This is a cornucopia of ancient forteana by a distinguished Latinist, with 23 (that number!) chapters on individual topics. Literary and other sources are quoted extensively in English, with Latin and Greek sometimes appended, and there are illustrations and a handy glossary of names and terms. McKeown’s scholia are tersely informative, enlivened by pertinent modern analogies, myth-puncturing (vomitoria were not Roman spewing-up rooms) and dry witticisms.

Every reader will pluck out their favourite plum, some doubtless making immediately for the ‘Not for the Puritanical’ chapter. My own (our choices define us) disembogues from the toilet graffiti: “Shit well and let the doctors suck you”, a rebarbative combination of Doc Martin and NHS grumbles.