原文: Top 10 Myths About the Romans

For many, the only exposure to Ancient Rome comes from what they have seen in the movies or on television. Unfortunately, films like Gladiator, Spartacus, Barabbas, and Demetrius and the Gladiators don’t present a very accurate depiction of life in the Rome and the arena.

Considering the fact that the Roman Empire existed for so long, and so much of our own Western society has derived from it, it is no surprise that we all have at least one or two misconceptions about the Empire and its people.

For this reason, we have put together a list of the most misconceptions people hold about the Ancient Roman society and customs. Fortunately most are easily proven wrong as you will see when you read on:

Contrary to popular belief, the emperor did not give a thumbs up or down for a gladiator as a signal to kill his enemy. The emperor (and only the emperor) would give an open or closed hand - if his palm was flat, it meant “spare his life”, if it was closed, it meant “kill him”. If a gladiator killed his opponent before the emperor gave his permission, the gladiator would be put on trial for murder, as only the emperor had the right to condemn a man to death. In the image above we see this myth in action.

HBO/BBC created an excellent series called “Rome” which covers a number of years of the Roman Empire. In the series they have, unfortunately, slandered the good name of one of the main Characters, Atia (Mother of Octavian - Augustus - and niece of Julius Caesar). In the show she is seen as a licentious, self-absorbed and manipulative schemer who is Mark Antony’s lover. In reality, Atia was a highly moral woman, well regarded by Roman Society at the time. Tacitus had this to say of her:

In her presence no base word could be uttered without grave offence, and no wrong deed done. Religiously and with the utmost delicacy she regulated not only the serious tasks of her youthful charges, but also their recreations and their games.

A very persistent myth about the Romans is that they would feast until they were full, then visit a room called a vomitorium to “vomit” the food out so they could start over again. This is a myth - the vomitoria were actually passages that enabled people to move quickly to and from their seats in an amphitheater. These vomitoria made it possible for thousands of Roman citizens to be seated within minutes. In the photograph above [source] we see a real vomitorium.

While it is true that the Romans did speak a form of Latin known as vulgar Latin, it was quite different from the Classical Latin that we generally think of them speaking (Classical Latin is what we usually learn at University). Vulgar Latin is the language that the Romance languages (Italian, French, etc.) developed from. Classical Latin was used as an official language only. In addition, members of the Eastern Roman Empire were speaking Greek exclusively by the 4th century, and Greek had replaced Latin as the official language.

In modern days we tend to use the term plebeian to refer to the common or poor classes, but in Rome, a plebeian was just a member of the general populace of Rome (as opposed to the Patricians who were the privileged classes). Plebeians could, and very often did, become very wealthy people - but wealth did not change their class. Wikipedia has an excellent article on this which you can read here.

When we think of Romans, we almost always imagine men in togas. But in fact, the toga was a very formal piece of clothing - to say that the Romans always wore togas would be the same as saying that the English always wear top-hats and tails. Juvenal says this: “There are many parts of Italy, to tell the truth, in which no man puts on a toga until he is dead”. The average roman would have worn tunics.

There is a popular misconception that when Rome conquered Carthage, they salted the farmlands to prevent anything from growing. In fact, this is a 20th century myth which has no bearing in reality. When the Romans conquered Carthage, they went from house to house capturing slaves and slaughtering the rest. They burnt the city to the ground and left it as a pile of ruins. This resulted in the loss of a great deal of historical information on Carthage, which makes the study of it difficult in modern times.

Caesar’s last words were actually “And you also” as recorded (in Greek) by Suetonius: Και συ Τέκνον (kai su teknon). These words were spoken to Brutus, which is undoubtedly the reason that Shakespeare coined the phrase: “And you, Brutus”. The meaning of his last words is unknown - but it would seem fair to think that he was telling his murderer: “you will be next”. Caesar was bi-lingual (Greek and Latin) and Greek was the dominant language in Rome at the time, so it is not unreasonable that his last words would have been uttered in that language.

In fact, women were gladiators too (though they were called gladiatrices - or gladiatrix for singular). While the first documented appearance of gladiatrices appears under the reign of Nero (37 - 68 AD), there are implications in earlier documents that strongly suggest they existed before. A strong condemnation against female gladiators of the Flavian and Trajanic eras can be found in the Satire VI of Juvenal, decrying the fact female gladiators were typically from upper-class families and seeking thrill and attention. Emperor Severus banned female gladiators around AD 200 but records show that this ban was largely ignored.

In fact, most modern historians believe that Nero was not even in Rome when the fire started. The fire started in shops selling flammable goods, though it was later blamed on the Christians (which brought on a new onslaught of persecutions). Nero was actually in Antium when the fire started, and when he heard about it he rushed back to Rome to organize relief efforts. According to Tacitus: “the population searched for a scapegoat and rumors held Nero responsible. To diffuse blame, Nero targeted a sect called the Christians. He ordered Christians to be thrown to dogs, while others were crucified and burned.”

译文: 罗马十大谜团之最

     对于大多数人而言，他们了解古罗马的唯一途径便是电影或电视。但不幸的是，诸如《角斗士》、《斯巴达克思》、《巴拉巴》和《圣徒妖姬》等影片却没能真实演绎出罗马的生活和竞技场的状况。

     考虑到罗马帝国的悠久历史，我们西方社会也从中承袭了不少，对罗马帝国及其子民或多或少有些误解，这也是不足为奇的。

     因此，我们将人们对古罗马社会和其风俗习惯的误解汇总后制成以下列表。阅读时，你会发现，其中大部分的错误都是显而易见的：

     10
      翘拇指

     与大众常识不同，罗马皇帝不会以大拇指翘起与否来示意角斗士杀死他的敌人。皇帝（只有皇帝一人）会用摊开或合拢的手掌来作为一种信号，如果他把手掌摊平，就意味着“饶他一命”，相反，如果手掌合拢，就意味着“杀了他”。如果角斗士在皇帝给出允许前就杀了他的对手，那么他就犯了谋杀罪，将被投入监狱，只有皇帝才有权判处某人死刑。我们可以从图例中人们的行为看出这一点。

     9
     阿蒂亚

     家庭影院亚洲频道（HBO）和英国广播公司（BBC）拍摄的系列剧《罗马》讲述了罗马帝国几十年的历史。可惜的是，在这部剧集里，他们却抹黑了其中的一个主要角色——阿蒂亚（屋大维的母亲，恺撒的侄女）。在电视剧里，她是马克·安东尼的情人，被塑造成一个放肆的，自我沉迷的，处心积虑的阴谋家。但在现实中，阿蒂亚是一名道德极其高尚的女子，被当时的罗马社会高度赞扬。塔西陀曾这样评价过她：

     只要有她在，不会存在任何冒犯的话语，也不会有人犯错。她以虔诚的态度极细致地规定了年轻君主们所要完成的重大任务以及他们的娱乐活动和各种比赛。

     8
      拱形通道

     长久以来，流传说罗马人会不停地大吃大喝，吃饱后，就走进一个名为“大通道”的房间，简称为“呕吐间”，去将食物吐出，这样他们就可以重新开动胃口了。这只是一个传说。这些房间实际上只是一些能让人们在圆形剧场内快速就位入座的拱形通道而已。这些通道能让数以千计的罗马公民在几分钟内就坐在自己的位子上。上面的照片中就是一个真正的拱形通道。

     7
      罗马人说拉丁语

     确实，罗马人是讲拉丁语，其被称为“通俗拉丁语”，而我们普遍认为他们讲的是古典拉丁语（古典拉丁语是我们通常在大学期间所学习的那种语言），两者之间有着天壤之别。通俗拉丁语是从罗曼语（包括意大利语，法语等）发展而来的。古典拉丁语只被运用于官方语言。而且，一般东罗马帝国的人都只说希腊语，从公元4世纪开始，希腊语就取代拉丁语而成为了官方语。

     6
      平民

     现代社会，我们往往会用平民这个词意指大众阶层或贫困阶层，但是，在罗马，平民只是罗马广大民众中的一员（与特权阶层的贵族形成对比）。平民可以成为富人，他们也时常如此，但财富并不能改变他们的社会地位。对此，维基百科写过一篇优秀的文章，你可以点击这里阅读。

     5
      罗马人穿宽外袍

     提及罗马人，我们时常想到的便是穿着宽外袍的民族。但实际上，宽外袍是非常正式的衣着装束，也就是说，罗马人总是穿宽外袍就好象英国人总是带高帽，穿礼服一样不切实际。尤维纳利斯说：“说实话，在意大利的很多地区，人们只有在死的时候才穿宽外袍。”普通的罗马人更常穿的是长达膝盖的短袖束腰外衣。

     4
     撒盐于迦太基

     人们普遍认为罗马人打败了迦太基后，在农田周围撒上了盐，使那里寸草不生。这是错误的理解，事实是，这只是一个20世纪编造出来的神话，没有任何真实依据。当罗马人击败迦太基后，他们挨家挨户地抓捕奴隶，屠杀剩余的百姓。他们烧毁了整座城市，只留下一片废墟，导致有关迦太基的历史信息大量流失，使现代社会对此段历史的研究困难无比。

     3
     还有你，布鲁图斯？

     按照苏维托尼乌斯的记录，恺撒的最后一句话应该是“你也是”，希腊语为：Και συ Τέκνον (kai su teknon)。这些话是对布鲁图斯说的，所以，毫无疑问，莎士比亚根据这句话杜撰了另外一句：“还有你，布鲁图斯”。恺撒最后遗言的意思，我们尚不得知，但我们可以认为他是在诉说这起针对他的谋杀：“你会是下一个”。恺撒使用的是双语（希腊语和拉丁语），而在当时希腊语是主要语言，所以用这种语言讲出最后的遗言是可以理解的。

     2
     角斗士全是男子

     实际上，女子也可以成为角斗士（尽管她们有不一样的称呼，如gladiatrices 或者 gladiatrix for singular）。女角斗士第一次以文件证明形式出现是在尼禄的统治时期（公元37—68年），更早期的文件中也有证据显示，女角斗士很早以前就已存在。尤维纳利斯所写的讽刺诗第六卷中记载，在夫拉维王朝和图拉真时代，对女角斗士有很强的责难，人们指责她们都来自于典型的上层家庭，只是为了追求刺激，吸引世人的眼球。大约在公元200年，塞维鲁皇帝曾禁止女角斗士的出场，但记录显示大部分情况下此禁令是被人们忽视的。

     1
     罗马发生火灾时，尼禄在弹琴观火

     事实上，大多数历史学家相信，当罗马发生火灾时，尼禄并不在罗马地区。尽管之后火灾的起因归罪于基督教徒（引发了新一轮的迫害），但其实火灾始于一些摆放着易燃物品的商店。此时尼禄身在提乌姆，当他听到火灾的消息后，马上赶回了罗马，并组织救援工作。据塔西陀而言：“民众想要找一个替罪羔羊，而谣言说尼禄该对此负责。为了逃避责难，尼禄将目标锁定在基督教这一宗教派别上。他命令将那些基督教徒或杀死喂狗，或钉于十字架上，或活活烧死。”