Orgy Planner Wanted: Odd Jobs and Curious Callings in the Ancient World

by VickiLeon (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2007

  $3.28

  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 Leon 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.

• Used

  Paperback
  2008

  $4.22

  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 Leon 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.