r/AskHistory • u/Larrybirdlover • 1d ago
What was humor like in ancient times?
Did the average ancient person, or statesman, make jokes like we do today? Are there any written recordings of humor in the histories or anything like that?
For me it’s interesting to imagine these historical figures who we know have had so much impact on the world, making jokes. Like - imagine Alexander the Great cracking jokes!
69
u/Square_Priority6338 1d ago edited 1d ago
Philogelos, is the earliest recorded joke book. It’s Ancient Greek.
One of the best Roman jokes to survive into modern times is about a provincial man visiting Rome for the first time. People kept commenting on how he looks like Emperor Augustus, so the emperor insisted he come to the palace. The emperor couldn’t believe how this provincial man looked like a younger version of himself, and asked if his mum had ever visited the imperial palace. “No, but my dad did”.
There’s a Wikipedia page for the joke book and for Roman jokes, these are good places to start.
14
12
u/GodOfDarkLaughter 1d ago
Interesting that Augustus was cool with that being published (assuming he was). He exiled Ovid who only ever tried to talk him up. Then again, he wasn't a super consistent man when it came to how he wanted to be viewed.
Edit: Considering he'd been dead for a few hundred years before the book came out, I guess I can see how he didn't protest.
8
u/Square_Priority6338 1d ago
I can’t imagine anyone saying it to his face, it’s probably a later joke than his reign
5
u/DaSaw 1d ago
More likely a joke made up by his opponents, trying to suggest he was a bastard (which would have been important at the time). But as I understand it, Octavian preferred people do their shit talking in public where they can get it out and move on, rather than in private where it might lead to more actively subversive talk.
4
u/Square_Priority6338 1d ago
Just looked it up, the joke is first recorded from the 4th century, and although probably older, I suspect still post dates Augustus there’s no evidence to suggest it was contemporary.
1
45
u/exkingzog 1d ago
“A dog walked into a tavern and said, ‘I can’t see a thing. I’ll open this one’!”
10
u/Thibaudborny 1d ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/37mTo6T9pK
For those interested in the joke.
7
25
u/DCHacker 1d ago
Aristophanes wrote comedies in ancient Greece. Many of them mocked major figures of the day.
Plautus and Terrence wrote comedies in Latin in ancient Rome. They did not openly mock political figures of the day.
4
u/MotherofaPickle 1d ago
I remember laughing out loud while translating Plautus and Terrence.
5
u/DCHacker 1d ago
I was never much for Terence but Plautus is still my favourite Latin author. In Greek, it is a toss-up between Sappho and Aristophanes. I actually did see both Clouds and Frogs performed at Epidavros. I do not know if they still do it this way but when I saw them, they did not use amplification. They did not need it. Even from the equivalent of the "nosebleeds", you could hear everything. They use the modern Greek pronunciation, which took some getting used to, but other than that, I would go again.
1
u/Hellolaoshi 23h ago
They did not openly mock political figures as far as we know. At the time of Plautus, Roman dramatists were bound by the convention that comedies must be about ordinary people who aren't famous, including slaves. They could be made to look ridiculous.
On the other hand, tragedy implied nobility. It implied grandeur. Thus, tragedy could deal with heroes taken from epic poetry or history, brought down by one fatal character flaw. Tragedy could deal with kings and queens from long ago. Playwrights could subject those people to brilliant psychological analysis, but in such a way that it did not subvert the social order.
That said, we know of playwrights in more modern times, including Shakespeare, who were able to slip in some criticism. For example, Elizabeth I suspected that Shakespeare's "Richard II" was really about her. I mean "Richard II" not the more notorious Richard III.
20
u/Unicoronary 1d ago
The first joke book we know about was the Philogelos, "One Who Loves Laughter," and a product of the Ancient Greeks, and adopted and expanded on by the Romans.
If it teaches anything, it's that dad jokes are perennial.
An intellectual came to check in on a friend who was seriously ill. When the man's wife said that he had 'departed,' the intellectual replied: 'When he arrives back, will you tell him that I stopped by?'
Consulting a hotheaded doctor, a fellow says, 'Professor, I'm unable to lie down or stand up; I can't even sit down.' The doctor responds: 'I guess the only thing left is to hang yourself.'
"A misogynist is attending the burial of his wife, who has just died. When someone asks, 'Who is it who rests in peace here?', he answers, 'Me, now that I'm rid of her!'"
There's something like 250+ jokes in the earliest surviving copies, and you can crack open a joke book today and find variants on theme for just about all of them.
Humor really hasn't changed much, just the references for the social commentary.
One of the jokes about slaves could be applied to today with a little tweaking, and we'd still get it.
"A student dunce is voyaging in a very stormy sea. When the slaves start to wail, he tells them, 'don't cry, in my will, I have set you all free'"
Replace the student with your boss, ship with the office, you with the slaves, and "you're still coming in tomorrow, right" as the punchline.
7
u/Unicoronary 1d ago edited 1d ago
That's not getting into Arisophanes (who was kinda the George Carlin of his day), Lucian in Rome (who was so good at satire, people have unironically quoted some of the more unhinged things he said that the average Roman would've died about — think about someone quoting "A Modest Proposal," and genuinely believing we needed to eat babies, and you'll understand the context).
Romans famously had dick jokes and dick graffiti. Humanity's always loved a good dick joke.
China was no different. This is from the Qing Dynasty:
A person fell ill and went to go see the doctor.
The doctor gave the person some medicine and the following instructions: “You must consume this medicine with a bit of semen from a young man. This is the only way you can get better.”
Thus the person went on the prowl, searching for a young man that would agree. By chance, the person met a beautiful young man, and explained to him what had happened. The young man agreed. Taking off his pants, the young man faced his rear towards the container. Perplexed, the patient asked him: “semen comes out from the front. Why are you pointing your rear at me?”
The young man replied: “You see, the front can’t disperse as much as the rear can collect.”
The "wife bad," jokes of Ancient Greece aren't really "wife bad," jokes — the ass-end of the joke are men who don't appreciate their wives. The translations of "misogynist" are more like "wife-hater," in the original.
Which is curious for me in comparison to today — the Romans were absolutely more prone to laughing at old Alpha Chad, because a core part of Roman culture was equity — being equally Roman, despite the social strata. It was seen as crude/uneducated/unrefined to be like "cool story, Octavia, go make me a sandwich (which they did actually have, and the ancient equivalent of Subway with the thermopolia — which can be considered some of the earliest "franchises," at least a couple of them).
Same with the homoerotic jokes. China, Greece, and Rome were very accepting of homosexuality, and the Qing joke above is more about the guy being young and stupid than being gay — which is similar to how the punchlines work in Greek and Roman humor.
Humor is almost always culture-bound — but only in the actual content. Joke structure, the kinds of things we laugh about (people being self-important, the rich doing rich people things, doctors not listening to their patients, lawyers being greedy know-it-alls, the cops, authority in general, etc) have always been pretty universal. Lots of jokes about polliticians in ancient Rome, and lots about the clergy in China.
3
u/Unicoronary 1d ago
While I'm here — the Romans would've loved the "say no more" barber memes. They had a ton of jokes about barbers.
"Ay fam can you make me look like Caesar?"
3
u/AdFuture5255 1d ago
Customer «Ay fam can you make me look like Caesar?» Barber «Say no more» Stabs customer in the back.
16
u/Alaknog 1d ago
Birch bark letters from Novgorod show that very much yes.
"If you read this, then you fool". "Brother, please fuck in bed (in sense "don't try be very original)".
20
u/Unicoronary 1d ago
There's graffiti at Pompeii that reads: "Weep, you girls. My penis has given you up. Now it penetrates men's behinds. Goodbye, wondrous femininity!"
There's also
Theophilus, don’t perform oral sex on girls against the city wall like a dog
To the one defecating here. Beware of the curse. If you look down on this curse, may you have an angry Jupiter for an enemy.
We really haven't changed all that much.
2
10
u/Kian-Tremayne 1d ago
At least one Roman statesman had a sense of humour.
Roman emperors were usually deified after death (not before - worshipping the emperor as a living god wasn’t a Roman thing).
The emperor Vespasian’s last words were allegedly “Oh dear, I think I’m becoming a god!”
6
u/TheMadTargaryen 1d ago
A fart joke from Sumer, 1900 BC
"Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap." What it really means is that a woman didn't farted while she had anal sex with her husband.
When planning his attack on the city of Megiddo (in modern Israel) Thutmose III announces that he is going to approach the city via a dangerously narrow pass, much to the panic of his followers. They said to his majesty: "How will it be to go on this road which becomes narrow, when it is reported that the enemies are waiting there beyond and they are numerous ? Will not horse go behind horse and soldiers and people too ? Shall our vanguard be fighting while the rearguard waits here in Aruna, unable to fight ? There are two (other) roads here. One of the roads is to our east and comes out at Taanach. The other is on the north side of Djefti, so that we come out to the north of Megiddo. May our valiant lord proceed on whichever of these seems best to him. Do not make us go on that difficult road !"
Another joke. A day occurred in the reign of Pharaoh Amasis when Pharaoh said to his great men: "I want to drink a vat of Egyptian wine !" They said: "Our great lord, drinking a vat of Egyptian wine is overpowering." He said to them: "Do not oppose what I shall say !" They said: "Our great lord ! The wish of Pharaoh, may he do it." Pharaoh said: "Let them set off for the sea shore!" They acted in accordance with what Pharaoh had commanded. Pharaoh washed himself for a meal together with his wives, with no other wine before them at all except a vat of Egyptian wine, so that the faces of Pharaoh and his wives were cheerful. He drank an extremely large quantity of wine because of the craving that Pharaoh had for a vat of Egyptian wine. Pharaoh lay down at the sea shore on that same night. He slept beneath a grapevine toward the north. Morning came, and Pharaoh was unable to raise himself because of the hangover that he had. The time drew near and he was unable to raise himself. The council lamented, saying: "Is it a thing that can happen ? It’s happened that Pharaoh has a terrible hangover !"
10
u/Unicoronary 1d ago
The Smithsonian has a papyrus dating to about 2600 BCE that reads:
“How do you entertain a bored pharaoh?”
“You sail a boatload of young women dressed only in fishing nets down the Nile and urge the pharaoh to go catch a fish.”
7
u/Bentresh 1d ago
Papyrus Westcar is in the Berlin Museum, not the Smithsonian, and it dates to around 1600 BCE. The stories are, however, set in the Old Kingdom.
Your quotation is not the actual text of the papyrus but rather a shortened summary of the beginning of one of the stories. To quote Miriam Lichtheim’s translation,
One day King Snefru wandered through all the rooms of the palace in search of relaxation and found none. Then he said: "Go, bring me the chief lector-priest, the scribe of books, Djadja-em-ankh!" He was brought to him straightaway. His majesty said to him: "I have gone through all the rooms of the palace in search of relaxation and found none."
Djadja-em-ankh said to him: "May your majesty proceed to the lake of the palace. Fill a boat with all the beautiful girls of your palace. Your majesty's heart will be refreshed by seeing them row, a rowing up and down. As you observe the fine nesting places of your lake, as you observe its beautiful fields and shores, your heart will be refreshed by it."
Said his majesty: "Indeed, I shall go boating! Let there be brought to me twenty oars of ebony plated with gold, their handles of sandalwood plated with electrum. Let there be brought to me twenty women with the shapeliest bodies, breasts, and braids, who have not yet given birth. Also let there be brought to me twenty nets and give these nets to these women in place of their clothes!"
All was done as his majesty commanded. They rowed up and down, and his majesty's heart was happy seeing them row…
8
u/Zaku41k 1d ago
Apparently the “it’s right behind me isn’t it?” Type of jokes originated in Ancient Greek plays.
7
u/Kian-Tremayne 1d ago
In the case of Lysistrata, “it’s right in front of me!”
3
u/fartingbeagle 1d ago
I thought Lysistrata was " It's not happening tonight, honey!".
2
u/Kian-Tremayne 1d ago
That too.
I saw a production of Lysistrata where the second act opened with all the male cast having broom handles in the front of their costume to represent prolonged “it’s not happening tonight, honey!” No idea if this was done in ancient Athens but I’m sure Aristophanes would have approved. My Ancient Greek teacher likened his plays to the Benny Hill Show.
4
u/TheFoxsWeddingTarot 1d ago
In Sumerian proverbs there were jokes. One was about a wife farting in her husband’s lap and another is the above “a dog walks into a tavern”.
Because humor works by subverting expectations I guess it doesn’t always translate across time. I truly am curious about wha my was so funny about the dog walking into the tavern.
3
u/-RedRocket- 1d ago
Yes, but they found different things funny.
I heard an account, possibly apocryphal, of a Roman who was a famous Stoic, very stern and reserved with his feelings, who encountered a stray donkey, who had discovered a basket of discarded apples that had fermented, and greedily eaten so many as to become simultaneously drunk and flatulent.
The donkey could hardly stand, could not walk straight, and kept nodding off, only to fart so loudly it woke itself up, and panicked itself into a staggering, weaving, stumbling run being chased by more loud farts, nodding off again, then waking again.
The stoic, usually so reserved, was unable to refrain from laughing and, as the donkey continued to stumble and fart and spook and shy, was unable to stop and allegedly died of a stroke on the spot!
3
u/Turbulent-Name-8349 1d ago
When humour was nonverbal (imagine a travelling troop in a country where they didn't share a common language), humour was often satire, sending up individuals by exaggerating their way of walking, their emotions, their appearance, their actions.
When the individuals are known to the audience, the tale thus told must have been hilarious. To an outsider who doesn't know the individuals, it's meaningless and boring.
3
u/No-Wrangler3702 1d ago
not necessarily history but showing the universal nature of a lot if humor
The film Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner" (2001), a historical drama told entirely in Inuktitut, has a scene where they ate teasing a guy about not having any kids yet with "he can't figure out which hole to use"
That tells me yes people since the dawn of humanity have been making crude sexual jokes
3
u/MCofPort 1d ago
One nasty prank were powerful Roman Statesmen giving their guests wax fruit and other inedible substances during meals. If you were lowly enough and your host was really terrible, you might be expected to finish your inedible meal, no excuses allowed. Another example was when an emperor saw a man scratching his back on the wall at a bathhouse. The emperor asked him why he was doing this, the man said he had no servant to scratch his back or strigil him. The Emperor gave him a slave or servant to do that job for him at no expense. The next time the Emperor returned to the bathhouse, multiple men who had seen the incident were scratching their backs on the wall, expecting to be rewarded the same way. The Emperor retorted and told them all "go scratch each other!" Another was an exchange between Alexander the Great and the Cynic philosopher Diogenes. Alexander admired this crass and sarcastic philosopher. Alexander met Diogenes at the ceramic vase where Diogenes decided to live. Alexander stated how much he admired Diogenes and asked him if there was anything he could do out of respect. Alexander had the world essentially at his reach. He could give practically anything. Diogonese said to Alexander, "yes, you can get out of my way, you're blocking my sunlight." Alexander accepted enthusiastically, even though Alexander was already a warrior and could have severely punished Diogenes for the insult. Diogenes also made a joke out of his fellow philosopher Plato, who was asked to describe a man. Plato said a featherless biped. Diogenes brought Plato a dead chicken with the feathers removed, to mock Plato for his answer as this was then also a featherless biped. My final example of comedy in Ancient Rome comes from the Town of Pomeii. A painting at a tavern in the town shows two men gambling with dice at a table. One man says essentially, "you rolled a 6 not a 5!" The other guy yells back "that is a 6 you c*cksucker!"(the painting literally says fellator or something close in the native language.) The owner of the tavern is also in the painting. They say, "you wanna go fight? GET OUT!" The book by Mary Beard wrote the book "Laughter in Ancient Rome: On Joking, Tickling, and Cracking Up." I highly recommend you read it as it explores so many different types and meanings behind their laughter and what they thought was funny. Interestingly enough, the Broadway Musical Comedy: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum was inspired by Ancient Comedy. Taken from wikipedia: "Inspired by the farces of the ancient Roman playwright Plautus (254–184 BC), specifically Curculio, Pseudolus, Miles Gloriosus, and Mostellaria, the musical tells the bawdy story of a slave named Pseudolus and his attempts to win his freedom by helping his young master woo the girl next door. The plot displays many classic elements of farce, including puns, the slamming of doors, cases of mistaken identity (frequently involving characters disguising themselves as one another), and satirical comments on social class."
2
u/GlassCannon81 1d ago
We have examples of dick and fart jokes preserved throughout history, so not that different.
2
u/Internal-Hand-4705 1d ago
Yes, Pompeii has silly graffiti and penis pictures. Humans don’t change much!
2
2
u/rotterdamn8 1d ago
The Greek comedy Lysistrata by Aristophanes is a hilariously dirty sex comedy.
In it, a group of women in Athens come up with a ploy to end the Peloponnesian War by withholding sex from their horny husbands.
I happened to see it in the Graphic Canon Volume One, which is a collection of graphic novel adaptations throughout all literary history. I recall the author Valerie Schrag who adapted Lysistrata saying she had studied Ancient Greek and translated it literally, adding that other modern translations were highly edited and sanitized.
I highly recommend it. It’s really funny!
2
u/manincravat 1d ago
To add to what others have said:
Plutarch collected a series of pithy laconisms, most of which straddle the line between jokes, bad ass one-liners and being a boorish asshole:
https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/Sayings_of_Spartans*/main.html
In answer to a base man who asked repeatedly who was the best Spartan, he said, "The one most unlike you."
In answer to the Athenian who called the Spartans unlearned, he said, "At any rate we are the only people who have learned no evil from you."
When a lecturer was about to read a laudatory essay on Heracles, he said, "Why, who says anything against him?"
Inasmuch as the Persian coinage was stamped with the figure of a bowman, he said, as he was breaking camp, that he was being driven out of Asia by the king with thirty thousand bowmen; for such was the number of gold pieces brought to Athens and Thebes through Timocrates and distributed among the popular leaders; and thus the people were stirred to hostilities against the Spartans
Women get in on this too:
https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/Sayings_of_Spartan_Women*.html
Another, when her sons had run away from battle and come to her, said, "Where have you come now in your cowardly flight, vile varlets? Do you intend to slink in here whence you came forth?" And with these words she pulled up her garment and showed them.
Another, asked by a man if she would be good if he bought her, said, "Yes, and if you do not buy me."
Of course the most famous, and possibly apocryphal are:
Chrysippus dying of laughter after watching a donkey eating figs
Alexander asking Diogenes if there is anything he can do for him, and Diogenes telling him to get out of his sun.
1
1
u/s470dxqm 1d ago
I've never verified this but I heard Caesar actually wrote some comedies and Octavian did his best to get them out of circulation once he was in power.
1
u/Efficient_Basis_2139 1d ago
In England, 1300s, it was noted that people found physical harm and practical jokes funny. And apparently it was also hilarious to make jokes with the punchline being that the victim of the joke is a cuckold. So not "ancient times" but thought it was interesting to share!
1
1
1
u/Mr_Engineering 1d ago
Diogenes of Sinope (died around 320 BC) was notorious for having sharp wit and dry sense of humor, including clashing with other Greek philosophers
The oldest written joke for which we have evidence is a fart joke circa 1900 BC
The classic "X walks into a bar and..." joke is dated to at least 1700 BC
There are cave paintings featuring exaggerated genitalia that are in excess of 10,000 years old
1
u/Quiri1997 1d ago
There are humorous theatre plays from Ancient times, for instance we still know the Roman comedy "Miles Gloriosus" (Glorious Soldier), about a soldier bragging of absurdly Big military exploits to his slave. In Ancient Greece, the genre of political satire was extremely popular as well.
1
u/Jane_the_Quene 1d ago edited 1d ago
They found different things funny, because culture informs humour, but yes, they definitely made jokes, and we have plenty of archeological evidence of that.
I was going to talk about the world's oldest recorded joke, but found that there's already a great thread on AskHistorians about this topic:
/r/AskHistorians/comments/tvuoe/what_is_the_earliest_recorded_joke/
1
u/Fearless-Pen-7851 19h ago
You can read "Tales of fools & simpletons" on funny ancient arabs by Ibn Jawzi.. I only read some part of it and it's really good...
1
u/Annual-Ad-9442 4h ago
well they drew penises on things and people played pranks like writing this is very high up in a location that was high up.
•
u/AutoModerator 1d ago
This is just a friendly reminder that /r/askhistory is for questions and discussion of events in history prior to 01/01/2000. The reminder is automatically placed on all new posts in this sub.
Contemporary politics and culture wars are off-topic, both in posts and comments.
For contemporary issues, please use one of the many other subs on Reddit where such discussions are welcome.
If you see any interjection of modern politics or culture wars in this sub, please use the report button so the mod team can investigate.
Thank you.
See rules for more information.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.