I know the Romans get a lot a bad press. Face it, all we hear about is Gladiators, throwing Christians to the lions and invading Britain. All topics I'll cover in the future, but first I thought I should clear the air a little. You shouldn't take for granted that you've been given the big picture. Everything we know is the stuff that makes history sexy. It's like looking at our society as if it were only about Las Vegas, World War Two and football. But we don't hear about the average family sitting down after dinner and reading some good books, but an awful lot of them did...their literacy levels were about the same as ours. We don't hear about them playing draughts, dominoes, dice and ludo...but they did - they invented most of those games. And then there's the food, much of which we still enjoy - they developed oyster farming and champagne, and French cuisine owes a lot to the previous leaseholders of Europe. It's the ordinary that makes a people, and believe me, they were just as ordinary as us...although they spoke Latin better.
Find out how ordinary Calvus was
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