Confronting the Classics, by Mary Beard – review

The Emperor Augustus, ruler of the known world, once spotted a man in the street who looked a bit like himself. ‘Did your mother ever work at the palace?’ he asked him roguishly. ‘No,’ the man replied, ‘but my father did.’ Augustus could have had the man killed for this scurrilous (and slightly surreal) insinuation, but fortunately he had a sense of humour.

As too, Mary Beard tells us, did the Emperor Elagabalus, who used to seat his dinner guests on cushions that, unbeknownst to them, were full of air. As the meal progressed, a slave secretly let the air out, so Elagabalus could enjoy the sight of his companions subsiding, until they slid beneath the table.

While sharing the first of these anecdotes in Confronting the Classics, the author praises Augustus for his ability to laugh at himself. Yet there’s little doubt where her real sympathies lie — here, as elsewhere, they’re with the man in the street.