35+ Facts That Prove They Didn’t Tell Us The Coolest Things About Ancient Rome In School

This article appeared in cleverclassic.com and has been published here with permission.

Every kid learns about Ancient Rome in school but did we really learn about all of ancient Rome? No way, there are tons of cool facts that are left out of those dry history lessons we sat through in class. So we thought it might be cool to share some facts that prove they didn’t tell us the coolest things about Ancient Rome in school. We hope that you find them as interesting as we did.

Father Knows Best

It is not a surprise that in the old days of Rome, the father of a family was the head of the family and had all the power. But some of the powers that they had were absolutely crazy. They had complete control over everyone’s lives.

Father Knows Best
Father Knows Best

This included the ability to disown a newborn and cast them out of the house. All they had to do was say they were unable to feed them, and it was perfectly acceptable. Sounds pretty cruel.

Food Courts

We all have sat in the food court and had lunch with a friend, but did you know that this concept is nothing new. In fact, the ancient Romans had a setup that was pretty similar to this.

Food Courts
Food Courts

They called it a Thermoplia, and it was a counter with clay jars that housed the food. This was a popular place for the commoners to grab a bite, and you could eat in the establishment or take it home.

Returns

In today’s world, we don’t think anything of taking something back to a store when it doesn’t work out. There we can either do a return or get a refund. This ability might not be around if it wasn’t for the ancient Romans.

Returns
Returns

They were the first civilization that adopted this idea. You could purchase something down the market or from a tradesman, and if you didn’t like it, you could return it to them or even get a replacement. After Christmas would not be the same without them, it appears.

Seasonal Times

The ancient Romans had the same amount of hours in the day, but they did something pretty interesting with the division of those hours. That’s right, it wasn’t an even split, and that made for seasonal times.

Seasonal Times
Seasonal Times

Some times of the year, an hour would be 75 minutes; at other times, it would be just 45 minutes; this was because of the fact they split the day up by sunset until dawn and dawn until sunset.