Working IX to V: Orgy Planners, Funeral Clowns, and Other Prized Professions of the Ancient World (Paperback)

~ Vicki Leon (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Remember that Metropolitan gala in The Devil Wears Prada, where Miranda Priestly has someone whisper in her ear the name of everyone she meets? Well, ancient Roman politicians had such an aide, too: he was called a nomenclator. León entertainingly introduces us to this and other colorful professions held by men and women in Greco-Roman society. With short, humorous anecdotes, she describes the daily grind of scribes, vestal virgins, fishmongers, astronomers, sophists, hoplite slaves, sellers of purple, curse-tablet makers, funeral clowns, sycophants and orgy planners. Scribes, for example, were speed writers who not only recorded public information but also acted as journalists jotting down juicy tales of love, death and political intrigue in the Daily Record. The beast supplier, or praepositus camelorum, tracked, captured and supplied all the animals used in gladiatorial contests and circuses in Rome. León weaves sketches of actual people employed in these professions. Banker's son Apollodorus, a rich-kid-turned-lawyer, litigated a 19-year lawsuit after his father willed his fortune to an ex-slave. Drawing on the same outrageous sense of humor that's made her Uppity Women series so popular, León demonstrates how uncannily similar the workaday experiences of the ancient world are to ours. Illus. (June)
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Product Description

Vicki Le?n, the popular author of the Uppity Women series (more than 335,000 in print), has turned her impressive writing and research skills to the entertaining and unusual array of the peculiar jobs, prized careers and passionate pursuits of ancient Greece and Rome.
 
From Architect to Vicarius (a deputy or stand-in)—and everything in between—Working IX to V introduces readers to the most unique (dream incubator), most courageous (elephant commander), and even the most ordinary (postal worker) jobs of the ancient world. Vicki Le?n brought a light and thoughtful touch to women’s history in her earlier books, and she brings the same joy and singular voice to the daily work of the ancient world. You’ll be surprised to learn how bloody an editor’s job used to be, how even a slave could purchase a vicarius to carry out his duties and that early Greeks had their own ghost-busters with the apt title of psychopompus.
 
In addition to stand-alone profiles on callings, trades, and professions, Le?n offers numerous sidebar entries about actual people who performed these jobs, giving a human face to the ancient workplace. Combining wit and rich scholarship, Working IX to V is filled with anecdotes, insights, and little-known facts that will inform and amuse readers of all ages. For anyone captivated by the ancient past, Working IX to V brings a unique insight into the daily grind of the classical world. You may never look at your day-to-day work in the same way!

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Walker & Company (May 29, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802715567
• ISBN-13: 978-0802715562
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 6.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #475,992 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating reading, July 1, 2007

By	Bachelier "Husband, Father, Catholic, Finance... (Ile de France) - See all my reviews

For those familiar with the work of Michael Foucault, this work is a little problematic. It basically picks up where Foucault's "The Birth of the Prison" and "The History of Sex" and his other curious titles leave off. Foucault's technique was to examine not the high-falutin literature of the past, or the documents of the haute bourgeoisie, but to look at ordinary systems and attitudes and uncover an archaeology of knowledge and a clearer map of ancient times from alternate perspectives. Because Foucault's technique was subversive, speculative, and academically suspect, many of his conclusions were controversial and his reputation binary. His taste for rough trade and bathhouses didn't help.

Enter Vicki Leon, who does a Studs Terkel ("Working") on the past.

Which is why this is such an excellent book. Leon strips away Foucault's tendency for obfuscation to sound profound (and his rather specialized taste for the louche and bizarre), and doesn't stoop to Terkel's socialist "history" as oppressor and inescapable condition.

Leon's prose is also better than journalists, which makes this a fun read. She doesn't do an exhaustive treatment of jobs in the past: tallow wright (someone who renders cowfat for candles and soap) and grease monkey (a usually samll boy sailor who greased oar gunnels) aren't here. But the ancient world's professions are on full display. My favourites included are: vicarious, nomenclator, fishmonger, purple seller (biblical!), sycophants (yikes), orgy planners, beast supplier, postal worker (now you'll know how going postal originated) and my favourite....psychopompus.

If there is any quibble here (and there really aren't any) Leon is a bit better at jobs typically held by females rather than males: the lives of soldiers, sailors, roughnecks, stevedores, etc. are relatively thin compared to vestal virgins.

This is an excellent, always interesting, highly readable, fun book in the vain of popular economics books sold in airports the world over. Leon is going to make a zillion dollars.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars History at Ground Level, June 10, 2007

By	Bruce Trinque (Amston, CT United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Vicki Leon's "Working IX to V" is not a history of wars and rulers. Instead, it looks at, as its subtitle proclaims, "Orgy Planners, Funeral Clowns, and Other Prized Professions of the Ancient World". In other words, it looks at the jobs performed by ancient Greeks and Roman to keep their world running on a day-to-day (or night-to-night) basis. It's a book made for great browsing if you are not in the mood or have the time available for a straight-through reading. The tone is light and breezy, but Ms. Leon's lively prose conveys a sense of authenticity.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Snappy style packs in plenty of info, November 1, 2007

By	Lynn Harnett (Marathon, FL USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

The subtitle says it all, except that not all the professions are prized - silver mining, for instance, done by slaves who spent their days on their backs in a "coffin-sized hole" and had a life span of three months, or the hordes of free-born laborers needed for everything from carrying stones to loading ships who earned their daily bread and little else.

But Leon manages to cover a broad range of professions from slave-driver and gladiator to dream incubators and sycophants (who informed on fig smugglers) who have no counterpart in today's world as well as many others that will be around forever in one form or another.

Entries are brief and breezy, but very informative. Leon organizes her jobs and avocations in categories - Slave jobs (the best ones are in aristocratic homes), temple and entertainment jobs, food professions, law and order, entertainment and the arts, etc., giving her sections such titles as "Small-time Operators, Corporate Rackets," and "Doomed Careers and Deathless Pursuits."

There are also brief profiles throughout of people who excelled in one way or another at their posts.

Leon's relentlessly droll style grows a little wearing but she does pack an amazing amount of information in this well-organized, broad-ranging collection, giving a lively, detailed picture of teeming life in the ancient world.