A little Caeser thread (not about pizza)

[Captain_Gutgore_Blooddrink]

I searched a bit around snopes for this and didn’t find anything.

the myth goes:

"One day a man (I’ve heard peasant, blacksmith or alchemist) was practicing his trade, when he accidentally discovered something new and wonderful. It was clear like glass, but was easy to mold and had some of the properties of metal. He made a vase out of it, and when he threw it against the ground, it did not break but dented. So he made/had made a knife out of it, and it was sharper than the sharpest sword. So he took his creation to Caeser (which Caeser was not specified) who was hosting advisors. When then man showed Caeser his creation, Caeser asked, “Have you shown this to anyone else?” When the man replied he hadn’t, Caeser had him immediately executed. When asked by one of his advisors why, he replied, “If someone can make something as great as this, then all of my riches and power would be as worthless as the dirt on the ground.”

Anyone else heard this? And if so, is there supposed to be some sort of moral?

Oh, and the peasant/blacksmith/alchemist was NOT the Noid. So there.

MeatBeast

[pravnik]

I read a version of this story when I was in elementary school, only the monarch was a Chinese emperor and the invention was a flying machine/hang glider of some sort.

[Achilles]

I think it’s apocryphal. Certainly wasn’t documented as having happened during any of the major Caesar’s reigns.

However, you didn’t say a “major” Caesar, and for a good while in history, Caesar was synonymous with “ruler”.

So maybe. But I very much doubt such a material was ever invented.

[rowrrbazzle]

There was an article about this in the May/June issue of “Skeptical Inquirer”. The article isn’t online but that issue’s index is at http://www.csicop.org/si/9505/ .

This is Proquest’s abstract of the article: “Pliny and Petronius refer to the story of a metalsmith who invented flexible glass and was executed for it to prevent a decline in the price of gold, a story often repeated since. Ancient aluminum and thermally toughened glass have been suggested as explanations–especially by those who believe in ancient spacecraft and alien visitors–but a critical reading suggests it is ‘just a good story’–in other words, not true.”

Here are the earliest versions of this story.

From the “Satyricon” of Petronius http://www.igibud.com/petron/satyr/satyr08.html:

However there was an artificer once who made a glass goblet that would not break. So he was admitted to Caesar’s presence to offer him his invention; then, on receiving the cup back from Caesar’s hands, he dashed it down on the floor. Who so startled as Caesar? but the man quietly picked up the goblet again, which was dinted as a vessel of bronze might be. Then taking a little hammer from his pocket, he easily and neatly knocked the goblet into shape again. This done, the fellow thought he was as good as in heaven already, especially when Caesar said to him, ‘Does anybody else besides yourself understand the manufacture of this glass?’ But lo! on his replying in the negative, Caesar ordered him to be beheaded, because if once the secret became known, we should think no more of gold than of so much dirt.

From Pliny’s “Natural History”, book 36, paragraph 11:

The tale is told that, during the reign of Tiberius, a glass was devised, so compounded as to be flexible, and that the workshop of the inventor was utterly destroyed, lest there should be a decline in the value of copper, silver, and gold.