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The Iliad is probably one of the funniest books I ever read

Like I'll be having a not-so-good day, then remember how Hector had given himself an entire pep talk to fight Achilles. He saw Achilles running full speed towards him and proceeds to just book it.

Or when Menelaus got shot by an arrow in like in an ultimately nonfatal spot, and Agamemnon begins prematurely mourning him while he's standing there like ��‍♂️” you're scaring the men.”

Or when Odysseus is walking around the camps with a royal scepter and is just beating people with it if he finds them packing or suggesting to leave.

Or when Hector is brainstorming on how to face Achilles and for a moment goes, “Maybe I could talk with him, we’re both princes, we can both be rational, I could reason with him… that's a horrible fucking idea.”

I have more, but these, in particular, really tickle me.

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If I won the lottery I wouldn’t say anything but there would be signs

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Moon over the Temple of Poseidon. 1 - 2

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dra ate every other translation up

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Venus Giving Arms to Aeneas - Jean Cornu, 1704

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complaints about millennials from ancient greece and rome

ungrateful, wait with eagerness for the day of their fathers’ deaths (seneca’s de beneficiis)

travel everywhere, take up agriculture instead of letting nature provide (tibullus 1.3)

carp at their parents, praise evil-doers and their violent deeds (hesiod, works and days)

spend too much time talking about philosophy and pretending to be greek to fight wars (plutarch, life of cato the elder)

bad at riding horses (horace, odes 3.24)

can’t lift boulders (homer, iliad 20)

still can’t lift boulders (vergil, aeneid 12)

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roman theatre in orange, france

three stories tall & considered the best-preserved roman theatre in all of europe

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Forgive me.

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byzantine mosaic

Museo Nacional de Beirut

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haunted house uquiz by streetlighthalo

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have been losing my shit over the fact that 1. there's a passage in polybius's history where he tells us that the tyrant demetrius of phalerum once made a giant mechanical snail to parade through athens and trail slime everywhere 2. people have been trying to figure out how this massive snail worked since at least 1937

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Apulian rhytons in the shape of animal heads (340ish, BCE)

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"if i was orpheus i would simply not turn around" yes you would. if you were orpheus and you loved eurydice, you would. to love someone is to turn around. to love someone is to look at them. whichever version of the myth — he hears her stumble, he can't hear her at all, he thinks he's been tricked — he turns around because he loves her. that's why it's a tragedy. because he loves her enough to save her. because he loves her so much he can't save her. because he will always, always turn around. "if i was orpheus i would simply —" you wouldn't be orpheus. you wouldn't be brave enough to walk into the underworld and save the person you love. be serious

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daphne's blessing 🌿

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every day i read things

[pliny the elder, naturalis historia 27.2]

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Lucan in Averno

Inspired by Sonya Taaffe’s poem (text under the cut)

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