NYRB: By Mary Beard
Stop Me If You’ve Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes, by Jim Holt
Just over halfway up the Column of Marcus Aurelius in Rome is a memorable, and unsettling, scene. Although practically invisible from ground level, and almost crowded out by the images of violent conflict between Roman legions and German tribes which spiral up the shaft, it has often caught the attention of archaeologists. For it shows a young child being torn from the arms of his German mother by a Roman soldier–and still reaching out to her, as he is roughly hauled away.