Ellen Lloyd - AncientPages.com - Did ancient Romans invent unbreakable glass? If they did, their secrets would be long lost because the Roman Emperor Tiberius beheaded the inventor of flexible glass.
Left: A Roman blown-glass cinerary urn, dated between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD. Image credit: Luis García - CC BY-SA 3.0. Right: Portrait of Roman Emperor Tiberius in Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen. Original. Cast in Rome. Image credit: Cnyborg - Public Domain
According to Roman authors Petronius (c. 27–66 AD) and Pliny the Elder (23–79 AD), a glassmaker was granted an audience with Emperor Tiberius. The glassmaker presented an incredible invention called a phiale (a shallow drinking vessel). The drinking bowl must have been made of extraordinary material because it failed when the Roman Emperor Tiberius Caesar attempted to break it.
Instead of breaking, the bowl dented like a bronze vessel.
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