Roman jokes

Ancient Roman jokes, as described by Cicero and Quintilian, are best employed as a rhetorical device.[1] Many of them are apparently taken from real-life trials conducted by famous advocates, such as Cicero. Jokes were also found scrawled upon washroom walls of Pompeii as graffiti.[2] Romans sought laughter by attending comic plays (such as those of Plautus), and mimes (such as those of Publilius Syrus). Jokes from these sources usually depended on sexual themes.[3] Cicero believe that humour ought to be based upon "ambiguity, the unexpected, wordplay, understatement, irony, ridicule, silliness, and pratfalls".[3] Roman jokes also depended on certain stock characters and stereotypes, especially regarding foreigners[4] -- as can be seen within Plautus' Poenulus.

Roman culture, which was heavily influenced by the Greeks, had also been in conversation with Greek humour.[1]

Examples

One of the oldest Roman jokes, which is based on a fictitious story and survived alive to this time, is told by Macrobius in his Saturnalia:[5] (4th century AD, but the joke itself is probably several centuries older):

Some provincial man has come to Rome, and walking on the streets was drawing everyone's attention, being a real double of the emperor Augustus. The emperor, having brought him to the palace, looks at him and then asks:
-Tell me, young man, did your mother come to Rome anytime?
The reply was:
-She never did. But my father frequently was here.

(The modern version is that an aristocrat, having met his exact double, asks: "Was your mother a housemaid in our palace?" "No, my father was a gardener there").

An example of a joke based on double meaning is recorded in Gellius (2nd century AD):[6]

A man, standing before a censor, is about to testify, whether he has a wife. The censor asks:
-Do you have, in all your honesty, a wife?
-I surely do, but not in all my honesty.

(the pun is in the expression used for in all your honesty - orig. ex animi tui sententia, typically used in oaths - which can also be understood as to your liking).

Some of the jokes are about fortune-tellers and the like. An example (1st century BC):[7]

A runner going to participate in the Olympic games had a dream, that he was driving a quadriga. Early in the morning he goes to a dream interpreter for an explanation. The reply is:
-You will win, that meant the speed and the strength of the horses.
But, to be sure about this, the runner visits another dream interpreter. This one replies:
-You will lose. Don't you understand, that four ones came before you?

Further reading
  • On the Orator, Cicero
  • Laughter in Ancient Rome, Mary Beard. University of California Press, 2014; ISBN 0-520-27716-3

See also
  • Philogelos, an ancient Greek joke book.
  • Poetics (Aristotle), Aristotle discusses the nature of tragedy and comedy, but the book on the latter is lost.

References
  1. Milnor, Kristina (1 October 2015). "Review of: Laughter in Ancient Rome: On Joking, Tickling, and Cracking Up. Sather classical lectures, 71". Bryn Mawr Classical Review – via Bryn Mawr Classical Review.
  2. Killgrove, Kristina. "Scatological Graffiti Was The Ancient Roman Version Of Yelp And Twitter".
  3. "What made Romans LOL? - The Spectator". 7 June 2014.
  4. Flood, Alison (13 March 2009). "Classic gags discovered in ancient Roman joke book" – via www.theguardian.com.
  5. Macr. Sat. 2.3
  6. Gell. IV 20
  7. Cic. div. II 145
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