[Premodern history] the year of the two fatal eruptions

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [Premodern history] the year of the two fatal eruptions

Grevling: Dec 18, 2016

guns for tits posted:

Herodotus writes how he heard a story of an Egyptian Pharaoh taking a couple kids and raising them in isolation with only mute attendants. The kids eventually say the word bekos, which apparently is the Phrygian word for bread. Apparently the Egyptians thought phygian was the oldest.

According to Eco's book some people in the middle ages thought what would happen if you did this would be they'd speak Hebrew.

# ? Sep 29, 2020 15:12

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# ? Jun 10, 2024 13:41

Synnr: Dec 30, 2009

Nebakenezzer posted:

The whole "OG language" thing reminds me of the pushback against metric:

Lmfao I still hear most of these, it's ridiculous. I might have been raised with imperial and had to learn metric later but the "it can only go down to tenths!!!!" Thing especially was bizarre to me.

I mean, some folks used base 16 and that was natural to them too.

# ? Sep 29, 2020 15:39

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkMVsNEwvX0

# ? Sep 29, 2020 20:11

Atrocious Joe: Sep 2, 2011

etalian posted:

The history of vodka in Russia which has some fun facts how vodka was made a state run monopoly and also was the Russian version of "Bread + Circuses".

The Bolshevik's had pushing prohibition as one of the main reforms and also shut down all the state run booze factories when they took over.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK7l55ZOVIc

not ancient history, but the same bs
https://twitter.com/gommunisd/status/1310985552066490368?s=20

# ? Sep 29, 2020 20:21

DynamicSloth: Jul 30, 2006; "Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth."

PawParole posted:

Wasn�t Chemosh a heretical form of Jehovah. According to what the king of moab wrote in his stela (written in Hebrew)

�I am Mesha, son of Chemosh-gad,[26] king of Moab, the Dibonite. My father reigned over Moab thirty years, and I have reigned after my father. And I have built this sanctuary for Chemosh in Karchah, a sanctuary of salvation, for he saved me from all aggressors, and made me look upon all mine enemies with contempt. Omri was king of Israel, and oppressed Moab during many days, and Chemosh was angry with his aggressions. His son succeeded him, and he also said, I will oppress Moab. In my days he said, Let us go, and I will see my desire upon him and his house, and Israel said, I shall destroy it for ever. Now Omri took the land of Madeba, and occupied it in his day, and in the days of his son, forty years. And Chemosh had mercy on it in my time. And I built Baal-meon and made therein the ditch, and I built Kiriathaim. And the men of Gad dwelled in the country of Ataroth from ancient times, and the king of Israel fortified Ataroth. I assaulted the wall and captured it, and killed all the warriors of the city for the well-pleasing of Chemosh and Moab, and I removed from it all the spoil, and offered it before Chemosh in Kirjath; and I placed therein the men of Siran, and the men of Mochrath. And Chemosh said to me, Go take Nebo against Israel, and I went in the night and I fought against it from the break of day till noon, and I took it: and I killed in all seven thousand men, but I did not kill the women and maidens, for I devoted them to Ashtar-Chemosh; and I took from it the vessels of Jehovah, and offered them before Chemosh. And the king of Israel fortified Jahaz, and occupied it, when he made war against me, and Chemosh drove him out before me, and I took from Moab two hundred men in all, and placed them in Jahaz, and took it to annex it to Dibon. I built Karchah the wall of the forest, and the wall of the Hill. I have built its gates and I have built its towers. I have built the palace of the king, and I made the prisons for the criminals within the wall. And there were no wells in the interior of the wall in Karchah. And I said to all the people, 'Make you every man a well in his house.' And I dug the ditch for Karchah with the chosen men of Israel. I built Aroer, and I made the road across the Arnon. I took Beth-Bamoth for it was destroyed. I built Bezer for it was cut down by the armed men of Daybon, for all Daybon was now loyal; and I reigned from Bikran, which I added to my land. And I built Beth-Gamul, and Beth-Diblathaim, and Beth Baal-Meon, and I placed there the poor people of the land. And as to Horonaim, the men of Edom dwelt therein, on the descent from old. And Chemosh said to me, Go down, make war against Horonaim, and take it. And I assaulted it, And I took it, for Chemosh restored it in my days. Wherefore I made.... ...year...and I....�

The Moabites and the Edomites in the Bible are literally the Israelites' inbred cousins, as in Abraham's cousin Lot, ~~raped his~~ was seduced by, both his daughters and those two kingdoms are the result. Apparently that's the whole actual point of the Sodom and Gomorah story.

# ? Sep 30, 2020 17:47

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BsOm4xoQs8

# ? Oct 1, 2020 01:15

Stairmaster: Jun 8, 2012

the original language is wingdings font

# ? Oct 1, 2020 02:19

Grevling: Dec 18, 2016

DynamicSloth posted:

The Moabites and the Edomites in the Bible are literally the Israelites' inbred cousins, as in Abraham's cousin Lot, ~~raped his~~ was seduced by, both his daughters and those two kingdoms are the result. Apparently that's the whole actual point of the Sodom and Gomorah story.

I wonder if the Hebrews got owned this badly in their neighbors' stories too, sad we don't have them. It was the Moabites and Ammonites who were descended from Lot and his daughters by the way, the Edomites were descended from Esau, who traded his birthright for lentil stew. Since his brother is the progenitor of the Hebrews I guess they must have had better relations with Edom than Moab and Ammon.

From my wikipedia binges at least it seems like Edom became Jewish at some point, and that Yahweh might even have been an Edomite god.

# ? Oct 1, 2020 04:05

Stairmaster: Jun 8, 2012

we need to discuss the bosnian pyramids

# ? Oct 1, 2020 21:28

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

Grevling posted:

I wonder if the Hebrews got owned this badly in their neighbors' stories too, sad we don't have them. It was the Moabites and Ammonites who were descended from Lot and his daughters by the way, the Edomites were descended from Esau, who traded his birthright for lentil stew. Since his brother is the progenitor of the Hebrews I guess they must have had better relations with Edom than Moab and Ammon.

From my wikipedia binges at least it seems like Edom became Jewish at some point, and that Yahweh might even have been an Edomite god.

Yeah the whole thing is like the classic giving you enemy the history as being the product of rape/incest to justify genocidal wars against them.

# ? Oct 1, 2020 22:03

Azathoth: Apr 3, 2001

Grevling posted:

I wonder if the Hebrews got owned this badly in their neighbors' stories too, sad we don't have them. It was the Moabites and Ammonites who were descended from Lot and his daughters by the way, the Edomites were descended from Esau, who traded his birthright for lentil stew. Since his brother is the progenitor of the Hebrews I guess they must have had better relations with Edom than Moab and Ammon.

From my wikipedia binges at least it seems like Edom became Jewish at some point, and that Yahweh might even have been an Edomite god.

It's worth pointing out that despite the biblical narrative of the Exodus and the conquest of Canaan being accepted as fact for most of history, it's now the consensus that the culture that would become the Israelites emerged from the existing Canaanite population and not migration or conquest by an outside people.

I'd also point out that one should be careful referring to any of these people as Jewish in any way, or referring to any of the surrounding peoples as becoming Jewish. Most people at this time were polytheistic in the true sense of the word, and even those who, like the proto-Israelites, devoted worship to a single deity absolutely accepted that other deities existed.

It's hard to have a "national god" when you don't really have the concept of a nation, but individual groups definitely had "their" gods that they both worshipped and to which they felt a greater connection. A group altering their worship from their previous god to a new one after being conquered was a pretty standard way by which the conqueror would assert control, even if the conquered populations lives and even general religious practices would not change much.

Where things get really interesting with Yahweh is that although his worshippers and religious officials were all drawn from the local population, Yahweh is not part of the ancient Canaanite pantheon. The $64,000 question being how a foreign god not only becomes worshipped but eventually grows to become the only god of a people without any outside people forcing the change.

It's pretty well understood that Yahweh came up from the lands to the south of the Israelites, but the exact location and method of migration are hotly debated.

As for the Israelites getting owned by their neighbors, well there's a few different Egyptian inscriptions that are the functional equivalent of "Israel hosed around and found out" whenever they got a bit too independent of Egypt.

And that's another thing. The Bible likes to portray the Israelites as strong, regional power players. They... were not. The Bible consistently overstates their importance regionally and their actual level of independence.

Depending on what was happening in Egypt or Mesopotamia, they were always within the sphere of influence of one or the other. They were far enough away from both, however, that they were never going to be part of either empire proper, at least until Persians rolled in. They were, however, always a petty frontier kingdom whose loyalty shifted from one state to the other according to the political winds.

# ? Oct 1, 2020 23:28

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

Azathoth posted:

And that's another thing. The Bible likes to portray the Israelites as strong, regional power players. They... were not. The Bible consistently overstates their importance regionally and their actual level of independence.

I'm reading a book on the history Jerusalem and it was hilarious to see the grandiose version of ancient Israeli nation state as depicted in the Bible compared to records gathered from the surrounding nations.

Like how the Bible would say King X had the "greatest military at the time" but then records from neighboring countries like Assyria/Egypt would say how the king was actually a nobody who was paying them off in "protection money" to not get invaded.

Not to mention whenever a new super power like Assyria would arise in the Middle East the Israelites got steam rolled like everyone either getting mass slaughtered or ending up paying protection money like everyone else.

Also the hilarious pattern how the Israelites continually tried to punch outside their weight class against all the biggest various super-powers of the time period all the way up to the Romans.

etalian has issued a correction as of 02:56 on Oct 2, 2020

# ? Oct 2, 2020 02:50

Communist Thoughts: Jan 7, 2008; Our war against free speech cannot end until we silence this bronze beast!

bit of a long shot but does anyone have any good books or sources to recommend about the former han dynasty? from 140BC to 30BCish, so pretty much emperor Wu to emperor Yuan

loads of cool poo poo happens in this period but the western pop history has quite different info to what i can gather from poorly machine translating chinese pages
emperor Wu for example is an austere conqueror who takes the throne at 16 and spends the next 50+ years conquering in every direction.
but the chinese sources seem to be like "and of course he was a sex crazed shaman obsessed with gently caress-magic and eternal life" western sources do mention the quest for immortality but not the gently caress-magic.
So I would like to know more, i'm basically just bouncing between googling in english and googling in chinese which is probably not getting me the most accurate stuff.

Anyway content:

In 91BC, Emperor Wu ends up killing his own heir in a big kerfuffle that autotranslates to The Bane of Witch Gu but i think is more like the Witch Poison Plot/Disaster
though it seems like in this period witchcraft just refers to the indiginous practices of the chinese as the state tries to ban them and replace them with confucianism and legalism but everyone including the emperor does it.

The emperor Han Wudi (Han Martial Emperor) real name Liu Che, starts getting sick when he's 66 and of course that means black magic (which makes a lot more sense if he thinks he's immortal and casting sex spells), so he retreats to his summer hot spring palace (for sex magic???) and appoints someone to find out who is cursing him.
the dude he appoints Jiang Chong has a fued with his heir the eldest prince Liu Ju and both of them are worried about what the other will do if the emperor dies. Liu Ju is heir but the horny emperor has a hot young wife who seems to be into mystical poo poo and they have a 3 year old son together who she says is extremely auspicious and magic. chinese beuracrats love getting babies onto the throne because a common theme seems to be the civil service really doesn't want the emperor to try to *do* anything and they get mad when he does.
its unclear who shoots first, the english sources say the prince Ju is framed by wugu dolls being buried in his room, one chinese source i read seemed to suggest the prince actually attempted to arrest Jiang Chong prior to this, ultimately though both factions accuse eachother of rebellion and the prince executes Jiang Chong in the capital.

Han Wudi gets pissed but correctly reads the situation and decides his son is just mad at Jiang Chong and sends a guy to bring him home. the guy chickens out though because the prince has raised troops so he just runs back and says the prince tried to kill him, so emperor actually sends an army this time.
Prince Ju opens the prisons and presses people into his army, tries to trick various armies into coming to his side by pretending to be the emperor and generally doesn't exactly act like a non-traitor. ends up fighting one of the armies he tried to trick.
The emperors army arrives lead by the prince's cousin, the prime minister, and Prince Ju fights, thinking its a usurper army who couped his dad and tens of thousands of people die in streetfighting in the capital.
Eventually the prince realises its his dads army and fucks off to find a rich mate who has fled the country already lol so he just hangs out in some poor guys house and demands the dude work to provide for him. Its real unclear to me where he actually goes, depending on whether its in english or chinese he could have gone west, east or south since they all name different places.

Meanwhile the king has put a bounty on him but after a lawyer risks his life to present a case in defence of the prince he has a change of heart and sends someone out with a message saying no bounty just tell him to come back.
The prince banging around town asking where his rich friend is has not been subtle and the local government know where he is. The offficial either only gets the first message or gets both messages but pretends to not recieve the second one and has the prince killed so he can collect the bounty anyway, which he does. The poor dude who has been keeping the prince is also executed as are the princes sons.
In classic fashion everyone involved on the princes side and all their families are executed, except one baby who is jailed and who eventually becomes emperor Xuan and has his own completely amazing life story and drama
then a little later the emperor figures out what happens and has everyone involved against the prince also killed horribly and all their families too

# ? Oct 2, 2020 15:18

fabergay egg: Mar 1, 2012; it's not a rhetorical question, for politely saying 'you are an idiot, you don't know what you are talking about'

MonsieurChoc posted:

Posting has always existed. It took different forms throughout history, but it has always been with us.

# ? Oct 3, 2020 22:55

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

Here's a question for this thread: what makes text look "demonic?"

No points for posting text from "who moved my cheese"

HUGE PUBES A PLUS posted:

On October first which happened to be the full moon and the night trump tested positive for COVID, twitter was flooded with these curses written in Ethiopian as replies to trump's tweet

https://twitter.com/Natberh/status/1312027341787459584

You get the idea. Use an unfamiliar language with spooky photos and scare the straights. Another idea for the book.

# ? Oct 4, 2020 00:48

Ghostlight: Sep 25, 2009; maybe for one second you can pause; try to step into another person's perspective, and understand that a watermelon is cursing me

I had no idea the Ethiopian script looked so cool.

But, of course, the answer is foreignness.

# ? Oct 4, 2020 02:01

sullat: Jan 9, 2012

Hodgepodge posted:

at the end of the day you're still asking why one area of the world steamrolled another and the details of how things played out are rarely the answer

like I can't remember if it was diamond or someone else who pointed out that cortez was from the bottom of the social hierarchy in spain which is why there were so many people like him who followed his path to conquest in the americas

if anything it suggests that the person making the argument is unaware that the colonizers having local allies is a part of colonial history everywhere and not a one time thing

He wasn't from the bottom of society, he was an unemployed law school graduate. Don't go to law school, kids.

# ? Oct 4, 2020 15:59

fabergay egg: Mar 1, 2012; it's not a rhetorical question, for politely saying 'you are an idiot, you don't know what you are talking about'

sullat posted:

He wasn't from the bottom of society, he was an unemployed law school graduate. Don't go to law school, kids.

i don�t understand, you said he wasn�t from the bottom of society but what you wrote says he is?

# ? Oct 4, 2020 17:26

Ghostlight: Sep 25, 2009; maybe for one second you can pause; try to step into another person's perspective, and understand that a watermelon is cursing me

Turds float.

# ? Oct 4, 2020 21:09

Azathoth: Apr 3, 2001

fabergay egg posted:

i don’t understand, you said he wasn’t from the bottom of society but what you wrote says he is?

he was a petty noble with no real prospect of moving up if he stayed home, so like a shitload of other petty nobles from that same time period, he went abroad to try to raise his social standing

there's definitely an interesting analysis to be had of that particular social class being exceptionally dangerous throughout history, in that they grow up with the expectation to move up the social ladder ingrained in them, but not the resources to actually do it.

so instead they use social connections to essentially buy a stake in an exceptionally violent and destructive lottery, whereby they go off and fight for the feudal lord or try to conquer somewhere, and if they're lucky enough to survive and be successful, they get that social promotion. If not, well, they're going to kill a lot of people on their way to an early grave.

# ? Oct 4, 2020 21:31

Peanut President: Nov 5, 2008; by Athanatos

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_script
georgian looks way cooler imo

# ? Oct 4, 2020 23:46

twoday: May 4, 2005; C-SPAM Times best-selling author

Not sure of I posted this here already or not, but I was reading about the Mongols and suddenly remembered it:

The Mongols have just taken over most of the known world. The fighting has decreased substantially as Eurasia settles into the new reality of Pax Mongolica.

Two Mongol generals are sitting around, drinking, reminiscing about the good old days of battle and conquest, and bragging to each other about their most impressive accomplishments.

One says to the other: "You know, once I tried to invade the greatest city in all of Persia, and I ended up in negotiations with the prince there, and I got him to surrender the city without shedding a single drop of blood."

"Oh? How did you manage that?"

"I had my men sew him into a sack, and then I threw him in the river."

# ? Oct 8, 2020 09:41

Some Guy TT: Aug 30, 2011

etalian posted:

The history of vodka in Russia which has some fun facts how vodka was made a state run monopoly and also was the Russian version of "Bread + Circuses".

The Bolshevik's had pushing prohibition as one of the main reforms and also shut down all the state run booze factories when they took over.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK7l55ZOVIc

well this is sure making me look at soju with a much warier eye

for those who dont know soju is basically the korean version of vodka its just really watered down its cheap as hell and culturally omnipresent but until just now it never occurred to me to wonder just why thats the case

# ? Oct 8, 2020 13:22

i say swears online: Mar 4, 2005

Some Guy TT posted:

well this is sure making me look at soju with a much warier eye

for those who dont know soju is basically the korean version of vodka its just really watered down its cheap as hell and culturally omnipresent but until just now it never occurred to me to wonder just why thats the case

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tot_System

# ? Oct 8, 2020 13:48

Azathoth: Apr 3, 2001

a whole lot of post-industrial revolution history makes a lot more sense once you understand just how much alcohol the average worker consumed on a daily basis.

# ? Oct 8, 2020 15:45

Ghostlight: Sep 25, 2009; maybe for one second you can pause; try to step into another person's perspective, and understand that a watermelon is cursing me

The US literally fought The Whiskey Rebellion, a militia-led insurrection created by Alexander Hamilton (hamilton hamilton) thinking he could tax whiskey.

# ? Oct 8, 2020 22:31

Atrocious Joe: Sep 2, 2011

Some Guy TT posted:

well this is sure making me look at soju with a much warier eye

for those who dont know soju is basically the korean version of vodka its just really watered down its cheap as hell and culturally omnipresent but until just now it never occurred to me to wonder just why thats the case

thought this was the Epstein thread for a second

quote:

By Kang Hyun-kyung

The discourse of the "Dark Days" of Korean cinema in the 1980s centers around a conspiracy theory, dubbed the Three S's ― screen, sport and sex.

According to the popular view, then President Chun Doo-hwan, who took power through a military coup, tried to divert the public's attention away from the troubling domestic politics to sports or cinema screens featuring bold sex scenes. Chun wanted the public to gather in theaters, not in the squares for anti-government protests, and have some fun without thinking seriously about the political situation, the theory goes.

The military general-turned-president has been accused of having used cinema to save his presidency and thus a flurry of low-quality, erotic movies came out in the 1980s which in turn created the Dark Days.

The term "The Three S's" has since been frequently used to describe the military government's heavy-handed, covert tactic to turn public opinion in their favor.

But it has not been confirmed whether such a policy really existed.

"We've heard a lot about the Three S's, but to my knowledge there have been no official documents to support that it was chosen by the government of the time," said Cho Joon-hyoung, a senior researcher at the Korean Film Archive in Seoul.

However, Cho said he personally thinks that such an interpretation is convincing. "When you look at a set of liberation measures taken by the military government and policy trends back then, you'll see such an interpretation is reasonable. In cinema, for example, it's true that eroticism was tolerated and became evident and bolder in many movies."

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2020/10/356_277394.html

# ? Oct 8, 2020 23:11

Peanut President: Nov 5, 2008; by Athanatos

Ghostlight posted:

The US literally fought The Whiskey Rebellion, a militia-led insurrection created by Alexander Hamilton (hamilton hamilton) thinking he could tax whiskey.

it was more that the tax was harder on the poor than the rich as it asked for a flat amount iirc. taxes being paid in items instead of money was a thing at the time

# ? Oct 8, 2020 23:20

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

So....in Roman history, what's the point of omens in the historical record? Like I get auguries and fortune telling, but sometimes histories record "as a child, Sassifrass made friends with an eagle" after they became emperor/died. Is this just, eh, "fortune propaganda" that got recorded?

Related question, how many things in the Trumpo era make good omens? That weird fly thing with pence I want to throw into that bucket

# ? Oct 9, 2020 00:44

Real hurthling!: Sep 11, 2001

Nebakenezzer posted:

So....in Roman history, what's the point of omens in the historical record? Like I get auguries and fortune telling, but sometimes histories record "as a child, Sassifrass made friends with an eagle" after they became emperor/died. Is this just, eh, "fortune propaganda" that got recorded?

Related question, how many things in the Trumpo era make good omens? That weird fly thing with pence I want to throw into that bucket

livy begins his ab urbe condita with the time of romulus so its from the very beginning a fusion of myth/folklore/history and the project is an explicit piece of propaganda for the principate to tie augustus to the glorious past of rome that he was supposedly restoring after the barbarity of the late republic/civil wars.
he builds upon a tradition used by the senatorial elite during the republic of using omens in their family or personal history to enforce their authority or justify their position in the heirarchy.
omens were mentioned for many reasons, some of them symbolic or metaphorical epitaphs on the subject being discussed, some of them like comets are also used to help date events since the roman system of keeping track of years at the time was complete horseshit (years were denoted mainly by the 2 names of the consuls elected in that year, post livy they started using the founding of rome (1 auc) as the counting date)

Real hurthling! has issued a correction as of 01:12 on Oct 9, 2020

# ? Oct 9, 2020 01:07

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

Real hurthling! posted:

omens were mentioned for many reasons, some of them symbolic or metaphorical epitaphs on the subject being discussed, some of them like comets are also used to help date events since the roman system of keeping track of years at the time was complete horseshit (years were denoted mainly by the 2 names of the consuls elected in that year, post livy they started using the founding of rome (1 auc) as the counting date)

lol that's amazing

So if I said "omens can be like miracles in the gospels; proof that the man has the stuff, and therefore important if you want to argue that the emperors have some pull with the Gods"

or am I a scrofulous dipshit

# ? Oct 9, 2020 01:15

Real hurthling!: Sep 11, 2001

i edited in an extra paragraph that should help you give yourself permission to do so yes

lot of good articles on jstor about this if you have access to an edu account

ancient historiography is my fav subject

# ? Oct 9, 2020 01:18

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!

Nebakenezzer posted:

Related question, how many things in the Trumpo era make good omens? That weird fly thing with pence I want to throw into that bucket

A small bird landing on Bernie Sander's podium in the middle of an arena filled with 20k people, while he's talking about climate change. As someone who was atheist and is now agnostic... holy gently caress

# ? Oct 9, 2020 02:01

fabergay egg: Mar 1, 2012; it's not a rhetorical question, for politely saying 'you are an idiot, you don't know what you are talking about'

Dalael posted:

A small bird landing on Bernie Sander's podium in the middle of an arena filled with 20k people, while he's talking about climate change. As someone who was atheist and is now agnostic... holy gently caress

not much of an omen after what happened

# ? Oct 9, 2020 03:50

sullat: Jan 9, 2012

fabergay egg posted:

not much of an omen after what happened

Reject the omens at your peril, as Pulcher found out. We may share the same fate...

# ? Oct 9, 2020 04:12

AnEdgelord: Dec 12, 2016

I always figured that a lot of the omens and prophecies in ancient histories were actually "real" but that they were largely self-fulfilling

# ? Oct 9, 2020 04:24

WoodrowSkillson: Feb 24, 2005; *Gestures at 60 years of Lions history*

AnEdgelord posted:

I always figured that a lot of the omens and prophecies in ancient histories were actually "real" but that they were largely self-fulfilling

To go with the Roman stuff, one of these was Gaius Marius claiming that as a child he found an eagles nest with 7 chicks, which meant he was destined to serve 7 consulships. There are contemporary sources expressing skeptcism of this, since it was never mentioned until he was already breaking Roman tradition and serving successive consulships. People simultaneously took "omens" very seriously, but also were not afraid to make them up.

# ? Oct 9, 2020 05:35

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

My favorite omens are not the ones just made up, but the ones that are impossibly lame

Also, I remember there is a Pope in the early church who was picked despite not being Christian. While all the bishops were having a meeting, a crowd gathered and this guy was part of it. A dove landed on his head, and the crowd said it was a sign from God and everybody agreed and this guy became Pope

And he was a good pope. Didn't do anything with Theology, but had been trained in Business and actually did a lot of practical chuch structure organizing. He might have been a martyr too

Re: Bernie's sign from god: the fact that the dude didn't win the nomination actually says nothing about it not being a sign from God, only the disease of perfectionism says it thus

# ? Oct 10, 2020 01:32

Ghostlight: Sep 25, 2009; maybe for one second you can pause; try to step into another person's perspective, and understand that a watermelon is cursing me

God: I don't know what more they want from me, I put a bird on his head

# ? Oct 10, 2020 01:34

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# ? Jun 10, 2024 13:41

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

Ghostlight posted:

God: I don't know what more they want from me, I put a bird on his head

If you read about the omens and visions surrounding Constantine's battle and conversion, or, Gregory the Great (?) I think saving Rome from Atilla the Hun, it is pretty low key

# ? Oct 10, 2020 01:42

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [Premodern history] the year of the two fatal eruptions

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