Ancient Greece and Rome aren't usually remembered for their sense of humour. However, in reality the ancient Greeks and Romans often refused to take themselves seriously. Strange and outlandish activities abounded - including somebody accidentally exposing himself while dancing sideways at his wedding (those wearing bed sheets didn't wear underwear) and a group of drunk young men thinking their house is sinking at sea, and tossing all their furniture out the windows. R. Drew Griffith and Robert B. Marks take you on a lively and funny journey through the more bizarre activities of the ancient world, ranging everywhere from moochers to quacks to shrews to willing suckers, and even revealing the most terrible thing you can do to anybody involving a radish.

It is with great pleasure that I have accepted the responsibility of providing a preface for this wonderful book. When my good friend, Professor Robert Drew Griffith, asked me to write the beginning of the book on a subject for which he is the top of the field, I was honoured. I didn’t even need to wait for the book to arrive, why I just had to pick up my tape recorder and start dictating. Indeed, I’m sure that once the manuscript of the book arrives, it will be a masterpiece that will do Griffith and his university proud.

Now, what is humour? Well, humour is what do you mean my wife is on the phone, can’t you see I’m dictating... oh, whatever, no I can’t speak to her now, no, I really don’t want to hear – oh dear God in Heaven, she wants to do what? Tell her that she can’t, look she’s a seventy-year-old woman who weighs two hundred pounds – the sight of her in a leather bikini would make the blind run screaming in terror, I don’t care if it’s a costume party, I’m not going with it, no I don’t want to look like a porn star, yes, I’m going with the fluffy bunny costume, well it’s a hell of a lot better than a leather bikini, now I’m trying to dictate a preface to this bloody book, will you leave me in peace? I’ll call my wife later!