Note to teachers/kids under ten: this post contains some images of nudity.

We don’t know a lot about the life of the poet Sappho, but we know that she was one of the most admired poets of ancient Greece. Plato called her the Tenth Muse.

Born on the island of Lesbos to a wealthy family, she married, had a daughter, and then, when her husband died, opened a school for girls.

According to other writers of the time, Sappho wrote a lot, to the tune of twelve thousand lines of verse that filled nine books. She wrote her poems to be accompanied by the music of a lyre—hence the origin of “lyric poetry.”

Sadly, only six hundred fragmented lines have survived. In 1073 (1600 years after her death), church authorities in Constantinople and Rome burned her poetry because it portrayed love for other women.

The lines that survive were discovered in Cairo in 1897. Scraps of old papyrus rolls, many of which contained fragments of Sappho’s poems, had been torn into strips and used for lining coffins as a kind of papier-mâché, or used as stuffing for mummies and for crocodile carcasses.

Sappho as a subject seems to have been an endless source of fascination for artists, for centuries. There are endless paintings that show her in thoughtful poses, hair flowing, her very un-Greek-like dress tumbling off one shoulder and exposing her snow-white bosom. As if. Greek men did a lot of parading around naked, but “respectable” Greek women were expected to remain demurely wrapped in their chitons. Here are a few examples:

Artists especially love to portray the legend of her death. According to this legend (which seems highly unlikely), Sappho fell in love with the young Phaon, a boatman. When he spurned her love, she flung herself into the sea from the Leucadian cliff. There are many renditions of Sappho about to hurl herself and her lyre into the sea. Here are just a few:And then there are those that combine the bare bosom and the edge of the cliff motif. Poor Sappho. I wish she were better known for her poetry than for her ignominious–and most likely fictionalized–end.

Renaissance painter Baccio della Porta ( d 1517) changed his name to Fra Bartolommeo (Brother Bartholomew) when he became a friar. When the fiery sermons of Savonarola demanded burning of “vanities,” Bartolommeo tossed all his paintings of nudes into the flames.

In 1642, during the Thirty Years War, when soldiers attacked a village in Prussia the nuns from the town’s convent overturned the convent’s beehives. The angry bees drove back the attackers. The grateful townsfolk renamed their village Beyenburg (Bee town).

Adrienne Mayor, Archaeology, Nov-Dec 1995, page 36

The ancient Romans’ favorite condiment was called garum. Earlier, the Greeks had used it, and later, the Byzantines, but garum was most popular during ancient Roman times.

They dumped garum onto everything—the way Americans do ketchup, the Chinese soy sauce, and Egyptians tahini. Should you be curious to try garum yourself, I’ve written out the recipe for you. You’re welcome.

First, collect the heads, tails, intestines and other guts of whatever fish you have on hand, and salt them heavily. You can use anchovies, mackerel, sardines, or combinations of fish.

Layer the salted fish guts in a large amphora and then leave it out in the sun until the fish rot, ferment, putrefy, and liquefy. This process might take a few months. Stir occasionally.

Pour off the liquid that forms at the top—that’s the garum.

Garum is actually quite nutritious—full of amino acids, proteins, and vitamin D from all that time in the sun. But the rotten sludge left at the bottom is also highly nutritious, so save for another use, as recipes so often (and rather unhelpfully) suggest.

Image: mackerel, by Peter van der Sluijs, 2012, via wikimedia

Women from ancient Judea had slightly better status than their counterparts in Greece. A woman could divorce her husband if he had bad breath or if he practiced a trade that was too smelly, like tanning (turning animal hides into leather).

In 1850, the population in the US was 23 million. 3.2 million were black slaves.

Did banqueting Romans really make themselves vomit so they could go on eating?

It’s true that sumptuous banquets might begin at four in the afternoon and last until the next morning. It’s also true that many people ate and drank way more than was prudent. Banqueters reclined on couches. The tables were strewn with flowers and parsley, and slaves stood by, at the ready to serve and clear course upon exotic course.

Diners did sometimes accept an emetic to help them throw up if they’d eaten too much, and the famous gluttons did barf between courses, but those tended to be the exception rather than the norm. And the so-called “vomitorium” wasn’t a special room in which to go hurl. The vomitorium referred to the opening of an amphitheater that allowed large crowds to stream quickly out into the street.

Indian surgeons from as far back as 600 BC knew how to reconstruct a nose, as a common punishment for adultery was having one’s nose cut off.

My good friend Sylvia is a children’s librarian and fellow history-lover, and she often sends me very cool articles and things. Recently, Sylvia alerted me to this amazing document. It’s the log of all the books checked out of the library from 1856 – 1880 by George Frederic Jones. He was the father of American novelist, Edith Wharton (1861 or 2 – 1937). It was transcribed by Alan Behler at the New York Society Library.

Here’s part of it. You won’t be able to see it very well, but if you’re a fan of 19th-century writers, it’s definitely worth it to click on the link:

George Frederic Jones was a gentleman of leisure, and theirs was a society family, although it sounds like there were times when finances were somewhat strained (relatively speaking, obviously). The expression “keeping up with the Joneses” was thought to be a reference to Edith’s great-aunts Mary and Rebecca (who, according to this New Yorker piece, shocked Society when they built their mansion north of Fifty-seventh street).

The ledger of books is a real Greatest-Hits-of-the-mid-19^th-century, and includes hot (or at least warm)-off-the-press releases like Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre (published in 1847, checked out by George 12/19/1857), Charles Darwin’s The Descent of Man (published 1871, checked out by George 3/5/1873), Flaubert’s Madame Bovary (published in 1863, checked out by George 11/20/1873), Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter (published in 1850, checked out by George 4/1/1874), and Dumas’ The Three Musketeers (published in 1844, checked out by George 8/25/1874).

As far as I can determine, the first English translation of Madame Bovary wasn’t published until the mid 1880s, which suggests that George must have read that (and presumably The Three Musketeers) in French.

The six year gap in the ledger is the result of the family moving abroad from 1866 – 1872, where a society family could still live fairly lavishly but much more cheaply. The family left again in 1881, a year after the end of the ledger, this time for George’s health (he died in 1882).

Edith Wharton, By E. F. Cooper, Newport, Rhode Island, ca 1889 via Wikimedia Commons

The Frankish King Charlemagne (747ish AD – 814), was believed to be about 6’ 4 inches tall. His father was known as Pepin the Short.