I am a psychotherapist myself and am reading "How Emotions are Made", by Lisa Feldman Barrett.
This is a great book on how emotions are formed, but that's not really way I'm posting here. She writes that a smiling, which we associate with happiness was not how Romans would express happiness.
P. 51 she writes; "the historical fact record implies that Ancient Greeks and Romans did not smile spontaneously when they were happy. The world "smile" doesn't even exist in Latin or Ancient Greek. Smiling was an invention of the Middle Ages".
My question; what was the common, accepted way to express (in a physical way) happiness in Roman times. With "times" I'm interested in all answers, but if one wants a specific time period, during the time of Julius Caesar.
Thank you!
She is mistaken. Rideo is often translated "to laugh" in dictionaries (and thus risio, the noun), but it also means "to smile," "to smile at," and "to mock." Greek is even less ambiguous: while Greek has several words for laughing, Homeric μειδάω only means "to smile," and γελάω has pretty much the same meaning as rideo. Nor is this unusual. Japanese has no common separate verbs for laughter and smiling, 笑う means "to laugh," "to smile," and "to mock." Nobody suggests the Japanese do not smile spontaneously, because such a thing would be verifiable preposterous.