ANCIENT ROMAN CONJURERS.

ANCIENT ROMAN CONJURERS. I posted here about a standup comedian’s performance of material from an ancient Greek joke book. This wikipedia article tells how the “cups and balls” trick (known as “acetabula et calculi” was performed by Roman conjurers two thousand years ago. The trick is still performed. Wikipedia describes it: “The magician makes the balls pass through the solid bottoms of the cups, jump from cup to cup, disappear from the cup and appear in other places, or vanish from various places and reappear under the cups (sometimes under the same cup), often ending with larger objects, like fruit, or even chicks or mice, appearing under the cups.” The Lehrer article has a link to a video of Penn and Teller who do the trick with transparent cups so that the viewer should be able to see what’s happening. But the hand is quicker than the eye.