Money Has No Smell

The expression Money has no smell is attributed to Roman Emperor Vespasian (CE 9-79). The story goes that, in dire need of money for the Empire, he decided to tax just about anything.

Including urine.

This precious liquid, so to speak, was used by tanners and dyers to treat their hides and cloths, and thus the tax on it proved quite lucrative. Still, it didn't stop many from complaining about it. Vespasian's own son, Titus, criticized him for this tax which he deemed absolutely ridiculous (I can only imagine how the tax collectors and auditors must have had their nostrils assaulted by the sharp smells).

But Vespasian was satisfied with his tax, and that is when people say he retorted that, "Money has no smell."

Interestingly, in the 19th century, some French (who wrongfully assumed then that Vespasian was the one who had created the Roman public toilets to help in his tax collections efforts) started calling their toilets Vespasiennes.

Source:

Roughly translated from a short article in the French magazine Les grandes figures de l'histoire No. 20.

What Turducken? How The Romans Would Beat Us At Thanksgiving Dinner

Thanksgiving is a wonderful holiday that I've slowly warmed up to in the later years. Having grown up in Belgium, we never celebrated it, so it never held much meaning to me.

However, I was lucky enough to get invited to a friend's family Thanksgiving dinner parties a few times, and got to witness (and taste) a most amazing feat in culinary skills: the turducken.

For those of you who, like me, didn't grow up in the U.S., a turducken is a chicken, inside a duck,
inside a turkey! Triple bird in one.

And really, when I say amazing, I mean AMAZING! And I know, from all the tales that were told later that day, that the skills required were just short of those of Dr. Frankenstein when he put his monster together.

Now let's go back in time a little bit. As in a few centuries, during the Roman era. Wanna know what some of 'em rich folks cooked up once in a while, apart from making tasty snacks out of rotten fish, that is?

Cowigoosucken!

That's right. It's a chicken, inside a duck, inside a goose, inside a pig, inside a cow!

So who's up to the challenge for this Thanksgiving dinner?

Sources:
Romans and their rich foods
Rotten Romans

The Fall Of The Roman Empire

Continuing on my history track, after the decline of the Roman Empire, came its fall.

The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness.

Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the cause of the destruction multiplied with

the extent of conquest; and, as soon as time or accident had removed the artificial

supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight.

The story of the ruin is simple and obvious; and instead of inquiring why the Roman Empire

was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so long.

~Edward Gibbon (1737-1794)

477 CE. The highlighted portions are the parts that survived the deposition of the Last Roman Emperor, Romulus Augustus, by Odoacer (the first kind of Italy).
Source: Wikipedia

And on that sober note, here are some theories that have been put forth about Rome's fall:

1. Climate Change:  it's global cooling!  The drying and cooling climate destroyed ancient agriculture, causing famine.
2. Soil Exhaustion:  all the lands around the Mediterranean had been depleted of their nutrients and could no longer sustain the intensive agriculture to support the Empire's population (and troops).
3. Lead Poisoning:  Romans were great architects, but perhaps not great at chemistry, for they used lead in all their pipes (including those bringing their water), which led to widespread lead poisoning and sterility.
4. Racial Pollution:  too many immigrants!  It must be because of all those Syrians', Greek's and Jews' seed that destroyed Roman vitality and made them unable to rule anymore! (Wow, I had not idea this had been an actual theory.  Then again, people at one point thought the Earth was flat...)
5. Slavery:  Romans depended too much on their slaves so they got too fat and lazy to defend themselves.
6. Intellectual Stagnation:  no advance in science and technology = economic dead end.
7. Social Disorder:  the middle class was destroyed by civil war (in the third century CE, Emperors even encouraged the poor to plunder the middle class!), invasion, over taxation (this sounds familiar, doesn't it?) which had been, until then, the most productive and culturally aware part of the Roman population.
8. Excessive government:  too many governmental exactions and regulations destroyed the market economy which was their basis for prosperity (this one sounds familiar too).
9. Christianity:  adopting Christianity as the official state religion in the fourth century CE meant a weak Roman Empire that diverted its scarce resources to building churches and monasteries, and meant larger portions of the population were pacifists.
10. Immorality:  the old Roman virtues that had allowed what had once been a small village to turn into a thriving and powerful empire disappeared to be replaced by gluttony, sloth and sexual depravity.

So there you have it.  It's interesting, isn't it, how there can be so many different views on what may or may not have happened a couple millennia ago?

An interesting graph on the devaluation of the Roman coin, showing the (hyper) inflation the Roman population felt towards the Empire's end.

Reference:

The Heritage of World Civilizations

The Decline Of The Roman Empire

These are some interesting notes taken from The Heritage of World Civilizations which I find particularly interesting considering our current political and economic stances:

After the first two centuries of the Roman Empire, considered to be the Golden Roman Age, trouble was brewing.  People would rather spend time enjoying themselves than aiming for higher pursuits.  Even the literature of the time (which before had been propounding the greatness of the Roman Empire and the virtues one ought to follow) had turned to one of refuge--people preferred to read romance novels instead (I wonder what their version of Fifty Shades of Grey was?).

While the Golden Age saw the upper classes competing for the honor to serve and rule their respective municipalities, by the second century these same people fled en masse from such responsibility.  This left the running of towns and cities to those whose chief results were an abuse of power (hey, has anyone heard that San Diego Mayor Filner is finally out?).

These symptoms reflected more basic problems:  the prosperity the empire had enjoyed after the end of their civil war and the rush of riches from the East such as Egypt was only finite and stopped after the first half of the 2nd century; the population had started to decline; and the cost of running the government and keeping massive armies kept rising.  All this need for money had the emperors increase taxes and debasing the value of their money thereby creating inflation.

"These elements were to bring on the desperate crises that ultimately destroyed the empire."

So, what do you see in this (extra) brief historical account that sounds rather familiar to you today?

A Roman Lover's Woes

Anybody in love, come here.  I want to break Venus's ribs with a club and cripple the goddess's loins.  If she can pierce my tender breast, why can't I break her head with a club?

~Graffiti written on the wall of a house in Pompeii 

(from Roman Civilization, 

Naphtali Lewis and Meyer Reinhold).

An Ideal Roman Woman

Cornelia, stepdaughter of Augustus (Ceasar's nephew) and wife of Paullus, defends herself before Hades, king of the underworld...

"I was born to this,and when the wreath of marriage
Caught up my hair, and I was a woman grown,
It was your bed, my Paullus, that I came to ad now have left.
The carving on the stone says she wed but once.
O fathers long respected victors in Africa, be my defense
...

I asked no favours when Paullus was made censor:
No evil found its way within our walls.
I do not think I have disgraced my fathers:
I set a decent pattern in these halls.
Days had a quiet rhythm: no scandal touched us from the wedding torch to the torch beside my bier.
A certain integrity is proof of breeding: the love of virtue should not be born of fear.
Whatever the judge, whatever the lot fate gives me,
No woman needs to blush who sits at my side...
For my children I wore the mother's robe of honor;
It was no empty house I left behind.
Lepidus, Paullus, still you bring me comfort;
You closed my eyes when death had made me blind.
Twice in the curule chair I have seen my brother;
They cheered him as a consul the day before I died.
And you, my daughter, think of your censor-father,
Choose one husband and live content at his side.
Our clan will rest on the children that you give it.
Secure in their promise I board the boat and rejoice.
Mine is the final triumph of any woman,
That her spirit earns the praise of a living voice."
(Properitius, transl. by Constance Carrier, The Poems of Properitus)

So basically, she had to be honorable, truthful to her husband, and give him many heirs...  I'm so glad I live in our current times!