Comedy Analysis: Humour in ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was more than gladiators and soldiers

The Romans, although not as funny as the Greeks, certainly did have humour and comedy played a part in Roman culture. There is a distinct difference though: where the Greeks had jokes that were rather similar to today's jokes, Roman jokes were a lot different. A joke that was wildly praised in Roman times went as follows:

The scenario for the joke is the trial of Milo, accused of killing the infamous, wildly unpopular, controversial aristocrat Clodius.

Milo's defence lawyer (Cicero) was asked this question: What time did Clodius die?

Cicero answered: "Sero."

The punchline “Sero”  it a Latin word with two meanings. It can be either 'late' or 'too late'. In this scenario therefore, Cicero answered both that Clodius died late in the day, probably late afternoon or in the evening, but also that he should have gotten rid of long ago, as he died 'too late'. This was considered a hilarious joke in Roman times as it connected to a true story, supported many Roman's views on Clodius and had what was considered to be a strong punchline. Roman jokes were very different from ours and most people nowadays wouldn't enjoy Roman jokes. Some words were by themselves considered to be hilarious, like the word stomach. Nowadays most people wouldn't laugh when you just say stomach.

Roman comedy plays however were much like sitcoms today. Their plays intended to give a humorous image of the everyday life. Some situations were exaggerated, or absurd situations were introduced for humorous effect. Some recurring themes were the family’s father falling in love with the same woman as his adolescent son. Usually this woman was a prostitute which resulted in dealings with the brothel owner, who had no morals whatsoever. The family mother would become irate as soon as she found out about her husband’s love interest, resulting in him being dragged off stage by the wife. This was a form of entertainment most people nowadays would find humorous and it has aged much better than the normal stand-alone jokes.

Although Roman humour as a whole didn't age nearly as well as its Greek counterpart, they did make an admirable attempt and perhaps it's just due to our lack of understanding of the sophisticated Roman culture that we don't find it that amusing. Its still interesting to see though, that even in a humour-climate as different from ours as the Romans, there still are links and similarities. Maybe we will learn to appreciate the jokes as our society and culture matures, we'll see.