Roman baths didn’t make you clean — and other gems from Peter Jones’s Veni, Vedi, Vici

Spectator readers need no introduction to Peter Jones. His Ancient and Modern column has instructed and delighted us for many years. Now he has written an equally delightful and instructive book with the alluring subtitle ‘Everything you ever wanted to know about the Romans but were afraid to ask.’ Well, it may not be quite everything, but it is a near as dammit.

He captures you from the start: ‘Romans came up with two stories about how they were founded. One (bewilderingly, we might think) was pure Greek.’ Well, all nations are uncertain and sometimes confused about their origins. So it’s no surprise to be told that ‘any account of Rome up to 300 BC needs to be taken cum grano salis’ (with a grain of salt). ‘Even the intensely patriotic Livy doubts the strict accuracy of his account of this early period’ — just as we may doubt the strict accuracy of the story of King Arthur.

Information — what you wanted to know — comes with much to amuse. Take the story of Pyrrhus, the Greek king of Epirus. Asked what he would do when he had beaten the Romans, he said he would conquer Sicily, Libya and Carthage and regain Macedon and Greece. What next? ‘Take it easy, drink every day and talk to our heart’s delight,’ he replied. Which got the response it deserved: that he could do that now, without all the bloodshed and misery. Pyrrhus, we are told, ‘saw the point, but could not bring himself to abandon his ambitions.’ This sad story is new to me (if it’s not one I’ve forgotten) and is certainly worth knowing.

In Republican Rome, the rich paid taxes and the poor didn’t. In return, the rich got more votes, and therefore ‘complete political control over the conduct of affairs in which the state spent their money.