Rome Is Eternal. Book Review Of Tibor Grüll’s 50 Things You Would Never Think Of The Romans

Abstract

When Ancient Rome comes to mind, we mostly think of emperors, the senate, great military conquests or maybe gladiator fights. Hip contemporary notions, such as hyperinflation, tourism, smog, soil contamination, analogue computer, or chemical warfare, are not evoked. We would assume that these expressions meant nothing to the people of those ages, yet whilst reading the book, we find information on every page, that is of novelty even for those who are familiar with history. This is not a surprise, if one knows the author, since Tibor Grüll, reader at the Department of Ancient History, the Institution for History at the University of Pécs, has been dealing with ever so interesting topics in his books. His main area of research is the history of the Roman Empire, yet again, he has not let us down.