The Roman diet
The Romans of old were faced with the problem of feeding the entire Roman army at an absolute minimum cost, while ensuring that its diet would be sufficient to keep all members strong and healthy enough to fight and win the battles needed to establish and maintain the entire Roman Empire.
Each soldier carried with him a chunk of pasta. It was nearly as hard as a rock, but the soldier could cut off a piece of it with his knife, put it in his mouth, and as it slowly got softer, slowly eat it. That was the basic meal. To those who came across somebody’s vegetable garden, something more might be added. Adding meat would require catching something like maybe a chicken, or a cow, or anything in between. Since anything more than the pasta was essentially just stolen, as the army moved across the land, cost was at a minimum.
Another favorite booty was eggs. Even today, eggs cost essentially nothing. You would look a long time to find something more nutritious than an egg. Three boiled eggs is a full meal. And three extra-large eggs will cost you less than $1.
Today, one can buy a package of thin spaghetti, a jar of tomato pasta sauce, and with that alone, be fed as well as a Roman soldier of old, and for several days.
With what you’re eating today, how do you look? How would you look on the Roman diet?
Give it a try.
The best advice
Many years ago, there was a senator given the job of investigating and at least trying to eliminate organized crime in the United States. As one would expect, there were a great many criminals who made extensive use of the Fifth Amendment, which relieved them from having to give out any information with which they might tend to incriminate themselves.
One of these criminals made such extensive use of this Fifth Amendment that he essentially never gave out any other information at all. “I refuse to answer on the grounds that it might tend to incriminate me” was all he ever said in court.
Eventually, this got to be so excessive that even one of his criminal friends asked him if he wouldn’t at least say just a few words that would be something at least just a little bit different.
He then explained to his friend how the world works. He said that he had paid many, many thousands of dollars to a lawyer, in order to get very competent legal advice. He further explained that it would be the height of stupidity if, after having paid so much money for that advice, he were to then not follow that advice.
He then explained that the very competent legal advice that he got from his lawyer was the following: “Keep your mouth shut.”
We may today have a politician or two who could gain immensely from following the advice of that lawyer.
The tax form
Since time immemorial, people have complained about the fact that tax forms are complicated, time-consuming, and difficult to fill out. In the interest of really helping all taxpayers, I would propose a new, simplified tax form. The tax form would have only three simple questions.
1. How much money do you have?
2. Where is it?
3. How soon can we get it?
REGUT
(Robert E. Regut is a graduate of West Point and a teacher with 20-plus years of experience in the teaching of foreign languages, specializing in the teaching of spoken German. He can be reached at P.O. Box 101, Nobleboro, ME, or at robertregut@gmail.com.)
