Romans had a twisted sense of humor?

ColoradoGuy · Jul 13, 2008

I've just been reading an interesting review/essay by Mary Beard in the most recent New York Review of Books called "Isn't it funny?" The piece reviews a couple of new books about humor through the ages, both written and iconographic. I think everyone agrees that what we think is funny is hugely determined by culture, but Beard gives quite an example of that: apparently a carving on a Roman victory column of a soldier tearing a child from his captive mother's arms was meant "as a joke." Boy, those Romans were tough.

On the other hand, some situational jokes are pretty universal across the millennia. She gives an example, apparently the only one from the Roman world in which "we can follow in detail the story of a laugh, and share something of its physical experience." It describes a bunch of Senators watching Commodus (Marcus Aurelus's pathetically evil son) demonstrating his bravery in the arena by cutting the head off an ostrich. One of them, Dio, describes his emotions:

"He came up to where we were sitting, carrying the head in his left hand and in his right hand holding up his bloody sword. He spoke not a word, yet he wagged his head with a grin, indicating that he would treat us in the same way. And many would indeed have perished by the sword on the spot, for laughing at him (for it was laughter rather than indignation that overcame us), if I had not chewed some laurel leaves, which I got from my garland, myself, and persuaded the others who were sitting near me to do the same, so that in the steady movement of our jaws we might conceal the fact that we were laughing."

Beard continues:

"Whatever theory of laughter we choose to adopt, the combination of fear, embarrassment, and almost irrepressible giggles is one that must be recognized by almost everyone, even across all those centuries. We can feel for, and with, Dio. We all have at some time in our lives bitten on the modern equivalent of laurel wreaths."

Yet in spite of a couple of centuries and language, most of us still think Rabelais (Gargantua and Pantagruel) and Sterne (Tristram Shandy) are funny. So that's been pretty constant.

Deleted member 42 · Jul 13, 2008

Meh. Parts of the early comedies are still funny too, and there are lots of bawdy jokes in Roman graffiti that are funny . . . the sexual humor though, is particularly telling, and fascinating.

Danger Jane · Jul 13, 2008

The sexual jokes are what kept 90% of my classmates taking Latin...Catullus, anyone?

So soldiers stealing children was funny back then, eh? I wonder what the equivalent will be from our culture in a few centuries.

mscelina · Jul 13, 2008

Oh, the Romans had a very broad (and bawdy) sense of humor. Juvenal, the famous satirist, is one of my personal favorites. He wrote during the reign of Domitian and his works are (after translation) hysterical, but even funnier in Latin. In English from his second Satire:

Men's faces are not to be trusted; does not every street abound in gloomy-visaged debauchees? And do you rebuke foul practices, when you are yourself the most notorious delving-ground among Socratic reprobates? A hairy body, and arms stiff with bristles, give promise of a manly soul: but sleek are your buttocks when the grinning doctor cuts into the swollen piles. Juvenal, Satire II

You can read part of Juvenal's Satires translated here.
Juvenal took no prisoners and based much of his work upon current events in Rome--some of it thinly disguised so that he could claim ignorance of the actual perpetrators. Ovid, on the other hand, wrote his Ars Amatoria--a sort of semi-autobiographical guide for women so that they could 'catch' men. This work is supposedly one of the reasons that Augustus banished him. Although he wasn't a satirist per se, he was definitely a...erm....smartass. For example, this is the "Parrot's Lament"-- a poem he wrote in the Ars Amatoria about the death of his mistress' parrot--which he'd given her.

OUR parrot, winged mimic of the human voice, sent from farthest Ind, is dead. Come ye in flocks, ye birds, unto his obsequies. Come, ye pious denizens of the air; beat your bosoms with your wings and with your rigid claws, score furrows on your dainty heads. Even as mourners rend their hair, rend ye your ruffled plumes. Since the far-sounding clarion is silent, sing ye a doleful song.

You can find a translation of the Ars Amatoria here.

The Romans loved their humor--that love is plastered all over their literature. There is a lot of it to be uncovered as you dig through the classics.

kuwisdelu · Jul 13, 2008

Danger Jane said:
The sexual jokes are what kept 90% of my classmates taking Latin...Catullus, anyone?

Ah, Catullus, the Ginsberg before Ginsberg.

Seriously, he's raunchy, funny, creepy, and political. What a Bukowski.

Good poet.

robeiae · Jul 13, 2008

Remember...things are not much different "now" than they were "then." Jokes don't always work. What some scatterbrain thinks is funny is not always something others will think is funny. And there were Andy Kaufmans then, too.

And the interpretation of the Roman carving is only that: an interpretation. It very well might have made some Romans laugh. Of course, some people today laugh at things every bit as heinous.

Deleted member 42 · Jul 13, 2008

kuwisdelu said:
Ah, Catullus, the Ginsberg before Ginsberg.

Seriously, he's raunchy, funny, creepy, and political. What a Bukowski.

Good poet.

Catullus and Horace are likely my two favorites--and both had profound effect on English poetry.

But there's something about a culture that has door knockers and lamps and various other sorts of house hold implements decorated with erect phalli . . .

mscelina · Jul 13, 2008

We are talking about a society that had daily gladiator battles and other spectator 'sports'. Hell, they figured out how to flood the Colisseum and have naval battles in it. To them, that wasn't an atrocity any more than killing animals for fun our their thirst for blood sports. Their idea of morality was different from ours, but their sense of humor? Not so much.

robeiae · Jul 13, 2008

mscelina said:
We are talking about a society that had daily gladiator battles and other spectator 'sports'. Hell, they figured out how to flood the Colisseum and have naval battles in it. To them, that wasn't an atrocity any more than killing animals for fun our their thirst for blood sports. Their idea of morality was different from ours, but their sense of humor? Not so much.

Yes, we just have dog fights, Ultimate Fighting, NASCAR, Grand Theft Auto, kids jumping others en masse and putting it on YouTube, and so forth.

I don't see much of a difference in their sense of morality, humor, or mortality...

kuwisdelu · Jul 13, 2008

mscelina said:
To them, that wasn't an atrocity any more than killing animals for fun our their thirst for blood sports. Their idea of morality was different from ours, but their sense of humor? Not so much.

Of course, the meat and fur industry still kills animals in pretty atrocious ways. And then there are Rob's examples. Morality has a way to go, still...

(I have no problem with eating meat, btw--just the manner in which they are often treated and killed.)

Danger Jane · Jul 13, 2008

My classmates made sure every day to write the entirety of Catullus Carmen 16 on the board while my poor teacher tried to guide us through the Aeneid.

I should mention that when we finally finished it, half the class didn't know what happened to Dido.

milhistbuff1 · Jul 13, 2008

Thats the reason its called a "Roman" holiday... then again misery loves company.

History is full of wit. One Irishman named John Scotus Eiurglena was once talking to Emperor Charlemagne...

"What separates a fool from an Irishman."

"Only the table."

kuwisdelu · Jul 13, 2008

Danger Jane said:
I should mention that when we finally finished it, half the class didn't know what happened to Dido.

Didn't she go on to become a singer/songwriter and be nominated for a Grammy?

mscelina · Jul 13, 2008

*sigh*

Do we enslave people for the purpose of entertaining the masses with their deaths, Rob? Do you have pornographic mosaics in the main rooms of your home as were unearthed in Pompeii? (If you do, I don't want to know)

Yes, there is a difference between the perceived moralities of the ancient cultures and our own. As I stated in my first post, Ovid was probably exiled from Rome for the Ars Amortia; who's the last writer exiled from the US?

After all, the Emperor Caligula made his horse Incitatus a consul of Rome. And although we have plenty of horse's asses in our government, they aren't actually HORSES.

For the most part.

So although the basic human instincts towards bloodshed and eroticism are still there, our society has repressed that beneath a layer of morality which, for good or ill, separates us from our ancestors.

mscelina · Jul 13, 2008

Danger Jane said:
My classmates made sure every day to write the entirety of Catullus Carmen 16 on the board while my poor teacher tried to guide us through the Aeneid.

I should mention that when we finally finished it, half the class didn't know what happened to Dido.

kuwisdelu said:
Didn't she go on to become a singer/songwriter and be nominated for a Grammy?

Nope. Dido didn't become a singer. She offed herself and burned on a pyre as Aeneas sailed away, poor wretch. She didn't pull a Bobbitt on him. Another societal difference I suppose.

kuwisdelu · Jul 13, 2008

What's wrong with pornographic mosaics? :Shrug:

kuwisdelu · Jul 13, 2008

mscelina said:
Nope. Dido didn't become a singer. She offed herself and burned on a pyre as Aeneas sailed away, poor wretch. She didn't pull a Bobbitt on him. Another societal difference I suppose.

Ah, so it would have been a posthumous Grammy, yes?

donroc · Jul 13, 2008

Our Latin class in high school created a variation for the WWII Kilroy was here graffiti:

Kilrex erat hic. Wished I could have sneaked that onto a Roman ruin.

robeiae · Jul 13, 2008

mscelina said:
*sigh*

Do we enslave people for the purpose of entertaining the masses with their deaths, Rob? Do you have pornographic mosaics in the main rooms of your home as were unearthed in Pompeii? (If you do, I don't want to know)

Yes, there is a difference between the perceived moralities of the ancient cultures and our own. As I stated in my first post, Ovid was probably exiled from Rome for the Ars Amortia; who's the last writer exiled from the US?

After all, the Emperor Caligula made his horse Incitatus a consul of Rome. And although we have plenty of horse's asses in our government, they aren't actually HORSES.

For the most part.

So although the basic human instincts towards bloodshed and eroticism are still there, our society has repressed that beneath a layer of morality which, for good or ill, separates us from our ancestors.

I disagree. More often than not, it's a function of opportunity. People STILL DO practice slavery. People STILL DO hurt others for amusement. But a more egalitarian view of citizenship--in most parts of the world--means that laws protect more people. As to pornography, you're kidding, right?

And not all Romans did these things. Far from it, actually.

I'm not sure why this is a difficult thing to accept. People are still people. They are still as fully capable of doing anything today that they were in ancient times, be it atrocity or charity.

ColoradoGuy · Jul 13, 2008

All of which gives me an excuse to shoehorn in the Life of Brian centurian scene.

ColoradoGuy · Jul 13, 2008

robeiae said:
People are still people. They are still as fully capable of doing anything today that they were in ancient times, be it atrocity or charity.

But how do we know that? It seems to me to be an assumption. After all, why can't other things evolve besides losing a tail and gaining an upright gait?

Danger Jane · Jul 13, 2008

robeiae said:
Yes, we just have dog fights, Ultimate Fighting, NASCAR, Grand Theft Auto, kids jumping others en masse and putting it on YouTube, and so forth.

I don't see much of a difference in their sense of morality, humor, or mortality...

Sort of, but things like dog fighting, kids jumping each other and putting it on youtube, and even to an extent, the GTA series--they're not met with the tolerance or enthusiasm as, for instance, gladiatorial fighting. In the case of GTA, the violence isn't real. Although I personally wouldn't exactly savor such a game, to do so is not, in my opinion, equal to cheering as an arena full of slaves brutally murder each other.

I've seen a few rounds of Ultimate Fighting, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it just doesn't seem on-par with the Coliseum. It's no more dangerous than boxing and other similar sports, and we've been enjoying those for a few years now, rather uncontroversially.

I can see how NASCAR calls to mind activities like chariot racing, but, well, it's significantly safer, with all possible precautions taken to ensure that racers don't die. And they don't, not commonly. Chariot racing was a fast way to the grave back in the day.

mscelina · Jul 13, 2008

Rob, let me ask you this:

Does our SOCIETY condone slavery? Does our SOCIETY condone public displays of pornography?

The majority of Roman citizens visited the games at the Colisseum--even the lower classes were admitted for free because the government considered it a way to keep the masses happy. Some try to compare the gladitorial games to American football, or the races in the Circus Maximus to NASCAR. You can't seriously be in that camp, can you? The Roman Empire fell as a result of its internal corruption, replaced with a superstitious, overly religous society ruled primarily by the church. The results of that fall linger with us today--look at the religious wars still going on in the Middle East for example. They are descendants of the medieval need to convert the infidel, to impose the rule of the church upon other societies. As for the pornographic imagery in ancient Rome, the mosaics I spoke of in Pompeii were in what would be considered a middle-class home, that of a well-to-do merchant. Other prominent displays-such as those Medi mentioned--were found in every class of home from the Palatine hill to the apartment buildings on the outskirts of the city.

And, as I stated--the inherent instinct for the same types of behavior are within us still. Sure, I know people who watch NASCAR for the crashes or stick centerfolds in their bathrooms--which is scary enough to have to admit--but I was under the impression that we're talking about whole societies here and not my redneck cousins. You're free to disagree if you wish, but I'll stick to my guns on this one.

kuwisdelu · Jul 13, 2008

Yeah. Basically. Societies change. People don't.

ColoradoGuy · Jul 13, 2008

mscelina said:
The Roman Empire fell as a result of its internal corruption, replaced with a superstitious, overly religous society ruled primarily by the church. The results of that fall linger with us today--look at the religious wars still going on in the Middle East for example. They are descendants of the medieval need to convert the infidel, to impose the rule of the church upon other societies.

You're going to have to convince me of that one. Arguing over the cause of the Empire's fall is an ancient parlor game, but I think the main issues were:

Lack of an orderly succession
External pressure on the frontiers by nomadic tribes being pushed by others behind them
Very long, difficult-to-defend frontiers

As to being replaced by a society ruled "primarily" by the Church, I don't think that ever really was the case. The Church was a powerful institution, more powerful in some states than in others, and with power varying from time to time and place to place, but the Pope never really ruled much directly besides his own holdings.

Romans had a twisted sense of humor?

I've seen worse.

Deleted member 42

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Revolutionize the World

Touch and go

Deleted member 42

Teh doommobile, drivin' rite by you

Touch and go

Revolutionize the World

Revolutionize the World

Teh doommobile, drivin' rite by you

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Historicals and Horror rule

Touch and go

I've seen worse.

I've seen worse.

Teh doommobile, drivin' rite by you

Revolutionize the World

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