The content of the mini-anthology of ancient jokes consists of funny incidents and instructive episodes from the life of heroes of antiquity - philosophers, kings, generals, artists; cases when the way out of an apparently intractable situation was an unexpected act or a witty remark; cases are legendary and historical. The anecdotes were collected by Hellenistic philologist S. Venglovsky from a number of works by Greek and Roman historians and retold in excellent literary language. For a wide range of readers.