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Orgy Planner Wanted
Orgy Planner Wanted: Odd Jobs and Curious Callings in the Ancient World | Vicki León
1 post | 1 read
Two thousand years ago, the denizens of the ancient Greek and Roman worlds performed an amazingly diverse and challenging array of tasks to earn their daily bread. Personal entrail-reader to the emperor; war-elephant troop commander; mopper-up of dead gladiators; armpit-hair plucker; stage actor; orgy planner: these are just a few of the career opportunities that beckoned for our ancient Mediterranean ancestors.In Orgy Planner Wanted author Vicki León describes - in uniquely vivid and energetic style - 144 ancient career options, from the glittering to the gory, and from the strangely familiar to the entirely strange and entirely unfamiliar. Each of the book's ten chapters focuses on a particular professional area - from sex to showbiz, from cookery to slavery and from divination to hairdressing - looking in detail at specific jobs in each category. Sidebar profiles tell the stories of some 30 named jobholders - the likes of Spurrina Vestricius (personal entrail-reader to Julius Caesar), Publius and Lucius Sestius (traders in garum - a pungent fish-based forerunner of Worcestershire sauce), and Paris (a celebrated actor-dancer whose abortive attempts to teach the Emperor Nero to dance would ultimately lead to his demise).Orgy Planner Wanted offers a unique perspective on the world as it was 2000 years ago, and looks certain to be one of the most intriguing and unputdownable popular history titles of 2007.
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review
PuddleJumper
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Panpan

This book sounds better than it is. There are no citations and no critical interrogation of the sources that they do mention.

I am being harsh because this isn't and doesn't claim to be an academic book but I still think you need to be mindful. It also covers the 'ancient world' which is Greece and Italy over several centuries and doesn't really place the jobs in a historical context beyond ancient world

PuddleJumper This was one of my May #roll100 and I'm glad to get it off my shelves! Books like this were a staple gift when doing my degree and I just held onto them even though I wasn't interested 2y
charl08 Fabulous title though! 2y
PuddleJumper @charl08 🤣 It is a great name 2y
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