Roman/ancient history: Checkmate, Atenists

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Roman/ancient history: Checkmate, Atenists

Jerusalem: May 20, 2004; Would you be my new best friends?

Octy posted:

It might have been another thread but thanks whoever recommended Colleen McCullough's Rome series. I haven't read such good historical fiction in years.

Yeah it's an absolute blast, even if she can't help but justify everything Caesar does.

I love her Cicero, he's such a nerd :allears:

# ? Mar 30, 2017 05:38

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# ? May 25, 2024 14:59

littleorv: Jan 29, 2011

I dunno if it is kosher to ask for homework help in this thread but I'm going to anyways. Can someone direct me to ancient sources that discuss how the Diadochoi tried to establish legitimacy for their monarchies pretty please? I'll give you a nice juicy kiss on the lips

# ? Mar 30, 2017 16:54

littleorv: Jan 29, 2011

These guys need to calm down and stop killing each other for my sanity.

# ? Mar 30, 2017 17:04

BravestOfTheLamps: Oct 12, 2012; by FactsAreUseless; Lipstick Apathy

In the PYF terrible books thread, someone brought up Caligula: Divine Carnage - Atrocities of the Roman Emperors. This is apparently a real book and not an elaborate hoax.

https://consumedandjudged.blogspot.fi/2012/02/caligula-divine-carnage-2001.html?view=classic

quote:

So, it was with some excitement that I stumbled upon a copy of Caligula: Divine Carnage during a recent thrift run. Even better, the book is apparently only one of several volumes in the Atrocities of the Roman Emperors series. Amazon tells me that the Brit lad-mag Bizarre dubbed it �the greatest history of Caesaral carnage ever written,� and that author Stephen Barber, a �noted cultural historian and the leading authority on Antonin Artaud,� was once called �the most dangerous man in Britain (Barber co-wrote the book with Jeremy Reed, who, while not necessarily dangerous, was called �England�s greatest visionary� by J.G. Ballard, which strikes me as even better than being the most dangerous). It looked very promising.

For the first twenty or so pages, Barber and Reed almost have you convinced. Sure, a lot of what they describe seems improbable. Maybe Tiberius forced everyone in the palace to kneel every morning before his �diseased, blackened sexual organ,� maybe he didn�t. And perhaps it's only slightly hyperbolic to say Caligula spent �the first months of his reign almost entirely in incestuous copulation with his sister, Drusilla��that depends on just how one defines �almost� and �entirely.� But then Barber and Reed go too far, writing that Rome�s �plebian scum� loved Caligula because:

�he was a visible presence in the filthy backstreets of Rome, often to be seen carried about in a litter with Drusilla by his side, energetically masturbating with one hand while distributing gold coins with the other; the plebian scum elbowed and crushed one another into the dust in order to simultaneously catch the imperial spurting semen in their mouths and the coins in their hands.

http://www.branchfloridians.org/plebeian_scum.html

And this is supposedly a quotation from the book:

quote:

The animal used most frequently in the arena was the legendary Libyan lion: the most magnificent specimens of this mutant species grew to eleven feet in length, with enormous paws armed with razorsharp claws of saber-size dimensions; even their engorged testicles were as large as a man's head. The Libyan lion was the ultimate killing machine, especially if deprived of its usual diet: in the wild, on the then-fertile terrain of the Idehan Marzuq, it could lay waste to two hundred wildebeests and ostriches in one sitting. Armies of slaves were expended to capture those majestic beasts � they were impervious to tranquilizer arrows, and the only way to subdue them was for a particularly handsome slave to present his shapely, exposed anus to the lion's mighty sexual apparatus; then, once the act of copulation (which invariably proved terminal for the unfortunate slave, due to unsustainable blood loss) reached its critical point and the lion was momentarily distracted, a gang of a hundred or more whooping slaves would wrestle the lion to the ground and throw a net over it.

Accurate, yes/no?

BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 05:47 on Mar 31, 2017

# ? Mar 31, 2017 05:44

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

I don't see anything inaccurate.

# ? Mar 31, 2017 06:07

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

Grand Fromage posted:

I don't see anything inaccurate.

That was a fast title change

# ? Mar 31, 2017 06:11

Crab Dad: Dec 28, 2002; behold i have tempered and refined thee, but not as silver; as CRAB

Grand Fromage posted:

I don't see anything inaccurate.

I've seen people suck dick for less.

# ? Mar 31, 2017 06:25

Power Khan: Aug 20, 2011; by Fritz the Horse

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

In the PYF terrible books thread, someone brought up Caligula: Divine Carnage - Atrocities of the Roman Emperors. This is apparently a real book and not an elaborate hoax.

https://consumedandjudged.blogspot.fi/2012/02/caligula-divine-carnage-2001.html?view=classic

http://www.branchfloridians.org/plebeian_scum.html

And this is supposedly a quotation from the book:

Accurate, yes/no?

One day somebody will write something like this about the Trump presidency and it might not be fiction.

# ? Mar 31, 2017 07:45

Mantis42: Jul 26, 2010

Say what you will about Caligula but at least Incitatus wasn't a Persian spy, whic puts him ahead of Caestula.

# ? Mar 31, 2017 08:13

Teriyaki Hairpiece: Dec 29, 2006; I'm nae the voice o' the darkened thistle, but th' darkened thistle cannae bear the sight o' our Bonnie Prince Bernie nae mair.

Most of daily Roman life was filthy, painful, and, more than anything, just so goddamn boring all the time. That makes it sound a lot more fun.

# ? Mar 31, 2017 08:27

Doctor Malaver: May 23, 2007; Ce qui s'est pass� t'a rendu plus fort

Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:

Most of daily Roman life was filthy, painful, and, more than anything, just so goddamn boring all the time.

Don't project.

# ? Mar 31, 2017 10:53

Teriyaki Hairpiece: Dec 29, 2006; I'm nae the voice o' the darkened thistle, but th' darkened thistle cannae bear the sight o' our Bonnie Prince Bernie nae mair.

Doctor Malaver posted:

Don't project.

I'd rather live in the 21st century than literally any century that homo sapiens has been a species and anyone who says different is at best underinformed.

# ? Mar 31, 2017 11:41

Ras Het: May 23, 2007; when I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child - but now I am a man.

Modern westerns are pathetic slaves of their machinery, like babies glued to their iPad by its colours and noises. The industrial revolution destroyed what little hope we might have had as a species for a dignified future.

# ? Mar 31, 2017 12:04

CoolCab: Apr 17, 2005; glem

Ras Het posted:

Modern westerns are pathetic slaves of their machinery, like babies glued to their iPad by its colours and noises. The industrial revolution destroyed what little hope we might have had as a species for a dignified future.

ah, the quiet dignity of making GBS threads yourself to death

# ? Mar 31, 2017 12:17

Ras Het: May 23, 2007; when I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child - but now I am a man.

CoolCab posted:

ah, the quiet dignity of making GBS threads yourself to death

That's the point. Rampant cholera epidemics follow absurd overpopulation, which limits access to clean water.

# ? Mar 31, 2017 12:22

ltkerensky: Oct 27, 2010; Biggest lurker to ever lurk.

I know it's beating on a dead horse, but... "tranquilizer arrows"?

# ? Mar 31, 2017 12:34

verbal enema: May 23, 2009; onlymarfans.com

ltkerensky posted:

I know it's beating on a dead horse, but... "tranquilizer arrows"?

Not that hard to craft pretty basic recipe

# ? Mar 31, 2017 12:43

Jerusalem: May 20, 2004; Would you be my new best friends?

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

Accurate, yes/no?

Herodotus is still alive and publishing!?! :aaa:

# ? Mar 31, 2017 13:01

Libluini: May 18, 2012; I gravitated towards the Greens, eventually even joining the party itself.

The Linke is a party I grudgingly accept exists, but I've learned enough about DDR-history I can't bring myself to trust a party that was once the SED, a party leading the corrupt state apparatus ...; Grimey Drawer

ltkerensky posted:

I know it's beating on a dead horse, but... "tranquilizer arrows"?

Probably a rather free translation for poisonous blow darts or something.

# ? Mar 31, 2017 13:03

Zopotantor: Feb 24, 2013; ...und ist er drin dann lassen wir ihn niemals wieder raus...

Libluini posted:

Probably a rather free translation for poisonous blow darts or something.

I don't think any of that was translated from ancient sources...

# ? Mar 31, 2017 15:55

Tias: May 25, 2008; Pictured: the patron saint of internet political arguments (probably)

This avatar made possible by a gift from the Religionthread Posters Relief Fund

Yeah, seriously, don't mix up lovely slashfic and actual history, it's such a silly place.

# ? Mar 31, 2017 16:43

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

That book is for people who thought A World Lit Only By Fire was too scholarly

# ? Mar 31, 2017 17:00

SlothfulCobra: Mar 27, 2011

Ras Het posted:

That's the point. Rampant cholera epidemics follow absurd overpopulation, which limits access to clean water.

Ah, the quiet dignity of smallpox/starvation/getting mauled by a tiger.

Reminds me of how Thucydides started out harkening back to the old days of pirates and tyrants.

# ? Mar 31, 2017 17:07

HEY GUNS: Oct 11, 2012; FOPTIMUS PRIME

Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:

I'd rather live in the 21st century than literally any century that homo sapiens has been a species and anyone who says different is at best underinformed.

i would literally kill a man for the opportunity to live in the 17th century in a decade of my choosing and you can suck my dick if you disagree

# ? Mar 31, 2017 18:25

Jeb Bush 2012: Apr 4, 2007; A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

HEY GAIL posted:

i would literally kill a man for the opportunity to live in the 17th century in a decade of my choosing and you can suck my dick if you disagree

okay but you don't get to choose which 17th century person you are so I hope you like farming

# ? Mar 31, 2017 18:32

HEY GUNS: Oct 11, 2012; FOPTIMUS PRIME

Jeb Bush 2012 posted:

okay but you don't get to choose which 17th century person you are so I hope you like farming

what if i trade choice of decade for choice of person

# ? Mar 31, 2017 18:37

Jeb Bush 2012: Apr 4, 2007; A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

HEY GAIL posted:

what if i trade choice of decade for choice of person

that seems too easy imo

# ? Mar 31, 2017 18:43

xthetenth: Dec 30, 2012; Mario wasn't sure if this Jeb guy was a good influence on Yoshi.

HEY GAIL posted:

what if i trade choice of decade for choice of person

Tone it down, wizard.

# ? Mar 31, 2017 18:44

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

Jeb Bush 2012 posted:

okay but you don't get to choose which 17th century person you are so I hope you like ~~farming~~ the potosi silver mine

# ? Mar 31, 2017 18:58

skasion: Feb 13, 2012; Why don't you perform zazen, facing a wall?

I feel that cuts both ways. It's easy to say "why don't you have a little historical perspective and stop romanticizing the past, geez :rolleyes:

" when you are a rich, healthy, educated westerner posting to others of similar sort and not a coltan miner or child soldier or HIV-stricken beggar or dirt-poor Pacific Islander whose homeland is literally going to be overwhelmed by the sea. Plenty of people today have grossly lovely lives, probably quite a lot more people than even existed in the 17th century or antiquity or whenever. When people say "id rather be alive today than Back When", it's implicit that they mean they'd rather have their present, pleasant life than one of the ones that doesn't involve health insurance, toilet paper, takeout, and internet porn.

# ? Mar 31, 2017 19:27

Jeb Bush 2012: Apr 4, 2007; A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

skasion posted:

I feel that cuts both ways. It's easy to say "why don't you have a little historical perspective and stop romanticizing the past, geez " when you are a rich, healthy, educated westerner posting to others of similar sort and not a coltan miner or child soldier or HIV-stricken beggar or dirt-poor Pacific Islander whose homeland is literally going to be overwhelmed by the sea. Plenty of people today have grossly lovely lives, probably quite a lot more people than even existed in the 17th century or antiquity or whenever. When people say "id rather be alive today than Back When", it's implicit that they mean they'd rather have their present, pleasant life than one of the ones that doesn't involve health insurance, toilet paper, takeout, and internet porn.

no, they mean that the median person in the world today enjoys a vastly higher standard of living than the median person in the 17th century. I would rather be placed somewhere at random on the 21st century's income distribution (and that's not even accounting for the fact that I'd be much less likely to end up in the middle of a war) than the 17th century's, even though neither is tremendously appealing compared to living in a first world country in the 21st century

# ? Mar 31, 2017 19:38

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

Jeb Bush 2012 posted:

no, they mean that the median person in the world today enjoys a vastly higher standard of living than the median person in the 17th century. I would rather be placed somewhere at random on the 21st century's income distribution (and that's not even accounting for the fact that I'd be much less likely to end up in the middle of a war) than the 17th century's, even though neither is tremendously appealing compared to living in a first world country in the 21st century

I mean, even if you were a rich, on-top-of-the-world 17th century person, you didn't understand how gout worked so you were probably going to get that.

# ? Mar 31, 2017 19:43

CommonShore: Jun 6, 2014; A true renaissance man

I'll take 21st century quality of life with 17th century fashion.

# ? Mar 31, 2017 20:07

Cyrano4747: Sep 25, 2006; Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

CommonShore posted:

I'll take 21st century quality of life with 17th century fashion.

So you basically want to be Lady Gaga.

# ? Mar 31, 2017 20:09

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

Cyrano4747 posted:

So you basically want to be Lady Gaga.

I feel like flying out of a window was part of her halftime show this year

# ? Mar 31, 2017 20:14

Ras Het: May 23, 2007; when I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child - but now I am a man.

SlothfulCobra posted:

Ah, the quiet dignity of smallpox/starvation/getting mauled by a tiger.

Sounds better than the abject horror of a plane crash/uhh, 21st century starvation/nuclear weapons/pizza, depression and TV induced heart failure at 34

# ? Mar 31, 2017 20:19

Dalael: Oct 14, 2014; Hello. Yep, I still think Atlantis is Bolivia, yep, I'm still a giant idiot, yep, I'm still a huge racist. Some things never change!

Ras Het posted:

Sounds better than the abject horror of a plane crash/uhh, 21st century starvation/nuclear weapons/pizza, depression and TV induced heart failure at 34

A plane crash is scary while its happening, but once the impact happens its pretty instantaneous. I'll take that over small pox any day.

Starvation sucks regardless of the century, but the 21st century has a lot more organizations helping out and handing out food. Same during a disaster. Nowadays the international community can respond anywhere in the world within days.
This century is not perfect, but is in every way better than any other time in the past, regardless of where you live.

# ? Mar 31, 2017 20:26

Cyrano4747: Sep 25, 2006; Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

Dalael posted:

A plane crash is scary while its happening, but once the impact happens its pretty instantaneous. I'll take that over small pox any day.

Starvation sucks regardless of the century, but the 21st century has a lot more organizations helping out and handing out food. Same during a disaster. Nowadays the international community can respond anywhere in the world within days.
This century is not perfect, but is in every way better than any other time in the past, regardless of where you live.

Yeah, even the shittiest of 21st century lives has a non-zero chance of being able to get to a clinic or something to get antibiotics if you cut your leg in the bush and get an infection. The shittiest lives in the 21st century might be worse than teh best 17th century lives, but holy poo poo are they still better than the lovely 17th century ones, and there are a LOT more people now with comfortable lives than 600 years ago.

# ? Mar 31, 2017 20:27

Ras Het: May 23, 2007; when I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child - but now I am a man.

Dalael posted:

A plane crash is scary while its happening, but once the impact happens its pretty instantaneous. I'll take that over small pox any day.

Starvation sucks regardless of the century, but the 21st century has a lot more organizations helping out and handing out food. Same during a disaster. Nowadays the international community can respond anywhere in the world within days.
This century is not perfect, but is in every way better than any other time in the past, regardless of where you live.

That's very zen of you, but in any case, my point wasn't remotely that I would rather live in whatever oldendayse century you want to choose, but that human society is irredeemably terrible and a lot of the comforts of our lives are actually insanely lovely things

# ? Mar 31, 2017 20:29

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# ? May 25, 2024 14:59

Cyrano4747: Sep 25, 2006; Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

Ras Het posted:

That's very zen of you, but in any case, my point wasn't remotely that I would rather live in whatever oldendayse century you want to choose, but that human society is irredeemably terrible and a lot of the comforts of our lives are actually insanely lovely things

Yes, noted lovely thing antibiotics.

It's also horrible that cheap, effective birth control exists to the point where it's available (barring cultural/legal/etc shenanigans) in even pretty dirt poor societies.

Don't even get me started on how insanely lovely plummeting mortality rates in childbirth are.

# ? Mar 31, 2017 20:42

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