The Book Of General Ignorance Part 10

But where did they do it, if there was no special room? Some sources suggest the street or garden; others are adamant it was at the table. In his Moral Epistles Moral Epistles the Roman philosopher Seneca writes: 'When we recline at a banquet, one slave wipes up the spittle; another, situated beneath the table, collects the leavings of the drunks.' the Roman philosopher Seneca writes: 'When we recline at a banquet, one slave wipes up the spittle; another, situated beneath the table, collects the leavings of the drunks.'

In another pa.s.sage, in a letter to his mother Helvia he links this to the decadent pursuit of the new and the exotic: 'They vomit that they may eat, they eat that they may vomit, and they do not deign even to digest the feasts for which they ransack the whole world.'

STEPHEN What's a vomitorium for? What's a vomitorium for?

PHILL Is it London's least successful tourist destination? It's just next to the planetarium. Is it London's least successful tourist destination? It's just next to the planetarium.

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What did the Romans like to wear?

Sandals, probably, laurel wreaths from time to time, but definitely not togas.

The basic toga was a huge semi-circle of undyed wool so unwieldy that it took two other people to help put it on and, once on, the only way to stop it falling off was to camp around with the left arm crooked. Most Romans hated them.

The toga was an ornate, overblown Roman version of a kilt: a form of dress that started out as a practical garment but ended up as a symbolic form of national costume and definitely not the kind of thing you'd wear at home.

The early togas were based on an Etruscan garment called the tebenna tebenna, a rough oblong of wool that doubled as both a tunic and a cloak. They were very popular with farmers. By the second century BC BC, it had become a vast semi-circular garment involving 200 square feet (20 feet wide x 10 feet high) of thick wool: useless for doing anything other than standing around in and about as s.e.xy as a hessian sack. Despite the plethora of 'How to Wear a Toga' websites, there is no agreement as to the 'correct' way to put one on.

What we do know is what they were for. Wearing a toga showed that you were a Roman (Virgil refers to them as the 'toga people' in the Aeneid Aeneid), a citizen, and a man. The historian Suetonius tells the story that, when the first Emperor, Augustus Caesar, noticed a group of men loafing about the city centre in lightweight practical cloaks the Roman equivalent of a sh.e.l.l suit he lost his temper and pa.s.sed an edict making the toga compulsory anywhere in and around the Forum.

A positive hindrance in battle, soldiers never wore them, so they also became a symbol of peace. Foreigners or slaves weren't allowed to wear them, and finding a woman in a toga meant she was either a prost.i.tute or an adulteress (nice ladies wore a gown or robe called the stola stola).

Being a man's uniform, of course, they came in a huge range of styles and shades. There was the toga pull toga pulla (dark toga) for funerals; the toga praetexta toga praetexta (toga bordered with purple) for magistrates; the very fancy (toga bordered with purple) for magistrates; the very fancy toga picta toga picta (patterned toga) for generals; and the brilliant white (patterned toga) for generals; and the brilliant white toga candida toga candida (bright toga) worn by those put up for election to political office (which is where we get the word 'candidate' from). (bright toga) worn by those put up for election to political office (which is where we get the word 'candidate' from).

So rather like a pinstriped suit or a tuxedo, togas were for business, fancy occasions or for getting buried in. Most of the time, Romans wore the far more practical combination of tunic and cloak.

Toga parties were first mentioned in Tom Wolfe's 1968 story, The Pump House Gang The Pump House Gang, and popularised by the 1978 film, Animal House Animal House, starring the late John Belus.h.i.+. The togae featured in the film bear about as much resemblance to the original Roman garment as a thong does to a set of Victorian ladies undergarments.

What happened to most people accused of witchcraft in England?

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They were acquitted and even if they had been found guilty they would have been hanged, not burned.

According to Malcolm Gaskill, in his detailed history of the seventeenth-century witch-hunting craze, Witchfinders Witchfinders (2005), the popular perception (encouraged by Dan Brown's (2005), the popular perception (encouraged by Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code The Da Vinci Code) that five million women were burned at the stake for witchcraft in Europe between 1450 and 1750 is a ma.s.sive overestimate. He believes, like most historians of the period, that 40,000 is closer to the true figure, and that a quarter of those executed were men.

There are only 200 known executions in England directly resulting from an allegation of witchcraft. Nearly all of those were hangings. The Scots, French, Germans and Italians did all burn witches but, even then, it was more usual to strangle them at the stake and then burn the body afterwards, rather than burn them alive.

In Britain, from 1440 to 1650, only one 'witch' was burned per century.

Margery Jordemaine, the 'Witch of Eye', was burned at Smithfield on 27 October 1441; Isabella Billington was burned at York in 1650 (although she was hanged first); and Isabel c.o.c.kie was burned in 1596.

An accusation of witchcraft in England by no means necessarily led to a death sentence. The Church often blamed for persecuting witches took no part in prosecutions. Accusers had to prove a witch had harmed them and English juries were surprisingly reluctant to convict. Seventy-five per cent of all witch trials ended in acquittal.

Contrary to the popular perception of baying mobs, it appears there was a good deal of resistance to the idea of witch-hunting, shared by both judges and ordinary people the practice was regarded as superst.i.tious, prejudicial to public order, and unnecessarily expensive.

Isabel c.o.c.kie's funeral pyre, for example, cost 105s. 4d.: the equivalent of more than 1,000 in today's money.

What is the Number of the Beast?

616.

For 2,000 years, 666 has been the symbol of the dreaded Anti-Christ, who will come to rule the world before the Last Judgement. For many, it's an unlucky number: even the European Parliament leaves seat no. 666 vacant.

The number is from Revelation, the last and strangest book in the Bible: 'Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six and six.'

But it's a wrong number. In 2005, a new translation of the earliest known copy of the Book of Revelation clearly shows it to be 616 not 666. The 1,700-year-old papyrus was recovered from the rubbish dumps of the city of Oxyrhynchus in Egypt and deciphered by a palaeographical research team from the University of Birmingham led by Professor David Parker.

If the new number is correct, it will not amuse those who have just spent a small fortune avoiding the old one. In 2003, US Highway 666 known as 'The Highway of the Beast' was renamed Highway 491. The Moscow Transport Department will be even less amused. In 1999, they picked a new number for the jinxed 666 bus route. It was 616.

The controversy has been around since the second century AD. AD. A version of the Bible citing the Number of the Beast as 616 was castigated by St Iranaeus of Lyon ( A version of the Bible citing the Number of the Beast as 616 was castigated by St Iranaeus of Lyon (c.130200) as 'erroneous and spurious'. Karl Marx's friend Friedrich Engels a.n.a.lysed the Bible in his book On Religion On Religion (1883). He too calculated the number as 616, not 666. (1883). He too calculated the number as 616, not 666.

Revelation was the first book of the New Testament to be written and it is full of number puzzles. Each of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet has a corresponding number, so that any number can also be read as a word.

Both Parker and Engels argue that the Book of Revelation is a political, anti-Roman tract, numerologically coded to disguise its message. The Number of the Beast (whatever that may be) refers to either Caligula or Nero, the hated oppressors of the early Christians, not to some imaginary bogey-man.

The fear of the number 666 is known as Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia. Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia. The fear of the number 616 (you read it here first) is The fear of the number 616 (you read it here first) is Hexakosioidekahexaphobia. Hexakosioidekahexaphobia.

The numbers on a roulette wheel added together come to 666.

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Where does the word 'a.s.sa.s.sin' come from?

Not from has.h.i.+sh.

The earliest authority for the medieval sect called the a.s.sa.s.sins taking has.h.i.+sh in order to witness the pleasures awaiting them after death is the notoriously unreliable Marco Polo. Most Islamic scholars now favour the more convincing etymology of a.s.sa.s.siyun a.s.sa.s.siyun, meaning people who are faithful to the a.s.sa.s.s a.s.sa.s.s, the 'foundation' of the faith. They were, literally, 'fundamentalists'.

This makes sense when you look at their core activities. The Al-Hashas.h.i.+n, or Nizaris as they called themselves, were active for 200 years. They were s.h.i.+'ite muslims, dedicated to the overthrow of the Sunni Caliph (a kind of Islamic king). The a.s.sa.s.sins considered the Baghdad regime decadent and little more than a puppet regime of the Turks. Sound familiar?

The sect was founded by Ha.s.san-i Sabbah in 1090, a mystic philosopher, fond of poetry and science. They made their base at Alamut, an una.s.sailable fortress in the mountains south of the Caspian Sea. It housed an important library and beautiful gardens but it was Ha.s.san's political strategy that made the sect famous. He decided they could wield huge influence by using a simple weapon: terror.

Dressed as merchants and holy men they selected and murdered their victims in in public, usually at Friday prayers, in the mosque. They weren't explicitly 'suicide' missions, but the a.s.sa.s.sins were almost always killed in the course of their work. public, usually at Friday prayers, in the mosque. They weren't explicitly 'suicide' missions, but the a.s.sa.s.sins were almost always killed in the course of their work.

They were incredibly successful, systematically wiping out all the major leaders of the Muslim world and effectively destroying any chance of a unified Islamic defence against the Western crusaders.

What finally defeated them was, ironically, exactly what defeated their opponents. In 1256 Hulagu Khan a.s.sembled the largest Mongol army ever known. They marched westward destroying the a.s.sa.s.sins' power base in Alamut, before sacking Baghdad in 1258.

Baghdad was then the world's most beautiful and civilised city. A million citizens perished and so many books were thrown into the river Tigris it ran black with ink. The city remained a ruin for hundreds of years afterwards.

Hulagu destroyed the caliphs and the a.s.sa.s.sins. He drove Islam into Egypt and then returned home only to perish, in true Mongol style, in a civil war.

Which crime did Burke and Hare commit?

Murder.

In the early nineteenth century, there was a big increase in the number of students of anatomy. The law in Britain specified that the only corpses that could be legally used for dissection were those of recently executed criminals. This was quite an advance on the anatomy lessons in Alexandria in the third century BC BC, where criminals were dissected while still alive.

The number of executions was inadequate to supply the demand and a brisk trade grew up in illicit grave robbing. Its pract.i.tioners were known as 'resurrection men'.

Burke and Hare were more proactive; they just murdered people and sold the bodies to an anatomist named Knox on an 'ask no questions' basis. In all, they killed sixteen people.

When suspicion fell on them, Burke and his wife Helen tried to get their story straight before they were separated to be interviewed by the police. They agreed to say that a missing woman had left their house at seven o'clock. Unfortunately, Mrs Burke said 7 p.m. and Mr Burke 7 a.m.

In return for his own immunity, Hare gave evidence against the Burkes. Burke was executed in 1829 but Helen got off 'not proven' and promptly vanished. Mr and Mrs Hare also disappeared, and Knox escaped prosecution altogether.

The father of systematic dissection was a sixteenth-century Belgian anatomist called Andreas Vesalius. He published his findings in the cla.s.sic seven-volume text On the Fabric of the Human Body. On the Fabric of the Human Body.

In those days, dissection was forbidden by the Catholic Church, so Vesalius had to work in secret. At the University of Padua, he built an ingenious table in case of unexpected visitors. It could be quickly flipped upside down, dumping the human body underneath and revealing a splayed-open dog.

Over the last twenty years, dissection has fallen out of favour in medical schools the victim of overly packed curriculums, a shortage of teachers and a general sense that it's an antiquated ch.o.r.e in a high-tech world.

It's now possible to qualify as a doctor without ever having dissected a body at all. To save time and mess, students study 'prosections' bodies that have already been professionally dissected or computer simulations that do away with cadavers entirely.

What are chast.i.ty belts for?

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The idea of a crusader clapping his wife in a chast.i.ty belt and galloping off to war with the key round his neck is a nineteenth-century fantasy designed to t.i.tillate readers.

There is very little evidence for the use of chast.i.ty belts in the Middle Ages at all. The first known drawing of one occurs in the fifteenth century. Konrad Kyeser's Bellifortis Bellifortis was a book on contemporary military equipment written long after the crusades had finished. It includes an ill.u.s.tration of the 'hard iron breeches' worn by Florentine women. was a book on contemporary military equipment written long after the crusades had finished. It includes an ill.u.s.tration of the 'hard iron breeches' worn by Florentine women.

In the diagram, the key is clearly visible which suggests that it was the lady and not the knight who controlled access to the device, to protect herself against the unwanted attentions of Florentine bucks.

In museum collections, most 'medieval' chast.i.ty belts have now been shown to be of dubious authenticity and removed from display. As with 'medieval' torture equipment, it appears that most of it was manufactured in Germany in the nineteenth century to satisfy the curiosity of 'specialist' collectors.

The nineteenth century also witnessed an upturn in sales of new chast.i.ty belts but these were not for women.

Victorian medical theory was of the opinion that masturbation was harmful to health. Boys who could not be trusted to keep their hands to themselves were forced to wear these improving steel underpants.

But the real boom in sales has come in the last fifty years, as 'adult' shops take advantage of the thriving bondage market.

There are more chast.i.ty belts around today than there ever were in the Middle Ages. Paradoxically, they exist to stimulate s.e.x, not to prevent it.

What was Tutankhamun's curse?

There wasn't one. It was made up by the papers.

The story of the 'pharaoh's curse' striking down all those who entered Tutankhamun's tomb when it was discovered by Howard Carter in 1922, was the work of the Cairo correspondent of the Daily Express Daily Express (later repeated by the (later repeated by the Daily Mail Daily Mail and the and the New York Times New York Times).

The article reported an inscription that stated: 'They who enter this sacred tomb shall swiftly be visited by wings of death.'

There is no such inscription. The nearest equivalent appears over a shrine dedicated to the G.o.d Anubis and reads: 'It is I who hinder the sand from choking the secret chamber. I am for the protection of the deceased.'

In the run-up to Carter's expedition, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who also famously believed in fairies had already planted the seeds of 'a terrible curse' in the minds of the press. When Carter's patron, Lord Caernavon, died from a septic mosquito bite a few weeks after the tomb was opened, Marie Corelli, writer of sensational best-sellers and the Dan Brown of her day, claimed she had warned him what would happen if he broke the seal.

In fact, both were echoing a superst.i.tion that was less than a hundred years old, established by a young English novelist called Jane Loudon Webb. Her hugely popular novel The Mummy The Mummy (1828) single-handedly invented the idea of a cursed tomb with a mummy returning to life to avenge its desecrators. (1828) single-handedly invented the idea of a cursed tomb with a mummy returning to life to avenge its desecrators.

This theme found its way into all sorts of subsequent tales even Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women Little Women, wrote a 'mummy' story but its big break came with the advent of 'Tutankhamun-fever'.

No curse has ever been found in an ancient Egyptian tomb. Of the alleged twenty-six deaths caused by Tutankhamun's 'curse', thorough research published in the British Medical British Medical Journal Journal in 2002 has shown that only six died within the first decade of its opening and Howard Carter, surely the number one target, lived for another seventeen years. in 2002 has shown that only six died within the first decade of its opening and Howard Carter, surely the number one target, lived for another seventeen years.

But the story just won't go away. As late as 1970, when the exhibition of artefacts from the tomb toured the West, a policeman guarding it in San Francisco complained of a mild stroke brought on by the 'mummy's curse'.

In 2005, a CAT scan of Tutankhamun's mummy showed that the nineteen-year-old was 1.7 m (5 feet 6 inches) and skinny, with a goofy overbite. Rather than being murdered by his brother, it seems he died from an infected knee.

CLIVE None of these superst.i.tions should be worried about ... touch wood. None of these superst.i.tions should be worried about ... touch wood.

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Where does the V-sign come from?

It has nothing to do with archery.

The oldest definite record of someone using a V-sign only dates back as far as 1901, when there is doc.u.mentary footage of a young man who clearly didn't want to be filmed using the gesture to camera outside an ironworks in Rotherham. This proves that the gesture was being used by the late nineteenth century, but it's a long way from the bowmen at the Battle of Agincourt.

According to the legend, English archers waved their fingers in contempt at their French counterparts, who were supposed to be in the habit of cutting off the fingers of captured bowmen a fingerless archer being useless, as he could not draw back the string.

Although one historian claims to have unearthed an eyewitness account of Henry V's pre-battle speech that refers to this French practice, there is no contemporary evidence of the V-sign being used in the early fifteenth century. Despite there being a number of chroniclers present at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, none of them mentions any archers using this defiant gesture. Secondly, even if archers were captured by the French they were much more likely to be killed rather than be subject to the fiddly and time-consuming process of having their fingers amputated. Prisoners were usually only taken to be ransomed and bowmen were considered inferior merchandise who wouldn't fetch a decent price. Finally, there are no known references of any kind to the Agincourt story that date back further than the early 1970s.

What is certain is that the one-fingered 'middle-finger salute' dates back much further than the V-sign; it is obviously a phallic symbol the Romans referred to the middle finger as the digitus impudicus digitus impudicus, or lewd finger. In Arabic society, an upside-down version of 'flicking the bird' is used to signify impotence.

Whatever its date of origin, the V-sign wasn't universally understood until quite recently. When Winston Churchill first began to use the V-for-Victory salute the wrong way round in 1940, he had to be gently told that it was rude.

What did feminists do with their bras?

No, they didn't.

Arguably the most influential feminist protest in history occurred at the 1968 'Miss America' beauty contest in Atlantic City, New Jersey.