Four fake myths about the Roman Empire you thought were true

When you think about the history of Italy, your thoughts immediately go to the Romans and the Roman Empire.

The Roman Empire is remembered for bringing political stability and prosperity – at least in the first centuries of its foundation – and for being the most powerful economic, cultural, political and military force at the time, not to mention for being one of the largest empires in world history.

We all know something about the Roman Empire, but what we know is really the truth or are just fake myths?

In this article I’m going to list four fake myths about the Romans that you probably thought that were true.

1. THUMBS UP

One of the first fake myths is about thumbs up. Thumbs up became pretty famous after the epic movie The Gladiator by Ridley Scott.

Gladiators used to fight in the Colosseum. The winning gladiator waited for the emperor to either give thums up or down.

If the emperor gave thumbs up, the winner let the losing gladiator live. On the contrary, if the emperor gave thumbs down the winner had to kill the loser, right? Wrong.

This gesture apparently is a fake. What the emperor really did was giving a closed hand if he wanted the winner to live and a horizontal thumb – or thumbs up, this part is unclear – if he wanted the winning gladiator to kill the losing gladiator.

2. ONLY MEN COULD BE GLADIATORS

Another fake myth about the Roman Empire is that only men could be gladiators. This is absolutely wrong.

Even if fights with women weren’t as common as the ones with men, women gladiators, called gladiatrices, existed.

In literature, their presence was usually described as exotic, unusual, bizarre and even aberrant.

What we know for sure is that Nero had some Ethiopian women fight to impress the King of Armenia in 66 AD, and that in 89 AD also Domitian had some gladiatrices fight.

In 200 AD, instead, Emperor Commodus forbade any gladiatrices fight.

3. VOMITORIA

Also vomitoria are in the list of the fake myths about the Roman Empire.

Now, for those of you who speak a little bit of Italian, the word vomitoria might resemble to an Italian word: vomitare, to puke.

From this resemblance comes a myth about the Romans. This myth tells that the Romans used to eat a lot of food during feasts and when they were full, they used to go to vomitoria, rooms where they could throw up so that they could start eating again.

However, also this myth is a fake. Vomitoria weren’t rooms and surely weren’t in people’s homes.

In fact, vomitoria were part of the Colosseum and they were passageways efficiently designed to allow thousands of Romans to sit and leave the Colosseum within few minutes.

4. TOGAS

The last fake myth about the Roman Empire and the Romans is the one about togas. According to general knowledge, togas are piece of clothing that Romans used to wear.

In every movie about the Roman Empire, the Romans usually wear togas. Even in the famous comic Asterix & Obelix, the Romans wear togas – except the soldiers, obviously.

However, also this myth is false.

In fact, even if togas existed in the Roman Empire, they were a rather formal clothing. So, the Romans used to wear them only on special occasions. For everyday life, the Romans usually wore tuniques.

Did you already know these four fake myths about the Roman Empire?

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Credits

Original image by TreptowerAlex