Ancient Roman jokes, as described by Cicero and Quintilian, are best employed as a rhetorical device.[1] Many of them are apparently taken from real-life trials conducted by famous advocates, such as Cicero.[citation needed] Jokes were also found scrawled upon washroom walls of Pompeii as graffiti.[2] Romans sought laughter by attending comic plays (such as those of Plautus) and mimes (such as those of Publilius Syrus). Jokes from these sources usually depended on sexual themes.[3] Cicero believe that humour ought to be based upon "ambiguity, the unexpected, wordplay, understatement, irony, ridicule, silliness, and pratfalls".[3] Roman jokes also depended on certain stock characters and stereotypes, especially regarding foreigners,[4] as can be seen within Plautus' Poenulus.
Type of joke | Rhetorical device |
---|---|
Target of joke | Romans |
Roman culture, which was heavily influenced by the Greeks, had also been in conversation with Greek humour.[1]
One of the oldest Roman jokes, which is based on a fictitious story and survived alive to this time, is told by Macrobius in his Saturnalia:[5] (4th century AD, but the joke itself is probably several centuries older):
(The modern version is that an aristocrat, having met his exact double, asks: "Was your mother a housemaid in our palace?" "No, my father was a gardener there").
An example of a joke based on double meaning is recorded in Gellius (2nd century AD):[6]
(the pun is in the expression used for in all your honesty - orig. ex animi tui sententia, typically used in oaths - which can also be understood as to your liking).
Some of the jokes are about fortune-tellers and the like. An example (1st century BC):[7]