the Roman festival of hilaria, which allowed anyone to masquerade as any rank, was used in a plot to assassinate EmperorCommodus, by conspirators planning to disguise themselves as members of the Praetorian Guard?
it was common for the Roman Emperor to be elected to one of two offices of the highest judicial magistrates known as duumviri, and the other position was left up to the emperor for the appointment of a praefectus?
Byzantine general Peter Phokas was originally born a slave and made a eunuch, but rose to become one of the senior-most commanders of the Byzantine Empire in the 960s and 970s?
Leo the Mathematician, called by some the cleverest man in 9th-century Byzantium, invented a system of beacons to warn of Arab raids and a fabled levitating throne for the emperor?
Monte Testaccio(pictured) in Rome is an artificial hill, 35 m (115 ft) high and 1 km (3,300 ft) in circumference, consisting entirely of the fragments of 53 million ancient Romanamphorae?