If you traveled back in time to the days of ancient Rome, how would you show that you came from the future?

I’d show them how to make a book.

I would bring my charged up ipod and earbuds.

I’d bring TP
TP for my bunghole

wear a silver bodysuit, everyone knows that silver bodysuits only exist in the future

Hey, people, what happened to the prime directive? Every ripple you make in the time line is likely to inadvertently change the future in ways you would not like!

My age, my glasses and my teeth.

That would not not be the hard part. The hard part would be if I wanted them to think I came from their culture and their time. Even if love is all you need (love is all you need, love is all you need), I’m going to be in trouble if all I can say is amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant.

Our currency.

I’m pretty sure just the sight of me in my t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers would be plenty.

Show them the power of Pantera

@Jeruba: Galba agricola est

I’d take my cell & a TV. Both would blow their minds.

@jbfletcherfan

Not without someone to call or a place to plug the TV in.

I’m taking this question to mean that we can’t bring back an item. Otherwise, I could just bring back a calender or a newspaper with the date on it.

I would show them that all objects accelerate towards the earth equally, I would unveil the concept of zero or decimal points. I would show them conservation of energy, or that the acceleration of an object is proportional to the force applied to it and inversely proportional to its mass. Things like that.

I’d also be sure to wear this t-shirt.

You’d be hung the minute you convinced someone, so I would actually not tell anyone and simply know things like germ theory and how to make soap etc. Fortunately I do know things like animal husbandry and slaughter and cloth making, so I’d be just fine.

If for some reason I had to prove it though, I would think my full comprehension of a language that no one would ever understand could count for something. The knowledge of bacteria would help greatly and even though my relating of it would be primitive, I could explain it to them enough for them to have proof in seeing their mortality rates go down.

Oh, and the whole lead pipes thing, I could totally warn them about that one! That would be pretty good proof. Or predicting something that will happen if you know of history, but again you could be considered a witch.

@Ivan I haven’t even clicked that link and I know it’s that survival shirt with all the instructions on it, right? That’s such a sweet shirt :)

It’d be tough. Anything I had, I wouldn’t be able to explain to them.
You know, since they don’t speak English.

Assuming I had some TARDIS like machine, I think a great device to show them would be the lighter. Sure they’ve got fire. But have they got it in pocket-form?

Yeah, the whole ‘not-knowing-Latin’ thing would probably be a hindrance.

I like the lighter idea.

I’d have to say I came from
a far away land. If I said that I was from the future I’d be locked up or killed.

i would show them a “bro hug” if that didn’t work i would rub my belly and pat my head at the same time!

I’d show my appendix scar. I’m sure they didn’t have them and, if they did, it didn’t look the same.

@Quagmire:Keep in mind that the healthy young Roman adult males spent most of their time skewering each other and the Huns and Visigoths with spears and swords (never mind the action in the arena). They would have scars aplenty but probably no neat stitch marks

I’d bring a pistol and a rifle to the Colosseum in Rome and show them how quickly and easily a Gladiator contest could be won by using modern weapons.

What about alcohol? I don’t really know the alcoholism timelines. Would vodka impress the Romans?

As inconspicuously as possible and in small baby steps sharing things that would be of immediate benefit, such as perhaps a barbed fish hook or a simple animal trap.

@gailcalled, I think it’s safe to say they had appendicitis, too. And ”probably no neat stitch marks”?? I think that’s a safe bet as well!

@Quagmire: Well, there was no anesthesia, but there WERE needles and thread. How do you think they made those cute little togas?

I think my helicopter would do the trick (it’s a big time machine, okay?)

@gailcalled, Britannia est insula.

No sewing needed.

My dental work maybe.

I’d be really careful because they didn’t much like witches… Which I would probably be mistaken for if I used “foresight” or whatever. Probably end up in the middle of the coliseum trying to deal with a critter of some sort.

Show them my dental work (crown and various fillings) as well as the contact lenses in my eyes. Also, I happen to be a prodigy (if I say so my self) on ancient Roman history and would be able to tell of events in their near, as well as distant future.

I’d bring a bazooka…

should send the message

There was a book some years ago, where two time travelers met each other, and recognized each other from being in the future because of their TB test scars.
I could explain that we have a black president, and everyone knows that in the movies, where there is a black president, that must be the future!
If I showed them my gold teeth, I am afraid I wouldn’t have them long.
Of course, my height alone would seperate me from the masses. I am a today’s standard 6’2, but back then that would be gigantic.
Maybe by making a compass I could convince them I was clever, but not necessarily from the future.
In Planet of the Apes, Chuck Heston folded a paper airplane…
In A Conneticut Yankee In King Arthurs Court, he correctly forecasted an eclypse.
What an interesting question!

Did they mark people as witches? That would be scary.

I don’t know. I figure just by looking at me, since I’d look much different….
I could explain some medicine, but more the natural remedies..is that witchcraft?! lol

I’d demand to be treated as an equal.

I think simply removing my denture plate would give them pause, since it is made out of plastic, and there was nothing made of plastic in Rome.

…An iPhone.

Assuming I arrived in ancient Rome naked and without any implements, I could convince them by building electric motors and using them to power builder’s pulleys and catapults. They had good metalworking technology, so making copper wire for me to work with shouldn’t be a problem. I could also prove that the lead in their aqueducts was poisonous by using small fish. I could reduce mortality rates in hospitals by introducing hand washing, and aseptic technique to battlefront surgeries. There are thousands of technologies I could replicate for them, although crudely, that would astound them.

Romans knew about steam, but never used it to make a steam engine. I’d go find their best scientist and explain the theory as best I could. Then they’d put all those lazy slaves to work and make railroad lines all over Europe, keep the Empire together, conquer India, obliterate Africa and exterminate China. And maybe discover America by 271AD. Hmm…not sure if this would make the world much better come to think of it.

Getting the Romans to use soap would be a hard sell. They knew about soap. It is something that the so called barbarians used and which the Romans shunned.

If I wanted to be of use, I could try to introduce lightning rods.

There actually was a point to the question. Although as a society we know more and are able to do things beyond the Roman imagination, individually we are rather powerless, lacking in even the most basic survival skills. It is sort of like the effectiveness of an ant colony versus the powerlessness of an individual ant.

@LostInParadise I wouldn’t say we are quite powerless as individuals. We are social creatures and have set ourselves up as such, but we are still the best adapted of all the animals. I can replicate many basic technologies from toasters to simple explosives, all of which would be beyond the ancients and help advance their society.

@FireMadeFlesh , your technical expertise is beyond most of us. As a related question, suppose the time machine was lost or stolen. How would most of us be able to earn a living? Computer skills would not be of any use.

Well, what most people don’t realize is that if you are a male, and you arrive naked, and you are circumcised, you will end up in the Coliseum as lion food, because the Romans felt that circumcised males weren’t truly equals, and only barbarians would cut the foreskin of their members. Usually, only slaves and Jews in ancient Rome were circumcised.

I hope you are good with a spear or a short knife, because those lions are gonna be hungry.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106308/

Man I thought my bazooka idea would have caught some steam by now. serves a double purpose really.

@LostInParadise I assumed as much. I sat there thinking “I don’t know how to make or do anything. Best I can do is show something that’s already been made.”
If I was stuck in ancient Rome for the rest of my life (Assuming I wasn’t thrown in with the lions. :( Thanks @evelyns_pet_zebra) I’d have to completely learn new skillsets. I’m not a soldier, or a healer, or holyman, inventor, entertainer, farmer, or pretty much anything else they did back then.

A lot of great answers for showing that you came from another civilization—but how would you prove it was the future and not a faraway kingdom like the realm of Prester John in the Middle Ages—or even the realm of the gods?

Let’s say I’m an ancient Roman (not knowing I’m “ancient”) and you show up in a silver bodysuit with dentures and an iPod and say you’re from the future, and you prove it by telling me (in Caesar’s Latin, via the Enterprise’s universal translator) that I know it’s the future because the world does not yet have the things you are standing there in and manifestly have. Now what?

It could be an arduous task, because of Arthur C. Clarke’s observation that:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Arthur C. Clarke, “Profiles of The Future”, 1961 (Clarke’s third law)

@Jeruba I think mine might still work.

@tinyfaery, it should work, but you’d probably be executed as a witch instead. Excerpt from this source follows [emphasis added]:

The Early Witches

In the minds of these roman men, the greatest threat came from the oppressed and already resentful members of society; slaves, freed-persons, and common women. Violence, these social groups knew, would not work on a military power such as Rome and so a group sense of self-preservation discouraged a traditional uprising. Revolting through religion and especially magic was a subtler and, to begin with, a safer way to go.

A woman in a position of dominance was already a sickening notion to roman men, so the idea that it might be possible for a woman to defeat a man physically or through use of mystical powers terrified them. Although male ‘wizards’ existed, women with ideas above their station were seen as the real problem. The now stereotypical image was encouraged by these men and before long many hook-nosed crones were being stoned to death by mobs in the street after having allegedly used the marrow from children’s bones for potions.

These ancient witches supposedly had powers much like our modern imaginings do, indeed they were probably the source of the information passed through the centuries. Aside from concocting evil poisons, witches were believed to be able to summon the dead, influence the elements, the weather and even to move the stars and the moon through enchantments. Some witches possessed the ability to shape-shift, most commonly into a screech owl. These witches were called Strigae (sing. Strix).

Persecution

Romans began burning witches at the stake long before Christians got around to it, many of the inquisitorial techniques and myths surrounding witches were revived for the Renaissance persecutions throughout Europe, the only difference being that roman witchcraft did not involved the devil….

I think the trick might be to bring mechanical devices whose operation the Romans could understand – a windup clock, a metronome, lock and key and combination lock would grab the attention of the Romans. After careful study, I am sure they would be able to build such things on their own, possibly radically altering history, but that is a separate matter for discussion.

@Jeruba Thanks for the info. I knew there was something like that out there after I said that I’d probably be executed for a witch, but I couldn’t find it when I was thinking about it and then I forgot about it.

The guys from the future might just be ok, but women? Fuggedaboutit.

@LostInParadise I would personally be a surgeon – they had little idea of physiology, and most people in today’s world have a decent understanding of Germ Theory that would be beyond the ancients.