Q 01/05

Which emperor, the victor in the civil wars of AD 69, placed a tax on urine collected from Rome's public toilets?

A) Galba

B) Domitian

C) Vespasian

D) Vitellius

Answer · why

C) Vespasian

Vespasian answered his son's complaint about the tax by holding up a coin and asking whether it smelled. Street urinals in France and Italy are still ...

Q 02/05

Which high office did the emperor Caligula reportedly plan to give his favourite racehorse, Incitatus?

A) Consul

B) Senator

C) Tribune

D) Censor

Answer · why

A) Consul

Consul had been the top job in the Roman Republic, and ancient writers agree the plan was never carried out. Incitatus reportedly did get a marble sta...

Q 03/05

Which emperor, who really did fight in the arena, is the villain of the 2000 film Gladiator?

A) Caligula

B) Nero

C) Domitian

D) Commodus

Answer · why

D) Commodus

Commodus died far from the arena: conspirators sent his wrestling partner, Narcissus, to strangle him in his bath on the last day of 192.

Q 04/05

Which emperor wrote the private Stoic notebooks now published as Meditations while on military campaign?

A) Antoninus Pius

B) Marcus Aurelius

C) Septimius Severus

D) Lucius Verus

Answer · why

B) Marcus Aurelius

Marcus Aurelius wrote them in Greek, not Latin, as private notes for his own self-improvement. One book is headed as written among the Quadi, in what ...

Q 05/05

Which emperor ordered a 73-mile wall built from coast to coast across northern Britain, beginning in AD 122?

A) Hadrian

B) Nerva

C) Titus

D) Aurelian

Answer · why

A) Hadrian

Hadrian visited Britain in 122, and three legions, some 15,000 men, spent about six years building most of the wall.