Different cultures have different senses of humor. Cicero specialized in the brutal put-down, as when he met a man with three ugly daughters and quoted the verse “Apollo never meant him to beget.” At one trial a young man accused of having given his father a poisoned cake said he wanted to give Cicero a piece of his mind. Cicero replied: “I would prefer that to a piece of your cake.” Only a few of Cicero’s jokes still raise a smile, but his contemporaries delighted in them.
