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[elegant-pseudonym]

So I'm reading Livy at the moment, and this is the cover image:

I firmly believe that the creator of this Roman wolf mosaic (c. 300 AD) has only ever seen a wolf in his nightmares

[elegant-pseudonym]

Agrippina the Younger, to Emperor Claudius:

can i offer you a nice roman mosaic plate of mushrooms in this trying time

[elegant-pseudonym]

Agrippina the Younger gets a lot of shit, and it's not all entirely unjustified, but in her defence, if I ended up married to my own uncle who also executed my little sister (who was all the family I had left), I too might give him some dodgy mushrooms. Just saying...

[elegant-pseudonym]

“Agrippina as the daughter of an acclaimed and much-loved prince, the sister of an emperor, the wife of another emperor, and the mother of yet another – in each case, it might be objected, as the appendage of a significant man. (…) The brilliant exploitation of that position, so as to exercise enormous de facto power and influence, was her own great achievement. The inability to reconcile maternal and political instincts was her one crucial failing.” Agrippina: Sex, Power, and Politics in the Early Empire - Anthony A. Barrett

Agrippina the Younger was the eldest daughter of the popular general Germanicus, emperor Tiberius’ adopted son and heir, and of the elder Agrippina, emperor Augustus’ granddaughter. After her father’s death in suspicious circumstances, Agrippina’s mother and older brothers were targeted by Tiberius and his advisor Sejanus, which resulted in their deaths.

Agrippina first gained importance when her only surviving brother, Caligula, became emperor. He honored all his three sisters extensively. It was also during this time that Agrippina gave birth to her first and only child, a son, the future emperor Nero. She was 22 at the time. Agrippina’s favor in her brother’s court, however, did not last long: as Caligula proved himself more and more inapt to be emperor, Agrippina was caught in a conspiracy against him and was exiled.

With Caligula’s death and the rise of their uncle Claudius to the imperial throne, Agrippina was allowed to return to Rome. She kept a low profile during the most turbulent years of Claudius’ rule, only returning to court around the time of the downfall of Claudius’ wife, the empress Messalina (it’s uncertain if Agrippina’s timing was simple luck, if she was informed by spies about the atmosphere in the court, or if she herself had some hand in Messalina’s execution). Claudius then married Agrippina, who, as a great-granddaughter of Augustus and daughter of the still beloved Germanicus, helped to bring legitimacy to his reign.

As empress consort Agrippina enjoyed great powers and cultivated the loyalty of the praetorian guard and of powerful freedmen in Claudius’ court. Agrippina also was granted the title of Augusta, being the third Roman woman to be honored so. Her biggest triumph, however, was when she succeeded in convincing Claudius to adopt her son Nero and make him his heir. Around this time she arranged to have the philosopher Seneca the Younger tutor the future emperor.

Claudius died not long after Nero’s rise within the imperial court: reportedly, poisoned by Agrippina. Although it’s impossible to know the truth, it is certain that Agrippina arrangeded Nero’s accession to go as swiftly as possible, ensuring the support of both army and senate. It was during the first years of Nero’s reign that Agrippina’s influence reached its peak, as she, along with Seneca, was the true power behind the young emperor.

Relations between mother and son soon became sour. Nero started to resent his mother’s influence in both the government and his personal life. The breaking point came 5 years into Nero’s reign: the son arranged his mother’s assassination. As Agrippina’s assassin was about to strike, her reputed last words were “Smite my womb”: the part of her body which had, for 9 months, carried Nero. She was 43.

[elegant-pseudonym]

EMPRESSES OF ROME: Julio-Claudian Dynasty

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favorite ancient roman women

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ROMAN SOLDIER: halt, strange person! where are you from?

TIME TRAVELER: i come from the future. what are your names?

ROMAN SOLDIER: my name is QUINTUS, as i am the fifth child in my family. my comrade is SEXTUS, for he was the sixth child in his family. what is your name?

TIME TRAVELER: my name’s LIV

ROMAN SOLDIER: [starts counting on his fingers as his eyes open in fear]

[elegant-pseudonym]

As a Classics major, I absolutely love it when this entire corner of the Internet just goes absolutely nuts on the Ides of March

[elegant-pseudonym]

Started reading Rebecca and now I desperately want to go to the South of France and fall in love with a mysterious aristocrat...

[elegant-pseudonym]

As a Classics major, I absolutely love it when this entire corner of the Internet just goes absolutely nuts on the Ides of March

[elegant-pseudonym]

i believe we should be critical of classic literature.  george orwell’s 1984 is a highly relevant and cautionary story, but that doesn’t erase or excuse the misogyny in it.

[elegant-pseudonym]

must i pursue a career? is it not enough to be obsessed with classic literature, books museums and old records?

[elegant-pseudonym]

Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more priviledged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.

~ Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

[elegant-pseudonym]

I was hoping someone had done this!!

miss havisham - right where you left me

this song just Screams miss havisham so i had to make a video with it

[elegant-pseudonym]

look, if I could sit in a cafe drinking coffee and reading my books all day while completely ignoring my surroundings, I would.

[elegant-pseudonym]

I'm reading Great Expectations, and am I the only one who thinks that Miss Havisham sounds like a darker version of Taylor Swift's "right where you left me" ?

[elegant-pseudonym]

Is it just me or is all of Hesiod's Works and Days just him turning to his brother like - "You see, Perses, you utter moron, work is good, lazy bad" ?