History Weekend: “The foulest death is preferable to the fairest slavery” Thoughts on the Roman Empire and the Tersorium (aka the Toilet Sponge)

The past several weeks there’s been an internet meme going around about how often a woman’s boyfriend, or men in general, thinks about the Roman Empire. This segues well into a topic I was planning to blog about, which was a case of a gladiator committing suicide via an unsavory tool. The meme has peaked and is probably fizzled out by this point, but as usual it takes me a bit to get blogging these days. Here are my thoughts on the Roman Empire, in particular in relation to a peculiar and perhaps darkly humorous incident.