JUST as the British Empire had its followers who “went out in the midday sun”, so the Roman Empire was a wacky world with its own collection of eccentrics and beliefs.

Superstition was rife, belief in auguries was prevalent – we all know a famous somebody who fatally ignored the ides of March – and the more you look at Roman life, the odder it seems. Romans took a jaundiced and ironic view of the doctors who were supposed to preserve it. Martial equated them to mere morticians while Pliny thought medical bills “a down-payment on death”.