• '

  Chrystal triumphs in terms of sources and detailed narratives, written in clear prose (no academic jargon) with gusto and humour . . . A breathtaking assembly of ancient sources, unlikely to be bettered.

  '

  Fortean Times

• '

  The efforts of a Robert Ripley or the Weekly World News are more recent examples, but the tradition of paradoxography – writings about the unusual, the miraculous, and the absurd – runs back to Hellenistic Greece and beyond, including Aristotle, Callimachus, Cicero, and Pliny alongside lesser-known practitioners. In this connection the historian Chrystal’s new Miracula is both a continuation and a commentary, presenting oddities, trivia, and twice-told tales from the ancient world and contextualizing them for the reader. Here are marvels from pygmies to the Polyphagus (Nero’s personal cannibal), the war-cats of Cambyses to the longest word in ancient Greece.

  '

  New Criterion

• '

  A book full of astonishing facts and strange stories drawn from Ancient Greece and Rome – rarely retold in English – is a surprise and a delight . . . Paul Chrystal has upended the paradigm of sober history-telling to produce a potpourri of stranger things . . . When you’re not laughing aloud or cracking a smile, you may just be impressed by how much the ancients knew.

  '

  InReview

Foreword by Philip Matyszak
Preface
Introduction

1 Strangely Strange and Oddly Normal

The Sciences
2 Agriculture
3 The Climate and Natural Disaster
4 Roman Recycling
5 Astronomy and Space Travel

Medicine
6 Medicine and the Medical Arts
7 Physiology
8 Embalming
9 Deformity and Disability
10 Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)

Language
11 The Greek Alphabet Derived from the Phoenician Alphabet
12 The Written Word and Bad Books
13 The Pontius Pilate Stone, Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera and Jesus of Nazareth
14 The Spoken Word: Rough-Speaking Romans
15 Graffiti
16 Aphorisms: True Or Not So True?

Sex and Sexuality
17 Fetishes and Voyeurism
18 Pederasty: The Sexual Pursuit of Boys by Men
19 Sex: From Buttocks Partialism to Zoophilia
20 Satyrs and Satyriasis
21 Priapus and Priapism
22 Candaules, ‘Dog Throttler’, Father of Candaulism (and Voyeurism)
23 Lesbianism and Sappho
24 Hermaphrodites and Other Wondrous Beings
25 Gender Reassignment
26 Aphrodisiacs and Anti-Aphrodisiacs
27 The Roman Joy of Sex
28 Dildos
Social Sciences
29 Bad Parenting, Good Parenting?
30 Sexism and Misogyny
31 Domestic and Sexual Abuse
32 On Being a Left-Hander, and Toilet Etiquette
33 Men and Boys

History and Ethnography
34 Aethiopians and Black People
35 Sparta and the Spartan Stasi
36 The Death of Pyrrhus: History’s Best-Aimed Tile
37 Mithridates
38 Socrates: He Danced Alone
39 The Celts
40 Dinner with Attila the Hun, 450 CE

Greek and Roman Society
41 Children and Schooling
42 The Games
43 The Law
44 Public Services
45 Food and Feasting
46 Drink and Drinking
47 Slaves and Revolting Slaves
48 The Public Baths, Sex and Hair-Pulling
49 The Hell that Is Urban Living
50 Parking Restrictions
51 All Creatures Great and Small
52 Pets

Mythology
53 The Graeae: The Oldest Triplets the World Has Ever Seen
54 Philomena and Procne
55 The Unicorn
56 Charon: A Life Underground
57 Talos: The World’s First Automaton
58 Cerberus: Guard Dog from Hell

The Military and War
59 The Military
60 War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity
61 Women at War
62 Torture

Religion and Superstition
63 Religion and Superstition
64 Entombing a Vestal Virgin
65 Omens, Prodigies and Oracles
66 Spells, Curses and Voodoo Dolls
67 Witches and Witchcraft
68 Werewolves and Lycanthropy
69 Witch-Lite: The Bogeywoman Is Coming to Get You
70 Ghosts

Travel and Archaeology
71 Wild Travel and Exploration
72 Explorers – Gorillas or Hairy Women?
73 Skeletons from the Far East Found in Roman London

Epilogue
Further Reading
Acknowledgements
Photo Acknowledgements
Index

Paul Chrystal is a contributor to a number of history and archaeology magazines, and TV and radio programmes. He is the author of many books published on a wide range of subjects, including, most recently, The Book in the Ancient World: How the Wisdom of the Ages Was Preserved (2025).