sewed to their mouths “in order to make the victims appear to be eating them.”

Boudicca’s rebellion was ended by the Roman general Suetonius in the Battle of Watling Street. Suetonius engaged the rebel force in a narrow field, neutralizing Boudicca’s numerical advantage. Boudicca retired to her homeland, where she finished her life by drinking poison.

3 Shapur I

Shapur I (r. 240–270) was a Sassanid ruler determined to regain the territories that his Persian ancestors had lost, most of which were under Roman control. Shapur captured Syria and its capital Antioch, one of the greatest cities controlled by Rome. The Romans struck back and recaptured some of the lost territories, but they left other battle fronts open.

Emperor Valerian offered terms to Shapur in person, along with his senior officers. Shapur took them all captive, and Sasanian sources claim that Valerian was used as a human mounting block for Shapur to ascend to his horse and then killed. His skin was filled with straw and displayed as a trophy.

Both sides were closely matched, and the result of Shapur’s war against Rome was inconclusive. Shapur died of illness around 270, before Rome could avenge Valerian.

2 Alaric I

In 395, Alaric I (c. 370–410) was named king of the Visigoths, a powerful tribe established in the former Roman province of Dacia (present-day Hungary, Romania, and Slovenia). The Visigoths had been Rome’s allies, but the treatment they got from the Romans made the reconsider their position. Alaric led the Visigoths against Rome, plundering many cities on the way. In 408, they laid siege to the city of Rome itself.

The Romans tried to attack Alaric, and two more sieges followed. During the third siege, someone opened the gates of the city. On August 24, 410, the Visigoths sacked Rome. It was not a violent act; the Visigoths were merely looking for plunder.

Alaric then marched south to Calabria with the intention of invading Africa, the source of the grain supply upon which the Romans depended, but a sudden illness put an end to his life. The course of the Busento River was diverted, and Alaric’s body was buried in the riverbed. The river’s course was restored to protect his resting place.

1 Attila The Hun

When Attila (c. 406–453) became the ruler of the Hunnic people, he doubled the tribute that Rome paid the Huns and imposed several additional conditions that looked more like extortion than a deal. In 447, Attila invaded parts of the eastern empire. Rome bribed one of Attila’s lieutenants to murder his master. The plot failed and upset Attila, who would neither forgive nor forget.

Theodosius died in AD 450, and Attila was informed he would never receive one more penny from Rome. Attila invaded several cities in the western half of the empire. With the support of the Visigoths, Aetius, a Roman general, engaged Attila in the Battle of the Catalunian Plains in 451. Both sides were closely matched: Attila and his force left and marched toward Rome.

Attila’s anticlimactic end came two years later: He was found dead, choked in his own blood after celebrating his wedding.

The Praetorian Guard is one of the most famous military units in history. They were known as elite Roman soldiers, sworn to protect the emperor for hundreds of years. They were feared by the people and even by the emperors themselves, who often went to great lengths to gain the praetorians’ favor.

The Praetorian Guard grew too powerful and, on more than one occasion, exerted its influence in ways that forever changed the history of the Roman Empire—and, indirectly, the world.

10Augustus Founds The Praetorian Guard

Although praetorians are inexorably linked to the Roman Emperor, they existed for centuries before Rome ever became an empire. During the Roman Republic, groups of soldiers known as Praetorian Cohorts were assigned to generals or magistrates called praetors.

During the civil war initiated by Caesar, the number of praetorians grew considerably, and both Augustus and Mark Antony had several cohorts. After Augustus became the first emperor of Rome, he united the cohorts and officially formed the Praetorian Guard. He learned firsthand from Caesar the advantages of having an army loyal to you, personally.

Augustus maintained several cohorts in Rome and dispersed the rest to other Italian cities. While the main goal of the praetorians was to protect the emperor, they also acted as a police force. From this moment on, the Praetorian Guard’s influence increased until it became one of the most powerful bodies within the Roman Empire.

9Assassination Of Pupienus And Balbinus

238, known as the Year of the Six Emperors, was one of the most tumultuous years in the history of the Roman Empire. As the name implies, six different people were recognized as Emperor of Rome within 12 months, and five of them were dead by the end of the year.

It all started with Maximinus Thrax, the soldier who became the first “barracks emperor” in 235 thanks to the support of the army and against the wishes of the Senate. By 238, a governor named Gordian was convinced to take power and proclaim himself emperor. He did, but he made his son, Gordian II, co-emperor. They still had to deal with Thrax, who was now declared public enemy. They failed, and both Gordians died. Afterward, the Senate named two elder statesmen, Pupienus and Balbinus, as the new co-emperors.

In the meantime, riots erupted in Rome, and the people targeted Thrax’s representatives, the Praetorian Guard. They even enlisted the help of gladiators to take on the skilled soldiers and besieged the praetorian barracks. In response, the Praetorian Guard attacked the palace and killed both Pupienus and Balbinus.

Meanwhile, Thrax’s army had enough of his bloody reign, killed him, decapitated him and brought his head to Rome to seek forgiveness. Gordian III was named new emperor.

8The Guard Makes Galba Emperor And Then Murders Him

Modern scholars are debating whether Nero was as horrible a leader as ancient historians portray him. However, it is clear that, toward the end of his reign, Nero lost all support of the Senate, who wanted him replaced with Galba. In 68, Nero also lost the support of the Praetorian Guard, when the leader, Gaius Nymphidius Sabinus, announced his allegiance to Galba.

The praetorians abandoned Nero in exchange for a huge sum of money. According to Plutarch, this money would be impossible to raise without committing “ten thousand times more evils upon the world than those inflicted by Nero.” The men didn’t get their money and, seven months after Galba’s reign began, the praetorians turned on him.

The Praetorian Guard aligned itself with Otho and overthrew Galba. When confronted, the emperor’s retinue switched sides and killed Galba. Historians recorded the name Sempronius Densus, the only praetorian who didn’t betray Galba or run away and who made his last stand against his former brothers-in-arms.

7Macrinus’s Plot Against Caracalla

As the leader of the Praetorian Guard, the office of Praetorian Prefect steadily became one of the most powerful positions in the empire. Still, this didn’t stop some prefects from coveting even more power. In this case, it was the greed of a single praetorian which changed the course of history and almost ended the Severan Dynasty.

Macrinus was the Praetorian Prefect during the reign of Caracalla. However, he saw an opportunity to seize the throne by exploiting and manipulating the emotions of a centurion in Caracalla’s personal retinue. His name was Martialis, and he hated Caracalla for executing his brother and for constantly insulting him in public. According to Herodian, it didn’t take much for Macrinus to convince Martialis to murder Caracalla in exchange for favors and riches.

Soon afterward, Caracalla had to undertake a long journey and took only a small group of soldiers, Martialis among them. When the emperor stopped to relieve himself by the side of the road, the disgruntled centurion walked up to him and stabbed Caracalla to death.

Martialis was chased down and executed. Macrinus, ably playing the part of grieving friend, won the support of the army and declared himself emperor a few days later.

6Two Sets Of Guards Fight Against Each Other

After the aforementioned Otho overthrew Galba, he reigned for just three months before committing suicide. Up next was Vitellius, and one of his first moves as emperor was to disband the Praetorian Guard and have over 100 of them executed for their role in Galba’s murder. He went on to create a new guard with loyal soldiers from his Germanic troops.

Although Vitellius was recognized by the Senate as Roman Emperor, not everyone agreed. Specifically, a large portion of the army declared Vespasian as new emperor. This also included all the former praetorians who now found themselves unemployed. Vespasian’s military soon marched on Rome. The two groups of praetorians fought each other at the Battle of Bedriacum, where Vespasian’s army, led by Marcus Antonius Primus, was victorious.

Once Vitellius’s Praetorian Guards realized defeat was at hand, they looked for ways to abandon the sinking ship. They prevented Vitellius from carrying out a peace agreement. Later, when the emperor tried to flee the city, his guards brought him back to the palace under pretense that the peace treaty had been signed. Instead, he was surrendered to Vespasian’s troops, dragged through the city, and Vitellius became the only emperor in Roman history killed at the place of execution known as the Gemonian Stairs.

5Sejanus’s Rise To Power

Although Augustus established the Praetorian Guard, the unit’s influence grew substantially under his heir, Tiberius, thanks to the machinations of the deceitful Sejanus.

Sejanus was the Praetorian Prefect who became one of the emperor’s closest confidants and purported friends. In fact, when Tiberius retired to Capri in the last decade of his reign, Sejanus became the administrative head of Rome and, consequently, the leader of the empire.

Were it not for Sejanus, the Praetorian Guard’s power would have never reached the heights it did. He passed numerous reforms that favored the guard, including moving them from the outskirts of Rome into the city itself and building the barracks which became the Praetorian Guard headquarters for the next 300 years.

Sejanus’s ultimate goal was the throne. He started by eliminating Tiberius’s rightful heir, his son, Drusus Julius Caesar. Historians of the time such as Tacitus agree that Sejanus seduced Drusus’s wife, Livia, and had him poisoned. Sejanus hoped to marry into the family and get adopted by Tiberius. When the emperor refused, Sejanus began isolating him as much as possible. In 26, Tiberius moved to Capri and never set foot in Rome again.

Sejanus oversaw a purge of all nobles who could challenge his power, including several Julian family members who died suspiciously. His own demise came unexpectedly. Although we are unclear on the exact circumstances, in 31, Tiberius sent a letter to Rome condemning Sejanus of conspiracy, and he was summarily executed.

4Assassination Of Elagabalus

Macrinus might have been able to orchestrate the demise of Caracalla and install himself as emperor, but his reign was short-lived. Caracalla’s aunt, Julia Maesa, managed to produce a rebellion, and Macrinus died at the Battle of Antioch in 218. New Roman emperor became Maesa’s 14-year-old grandson, Elagabalus.

Although not as infamous as Nero or Caligula, Elagabalus’s four-year reign was marked by decadence, sexual and religious scandals that, arguably, topped those of his predecessors. In the end, his actions managed to alienate the Senate, the common people, the Praetorian Guard, and even his own grandmother, Julia Maesa, who helped plot his assassination.

By 222, the guard had had enough of Elagabalus and wanted him replaced with his cousin, Severus Alexander. The emperor tried to plot against Alexander, expecting the help of the Praetorian Guard, but there was no help to be had. Instead, when Elagabalus walked into the praetorian camp, he was executed, decapitated, and his naked body dragged through the city. Along with him, the Praetorian Guard killed his mother, his lover, Hierocles, and everybody else who indulged in the young emperor’s debauchery.

3Praetorian Guard Chooses The Wrong Side

Given the number of times the Praetorian Guard tried to interfere in the administration of the Roman Empire, it was certain that they would eventually bet on the wrong horse. This happened at the start of the fourth century during the civil war between Maxentius, Licinius, and Constantine. The Praetorian Guard was firmly behind Maxentius, who increased its ranks after being initially reduced in numbers (and influence) by Diocletian.

Unfortunately for them, Maxentius’s army was decisively defeated in 312 at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, where Maxentius drowned in the Tiber. Constantine would go on to defeat Licinius and become sole emperor in 324.

Realizing they could not be trusted, Constantine dissolved the Praetorian Guard in 313, marking the end of three centuries of serving the Emperor of Rome (more or less). He made a grand show out of destroying their barracks in Rome and assigned the surviving praetorians to the far reaches of the empire.

2Conspiracy Against Caligula

41 was a busy year for the Praetorian Guard. First, they assassinated Caligula, then they prevented the restoration of the Roman Republic, and, finally, they declared Claudius the new Roman Emperor.

By the end of his reign, Caligula was so despised that several groups of people plotted his demise. After a few failed conspiracies, the plot that ended the emperor’s life was orchestrated by the praetorian Cassius Chaerea and the tribune Cornelius Sabinus, although it was said that many others knew and approved of the plan. According to Suetonius, Caligula was approached in an empty passage by Chaerea, and his men and was stabbed 30 times. Afterward, the praetorian dispatched guards to kill Caligula’s wife and infant daughter.

Cassius’s downfall was overestimating his influence over the Praetorian Guard. His plan was to help the Senate restore the republic, but most of his fellow soldiers preferred imperial rule. When they decided against Chaerea’s plans, they rescued Claudius, the only remaining member of the Julian Dynasty, and took him to safety. After securing praetorian support, Claudius declared himself new emperor, and Chaerea and other conspirators were executed for treason.

1Auction Of The Imperial Title

Without a doubt, the most shameful, abusive act ever carried out by the Praetorian Guard happened in 193 when it auctioned off the Roman Empire to the highest bidder.

This all started when the guards murdered the Roman Emperor Pertinax, who felt that the Praetorian Guard had become too powerful and corrupt and wanted to reform it. Afterward, the emperor’s former father-in-law, Sulpicianus, offered them a large sum of money to grant him the support needed to become the new emperor. Realizing the opportunity they had, the guard opened the auction to public bids. A wealthy senator named Didius Julianus paid the highest bid and became the new Emperor of the Roman Empire.

Unsurprisingly, not everyone reacted well to this blatant abuse of power, and a civil war broke out, known as the Year of the Five Emperors. Julianus lasted less than three months before he was executed.

Ancient Rome holds a mythic place in our imaginations. It’s the land of historical epics like Ben-Hur and Gladiator, where men in golden armor ride chariots and emperors are fed grapes in reclining chairs.

Real life in Rome, though, was quite a bit less glamorous. In a time before modern sanitation and medicine, getting through an average day was a difficult task—and far more disgusting than you could ever imagine.

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Life in ancient Rome was rough, especially for children. Even if they were lucky enough to survive for more than a few years, they had to look forward to a life filled with grueling or dangerous work for little reward. Only a privileged few got to reap the benefits of life to its fullest.

Despite this, people persevered. They went through the motions from newborns struggling to survive, to fully-fledged citizens of the Roman Empire.

10Being Welcomed into the Family

In ancient Rome, the pater familias was the uncontested head of the household. He was granted complete authority both by Roman law and mos maiorum (the collection of unwritten customs and traditions). He was the only member of the family allowed to own land and was expected to represent the family in legal, business, and religious affairs.

Even though pater familias meant “father of the family”, the father did not always occupy that role. The pater familias was the oldest living male, so if the father died, the eldest son would take his place. This is one of the reasons why Romans placed a high value on having sons, and male adoption was a common occurrence.

Any new baby had to be accepted by the pater familias. Traditionally, the midwife placed the newborn at his feet, and only if the pater familias picked it up would the baby become a formal part of the family. The father had the authority to disown and sell his children into slavery should they anger him. He was even allowed to kill them, although records show this was a rare occurrence and was eventually outlawed by Augustus.

9Receiving the Bulla

Due to high infant mortality rates, children were not given a name when they were born. Instead, Romans waited for a week before naming the child during a celebration called the dies lustricus (“day of purification”). Much like a modern birthday, friends and family visited to offer the baby gifts and well-wishes.

Male children also received a bulla at this celebration. The bulla was a pendant meant to ward off evil spirits, as well as signify the boy’s status as a freeborn citizen of Rome. Scholars still debate whether Roman girls also wore a bulla or if they had a different type of amulet called a lunula.

Boys were expected to wear their bullae until they reached adulthood while girls wore their pendants until their wedding day. Typically, a bulla was made out of gold but this would only be available to the wealthy elite of Rome. The lower classes made do with bullae made from affordable materials such as leather, bronze, or tin.

8The Stages of a Child’s Life

A Roman childhood had several clearly defined stages, both from a social and a legal perspective. The first period was known as infantia. It lasted from birth until the age of seven, both for girls and boys. This time was spent mostly at home being looked after by parents, grandparents, guardians, and older siblings. All children who were infantes or infantiae proximus (slightly over the threshold) were considered doli incapax—incapable of guilty intentions in the eyes of the law.

Until the ages of 12 and 14 for girls and boys, respectively, children were impuberes, or pubertati proximus in the cases of those close to reaching the threshold. They were still presumed doli incapax, although legal evidence could be presented that said otherwise. Socially, children started to explore the world at this stage. They would leave the house more often, spend time in the company of strangers, and even begin an education away from home if their parents could afford it.

Girls older than 12 were suitable for marriage. At age 15, boys passed into manhood. They were granted legal privileges and responsibilities, although Roman law still considered them adolescents until the age of 25.

7Getting an Education

As with many societies, education in ancient Rome was mostly available to the rich. Rough estimates placed literacy levels at around 20 percent, although it varied based on time period.

During most of the Roman Republic, education remained an informal practice involving parents passing down knowledge to their children. However, after the conquest of Greece in 146 B.C., the Greek education system started spreading through the empire. Romans started placing more importance on education, and tutors became more accessible as many of them were slaves.

Children typically went to school when they turned seven. Their teacher was called a litterator who taught reading, writing, basic arithmetic, and perhaps some Greek. At age 12 or 13, children who could afford an advanced education would go to a “grammar school”, taught by a grammaticus. Here they moved past the practical knowledge needed for everyday life and began studying arts and poetry. The highest levels of education involved learning rhetoric by studying the works of great orators such as Cicero and Quintilian.

6Playing Around

Children of ancient Rome spent a lot of their free time playing with toys quite similar to ones from modern times. Infants were often entertained with a rattle called a crepitaculum. It was made out of wood or metal and sometimes had bells on it. Besides acting as a toy, it is possible the Romans also used it as a ward similar to the bulla.

Dolls and puppets were the most common toys for girls. These were made out of a wide range of materials such as terracotta, wax, clay, wood, metal, and stone. Some of them even had articulated limbs, while others could be dressed and accessorized with jewelry.

Boys preferred moving toys such as carts or horses with wheels. Wooden swords were also common so they could pretend fight. Hoops, kites, balls, and spinning tops were common toys available for children of all ages.

Board games were popular with young and old alike. They had a variety of games using dice, knucklebones, and stone pieces. Other games included hide-and-seek, leapfrog, and terni lapilli (tic-tac-toe).

5The Family Pet

Like us, the ancient Romans were fond of animals and many households had one or more pets. Cats were common pets, as were various Old World monkeys such as Barbary macaques. It seems that even in ancient times, people were amused by the antics of our simian cousins. Several authors and poets make mention of monkeys and the mischief they caused.

Snakes were also kept as pets, although they were more of a religious symbol and were unlikely to be found in an average household. Many wealthy families preferred to keep birds because they also served as a status symbol: their special dietary needs and upkeep placed them out of the range of a typical Roman family.

Apparently, even in Roman times, dog was man’s best friend. It was, by far, the most popular pet of ancient Rome, featuring in literature, pottery, paintings, and bas-reliefs. Unlike other pets, dogs also served practical functions as hunting companions and watchdogs. As the mosaics in Pompeii showed, more than a few Roman houses came with the inscription “Cave canem”—“beware of dog”.

4Finding a Job

The social status of a boy’s family usually dictated what kind of job he could be eligible for once he became a teenager. The most prestigious positions were in politics, but these were normally reserved for the elite and required an extensive education.

Slightly lower down the totem pole were administrative positions within the empire: tax collectors, notaries, clerks, lawyers, teachers, etc. Again, these jobs were typically available to young men with a strong education, although some of these positions were also available to educated slaves, particularly the Greeks.

The most accessible choice for most Roman freemen was to join the army. As a militaristic empire, Rome was rarely short on wars and always had a need for soldiers. This was also a good way for the lower classes to secure a steady income and even earn land once their 25-year service was over.

As the empire grew, so did the variety of jobs. Soon enough, a Roman adolescent could choose to become a merchant, an artist, an entertainer, or a tradesman. However, these positions were typically passed down from father to son. Alternatively, the family needed a connection in order to secure their child an apprenticeship with a master.

3Getting Married

Male children did not really have to concern themselves with marriage since men typically married in their mid-twenties. Girls, however, married much younger, as early as age 12. Since most girls did not receive the kind of extensive education afforded to boys, there was no point in keeping them around the house after they reached childbearing age.

Girls from wealthy families usually married younger than girls from working class families. Their potential marriage was seen as a rare opportunity to climb the social ladder. Most parents would not want to jeopardize this valuable commodity by letting their daughters get too old or lose their chastity.

Most girls had little say regarding their future husbands. Like most of their life’s decisions, this one was made by the pater familia. He would be on the lookout for prospective husbands and make the necessary arrangements with the boy’s family.

The wedding featured numerous customs which evolved over the centuries, and some are still found today. These include the wearing of white and carrying the bride over the threshold.

2Finding a Place to Live

At its peak, ancient Rome was home to over one million people, a feat that would not be repeated in Europe until Industrial-era London. This forced the government to come up with impressive innovations such as the aqueducts and the Cloaca Maxima sewage system to deal with the ever-growing populations. It also meant that Rome was one of the most crowded places to grow up in.

Two types of residential housing were common in the city. The rich could afford a domus—a large house with multiple rooms, an interior courtyard, and, in some cases, shops that faced outside called tabernae. The ultra rich also had villas outside the hustle and bustle of Rome.

Most of the population, however, was crowded into apartment blocks called insulae. As construction technology improved, so did the height of these buildings. Some insulae could reach eight or nine stories. Third-century records show there were around 44,000 insulae in Rome. It was not uncommon for an entire family to live in just one room.

The floor you lived on was often inversely proportional to your social status. The bottom floor was taken up by tabernae and other places of business. The first couple of stories had more spacious and more expensive apartments. As the floors kept climbing, they not only got more cramped but also more dangerous. Fires were a common occurrence in Rome, and tenants living on the top floors were often trapped in burning buildings. Augustus brought the legal height limit of insulae down to 70 Roman feet (20.7 meters), and Nero lowered it again to 60 Roman feet (17.7 meters) after the Great Fire.

1Becoming a Man

Reaching sexual maturity was an important stage in the life of Roman adolescents. Girls were expected to remain virgins until they got married. They did not have extensive maturation rituals, and their wedding night typically functioned as their rite of passage.

Boys reached sexual maturity when they were 15-16 years old. Besides leaving behind their bulla, they also underwent a wardrobe change—they replaced their “toga praetexta” with the “toga virilis”—the plain white toga worn by adult males.

Romans celebrated the coming of age of young men at the Liberalia, a festival marked by food, wine, song, and dance. In fact, Liberalia was associated with the older, more lavish Bacchanalia dedicated to the god of wine and fertility, Bacchus. After the Senate made efforts to suppress the Bacchanalia, similarities between the two festivals caused them to merge together.

A sixteen-year-old Roman male could pursue sexual relationships before marriage. A man from a wealthy family would likely have sex with a slave, while a commoner would visit a prostitute. Both these kinds of relationships were considered acceptable for men even after marriage. Adultery was typically regarded only between a married man and a Roman wife or unmarried daughter.

Finding the truth in our history is like trying to solve a crime after arriving at the scene 2,000 years too late. We analyze the evidence left behind, we listen to the witnesses, and we make our best guess—but we rarely know for sure what really happened.

There are few better examples of just how murky the truth can get than the Great Fire of Rome. We have a handful of stories and a few half-melted coins still buried in the ashes of old Rome, and we have to pick through them to find the truth.

It’s difficult to know who started the Great Fire of Rome and what fallout ensued. Every group had an interest in this story, and every version of it comes with a political agenda attached. There are a lot of different versions of the story, and no one knows for sure who was telling the truth.

10 Nero Started The Fire

According to Roman historian Cassius Dio, Nero had always wanted to see Rome burn. He claimed that Nero would say that a king who sees his country and throne destroyed together would be “wonderfully fortunate.”

“He secretly sent out men who pretended to be drunk,” Dio says, “and caused them at first to set fire to one or two or even several buildings.” The fire spread faster than anyone could deal with, and the people broke into a panic. “Here men while assisting their neighbors would learn that their own premises were afire; then others, before reached them that their own houses had caught fire, would be told that they were destroyed.”

Most of the early Roman historians agree with Dio. Pliny the Elder, who experienced the fire firsthand, called it “Emperor Nero’s conflagration,” and an unknown playwright, sometimes thought to be Nero’s advisor Seneca, wrote a play about Nero’s life, which depicts Nero promising that “the city’s buildings must fall to flames set by me.”

Suetonius, another Roman historian, takes it even further. He says that Nero didn’t even bother hiding that he was behind it. Nero just gave the excuse that he didn’t like “the ugliness of the old buildings” and openly burned the city down. He even brought out siege weapons, Suetonius says, and smashed down any buildings that wouldn’t burn.

9 It Was An Accident

“It seems unlikely that Nero would have started the great fire,” says historian Eric Varner. After all, “It destroyed his palace.”

The Roman historian Tacitus seems to have agreed. He claims that the fire started in a shop. “It had its beginning in that part of the circus which adjoins the Palatine and Caelian hills, where, amid the shops containing inflammable wares, the conflagration both broke out and instantly became so fierce and so rapid from the wind that it seized in its grasp the entire length of the circus.” From there, the fire got worse, spread on by a poorly designed city.

Some modern historians agree with Tacitus. One, Henry Hurst, claims that “as many as 100 minor fires broke out in Rome every day,” making it no stretch of the imagination to conceive that one of those fires might have gotten out of control.

This theory, though, starts with Tacitus—and he makes it clear that he isn’t fully convinced, himself. Whether the fire was “accidental or treacherously contrived by the emperor,” Hurst concludes, “is uncertain.”

8 Christian Extremists Started The Fire

When the fire was over, Emperor Nero blamed the Christians. Most people believe that he was just using them as a scapegoat, but one historian, Gerhard Baudy, thinks Nero might have been telling the truth.

Before the fire, Baudy claims, Christians were passing around pamphlets promising that Rome would be reduced to ashes. “That is the constant theme: Rome must burn,” Baudy says. “This was the long-desired objective of all people who felt subjugated by Rome.”

Baudy can’t prove that pamphlets promising to burn Rome existed, but he thinks the idea fits the trend. He argues that there are Biblical verses, especially in Revelations, condemning Rome and promising destruction through fire, which show that this was a common theme in early Christian writing. He believes that a forgotten Christian prophet promised that July 19 would be the “day of the Lord,” timed to fit an ancient Egyptian prophecy that Rome would fall when the star Sirius rose into the sky—which happened on the day the fire started.

Baudy believes that the Christians knew the prophecy and started the fire, determined to make sure it came true.

7 It Was A Controlled Fire Meant To Build A New City

Archaeologist Andrea Carandini writes off every attempt to take the blame off Nero as historical revisionism. He says, “This rehabilitation—this process of a small group of historians trying to transform aristocrats into gentlemen—seems quite stupid to me.”

Carandini sides with a rumor that Tacitus mentions was going around Rome at the time: “Nero was aiming at the glory of founding a new city and calling it by his name.” He points to the sheer level of destruction, believing Nero was burning the homes of the wealthy. “All these houses were destroyed, so the aristocracy didn’t have a proper place to live,” Carandini argues. “It’s the end, in a way, of the power of aristocracy in Rome.”

Nero is the one who benefited from it. “How could he build the Domus Aurea without the fire?” Carandini asks. “Whether or not he started the fire, he certainly profited from it.”

6 Nero Played The Lyre While Rome Burned

One of the most popular stories about the fire is that while Rome burned, Nero simply played his lyre and sang. Cassius Dio gives the most detailed version of the story. While the city burned, he says, “Nero ascended to the roof of the palace, from which there was the best general view of the greater part of the conflagration, and assuming the lyre-player’s garb, he sang the ‘Capture of Troy,’ as he styled the song himself, though to the enemies of the spectators it was the Capture of Rome.”

Suetonius backs him up, although he changes a few little details. He puts Nero on a tower on a different hill, and he has him singing the “Sack of Ilium” instead.

Enough modern historians have disputed the lyre story that it tends to show up in articles about historical misconceptions, but the account shows up in every single early version of the story of the fire. That doesn’t necessarily prove it really happened—but it means that a lot of Romans were willing to believe it did.

5 Nero Was Out Of Town And Sent A Relief Party

According to Tacitus, however, Nero couldn’t have played the lyre. He wasn’t even in Rome when the fire happened. He was at Antium, Tacitus claims, and rushed to Rome as soon as he heard. By the time he’d made it, though, his palace—the place where Dio claims he played the lyre—had already been destroyed.

Afterward, Nero set up a relief effort. “To relieve the people, driven out homeless as they were, he threw open to them the Campus Martius and the public buildings of Agrippa, and even his own gardens, and raised temporary structures to receive the destitute multitude,” Tacitus claims. “Supplies of food were brought up from Ostia and the neighboring towns, and the price of corn was reduced to three sesterces a peck.”

All his efforts to help his people, though, didn’t win him anyone’s love. According to Tacitus, the rumor that Nero had been playing the lyre while Rome burned had already spread. By the time he’d arrived, the people had already turned against him.

4 Nero’s Relief Party Just Started More Fires

Cassius Dio doesn’t agree that Nero was so helpful. Nero sent out relief parties, he says, but they didn’t help anybody. They just made the fire worse.

“Many [houses] were set on fire by the same men who came to lend assistance,” Dio claims. Nero’s men, he claims, ran through the town, setting buildings on fire. “The soldiers, including the night watch, having an eye to plunder, instead of putting out fires, kindled new ones.”

Tacitus actually backs up Dio’s claim that people were making the fires worse, but he isn’t as sure that Nero sent them. “No one dared to stop the mischief, because of incessant menaces from a number of persons who forbade the extinguishing of the flames,” he claims. Tacitus isn’t sure who sent them, but these men, he says, “kept shouting that there was one who gave them authority, either seeking to plunder more freely, or obeying orders.”

3 Nero Blamed It On The Christians

When the fire was over, Tacitus claims, Nero needed a scapegoat. Everyone was blaming the fire on him, and to deflect it, “Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace.”

This, Tacitus says, was the beginning of the persecution of Christianity. “An arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty,” he says. “Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.”

Other Romans talk about the persecution of Christians, although they don’t specifically connect it to the fire like Tacitus does. Suetonius praises Nero for torturing them, writing, “Punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition.”

Also, a letter still exists, written by Pliny the Younger to the Roman emperor Trajan, asking how he should deal with Christians. Should he punish every Christian, he asks, “even without offenses” or “only the offenses associated with the name?”

2 Christians Were Never Persecuted By Nero

Some modern historians, though, don’t believe that any of that really happened. One, Gordon Stein, thinks that Tacitus didn’t actually write the part about Christians being used as scapegoats. He believes it was added by later Christian writers.

“The term ‘Christian’ was not in common use in the first century,” Stein claims. The word choice in this passage, Stein believes, is out-of-character for both Tacitus and the time he was alive. “Tacitus does not use the name Jesus, and writes as if the reader would know the name Pontius Pilate, two things which show that Tacitus was not working from official records or writing for non-Christian audiences.”

Instead, Stein claims it was pulled from another source. “It is present almost word-for-word in the Chronicle of Sulpicius Severus (died in 403 A.D.), where it is mixed in with obviously false tales.” Stein thinks that this passage was added hundreds of years after the Great Fire. “Copyists working in the Dark Ages,” he claims, “copied the passage from Sulpicius into the manuscript of Tacitus.”

1 The Truth Is Unknowable

The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus wrote a short history of Nero, but he didn’t even touch on the Great Fire of Rome. “I omit any further discourse about these affairs,” Josephus wrote. The life of Nero, he felt, was too murky to be worth stepping into.

“There have been a great many who have composed the history of Nero,” he wrote, “some of which have departed from the truth of facts out of favour, as having received benefits from him; while others, out of hatred to him, and the great ill-will which they bare him, have so impudently raved against him with their lies.”

The history of Nero, Josephus seems to believe, is so full of bias and lies that it’s impossible to tell the truth, and it’s no longer worth writing about. “These that have no regard for truth,” Josephus says, “they may write as they please.”

Every empire falls. There’s no way to stop it. The only we thing can control is how it happens—whether it’ll be a quiet, dignified passing of a torch or the flaming destruction of a nation torn down by barbarians.

SEE ALSO: 10 Truly Disgusting Facts About Ancient Roman Life

That’s more or less what happened to Rome, and the aftermath was pure chaos. The fall of their empire sent the European world spiraling into a dark age that took centuries to escape.

If we take them time to learn from their history, we’ll see some eerie parallels with our own. And if history really does repeat itself, we’ll get a pretty good idea of what’s to come next.

10 Oversea Slave Laborers Won’t Make Your Goods Forever

At its peak, money was rushing into the Roman Empire. The emperors and the government were basking in an absolute avalanche of wealth that helped them control the better part of the known world. But just because the nations had money didn’t mean the Roman people were getting rich.

Instead of hiring their own people, the Romans got foreign slaves to do most of their work. A massive part of their production was being done by foreign slaves, which left the actual citizens with nothing to do. A lot of Romans were unemployed, relying on government subsidies and handouts just to survive.^[1]

Modern companies can’t get away with literally hiring slaves these days, but they can come pretty close. Like Rome, the modern Western countries outsource the vast majority of the things they buy to sweatshops that sometimes pay as little as 64 cents an hour.

Approximately 60 percent of the things Americans buy are made overseas, but it’s not just the US that does this. China currently makes about 50 percent of the world’s clothes and 70 percent of its mobile phones.

The real lesson from Rome, though, is what might happen next—because Rome’s setup didn’t last forever. The slaves started to demand more and revolted. Meanwhile, the people of Rome, influenced by Christian morality, started feeling bad about using slaves.

Their labor system started to collapse. Since slave labor was the backbone of their entire economy, everything else went down with it.

9 Obesity Epidemics Don’t Get A Lot Of Sympathy

The average Roman probably wasn’t obese. A lot of Roman civilians struggled just to get food, but the emperors were a different story.

The rich of Rome spent so much time having feasts and orgies that it actually became common practice to throw up mid-meal to keep it going. After watching Emperor Nero and his friends have a feast, the philosopher Seneca wrote that the wealthy of Rome “vomit that they may eat; and eat that they may vomit.”

But it wasn’t just Nero. Julius Caesar once escaped an assassination attempt because he’d stepped out to vomit up his meal. Emperor Vitellius had a reputation for starting the day by belching his breakfast in the faces of his soldiers.^[2]

In the modern world, poor people in wealthy countries usually become obese—especially in the American South. In some states, type 2 diabetes rates are twice as high as they were 20 years ago. In fact, one-third of the population is obese now.

The real lesson from Rome, though, is that having too much turns people against you. The reason these stories about lascivious Roman emperors have been passed on for so long is because their people wanted to make them look bad. One group of people was gorging themselves while another starved. All that was won by the wealthy was resentment, wars, and a lot of health problems.

8 The Nouveau Riche Never Remember Where They Came From

When Rome was a republic, one of its biggest internal problems was the fight between the patricians and the plebeians. The patricians were aristocrats who got their status by birth, while the plebeians were the common people who had no way of making a better life at the time.

Like our modern societies, the plebeians fought for the right to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. They won equal rights, got the opportunity to play a role in Roman politics, and had the chance to make it rich. They helped each other get wealthy, voted their fellow plebeians into power, and then sat back and waited for their friends to make a new utopia of equality.

It didn’t pan out. The newly rich plebeians didn’t do much to help out their old friends.^[3] They just splurged with all their money and enjoyed life as rich people. The plebeians didn’t realize that right away, though.

For a while, things were actually better and they thought their new government was working. But it turned out to be an economic boom brought on by a war. When the nation dipped back into a recession, they were poorer than ever.

The poor stayed poor, the rich stayed rich, and the rare few who broke the mold didn’t do a thing to help out their fellow man.

7 People Who Are In Debt Can Be Controlled

After Rome was sacked by the Gauls, the republic had to funnel a fortune into defense. Taxes went up, the poor went bankrupt, and the people of Rome were soon overwhelmed with so much debt that they couldn’t see any way out of it.

It’s something that ought to sound familiar to a lot of us. For example, the average American leaves college with more than $37,000 in debt from student loans alone, and that’s not even the worse case. In Australia, Switzerland, Norway, the Netherlands, and Denmark, the average person’s debt is more than twice their annual income. In fact, the average Australian owes $250,000.^[4]

Like a lot of us today, the plebeians of Rome lobbied their government for debt forgiveness. And the government listened. Now that the lower classes were politically equal, the politicians started pandering to them. Populist leaders promised “bread and circuses”—in other words, entertainment, food, and debt relief.

The plebeians were so desperate to feed their families that they didn’t care what a politician did as long as he canceled their debt. So they started voting for populist leaders like Julius Caesar and Caesar Augustus. Since the bread and circuses kept coming, the plebeians didn’t get too worried when the elections stopped.

6 Printing Money Isn’t A Good Way To Save The Economy

A Chinese official once warned the US that its national debt was getting out of control. America, the official complained, was selling too many Treasury bonds. It was increasing the national debt in a way that could collapse the entire economy. America wasn’t just selling bonds. In the official’s words, the country was “printing money.”^[5]

That’s a move that ruined Rome. As the empire got bigger and its expenses got higher, Emperor Nero came up with the bright idea of using less silver in Roman coins. That way, he could print more money. And if Nero could print more money, he figured that he would have enough to make that Scrooge McDuck money pool he’d been dreaming of.

The idea didn’t ruin everything overnight. But Nero’s successors copied him, and of course, inflation went wild. Over the next 200 years, the price of wheat increased 200-fold and Roman coins became almost completely worthless.

Whether America is really “printing money” is up for debate. But they’re definitely putting off money problems for later. Despite having the highest GDP in the world, the US also has the highest debt in the world. They owe a staggering $18 trillion dollars, a lot of which comes from Treasury bonds.

The country in second place for “most debt” is the European Union. That’s right—the entire European Union, which is 28 countries combined, has less debt than the United States has on its own.

5 Don’t Underestimate The Barbarians

Rome managed to stand its ground against massive empires. The Romans fought against Greece and Egypt and won. The greatest and most advanced societies fell at their feet, but Rome still got crushed—by barbarians.

Everything started to go wrong when Attila the Hun rampaged through the Western Roman Empire. To the Romans, this was a primitive culture. One Roman wrote that the Huns were “so little advanced in civilization that they [made] no use of fire, nor any kind of relish, in the preparation of their food.” To the Romans, this was like a battle against cavemen.^[6]

It was a little like the modern war on terrorism. On one side was the most advanced and powerful country in the world, and on the other was a group of vicious men who didn’t care if they lived or died.

The Romans lost. Attila demanded half their empire. When they refused, he rampaged through their country, stealing their siege weapons and advanced technology as he went. By the end, the Romans had to meet all his demands. From then on, they were regularly paying the Huns massive tributes just to beg the Huns not to finish Rome off.

4 Definitely Don’t Train The Barbarians In Advanced Warfare

Attila the Hun didn’t make it to Rome, but the Visigoths did. The Visigoth leader Alaric managed to lead a horde of barbarian warriors all the way to the Roman capital, take everything they had, and call himself merciful for letting them keep their lives. The Roman army was powerless to stop the barbarian hordes because, for the most part, the Roman army was the barbarian hordes.

Alaric and the men who sacked Rome were armed and trained by the Romans. Years ago, Rome started hiring Visigoths and Gauls to fill up their legions. Eventually, there were so many barbarians in the Roman army that the Roman people just called their army “the barbarians” to save time.^[7]

During the Soviet-Afghan War, the US Army called Islamic fighters from around the Middle East to come to Afghanistan so the Americans could arm and train these Islamic fighters. Just as Rome trained Alaric and the Visigoths and gave them siege weapons, the US trained Osama bin Laden and the Taliban and gave them Stinger missiles.

Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that it turned out the same way.

3 Big Military Budgets Bankrupt Big Countries

The problem with being the world’s superpower is that it makes you the world’s biggest target. That’s something Rome learned. As they got bigger, their threats got bigger and they had to pour everything they had into the army.

It’s something that America has learned, too. Even though military spending has skyrocketed since September 11, 2001, America isn’t safe. Today, Americans funnel $598.5 billion per year into their military. To put that in perspective, more than one-third of the whole world’s military spending is done by the US.^[8]

The Romans dealt with their ever-growing army by cranking up the taxes. But it didn’t really make things better. With massive taxes weighing down the people, unemployment and poverty ran rampant.

The people started rioting in the streets against the government. For a lot of Romans, it became hard to understand what made living in Rome worth giving up everything to defend it?

2 Watch Out For Rising Eastern Empires

Perhaps the biggest threat wasn’t the people who were trying to burn Rome to the ground. In a way, the most dangerous problem may have been the people who were letting Rome be: Parthia, the Eastern empire than the Romans could never defeat.

Early on, the Romans and the Parthians tried to destroy each other but they couldn’t pull it off.^[9] The two nations were too powerful, and it just wasn’t worth it. So, in the end, they called for a peace treaty and agreed to leave side by side in relative peace.

They entered a weird relationship as trade partners that didn’t trust each other and that tried to beat each other in every deal—a little like the United States and modern China. And that ended up changing everything.

When a peaceful Han Chinese diplomat tried to reach Rome, the Parthians stopped him and turned him away. The diplomat found out that the Parthians had been deliberately keeping the two nations apart so that they could control Roman trade.

If he’d made it through, though, Rome might have had an ally and an insight into the Huns before Attila invaded. And everything could have changed.

1 The Fall Of An Empire Doesn’t Happen Overnight

Rome didn’t collapse in a pile of fire and ashes. Just getting sacked by barbarians didn’t spell the end of Rome. It died out peacefully over hundreds of years from dozens of decisions that probably seemed like great ideas at the time.

As the different parts of Rome started feuding over religious changes and economic problems, it got split up into parts a few times before it officially became two different empires in AD 364. A little over 100 years later, the Western empire completely fell to the hands of the barbarians and the lines of Europe started looking like crude early versions of a modern map.^[10]

Even that, though, wasn’t the real end of Rome. The Eastern empire, now known as the Byzantine Empire, lived on for more than 1,000 years after the split. As the Byzantine Empire, Rome survived the Sasanian War, the Muslim conquests, and even the Crusades before they were finally absorbed by the Ottoman Empire.

It took 1,000 years, though, for Rome to die. It wasn’t over the second they stopped being the world’s biggest superpower. They lingered on for centuries. Their quality of life slowly changed, and most of their people were probably unaware that they were living through the fall of an empire.

Odds are, the same thing will happen to us. We won’t go out in a big explosion. We’ll just slowly start fighting wars we can’t win and struggling with an economy we can’t handle. And slowly, we’ll become nothing more than a chapter in a history book.

Ancient Rome and Greece are often cited as the birthplace of Western culture and the cradle of amazing thinkers and artists to whom we all aspire. Because of this, the less admirable qualities of these ancient civilizations have been mostly forgotten in favor of the beautiful but romanticized view of those countries and governments.

There was more to Rome than art and philosophy, and there was more to Greece than sculpture and debate. Hollywood tends to focus more on the Parthenon and the Roman Senate than the following ten things. What you read below might make you very glad to have never set foot in the world of Socrates or Caesar.

10 Pater Familias, The Family Dictator

The pater familias was the name of the leader of a Roman household, typically the eldest man or most noble birth in the family. The benign duty of protecting the family fell to the pater familias, but the power implicit in the position often led to monstrous consequences for those beneath the patriarch. In efforts to protect the family name, the pater familias had the right to sell any child into slavery, expel wives from the property, and generally control every bit of land and material wealth the family possessed.^[1] This didn’t apply only to the immediate household, either; the familia included extended family, all the way down to servants, clients, and concubines.

This familia was the basic unit of Roman society, and the patriarchal rule of that unit was completely absolute. The pater familias was technically the sole owner of all land and goods the family possessed. This created what was, in essence, a miniature government within each extended family that greatly resembled a dictatorship. Even while dominated by the Roman government, most were doubly ruled by the Roman leadership and their own personal tyrant.

9 The Government Cared About Your Character A Little Too Much

One of the most significant political positions in the Roman government was that of the censor. A censor’s obligations included preserving public morals, keeping the census, and managing finances for the state.^[2] This was a coveted position for people already high up in the hierarchy of Roman society and politics, who saw it as the final and best career for a devoted citizen. The majority of the power of the censor came from their duty to legislate morality. Information could be entered into the census by the censor about the morality of a person or family, which could lead to dire consequences. These accusations, black marks on the name of the accused, could mean loss of the right to vote, expulsion from high society, or overall reduction in rank.

The vices the censor typically punished included anything which would be antithetical to Roman philosophy, namely an overly indulgent lifestyle, mistreatment of slaves, fraud, or general disreputable behavior. Family names could be ruined and people thrown into poverty based on the moral decisions of the censor, who always promoted patriotism to the state. Because morality became interwoven with law, the censor became just another instrument of rule over the people, an untouchable individual with the right to all your secrets and the key to your reputation. This Orwellian system had no space for argument over moral ambiguity or the the privacy of individuals. No one was immune to the censor’s eye, and the stakes were intense. Everyone was under scrutiny at all times, and everyone had everything to lose.

8 Conquest In The Name Of Slavery

Although it’s true that many countries have relied on slaves at different points in their history, the Roman dependence on slave labor is remarkable. As many as 30 percent of the Roman population consisted of slaves at one point, and to exaggerate the issue, slaves died more frequently than they were born.

In order to maintain the slave numbers and keep the labor force, the Romans needed to continually conquer and absorb more slaves. Even this tactic barely sated the need for them. The system, beyond cruel, was terribly inefficient and a waste of human life.^[3]

7 No Mercy From Rome

The Jewish people were in some ways respected by the Romans because of the antiquity of their beliefs, although disliked. Simply put, they were generally manageable, although occasionally problematic, for the Roman Empire. They were an outlier among the polytheistic groups and governments around them, and they refused complete assimilation.

Although typically obedient, when the Jewish people did demonstrate political dissent, they were crushed. The Romans killed thousands of Jews and destroyed their most sacred temple in AD 70, setting an example for how they treat insurrection and how they would soon treat Christian groups. The Romans did this frequently; every single rebellion was treated with severity, and the offenders were often completely decimated.^[4]

6 Be Patriotic Or Die

It should be noted that the Romans did not discriminate based on religion but rather on patriotism. What this means is the Romans did not care who you worshiped so long as you were a good citizen who payed tribute to the leaders. The problem comes when groups like the Christian sects want to meet in private, are growing in number, and refuse to participate in certain rituals which they deem heretical. The Romans perceived religion as a method of maintaining patriotism in the state and used common religious practices to validate Roman rulers and laws. Outsiders like Christians created division and dissent, which the Romans saw as threatening. In doing so, Christians became a persecuted group.

From Nero to Diocletian, Romans killed and tortured enormous numbers of Christians. They humiliated and murdered them both individually and in groups, in front of crowds or openly in the streets. The Romans demonstrated the level of cruelty they could achieve when desperate to squash a threat to their order and created a dystopia where minority beliefs are punishable in imaginative and horrific ways.^[5]

5 The Price Of High Society Was Consent

Aristocratic Greek boys aged 12 to 15 were often provided with a mentor, an older man who was to teach them how to be successful and cultured. Unfortunately, these pairings frequently became more than tutelage; sexual relationships were actually encouraged between the two and completely accepted by the culture. Rights to the young boy were given to the older man for his prowess and in return for his mentorship.

These relationships, sometimes taking place even before the boys hit puberty, were absolutely not consensual but were not resisted, as it was simply seen as part of the social order. Many Greeks would have claimed love for their partner in this mentoring relationship, but it was never the result of free will for the younger participant. In this way, Greek culture terrorized younger noblemen and exploited them for perverted gain, creating a universe which can only be described as frightening.^[6]

4 Women Lived Like Prison Inmates

The separation of Greek girls and women from society as a whole was akin to a life of solitary confinement. Girls existed entirely within the home until they were married, at which point they moved into their husband’s home for a very similar situation. They could run the occasional errand or attend ceremonies (if accompanied), but the vast majority of their life was spent indoors and nearly alone.^[7] Women could spend time with their children and their servants in rooms designated specially for them and could enter the public area of the house to receive visitors only if their husbands allowed it.

Girls were often married at the age of 14, and slave girls were the sexual property of their male masters, as well as the subject of ire of the master’s wife. No female, slave, poor, noble, or middle class, was free, and each suffered under the philosophy that women were merely poorly made men, disfigured and unintelligent, who should be kept in locked rooms for their own safety. This world was a true nightmare for the many women who lived in it and created what was essentially the life of a prisoner for every single female.

3 Cults Were Abundant

Organizations named “mystery cults” by historians were prevalent in ancient Greece and Rome. They had secret services, initiations, ceremonies, and doctrines which differentiated them from each other. Each cult had their own specifications for diet, burial, and daily life, and each worshiped their own god or goddess, believing that by dedicating their lives to one entity, they were likely to achieve favor with that god or goddess and perhaps ascend to a glorious afterlife.

The cult of Mithras was popular in Rome and celebrated militarism and masculinity as an all male-cult.^[8] Whatever their beliefs, the cults are fascinating to historians and pretty creepy to the modern person.

2 A Spartan Newborn Could Kill You

Beginning at childbirth, Spartan citizens were trained for barbarism. To wage war was the ultimate purpose of every Spartan life, and they were all well-equipped to fulfill that purpose. Remarkably, even the diets of Spartan boys were limited. This was not done for the purpose of maintaining a good physique but to actually encourage stealing. If caught stealing food, the punishment would be harsh, not for the crime of stealing but for being caught in the act.

The Spartans preached only efficiency and might, and morality tended to take a back seat. They turned their children into hardened and effective criminals intentionally in order to prepare them for battle. A man had to serve ten years in the military before being granted citizenship and was forced to sneak out of barracks to visit his own wife (and, again, would be punished if caught).^[9] Being born in Sparta was to be born a soldier, bound forever to your state and with hardly any personal freedoms.

1 The Fall

Perhaps the most terrifying thing about ancient Greece and Rome is their fall into corruption. Both were once great and are no longer. For various reasons, they lost control over their empires and ceded their dominance to others. No matter how strong their governments, they eventually became corrupt and fell into ruin. The death of Socrates could allegorically represent the death of the true ideals of Greece and was an omen of their inevitable downfall. Many of the founding ideas of Greek and Roman society were truly good (excluding all those in this list) but did not last until the end of their empires.

Bribery and self-interest contributed to the collapse of the Roman empire, activities which were not so rampant when the young nation started out. As power increased, truly just government slowly fell away, revealing the corrupt and skeletal remains of the original system.^[10] The prevalence of assassinations and shady dealings made the late Roman government a true, real-life dystopia.

I am a poet and aspiring novelist from Rock Hill, South Carolina. I am attending school to major in English with a creative writing concentration as well as Spanish. I love learning unexpected things and telling others about them, and I hope my lists intrigue.