Description
Superbly acute and unashamedly complex.The Telegraph Rich and provocative.Times Literary Supplement An engaging exploration.The New YorkerThe phenomenal Ms. Beard has written another cracking book, one of her best.The Independent What made the Romans laugh? Was ancient Rome a carnival, filled with practical jokes and hearty chuckles? Or was it a carefully regulated culture in which the uncontrollable excess of laughter was a force to feara world of wit, irony, and knowing smiles? How did Romans make sense of laughter? What role did it play in the world of the law courts, the imperial palace, or the spectacles of the arena?Laughter in Ancient Rome explores one of the most intriguing, but also trickiest, of historical subjects. Drawing on a wide range of Roman writingfrom essays on rhetoric to a surviving Roman joke bookMary Beard tracks down the giggles, smirks, and guffaws of the ancient Romans themselves. From ancient monkey business to the role of a chuckle in a culture of tyranny, s
