History's Naughty Bits

One of the most outrageous stories concerned Vedius Pollio, who fed slaves at will to the lamprey eels in his fishpond if they displeased him. This was deemed shockingly cruel, even by Roman standards, and Emperor Augustus himself intervened on behalf of a slave. One evening, when Augustus was dining with Vedius Pollio, a slave broke a crystal cup. To save the terrified servant, Augustus proceeded to smash all the crystal cups at the table.

When Augustus inherited Vedius’s magnificent villa on his death, he had it demolished so that the house would not remain as a monument to its evil owner.

Does it really matter what these affectionate people do – so long as they don’t do it in the streets and frighten the horses?

Mrs Patrick Campbell

A strange book was published in 1779 called The English Spy; or Secret Correspondence between Milord the Eye and Milord the Ear which offers a glimpse inside a Parisian brothel of the day.

pamphlet called The Life and Character of Moll King, late Mistress of King’s Coffee House in Covent Garden

Hogarth’s The Harlot’s Progress

Heinrich Meibom’s 1639 work A Treatise on the Use of Flogging

The history of tattoos stretches back to the earliest days of mankind. The two oldest colour tattoos were found on a Stone Age man who died over 5,000 years ago and an ancient Egyptian priestess of the goddess Hathor dating back over four thousand years. Tattoos were well known in ancient Greece, although they were usually associated with slaves, and it is sometimes claimed that Anglo-Saxon kings were tattooed.

Governor Bradford wrote Of Plymouth Plantation as a detailed two-volume history.

Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales

On the Nature of the Universe