Heard the one about the Roman and the barber?

I’m now full steam ahead on my Berkeley lectures about Roman laughter. And to be precise, off to spend the rest of Sunday in the library (thank heavens that our Faculty gives us access 24/7), for a side-splitting afternoon with some Roman jokes.

I’ve already given you some choice examples. But just for laugh, here’s another favourite, from the collection known as the Philogelos (or “Laughter-lover”):

A man goes to get his hair cut by a talkative barber. “How would you like your hair done,” asks the barber. “In silence,” replies the man.

Not bad?

Anyway a number of people have emailed me to find out a bit more about my work on this. So at the risk of vulgar self-advertising, I’m giving a link to quite a long interview I did on this for the New York Review of Books. Click here.