A friend of mine recently pointed out that if we study modern history the same way we study ancient Rome, we'd have no mentions of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Game of Thrones, the Oscars, etc. His point essentially was that an over emphasis on the statements of politicians and leaders and political events has led to a lack of study on everyday pop culture events of the ancient world.
So my question is: what were the big pop culture events of the ancient world that dominated everyday conversations between people, even if it wasn't particularly impactful in the grand scheme of history?
I have a rules question about this question: what does it take for an answer to be comprehensive here? Mentioning all works from a certain ancient culture which the answerer is familiar with? A certain culture in a time period? Just an in-depth analysis of one important pop-cultural work from history?
Sorry if this reply question in and of itself doesn’t follow all the rules, I did look around but I didn’t find any rules obviously pertaining to this kind of follow-up question.