1. Examples

2. Further reading

3. See also

4. References

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.{{cn|date=November 2017}} 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.

Roman culture, which was heavily influence by the Greek, had also been in conversation with Greek humour.^[1]

Examples

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):

Some provincial man has come to Rome, and walking on the streets was drawing everyone's attention, being a real double of the emperor Augustus. The emperor, having brought him to the palace, looks at him and then asks:

-Tell me, young man, did your mother come to Rome anytime?

The reply was:

-She never did. But my father frequently was here.

(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]

A man, standing before a censor, is about to testify, whether he has a wife. The censor asks:

-Do you have, in all your honesty, a wife?

-I surely do, but not in all my honesty.

(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 BCE):^[7]

A runner going to participate in the Olympic games had a dream, that he was driving a quadriga. Early in the morning he goes to a dream interpreter for an explanation. The reply is:

-You will win, that meant the speed and the strength of the horses.

But, to be sure about this, the runner visits another dream interpreter. This one replies:

-You will lose. Don't you understand, that four ones came before you?

Further reading

• On the Orator, Cicero
• Laughter in Ancient Rome, Mary Beard. University of California Press, 2014; {{ISBN|0-520-27716-3}}

See also

• Philogelos, an ancient Greek joke book.
• Poetics (Aristotle), Aristotle discusses the nature of tragedy and comedy, but the book on the latter is lost.

References

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• Barinia
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• Barinia, South Australia
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• Barin, Iran (disambiguation)
• Bari Nizami
• Barinophyton
• Barinov
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• Barinsamu
• Barin, Syria
• Bar in Ukraine
• Barin, Zanjan