Name: How much do you really know about Ancient Rome? - Stephanie Honchell Smith
Uploaded: 2025-06-28T04:17:41.000Z
Duration: 6 min 21 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Minerva here, esteemed Roman goddess of reason, wisdom, handicrafts, and war.

It's come to my attention that many of you have been thinking about ancient Rome.

Let's play a little game I like to call duo vera et mendacium.

Or to the rest of you, two truths and a lie.

And let's show them what they're playing for.

An all-expense-paid cruise aboard one of Caligula's pleasure barges.

Prepare to be wined and dined on a trip you'll never forget.

Most gladiatorial fights ended before anyone died.

It's true that from their introduction around the 3rd century BCE, Roman gladiators were often enslaved or convicted criminals.

After the opening of the Colosseum in ADCE, freemen and former soldiers began signing up for a life in the arena, lured by the potential for fame and regular employment.

They even formed their own guilds, which organized funerals and provided pensions for gladiators' families if they were to die.

But it took a lot of time and money to train a gladiator.

So it wouldn't make any sense to have them fighting to the death.

The toga was the cornerstone of daily Roman dress.

Many Roman women wore dresses made with Chinese silk.

Urine was the primary laundry detergent for Roman clothes.

While male Roman citizens did wear togas, they were strictly for ceremonial and official events.

And they were worn over clothing, like tunics, never on their own.

As indecent as some writers called the flimsy Chinese silk dresses that became fashionable amongst upper-class Roman women in the 1st century CE.

And finally, the ammonia in urine does indeed make for an excellent stain-fighting solution.

Which is why Roman launderers often placed buckets on street corners to collect the urine of passers-by.

Many Roman homes featured a vomitorium, a room where people could vomit after overindulging.

The Pythagoreans who followed the teachings of the Greek mathematician Pythagoras embraced a vegetarian diet.

A favorite Roman condiment was sauce made from fermented fish guts.

While vomit and vomitoria come from the same root meaning to spew forth, a vomitorium is simply a passage through which spectators spewed from amphitheaters or arenas into the street.

Purging was a common medical treatment, but it certainly wasn't prescribed to make room for more fish gut sauce.

As for Pythagoras, there were more than three sides to the man, I'll have you know.

He was a philosopher, and his followers embraced his belief that eating animal flesh increased aggressive behavior.

We're all tied up, but this last question is sure to separate the true Romano-philes from the Romano-flakes.

The city of Rome was sacked twice during the 5th century CE.

The last Western Roman emperor was Romulus Augustulus.

The very idea that Rome fell is complicated.

It's true that by 476, the empire looked very different.

By the 4th century, it had permanently split into Eastern and Western halves, each with its own emperor.

The last emperor in the West, Romulus Augustulus, was overthrown in 476 CE in a military coup.

But the Germanic general who replaced him didn't make sweeping changes.

Roman political and cultural life endured, and military conquests continued, at least until the Eastern Emperor Justinian led a devastating invasion of Italy in the 530s.

In the East, the Roman Empire survived for a thousand years, becoming what you now call the Byzantine Empire.

That makes contestant number three our big winner!