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bluedalahorse · 2 years ago

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August and Rousseau are functionally the same character: the serious version

On Thursday evening, at my fanfic co-author’s encouragement, I posted about August and Rousseau being functionally the same character. This post was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but there’s always been a serious, liberal arts college analysis version of it lurking in my head. I decided to go ahead and share it because what is the point of rejoining tumblr if I can’t torture the world with my Young Royals meta? (Do we even call it meta anymore? I am Fandom Old.)

So anyway, I have now written too many words about how Rousseau the horse is a narrative shadow for August, and how horse tropes are used to communicate August’s character arc. My ~credentials~ are as follows: I’m currently doing a terminal degree in writing literature for children and teenagers, and I have re-read the Felicity Merriman American Girl Books more times than I can count. I was not a horse girl in childhood, despite my mother trying to get me to be one by buying me Breyers and an alarmingly technicolor Lisa Frank notebook with a horse on its cover. (For Not Being A Horse Girl reasons there may be some errors in equestrian terminology here, but I’m gonna do my best. I invite genuine Horse Girls to weigh in with their knowledge and insight.) I have more thoughts about August as a character than I know what to do with, to the point where those thoughts have in part inspired the critical thesis on justice and privilege in YA lit that I am going to write for my MFA. These thoughts here on tumblr are merely for a fannish intellectual experiment, however, so I will not be as aggressive with the MLA and the footnotes as I would be in thesis work.

While I am an American of Swedish descent who has celebrated her Scandinavian heritage since childhood, I am still very much an American and my native language is English. Most of my lit theory here is therefore informed by the Anglo-American Horse Girl tradition, which I know got imported to a lot of other countries in translation. At the same time, I am aware that there are Swedish Horse Girl books out there, and I do not know as much about where they overlap with the Anglo-American tropes and where they differ. If anyone has knowledge in this particular area, please feel free to chime in.

Before we begin, I feel it necessary to issue a few notes about content. The first and most obvious content note is that this meta deals with August’s character arc, so I will naturally mention his releasing of the video and his other toxic masculine behaviors that harm the people around him. I will also make reference to his drug addiction, mental health issues, and possible disordered eating. In addition, there will be discussion of abusive relationship dynamics and adults invading the privacy of teenagers with the goal of controlling their romantic, sexual, and reproductive futures (particularly in the context of a monarchy securing its lines of dynastic succession.) You have been warned.

TOPICS COVERED

Horses in Literature and their General Vibe

Cinematography and Film Language in Young Royals

August, Felice, and Sara

Bloodlines and the Line of Succession

What’s next for August and Rousseau?

Horse/Power

Horses have long been symbols of wealth, status, and nobility. While literature and folklore offer their fair share of ordinary workhorses, the prince on a fancy white horse is an iconic fairy tale image. Historically, the ability to maintain a stable full of horses, specifically bred for battle or fine riding, was (and still is) a privilege only the rich can afford. Among the Romans, the second highest ranked social group after the senatorial class were the equites, named for the fact that they were rich enough to own horses they could bring to war. Fast forwarding to the modern day Young Royals, we see the wealth of Hillerska on full display in the stables. Even Felice’s parents, who have plenty of money to burn, remind her how much they spent on Rousseau.

August, of course, defines himself by his status. When we first meet him, he’s always going on about his father’s estate, bragging about flying off to restaurants in France, separating out who is nouveau riche and who is ancien regime—and so on and so forth. So what? you may be saying. Plenty of Young Royals characters are wealthy and own land. Why single out August and make him the character shadowed by the horse, just because of his money? Probably because of the other ideas horses get associated with in popular media. Horses in fiction are often temperamental, but their humans often work to control and tame horses in spite of that. There’s a certain tension and troubledness to fictional horses that makes them dangerous. Rousseau is no exception to this—Felice and others have difficulty managing him. We know August has a temper that gets the better of him. We also know he’s obsessed with control, and the first person he tries to be strict and controlling with is himself.

To put it more briefly, horses in stories can be used to open up a lot of questions about wealth and power and how that power is, well, reined in. Thematically, having Rousseau as a shadow to August’s character arc is an obvious choice.

Framed by the Stable Doors

The cinematography of Young Royals visually links August and Rousseau from the very beginning of the series. As early on as episode 1.2, a shot of Sara taking Rousseau out for a trot is followed immediately by a shot of August out on a run. (Or maybe it happens in the opposite order? Help.) These moments mirror one another—both of them are scenes of a moment of discipline and exercise, underscored by tense background music. Throughout season 1, even when August and Rousseau aren’t paralleled by the editing, they are at least paralleled by the writing.

As we move into season 2, the shots of Rousseau become more constrained as the threat of prison looms over August’s head. Rousseau is almost always behind a fence or restricted by some other architectural features. The bars(?) of Rousseau’s stall door echo the bars of a jail cell, while the trailer belonging to the Worst Kind of Horse People (TM) suggests a police van taking August away after a future arrest. These scenes almost always include Sara somewhere, and she’s often having reaction faces. As others have noted, Sara doesn’t speak much, but these visual cues offer hints about her internal mental landscape while also foreshadowing her eventual role as the one who turns August over to law enforcement.

I’m inclined to read these “imprisoned horse” scenes as Sara having internal conflict about her relationship with August. On some level, she is attempting to grapple with the fact that they’re already doomed because of August’s prior actions with the video. I don’t necessarily think this means that Sara is always thinking these things consciously and in words. Maybe it’s just a sense of foreboding in the pit of her stomach. Instead of having Sara try to articulate this in any sort of literal way, my guess is that the YR production team wanted to convey this part of her arc through visual language and symbolism. I think it works, once you’ve decided to buy into the horse parallels.

Does this mean we’ve segued into talking about the girls now? Probably. Might as well gallop ahead…

Enter the Equestriennes

Even outside of Horse Girl books, women on horseback are a repeating motif in Western literature. As various academics will tell you, equestrian women occupy a complex and problematic (in the academic sense) space on the page. On one hand, riding horses confers status upon these women and gives them some freedom of movement. On the other hand, equestrian women are often being trained for the patriarchy in subtextual ways. One thesis I looked at explains how in Victorian literature, riding was often used to facilitate female characters’ interaction with men in ways that eventually lead to marriage. You also examine the common Horse Girl cliché of that one special teenage girl who knows how to calm down the impossible horse, and understand it as a little sister to the “I can fix him” romance genre. As bastion of literary analysis TVTropes points out, ponies and the Troubled But Cute Boyfriend sure do have a lot in common.

Young Royals knows the tropes, and it wants you to know that it knows them.

Felice Ehrencrona doesn’t want to be a horse girl. Felice’s mother wants her to ride, because riding is what archetypal rich girls from Hillerska do. Throughout season one, we see Felice struggling with her riding classes and being afraid of Rousseau. While she gains more confidence with the help of Sara, she never truly grows to love being around Rousseau (as we can see by the way she quickly abandons her hobby later.) Still, for a while, Felice maintains the public image of the happy equestrian by posting pictures of herself and Rousseau to her Instagram and making additional posts that say she’s in the stables when she isn’t. Felice’s mother, believing this to be true, is delighted—until in 1.3 it comes out that Sara has been riding Felice’s horse instead, and Felice’s positive relationship with Rousseau is just a facade.

What holds true for horses holds true for boys, too. Felice’s mother is constantly putting pressure on her about boys, specifically in the way she encourages Felice to pursue Wilhelm. The fact that Felice knows stuff about the line of succession and whose babies get what rank (something she explains to the beleaguered American Maddie) suggests that Mamma Ehrencrona isn’t just interested in Felice having a nice boyfriend, she’s actually bringing marriage and babies into it. Which… is a lot. It’s so “a lot” that Felice rebels against her mother at the end of 1.3 by hooking up with August.

Although Felice’s initial act is one of rebellion, she ends up trapped back in the same place she started from, where socioeconomic status and performative gendered nonsense is prized above all else. August, after all, is still from the nobility and still comes with all that baggage Felice is getting from her parents. Felice’s relationship with August is very bad, especially behind closed doors where he’s constantly questioning her about who she’s with and where she’s going. To Hillerska at large, however, they give off the impression of being the school power couple. During moments of characters scrolling there phones we can see that in addition to being seen together, they also included photos of themselves together on one another’s instagrams. This contrast between the image and the reality of Felice’s relationship with August echoes Felice’s selfies with Rousseau.

As for Sara… well, if you nodded along to what I said before about the special teenage girl who is the only one who can tame the troubled horse, you probably already know where I’m going with this. Sara and August’s relationship doesn’t really come out of nowhere. Rather, they’ve spent an entire season taking a step closer to one another, literally and figuratively, every few scenes. You know the cliché where the horse girl visits the troubled horse every day and gets a little bit closer each time until the horse finally trusts the girl enough to eat sugar cubes out of her hand? Yeah. Same rhythm/pacing as the Sara/August scenes, and it only gets more obvious in season 2. That scene where he’s having a panic attack and she calms him down? He is a scared horse. We’re all on the same page, right? I hope we’re all on the same page.

In some ways, it’s not a perfect analogy and doesn’t always match up in a one to one way. Most horse girl books stay wish fulfillment and there isn’t always a moment of “the horse is Bad Actually, and we will remind you that the horse released a sex video of the horse girl’s brother.” But I think the horse girl novel coding speaks to what makes a relationship with August appealing to Sara in the first place. Deep down Sara wants to be special and exceptional to someone else, and she feels she understands things about August (and how to keep his emotions regulated) that other people don’t. As Sara sees it, she’s taken time to build trust with August. It’s the two of them together against really difficult odds, and she’ll take the difficulty that comes with that.

Also, while we’re here, the first place August kisses Sara is the stables. And there’s that entire conversation Felice and Sara have when Sara comes back after having sex in 2.3. I’m just saying. It’s right there. We’re all doing the math, right? We all see it?

People Of Good Breeding

Here’s where it gets even more icky.

In season 2, Felice decides to quit riding. This makes keeping Rousseau a bad investment, so Felice plans to sell him, and Sara decides to tag along. When a particular family expresses interest in Rousseau and comes to Hillerska to assess him, Sara swiftly dubs them the Worst Kind of Horse People.

What makes the Worst Kind of Horse People so upsetting to Sara? They don’t know how to respond to Rousseau, and they don’t treat him with the compassion Sara does. They’re willing to endure Rousseau’s volatile moods, however, because of he’s a thoroughbred and has a prestigious pedigree.

Things I did not know before watching a documentary about it: apparently all the thoroughbreds that exist in the world now are descended from three historical stallions. They are inbred af. IRL people who own thoroughbred stallions now will charge ~$50,000 per insemination in like a horse breeding hookup situation. Which… what? What the literal fuck. I get that this is a hobby people feel very passionate about and find fulfillment in, so I am trying not to be judgmental… and also that is a lot of money (more than half my yearly salary) for just one instance of breeding horses. So I’m still wrapping my head around it.

It stands to reason that the Worst Kind of Horse People could want Rousseau for his, um, genetic material. Anyway, let’s talk about the monarchy and the line of succession.

At the same time that the Worst Kind of Horse People are expressing interest in Rousseau, the royal court has started to pay attention to August. According to the YR fictional family tree, August is next in line for the throne after Wilhelm. Kristina’s advisors have plans to groom (see what I did there) August as a backup heir if Wilhelm keeps insisting on having free will. (Really! The audacity! Good for Wilhelm, though, we’re all rooting for him.)

For August, the idea of being elevated to spare prince, or potentially even king one day, feels liberating. Based on how he’s acting at the shooting range after his visit to the palace, he sees a chance for himself to leave his crimes behind and not be caught in his guilt. But I want to pause for a moment and consider the scene in 2.4 where he gets the phone call from the palace. Jan-Olof asks August a series of privacy-invading questions, including ones that touch on his sexual history. The final question (and therefore the one the writers want you to notice) is simply “are you heterosexual?” to which August replies that he is.

There’s a tempting rabbit hole I could go down about what it means for August to go beyond just engaging in toxic heterosexual behavior, and actually embrace heterosexuality as a label, and because it’s a tempting rabbit hole I will save it for another meta. What I want to focus on here is how sinister this scene feels. Part of that is because we (and Sara) know how blatantly and easily August is lying, and that he’s slipping back into his old, status-loving, drug-abusing self. In light of the established Rousseau parallels, however, I can’t ignore the subtext that the royal court is interested in whether or not they can “domesticate” August just enough that they can get him to eventually marry the right girl and produce a legitimate heir to the throne. That’s it. Nothing more. They aren’t interested in helping him with his addiction or getting him into therapy for his disordered eating or helping him process his dad’s death—all of which would put him in a better emotional place, and maybe even prevent him from returning to the emotionally dangerous mindset he was in when he outed Wilhelm and Simon to the entire world. On a metaphorical level, the royal court is basically treating August as livestock. Which. Is gross, actually.

Now, don’t get me wrong. We all know that August himself perpetuates a lot of gross sexual behavior toward others. Aside from releasing the video, he’s selfish and borderline emotionally abusive toward Felice, especially about sex. He constantly eggs on his classmates to stand up on the breakfast table and brag about their “conquests.” He eventually becomes extremely sweet and tender with Sara, but that’s only after he’s tried to get her to sell him drugs, bullied her family about not being able to eat lunch on Parents’ Weekend, and kissing her without her consent in the stables. August is very much Not Someone Who Respects The Sexual And Reproductive Autonomy Of Others and yet! There is this whole entire system of hereditary monarchy behind him, aiming to control every aspect of his life and violate his privacy, and he is a teenager. It’s not okay that they do it to Wilhelm either. We know they’re trying to do it to Wilhelm even now, and we get the sense they did it to Erik too, given the lines about the OnlyFans girlfriend needing to be hushed up.

I think it’s easy to say, well, August is power hungry and amoral enough that he consents to having his privacy invaded, and he does, but I legitimately wonder if he knows what he’s getting into. (Case in point: I think August really believes that the palace crowd would let him publicly date Sara. And, no. Even if Sara weren’t Simon’s sister, I can’t imagine they’d be excited about him dating the neurodivergent daughter of an immigrant mother and a father with a shady drug past. At the very least they’d force Sara to sign some pretty hefty NDAs.) My point is, you can consent to something and still end up in a weird power dynamic that’s bad for you and doesn’t honor where your feelings are. You can be a person of privilege who harms others, while still being harmed by systems of privilege yourself. And that’s precisely part of what makes August a compelling and complicated character.

Look, I just wish more people nowadays had seen the legendary 1990s anime Revolutionary Girl Utena because they would then get what I mean when I say that August isn’t Akio, he’s Saionji.

…I’m off track. My point is that the reproductive subtext in that scene is deeply unsettling and August’s nakedness in front of the window only makes it moreso. Right. Moving on.

What’s Next? The Horse and His Boy

(Apologies for naming this last section after a problematic Narnia book.)

Man. I wish I could just write August off and clamor for his untimely and violent death without a care in the world. The reality is that I’m under a curse, and that curse makes me want to see him eventually sort his life out, one way or another.

Let me be clear about what that does and doesn’t mean: I don’t mean that I don’t want to see him face consequences for the very real crime he did. I don’t mean I think he should suddenly be perfect and woke. I don’t mean that he and Sara should get back together. I don’t mean I want to see everyone forgive him. I just mean I want August to honestly confront the truth of his life so far and go “you know what? I suck. I can do better. I’m not even sure how, and I’m gonna make mistakes along the way, but maybe I can suck less.” And maybe he takes one tiny step where you’re like, if he keeps taking steps like this, this kid could turn out okay by age 40. Maybe. I feel incredibly exposed even saying this, since I know August is so widely despised by so many people in fandom, and I know other people who are okay with letting him stay in the villain zone, but I also feel like if anyone can pull off this story, it’s Lisa Ambjörn. She gets nuance, and she gets young people their flaws and their family conflicts. If YR were a different show, with a different writer and a different morality underlying the stories it tells, I would feel differently. But I don’t, and I think Lisa can pull off a complex story like that. So here we are.

(For examples of YA novels that pull off this kind of narrative catharsis, check out the character arc of the protagonist Deposing Nathan by Zack Smedley. Or pay attention to the uncle’s character arc in Randy Ribay’s Patron Saints of Nothing.)

There’s a very soft acting choice of Malte’s in 2.3, where August goes to meet Sara in the stables, to ask if she wants to come by and talk later. Sara’s getting Rousseau settled for the evening, and August reaches out and pats Rousseau on the nose. If I’m remembering the scene correctly, the usually temperamental Rousseau is calm in response.

We’ve seen August act self-aggrandizing before so he can build himself up and threaten other people. We’ve also seen him engage in escalating acts of self-harm (via excessive exercising and calorie counting) when he isn’t living up to his own strict standards. What we don’t see a lot is him having compassion for himself. If we accept that Rousseau is August’s shadow-self, then this nose pat is a rare moment of self-compassion. It’s at this point in the season that August realizes he needs to exist in community with other people, and that he needs to actually process his overwhelming emotions instead of lashing out at others. He makes an effort to try and quit using drugs, genuinely connects with Sara, and even briefly defends Simon when Vincent gets on Simon’s case after the indoor rowing match. It’s a positive trajectory and a glimmer of what could have been. That lasts until his visit to the palace, when August is offered the position as Wilhlem’s backup and starts to go back to his old ways. Moreover, the pressure of becoming the spare creates new complications for August’s mental health, and he slides back into lashing out at others again.

At the end of the season, August views Rousseau as a commodity and buys him for Sara in a Grand Gesture (TM) that’s actually pretty alarming and could be categorized as love-bombing. Sara is not impressed (I suspect she’s witnessed Micke love-bombing Linda, and all her alarm bells are going off) and continues her trip to the bus stop so she can report him to the police.

I could talk about the police call and the part where Sara is playing with a small horse keychain at the bus stop, but that might be the topic for another meta. Instead I want to take a moment to think about the practical fact that August owns a horse now. This opens up a few questions: if Rousseau continues to be August’s shadow-self, what does it mean for August to buy and own Rousseau? Is August going to have to learn to take care of Rousseau now? How much farther can we extend this metaphor?

Patience, comrades. We’re almost to the finish line.

By buying Rousseau, August has allowed himself to be bought by the aristocratic power structure that’s been trying to maneuver him into royal life. He’s started to actually use the inheritance left for him by his father—not because he’s finally started to process his grief, but because he’s doubling down on the idea that he deserves his inherited wealth and that he can use it as lavishly as he wishes. What’s interesting is the way he thinks this makes him into someone Sara will stay in love with. There’s the quid pro quo of it all, which is the obvious surface reading, but there’s also another level wherein August has been raised to believe that this is the ideal of aristocratic masculinity, and therefore what Sara would be attracted to. He assumes Sara wants the prince (even if he has to be a little bit Machiavelli’s the Prince behind the scenes to play that role.) But Sara wants the trust and care and connection, and a bond that’s a little bit weird and unique and ultimately private. She also values honesty and accountability. Sara doesn’t want the prince—she wants the horse. But not the literal one. And not necessarily in a material ownership kind of way, either.

As we move into season 3, I find myself wondering what’s next for August and Rousseau. Like. August owns a horse now. Is he going to have to take care of it? Like is he going to have to learn how to groom Rousseau and muck stalls and such? I get that he’s rich and can probably pay someone to do that for him, but given the way that Rousseau is meant to be a commentary on August’s character arc, there’s a lot of narrative potential (and dare I say… humor?) in August just having to learn to take care of the horse his own damn self in season 3. I feel like it could allow for some great moments of introspection on August’s part, if done well, and could lead him to a place of radical acceptance. We don’t even have to rule out August going to jail for his crimes, but knowing that jail is not the kind of thing that will happen in the first five minutes of the first five episodes, why not facilitate some internal character growth via horse chores first?

Alternately, August will just keep doubling down on making someone else do the horse chores. This would be consistent, if nothing else. He may just continue to be horrible, in which case I am worried for Rousseau.

(Please, Lisa Ambjörn and/or god and/or Epona. I am so desperate for this as-of-present unrepentant fuckboy to have to do symbolic horse chores that end up being about him finally coming to terms with the impact his counterrevolutionary behavior has on others. Is that so wrong?)

Anyway, I guess we won’t know until season 3. Thank you for sticking around if you’ve read this far—it ended up being way longer than intended! I’m back on tumblr after being away since 2015 or so, so this post feels like a wild way to reappear. But I’m glad I shared my thoughts all the same. Have a blessed Saturday, fandom.

#young royals #young royals meta #august young royals #sara eriksson #felice ehrencrona #unabashed horse girl propaganda #mfa musings

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casskeeps · 6 months ago

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BACKGROUND OF THE LATE REPUBLIC: ROMAN SOCIAL HIERARCHY

patricians and plebeians

patricians

these families claimed to descend from the first 100 senators of rome - livy tells us these senators were handpicked by romulus (the mythical founder of rome) patrician families were the elite members of society, and had the highest amount of social and political power - cassius' accounts of ancient rome show us the advantages that patricians had - patricians were much more likely to have the backing needed to succeed in elections, and so had more political control than plebeians patrician families: julii caesares, claudii, sestii

plebeians

this term is used to describe non-patrician families. plebeians were originally a 'lower order', but the 'conflict of the orders' from the 5th to 3rd centuries bce enabled them to gain wealth and nobility this class was not specifically disadvantaged - they were able to run for political offices, but their lesser generational wealth meant they were unlikely to have the popular support needed to be elected there was one office that could only be held by a plebeian: the tribune of the plebs. however, clodius was able to hold this position by being adopted into a plebeian family, and used it to introduce the leges clodiae - a set of bills used to cement his popularity amongst the general populus and to effectively exile cicero plebeian families: fonteii (the family that adopted clodius), porcii (CATO THE YOUNGER YAYY)

nobiles, equites, novi homines

nobiles

the term nobiles (singular: nobilis) just means "known" - in the late republic, they are just families with prestigious reputations via the inclusion of a consul in their ancestry. this reputation allowed them greater success in elections, and badian notes that the nobiles were "remarkably untouched by the most violent political crises" - in the late republic, nobiles held over 90% of consulships nobiles: cato the younger

equites

equestrians - the equites were the wealthy business class of rome, whose influence increased with trade and commerce. they were identified by a gold finger ring and a narrow purple stripe on their toga equites: atticus (cicero's ,,, close correspondant)

novi homines (sing. novus homo)

literally "new man". novi homines were men who were able to become consul with no history of consulship (sometimes even senatorial rank) in his familial lineage novi homines: cicero

#i fucking love roman politics LETS FUCKING GOOOO #a level classical civilisation #a level classics #classics #classical civilisation #ocr classical civilisation #roman politics #ancient rome #rome

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mchiti · 1 year ago

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You said: "Like imagine talking about purity for european languages who were born out of a very unstable, poor in lexicon and grammar latin spoken by "commoners". I'm very interested in knowing more about this if you would like to share. I've studied latin too in school but I never really thought of how romance languages derived from latin.

Hi anon! I'll put it under cut so I don't annoy my moots

The fact is the latin they teach you at school is only literary latin from the upper class of roman society framed in a certain moment in time [II century B.C. - I century A.D.]. That's why people always have this idea of latin as a very static language, also because of course you study a language that it's not spoken anymore. But latin was pretty much real and spoken for a whole millenium, and when a language is spoken is bound to change over the span of centuries: it's inevitable, and change is made by speakers themselves.

So for instance one example I think is very fun is the latin word for "horse" -> equus. Equus didn't continue in ANY romance language. It's "cavallo" in italian, "cheval" in french, "caballo" in spanish. Yet, you do have derived words from equus: you even have it in english! "equestrian" comes from the latin equus, though it has nothing to do with the main word, horse. Same in romance languages, "equestrian" has nothing to do with italian "cavallo". That's because many adjectives were literally made up by intellectuals over the centuries, to enrich romance languages and their lexicons, and they were made up from classical latin to make those languages "more dignified". Those adjectives even made into english which obviously didn't come from latin, another example is the adjective "lunatic" which comes from latin though it's different to the main word moon. Anyway, the main word for "horse" in italian, french, spanish etc evolved naturally from the latin word "caballus" - "caballus" is a word you won't find in the finest pieces of latin literature, because it wasn't the "horse" as we now intend, it wasn't the majestic animal rode by emperors in wars etc (that, as I said, was "equus"). caballus was literally a nag, the animal that helps men to plough the fields. So imagine: the empire fell down. People were progressively poorer, they lived off agriculture. Schools and institutions collapsed. That's all they knew, and they adapted the language to that over time.

another super HILARIOUS example. The word for "head" is "testa" in italian and "tete" in french right. Both don't come from the classical latin word "caput" (spanish in an exception here, with "cabo"). Those two words come from "TESTAM" instead. Testam had nothing to do with head, but it was literally a slang latin word. Literally it originally meant the "Earthenware vase". Because people used it as a joke (when you want to say someone is stupid, you call it a "earthenware vase" which is something we still do say here). So, over time, it became the italian/french word for head, to the point "caput" became rare.

That's why languages are made by people ultimately. People can complain what they want about "corruption" as that french lady was complaining about french being """tainted""" by arabic. Even french came out of "corruption" of latin [which I wouldn't even call it corruption, it was just a change]. The idea of purity doesn't belong to languages and is utter bullshit. Languages belong to people and they change with them, in the same way latin changed as european history went through major changes too.

#asks

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robertleechestateagents · 7 months ago

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What’s to love about Oxted?

There’s so much to love about Oxted! This pretty, historic town famed for its large Arts & Crafts houses, timber framed stucco buildings and bustling high street, is situated at the foot of the North Downs in the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Beauty (AONB).

Known as a wealthy commuter or “stockbroker belt” town, it was listed in the top twenty richest towns in Britain by the Daily Telegraph in 2011, but has been a favourite of city workers since the railway arrived in 1884 and linked the growing settlement to London and the South Coast. Oxted offers great transport links to the M25, by rail to London Bridge (33 minute direct train) and London Victoria (39 minutes), by Thameslink to St Pancras or Ashford for the Eurostar and direct train services to London Luton and easy access by car to both Gatwick (42 minutes) and Heathrow airports.

Historically, Oxted has always been a convenient stop-off between London and the South Coast, being the site of Roman Roads and ancient routes. Consequently, it also has a good number of lovely old pubs dotted through the old town and nearby settlements of Tandridge, Hurst Green, Limpsfield and Limpsfield Chart.

Mentioned in the Doomsday Book, the ancient Oxted settlement of “Oakstead” (place where oak trees grow) has been around since well before the Middle Ages, with remnants of a Roman Villa at Titsey Place to the east of the town. It is surrounded by beautiful countryside dotted with historic manor houses, farms and many large mansions that have been schools and hospitals or convalescent homes in their past, but have now been converted into fabulous apartments.

Oxted town centre straddles two sides of the railway line – Station Road East and West. It features lovely stucco wood framed buildings and is full of great shops, restaurants and bars, including Cucina Italian, Cattle & Cocktail, Toast Cafe, The Deli and The Ginistry Bar. There’s also a beautifully renovated art deco cinema with cocktail bar and a very popular theatre.

Berkeley Inspiration, Oxted, The Ginstry

There are all the shops and services you need with plenty of excellent hair and beauty salons, clothes boutiques, homes & interiors and several high street banks. For food shopping, there’s also a huge Morrisons and smaller Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and Co-op.

If you want to go further afield, then just take a 15-20 minute drive to the lovely shopping towns of Reigate and Sevenoaks as well as being only 35 minutes to Bluewater.

For those of the sporty persuasion, then there are many leisure facilities to keep you in shape, including the Tandridge Leisure Centre with its pool, sauna, gym and fitness classes, football, cricket and hockey clubs. You’ll also find the Limpsfield Club (tennis/squash) and Tandridge and Limpsfield Chart Golf Clubs as well as Oxted’s beautiful Master Park which is home to football, cricket and a small tennis club. Other local amenities include a livery yard and riding stables for equestrians and the local leisure centre with its pool, sauna, steam rooms and gym.

Berkeley Inspiration, Oxted, The Cricket Grounds

It’s also the home of the annual Oxted Beer Festival, a very popular event held every July that allows the locals to sample all the craft beers and ciders brewed in the area and attracts very well-known bands for its live music offering.

Much of the land that surrounds Oxted is National Trust or farmland, and sitting within a designated Green Belt area. It’s a beautiful place to live, with incredible views from many of its higher points, plenty of opportunity for outdoor recreation – walks, riding, cycling and running routes, with lots of very active clubs for both adults and children including the Oxted & Limpsfield Cricket Club that has children’s cricket every Friday evening, Holland Sports and Raw Skills football club.

If you’ve got children or grandchildren, there are some great schools, both state and private together with several outstanding child care and pre-schools.

There’s also lots of clubs and parks to keep the kids entertained, and in the neighbouring area of Limpsfield Chart, you’ll discover a wonderful area – the National Trust’s Homes for Woodland Creatures – created and maintained by volunteers who have made the most amazing circuit of beautifully crafted wooden animal houses, such as Hedgehog Hall and Badgers Run. It’s a superb place for all the family to enjoy.

Berkeley Inspiration, Oxted, The High Street

Constantly changing and developing, while retaining its special character, the town is now home to some beautiful apartments and developments, including Courtyard Gardens in the centre of the town.

Courtyard Gardens offers contemporary living in the historic town, enquire through our website or visit us at Robert Leech office to find out more.

Content source: https://www.robertleech.com/whats-to-love-about-oxted/

#Estate Agents In Oxted #House Sale Oxted #Oxted Homes For Sale #Oxted Property Listings #Property Letting Agents In Oxted #Property Letting Agents Near Me

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ramrodd · 1 year ago

Video

youtube

One Hour. One Book: Luke

COMMENTARY:

Luke's real time journalism begins in Acts 16. The idea that this narrative isn't history excludes personal diaries from biography as a substantive genre. I've become a big Titu s Kennedy fan. He employs the Hegelian Historic Gestalt to arrive at this conclusions. For that reason, he has more in common with N.T.. Wright's version of Paul's theology than the Jesus Seminar because of the Holy Spirit, which is the point of paradox between Wright's dialectical Idealism and the dialectic Marxism of the Jesus Seminar. Everything that happens before Acts 16 Luke fills in with first class research just like Truman Capote's In Cold Blood.

In some ways, Bart Ehrman''s proposal that the Gospels are all oral history and subject to the "Telephone" effect is half right: it is oral testimony that relies on the memory of the respondent. Doris Kearns Goodwin couldn't write best sellers about Lincoln without relying on testimony from people who were in the room. Luke is introduced to Cornelius when Paul is under arrest in Cesaerea. Cornelius was the Judean archive of Quelle from the Tenth Legion, and reported directly to Theophilus in the Praetorian Guard as an equestrian sitting on the Judea desk, like George Smiley at MI6.

Paul was as queer as a three dollar bill. It is not unlikely that Paul and Luke had a casual friends with benefit relationship. John Mark had bailed out on Paul and Barnabas because of Paul's persistence at trying to sick his thorn in flesh up John Mark's Hershey Highway and John Mark was not the Beloved Disciple in that way. Jesus was able to give up the ghost the way He did and the time He did because he was like a Zen Master, an aesthete. It has to do with the disputed remark about prayer and fasting. in Mark. "Fasting" apparently isn't in the original manuscripts, but it adds a necessary quality to Jesus explanation why that particular exorcism required Jesus.

I don't understand exorcism, Miracles are pretty easy to comprehend: the Spirit of God can be compelled to achieve any medical outcome, such as creating the neurology for hearing or restoring damaged eyesight. Exorcism is dealing with something else and the death of Pat Robertson has released a bunch of what ever it it that caused this disaster on Maui.. The issue is, why did those unclean spirit land there? With Mary Magdalene, He didn't so much chase the 7 unclean spirits out as to enlarge her gestalt to give her command of her own executive. A lot of Jesus's methods are right out of the Neural Linguistic Programming hand book. Practical magic. Jesus has agency over the Spirit of God and He also partnered with the Holy Spirit to optimize the effect of the Spirit of God in history.

Jesus was trying to do for Jerusalem what Martine Luther did with the 85 Thesis: get the dominate coalition to change the way it did business to a superior model. In Jesus case, it was the synagogues and a nation of servant leaders instead of priests. The Temple was the Whore of Babylon, as became the Catholic Church and both are analogues to the Tower of Babel.

Theophilus wanted to know a whole lot more about all this Spirit of God stuff for it's military utility, but he was also committed to understanding what this particular divine sanction represented to the Republic. Roman's 13:1 0 7 is God's way of saying "keep on keeping on" and is connected with God's purpose to infest the universe with humanity like the fleas in the Womens Barracks of Corrie ten Boon's sister at Ravensbruck, which kept the Nazis out.

33 CE is the number of the martyr, which is a good number for the Cross. It echoes the theme of 6 in the Creation narrative and the 6 hours Jesus waited until He could give up the ghost la Zippo Monk in Saigon in 1963, which was a message from the Universe to "Ivy League Socialism of the John Birch Society". Mohammad Atta was 33 on 911 and bin Ladin probably selected him on that basis. the 33 is like the 6 dots on the dice the Roman soldiers used to distribute His clothes. The year 33 CE means that all the shit that happens before Acts 10 is compressed far more than Luke is able to convey, but the compression tends to validate Gary Habermas's premise that Christian doctrine emerged whole immediately after Pentecost. Cornelius employed Peter's executive summary of Jesus's career as the template for unpacking Quelle to form the narrative of the Gospel of Mark.

It's the greatest story ever told.

#youtube

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whencyclopedia · 2 months ago

Photo

Macrinus

Macrinus was Roman emperor from April 217 to June 218 CE. It is a story that has been told countless times before - an emperor is assassinated leaving no heir or successor. On April 8, 217 CE Roman Emperor Caracalla was murdered, supposedly on the orders of the man who would eventually become his successor, Macrinus. This new emperor, during his 14-month reign, would have two major distinctions - he would never step foot in Rome as emperor, and he would be the first never to have served in the Senate.

Early life of Macrinus

Marcus Opellius Macrinus was born at Caesarea in Mauretania (a province along the northern coast of Africa) in 164 CE (no exact date is known), supposedly of the equestrian class - a class that had at one time provided horses for Rome's army. Historian Cassius Dio wrote,

Macrinus was a Moor by birth, from Caesarea, and the son of most obscure parents, so that he was very appropriately likened to the ass that was led up to the palace by the spirit; in particular, one of his ears had been bored in accordance with the custom followed by most of the Moors. Bur his integrity threw even this drawback into the shade.

Luckily for Macrinus, he would rise above his low class birth and receive training as a lawyer. In his Roman History Cassius Dio added, “As for his attitude toward law and precedent, his knowledge of them was not so accurate as his observance of them was faithful.” This latter comment gave indication of the future emperor's actions.

#History #Antioch #April217 #Caesarea #WHE #[#]

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jimi-rawlings · 2 years ago

Text

Goals for Streetwear

Roman Republic Social Class Structure: Senator (Institute: Economics and Financial Research, Engineering, Lifestyle Brands), Equestrian (Re-sellers), Patrician (Hype Beast), Plebeian (Freshy)

Monetary Policy Keynesian School of Thought Social Organisms (Tribes)

Recession Proof Investment Liquidity Scheme Based off New York Stock Exchange & NASDAQ (Singapore and Hong Kong)

Commodities Market Based Economy (Roman Republic was a Farming Economy: The Republic was created during a time of warfare, economic recession, food shortages, and plebeian debt. By the late Republican era, Roman wine had been transformed from an indifferent local product for local consumption, to a major domestic and export commodity, with some renowned, costly and collectable vintages.)

Streetwear Materials Model (The health benefits, sustainability, and ease of use of the Mediterranean diet are some of the things that make it so popular. Circular fashion, Design Spectrums, Functional use, and Quality.)

Raiding Warfare (Units: Clandestine Cell System, Operations: Brand Activation; Trade Shows, Target: High Fashion & Tourism Industry)

Grey Market Boom

SKIIMASK KAZU

0 notes

lgbtqforeverything · 1 year ago

Text

pirates and horses, what a wonderful time

Day 4 of Dukexiety week! My first of two (2) entries. @dukexietyweek Read on Ao3

-remus’s whole ren faire thing is just what this dude does. @fangirltothefullest came up with the idea and made this art.

-virgil’s whole ren faire thing is based on a traveling show troupe featuring horses called Equestrian Chaos. And more specifically this performance.

Ah, a Renaissance Faire. The sights, the sounds, the humongous turkey legs that were devoured in seconds, Remus loved it all. Since his first one at the tender age of seven with his brother and parents, Remus had been enthralled. The intersection of crafting and acting, along with the fascinating darker history of the time period that was sometimes displayed, had caught him in a vice grip and never let him go. A great stroke of luck, considering that Ren Faires were now his whole livelihood.

After that first Ren Faire, he and Roman had become so obsessed that their parents enrolled them in a series of classes and activities, all harkening back to things seen at the faire, to channel their enthusiasm. Because of those classes, Remus could work with metal or leather, knew how to cook all manner of food, and easily hold an audience captive. However, nothing had interested him quite like the whip performance he saw one evening when leaving the community center.

The whipmaster had done such amazing feats, made such incredible noises, and impressed nine-year-old Remus so throughly that he had started begging his parents to learn that very night. They were, understandably, resistant to their young child learning how to use whips. It took a year of research and begging, before they, finally, agreed to let him take lessons - on a trial period.

Remus took the conditional yes and ran with it. He trained so diligently and with so much intensity that his parents had no choice but to accept that their son was going to keep with it, wether they allowed him to or not.

Now, years later, Remus was at his first faire as a full time performer, no longer sneaking in shows around his day job. It was made even more exciting by the fact that he had never been to this faire before, as an attendee or performer. This was a whole new place and he was greatly enjoying walking around between performances and seeing all it had to offer.

This faire in particular boasted it’s themed weekends, where every weekend the shows, shows, costumes, and sets were themed towards a different genre of renaissance faires.

For example, this weekend was pirates and as Remus wandered the grounds he could see cutlasses and hats galore.

“Remus!” A voice called from behind. He spun around to see Patton, a fellow performer that he knew from past faires.

“Poptart!” Remus cheered with his usual manic grin. “I didn’t know that you were going to be here!”

Patton let out a small chuckle, “I’m usually at this one, kiddo! But this is your first time, isn’t it? Oh, how’s your show going! You’re full time now, right?”

“It is my first time!” Remus exclaimed. “Show‘s been going pretty good! Lots more country requests than I usually get, but those are pretty fun. And yes, no more art teacher for me!”

Patton clapped his hands. “Congrats! Isn’t that great Virgil?”

That was the moment when Remus noticed that, standing slightly behind Patton, was tall figure. The mysterious figure was dressed in black with the only spot of color being a purple flannel, the sleeves rolled up and showing off wonderful looking arms.

He had smeared eyeshadow underneath his eyelids, popping against his warm tan skin, hair long enough to be tied up in a ponytail, with braids scattered throughout, and was very, very tall. So tall. If there was height to be had, this person definitely had it.

“Oooh, who’s the emo, pattycakes?” Remus asked with a smirk and an appreciative glance up and down said emo’s body.

“Oh, this is my friend, Virgil!” Patton enthused, grabbing Virgil’s arm and dragging him out from behind him. “Virgil, this is the friend I was telling you about!”

“The dirty-jokes-musical-whips dude?” Virgil questioned. “Yeah, I can see that.”

Remus winked. “Glad to know I’m recognizable.”

“Virgil is a bonafide expert for this ren faire,” gushed Patton. “He knows where everything is and almost everyone working.”

“Really,” asked Remus. “What’s the best food stall then?”

Virgil scoffed. “Obviously, it’s Breaded Treasure. They’re the only stall that everyone can eat at, no problems.”

“I’ll have to go try them out then.”

Patton gasped. “You haven’t been? Well now we have to go, come on!” He grabbed each of their hands and pulled them up in the direction of the makeshift food court. Even as Remus laughed and teased Patton about his exuberance towards the bakery, he didn’t miss Virgil’s cautious gaze considering him.

Remus let out a moan.

“Glad to see you agree it’s good!” Patton laughed. Remus’s reply was unintelligible as he stuffed his third savory bun further into his mouth.

Virgil quietly huffed a laugh as Remus continued trying, and failing, to speak through the food. “Glad to know my recommendations are still up to date.”

Remus just let out another garbled groan of delight in reply.

Just then Virgil’s phone beeped. He picked it up and frowned at whatever he saw. “Shit, I’m going to be late” He said, standing from the table.

“Pat I’ll see you later, ok?”

“Of course,” Patton confirmed, casting Virgil to give him a small smile. “Oh, and Remus,” he turned, looking at the man who had stilled with baked goods still stuffed in his mouth with a wrinkle of his nose. “It was nice to meet you.”

Remus let out a few noises that couldn’t even be words if his mouth was empty, stuck still at the image of that beautiful smile and then adorable nose wrinkle.

“Remuuuus. Remus!”

Remus startled and began to choke. Patton thumped him on the back as he tried to get his breath under control without sacrificing any of the buns still in his mouth. When he had successfully stopped choking and saved as much of the food as he could, Remus turned to look at Patton, finding his friend fiercely squinting at him.

“What,” he asked. “Did I actually die and take you out with me and now we’re both ghosts?!”

“No,” Patton said with a shake of his head before standing and extending Remus his hand. “Come on, let’s go check out some of the shops!”

“Ooh we can look at the metal working shops! They have some really nice daggers that I think you would love,” Remus replied, jumping up and heading back into the crowd.

“Look!” Remus gasped. “This clock’s hands are made of real animal bones!” After working their way through the forge shops, the pair had ended up in one that did both metal and leather working.

“Ah, no thanks, kiddo,” replied Patton, looking slightly queasy at just the prospect.

“We have this one in the shape of a bee, if that’s more your style,” the shop keeper offered.

“Aww, its so cute!” Patton squealed. “Wait,” he gasped. “Is this the actual time?”

“Yep,” the owner answered. “All our clocks come pre-wound.”

“These look amazing, but I'm sorry we have to go,” Patton said, putting the clock down and instead grabbing Remus. “Come on, we’ll miss the show!”

Without waiting and answering Remus’s question of “what show?” Patton pulled him through the crowd towards the fenced arena where jousting took place.

“This is my second weekend, Pattycake,” Remus said. “I’ve seen the jousting show before.”

“Oh, this isn’t the jousting show. This is something even better!”

“Better than two people trying to stab their opponents off horses?” Remus scoffed. “Nah, seems fake.”

Patton gave a hum and a sly smile. “I don’t know. Something tells me you’ll really like it. Either way, we’re here now, so let’s watch it!”

As he finished speaking the announcer, Missy, came over the speaker system. She introduced the pirate captains running the “ship” (faire) and explained that they had just boarded and claimed another vessel. In order to keep their lives, the passengers onboard had to perform for the captains, either impressing them and being let off at the next port, or failing and walking the plank.

Once Missy finished she left the ring and boisterous, instrumental pirate music began playing over the speakers as three figures riding horses galloped in.

They were decked out pirate attire and so were the horses, each wearing a different colored bandana around their forehead and beads in their manes. Each bandana matched the accent color of their rider, pink for one, yellow for another and purple for the last. All three riders had pirate hats, coats, and boots, as well as elaborate braids in their long, colored hair.

But what really caught Remus’s attention was the identity of the purple rider. It was Virgil, confidently whipping around the arena on a murder beast whose teeth took up more space than their brain! And he looked absolutely drop-dead, stick a needle in his eye, hot as fuck while doing it!

“Allow me to introduce Remy, Janus, and Virgil! The brave captives hoping to escape with their lives. Will their performance wow, or will they being bowing goodbye?”

Remus watched, enthralled, as Virgil raced around the arena, performing all manner of stunt tricks. He shot arrows off running horseback, twisted himself around the horse like he was defying gravity, and even engaged in a sword fight, though that was on the ground.

It was skill mastery that Remus had rarely seen before and it was beautiful.

When the time came he applauded louder than anyone else, screaming out his amazement for Virgil to hear.

“Have the captives evaded their fates, or will they be walking the plank?”

Remus watched with bated breaths as everyone waited for the captains’ verdict. Though, to be fair, he wasn’t sure what he was wishing for, since he’d love to see Virgil soaking wet.

“Remy, Janus, and Virgil will live to ride another day!”

Missy’s announcement of survival came with thunderous applause, which Remus gladly participated in, Patton next to him jumping up and down in excitement.

As the three riders moved to the edge of the area to collect donations, Remus tried to catch his breath and saw Patton with a smug, smug look on his face.

“What,” he asked. “Ooh did you eat a fly out of the air?”

“Nothing,” Patton said primly, that stupid look still on his face. “I just knew you would like it.”

Remus stared as he walked off to the rider in yellow. “Why does no one believe me when I say he’s evil!”

“I would,” a voice said from next to him. Remus whirled around to see Virgil had pulled up next to him. “Patton’s the most conniving person I’ve ever meet.”

“I knowwww,” Remus whined, doing a weird step-hop movement to get closer to the fence. “But he has that stupid innocent act down so well that no one ever believes me when I try to spread the truth!”

“I do,” Blush began to spread on Virgil’s cheeks and he coughed. “Uh, believe you, that is.”

“Ya know, many say that’s a very bad idea. Especially my brother. But I only buried him in the sand while he was sleeping four times! That’s practically nothing.”

“All the way buried or only partially buried? You know what, never mind,” Virgil shook his head a bit, erasing the confused look on his face. “I’ve found that many people are also idiots.”

Remus grinned. “Virgie, with looks and opinions like that, I think we are going to get along very, very well.”

As Virgil slightly spluttered and the blush on his cheeks darkened, anticipation for the next few weekends fluttered in Remus’s stomach. (And that fluttering definitely wasn’t butterflies. That’d be crazy.)

#sanders sides #virgil sanders #remus sanders #patton sanders #dukexiety #dukexiety week #sanders side fic #a. j. writes

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katelynsromanholiday · 3 years ago

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The Baths of Caracalla

(Public Domain)

Next on the agenda is the Baths of Caracalla, also known as the Thermae Antoninianae (Lendering). The baths were constructed sometime during Emperor Caracalla’s reign in 211-217 A.D because the Severan dynasty was looking to gain support from the equestrian order and various classes of Roman society (Lendering). By funding this extravagant building, it helped them gain support and glorified Rome, which was very important to the Roman people (Lendering). The main building was completed in 216 A.D, the side buildings were completed in 218-222 A.D, and the final touches were put on the structure in 222-235 A.D (Lendering). These additional constructions were made by Caracalla’s successor and cousin, Heliogabalus and by Emperor Severus Alexander (Lendering).

Before arriving to the complex, I walk through the beautiful park that surrounds it (Lendering). I’m in awe of all the greenery, fragrant flowers, and willowy trees blowing in the wind. I enter through the northwest entrance hall, which is decorated with mosaics of all kinds of athletes (Lendering). There’s an identical southeast entrance hall and visitors can easily access multiple facilities using the main corridor between the two halls (Lendering). I make my way to the central building which consists of four stories, two above ground and two below ground (Lendering). Here I can use the swimming pool, cold bath, tepid baths, warm baths, hot bath, and two saunas (Lendering). The bathhouse alone is massive and up to 1,600 people could use it at once (Lendering). Bathing is extraordinarily popular among the Roman people and they could spend the whole day here (Lendering). I decide to use the tepid baths since I hear that is one of the more popular baths (Lendering). There are easily over two hundred people here, their voices echoing around the spacious bath. I sink into to water and wonder aloud how it could be such a perfect temperature. The woman next to me tells me that after the Aqua Antoniniana aqueduct brings the water here, it is heated to the perfect temperature in the lower levels (Lendering). There are hundreds of stokers burning wood everyday to maintain the water’s temperature (Lendering). After finishing my conversation, I gaze around the room. It is beautifully decorated with white marble walls and the floors are black and white with mosaics of fish, sea horses, and erotes (Lendering). I really appreciate the eye to detail and expense that goes into a building like this one. The Romans clearly have an eye for the finer things in life.

After bathing, I make my way to see some of the other facilities. There are an array of shops, athletic tracks, sports fields, massage rooms, a library, cafeterias, salons, and so much more (Lendering)! The buildings here are just as beautifully decorated as the baths. The floors are made of vibrant mosaics, using a variety of stones like grey granite, green and purple porphyry, yellow marble, and green-veined marble (Lendering). These stones remind me of the ones I saw while visiting the Pantheon! There are many mosaics, some depicting Hercules, athletics, and there are beautifully carved statues of Hercules, the “Farnese Flora”, the “Farnese Bull”, and “the Tyrannicides” (Lendering). It’s clear how much emphasis the Romans place on art and taking pride in their creations, legends, and heroes. Each area of the complex is breathtaking on its own but collectively, it is one of the most memorable Roman buildings I’ve seen.

Interesting fact: The baths were not only used for bathing and relaxation for the Romans. Romans would be prescribed baths for various illnesses, such as dysentery, fever, tuberculosis, bowl disorders, worms and maggots, and gonorrhea. Thankfully, the ever-sensible Hadrian decided to reserve special hours for these sick patients to use the bathhouse (Lendering). I’m sure everyone appreciated that…sure wish I’d known before using the baths!

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dwellordream · 3 years ago

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“…It is at this point that we find the first reference in the sources to Livia’s father, Marcus. He was evidently an energetic opportunist, for he hitched his wagon to the triumvirate and was sent—or at least had reasonable expectations of being sent—on a mission to Alexandria in 59 bc to raise funds. Marcus had perhaps just shortly before married Alfidia, and on January 30 of either 59 or 58 he became a father, with the birth of his daughter, Livia.

The month and day of Livia’s birth are established by inscriptions of the post-Julian period as a.d.III Kal. Febr., the third day before the first of February, reckoned inclusively. This date is by convention given as January 30 in the modern calendar system, although there is in reality no truly satisfactory way of expressing it, because in the pre-Julian calendar January had only twenty-nine days. The year is more problematic. The place of birth is even more obscure; we have no direct hint of where it might have been. The absence of any boast in extant inscriptions from a town proudly claiming distinction as her birthplace, and the lack of speculation in the literary sources, suggest that she might have been born in Rome.

Livia’s father is next heard of in 54, when he was prosecuted for improper legal practices (depraevaricatione) but acquitted through the efforts of Cicero— the kind of case, as Tacitus notes, that does not later arouse much interest. In any event, the publicity does not seem to have impeded his career. By 50 he was praetor, or iudex quaestionis (president of a court), presiding over a case being tried under the Scantinian law, which covered prohibited sexual activity.

Although there are grounds for suspecting that he might have been wealthy, through his adoptive father or his wife, he seems to have fallen into some financial difficulties at about this time, and we later find him trying to sell his gardens to Cicero. Marcus was a hard bargainer, but he met his match in the famous orator, who was determined to come out best in the deal. …on the Ides of March, 44 bc, Caesar was assassinated. It was probably not long after this pivotal moment in Roman history that a pivotal event took place in Livia’s life also, her first marriage. Indeed, because nothing at all is known of Livia’s early life apart from her birth, this is the first incident that the historian can infer.

Her husband, Tiberius Claudius Nero, belonged to the less distinguished branch of the patrician Claudians. As we have seen, the last consulship the family could claim was in 202 bc. Very little has been passed down about Tiberius Nero’s immediate forebears, although we know from a very fragmentary inscription that his father was also a Tiberius. The older Tiberius Nero served in 67 bc as legate of Pompey against the pirates, with command at the Straits of Gibraltar, and in 63 made a speech against the summary execution without trial of the associates of Catiline, who had been exposed by Cicero in a major conspiracy. Their family names leave little doubt that Livia and her husband must have been related.

How closely is far from clear, although some scholars assert with confidence that they were cousins. Tiberius Nero might have seemed a good marriage prospect. Cicero speaks of him having the qualities of an adulescentis nobilis, ingeniosi, abstinentis (a young man of noble family, of native talent, and moderation) and remarks that there was no one among the noble families he regarded more highly. (Of course, these warm testimonials appear in a letter of recommendation, a common repository of inflated praise.) Tiberius Nero makes his own entry into history in 54 bc.

In that year a Pompeian supporter, Aulus Gabinius, returned from Syria after a governorship that seems to have been marked by administrative incompetence and large-scale bribery, a common enough situation in many of the provinces of the late republic. Gabinius became the celebrity of the year, denounced by Cicero and hounded in a series of showy trials. Before his trial for extortion (de repetundis) there was a scramble for the high-profile role of prosecutor, and Tiberius Nero competed against Gaius Memmius and Mark Antony. The contest was keen and Cicero comments on Tiberius Nero’s fine effort and the quality of his supporters. But Cicero anticipated that Memmius would win out, and was proved right. The outcome marked Tiberius Nero down in this first highly public incident as a worthy failure, a characterization that could probably be applied to his whole career.

In late 51 or early 50 he visited Asia, where he had a number of clients, and he called on Cicero during the latter’s governorship of Cilicia. At this time the tortuous negotiations for the third marriage of Cicero’s daughter Tullia were under way. Tiberius Nero seems to have made a strong impression on his host, to judge from the warm letter of recommendation that Cicero wrote for him to Gaius Silius, propraetor of Bithynia and Pontus.

The young man declared an interest in Tullia and obtained her father’s consent for the match. Messengers were despatched to Rome to give mother and daughter the happy news. Unfortunately, Tiberius’ hostile daemon intervened—it seems that before he left, Cicero had told Tullia and her mother to arrange the negotiations in Rome themselves, and because he was going to be away for so long in his province, not to feel obliged to refer the issue to him. The messengers arrived in Rome just in time to miss Tullia’s engagement party.

Tiberius Nero would probably have been a better choice than his successful rival, the seedy Dolabella, a ruthless adherent of Caesar’s and a man whose career was enlivened by dissipation and debts. Cicero had approved of Tiberius Nero as a potential prosecutor in the Gabinius case because of his stand against the power block represented by Caesar and Pompey (and Crassus). By 48 bc he was doubtless dismayed when his young champion displayed the often crass opportunism typical of the period. Putting his support behind Julius Caesar, Tiberius Nero signed up as his quaestor and commanded the fleet at Alexandria. As a reward for his services he received a senior priesthood and in 46 was given responsibility for founding colonies at Caesar’s behest in Narbonese Gaul, including Narbo and Arelate.

He might have seemed to the outside world to be on an upward trajectory, but cruel fate intervened. The Ides of March in 44 and the assassination of Caesar changed the destiny of many besides Caesar himself. Tiberius Nero had to make a career choice, and characteristically made the wrong one. Perhaps under the influence of Livia’s father, he followed the course of many Caesarian supporters and jumped sides, hitching his wagon to the assassins’ team, even proposing special honours for the killers.

We do not know for certain when Tiberius Nero and Livia were married. The normal age of marriage for women at this period seems generally to have been in the late teens, but in upper-class families marriage at fifteen was probably the norm, and even earlier marriages were common in aristocratic circles, when there was a political advantage to the match. By this reckoning Livia, depending on her date of birth, might have reached a marriageable age in 46 or 45. But this earlier date may not have been possible if Tiberius Nero was serving in Gaul at that time. The birth of their first son in November 42 gives us a limit, and places the marriage probably in 43, when Livia was fifteen or sixteen. Her husband would likely have been in his late thirties. The marriage took place during the dramatic aftermath of Caesar’s assassination.

Two men competed to fill the vacuum left by his death. One was Caesar’s lieutenant Mark Antony. The other was his great-nephew, Octavian, named his heir and adopted son in his will, the man destined to transform the character of the Roman state and to become Livia’s second husband. He was born Gaius Octavius, on September 23, 63 bc, in Rome. Although malicious gossip claimed that his great-grandfather was a freedman and rope maker, the family, though not distinguished, was well-to-do. The Octavii originated from the Volscian town of Velitrae, two days’ journey south of Rome. His father, also Gaius Octavius, was a prosperous banker, a member of the entrepreneurial middle class that largely constituted what is known as the equestrian order.

…Octavius had been in Apollonia for a few months only when a messenger arrived from his mother with the dramatic news that Caesar had been murdered. He decided to return to Italy at once with a few friends, including Marcus Agrippa. In Brundisium he learned from letters sent by his mother and stepfather that he had inherited most of Caesar’s estate and, more significantly, had been adopted as his son. His family advised him to decline the adoption, perceptively anticipating the political firestorm that it would create. He did not follow their advice and proceeded to Rome. He now began to style himself Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, following the Roman custom of assuming the name of the adoptive parent with a form of the original gens appended.

The adoption fuelled Octavian’s ambitions, and its importance to him is demonstrated by his desperate efforts to have it confirmed. The adoption of relatives or even of nonrelatives was a well-established tradition in Rome, and adopted sons and daughters naturally styled themselves henceforth as children of the adoptive, not the natural father. But testamentary adoption, which later played a significant part in Livia’s own career, seems to have been in a dubious category of its own. The ancient evidence is not explicit, and the ancient jurists are silent on the matter, but it seems that adoption stipulated in a will was almost certainly not an adoption in the full sense of the word, but mainly a device to allow for the inheritance of property on condition that the adopted child assume the name of the legator.

This ambiguity explains why Octavian was determined at all costs to have the status of the adoption legally ratified. He attempted to do this soon after his arrival in Rome and took on as an ally in his campaign Antony, who pretended to be making every effort to have the appropriate law passed but was in fact doing everything he could to block it. When Octavian became consul, in May 43, one of his first measures was to have the proposed law presented to the popular assembly. The symbolic importance of the adoption cannot be stressed enough. In practice he ignored the final element of his name, Octavianus, and preferred to use only Gaius Julius Caesar. Although clearly an unfriendly source, Antony was not far off the mark when he said of him et te, o puer, qui omnia nomini debes (and you, lad, who owe everything to a name).

And more was to come. There is evidence that Caesar might have received divine honours even before his death. At all events, in 42 posthumous divine honours were granted him. Henceforth, Octavian could style himself not only as the son of Julius Caesar but as the son of Divus (the deified) Julius. The following years did in a sense vindicate his parents’ reservations, for conflict arose between Octavian and Antony in their zeal to assume Caesar’s mantle, a struggle that was punctuated by a series of pacts but was not resolved finally until the suicide of Antony in 30 bc following the decisive battle of Actium.

The struggle between powerful and ambitious Roman political and military leaders in the last century of the republic inevitably embroiled the rest of the population, especially Romans of prominence, who, as is usually the case in a civil war, found it impossible to stand on the sidelines of the conflict. It also brought tragedy into Livia’s life. Nothing explicit is known about her father Marcus’ stand during the clashes between Caesar and Pompey or during the ascendancy of Caesar. Shackleton-Bailey has tentatively suggested that Marcus was a Caesarian, but whatever loyalty he might have felt certainly did not survive the dictator’s death, when he emerges as a champion of the tyrannicides. In 43 we find him one of the sponsors of a senatorial decree to give command of two legions to the assassin Decimus Brutus.

By the end of that year he had been proscribed by the triumvirs. He fled east to join Brutus and Cassius and shared with them their final defeat at Philippi. He personally survived, but afterwards reputedly died a courageous death. Refusing to ask for mercy, he committed suicide in his tent. We do not know what happened to Marcus Livius’ property. Livia may have been his only natural child, but there are strong grounds for believing that in the absence of a natural son, Marcus before his death arranged in his will for the adoption of Marcus Livius Drusus Libo (consul in 15 bc). Libo’s natural father, Lucius Scribonius Libo, later demonstrated powerful political connections.

…In the meantime, the conduct of Livia’s husband, Tiberius Nero, highlighted the two dominant traits in his makeup: an inordinate opportunism and a penchant for guaranteeing that whatever opportunity he seized, it would be an injudicious choice. He did not follow Marcus in sticking to his principles to the bitter end. Once he recognised that the plight of the assassins was hopeless, he broke away from his father-in-law’s position. The struggle for supremacy now clearly lay between Octavian and Marc Antony, and Tiberius Nero opted to back Antony. He was elected to the praetorship in 42, but following a dispute that arose among the triumvirs, he refused at the end of his term to leave office and stayed in place beyond his legally defined period.

Early in the same year, Livia became pregnant. It is said that she was very keen to bear a boy and used a method of determining the sex common among young women of the time: she took an egg from under a brooding hen and kept it warm against her breast. Whenever she had to yield it up, she passed it to her nurse under the folds of their dresses so as not to interrupt the warmth. A cock with a fine crest was hatched, a portent of a vigorous son. Later in the year we have the first specific recorded evidence of her whereabouts. On November 16, 42, the first of her two sons, Tiberius, was born on the Palatine in Rome.

…After the successful campaign against Caesar’s assassins at Philippi, the triumvirs had agreed on areas of command. Marcus Lepidus was restricted to Africa. Antony took the East, where he launched a campaign against the Parthians. Octavian commanded in the West. His task was to restore order in Italy and keep a check on Sextus Pompeius, the younger son of Pompey, who had set himself up with a large fleet in Sicily and had established a haven for fugitives from the triumvirs. Octavian also undertook the grim task of confiscating territory in Italy for the retiring veterans. Antony’s brother Lucius Antonius, and Antony’s wife, Fulvia, became the champions of the dispossessed Italians and sought to instigate an uprising against Octavian; Tiberius Nero joined the effort, and Livia and her son followed him to Perusia, the main centre of opposition.

When Perusia fell in early 40, Tiberius Nero escaped with his family first to Praeneste and then to Naples, where he sought to instigate a slave uprising, helped by Gaius Velleius, the grandfather of the historian. That effort collapsed and the family had a hair-raising escape. As Octavian’s forces broke into the city, the family decided to make a break for it. Velleius, by now old and infirm, was too weary and ran himself through with his own sword. Tiberius Nero and his family set out to make their way stealthily to a ship, avoiding the regular routes and going off into the wilds of the countryside.

On the journey little Tiberius started to cry. There was panic that he might give them away. Livia snatched him from the nurse, and when he still did not settle down, one of her followers seized him from her and apparently saved the day. The ancient authors were quick to spot the irony of Livia fleeing the man she would eventually marry, with a son who would eventually succeed him.

The family did in the end make their escape and went to Sicily. They perhaps hoped that family connections, through Marcus Libo, the brother-in-law of Sextus Pompeius, would stand them in good stead. But if this connection did exist, it did the couple little good, and their reception in Sicily must have been a considerable disappointment. Sextus Pompeius found Tiberius Nero something of an embarrassment and was reluctant even to grant him an audience. Also, perhaps to avoid unnecessary provocation, he ordered Tiberius Nero not to display the fasces, the rods of the office of praetorship, which he had illegally retained in his possession.

Sextus’ sister, perhaps motivated by personal rather than political concerns, was more welcoming, and even gave the little Tiberius a cloak with a clasp and some gold studs. These survived as celebrity items and were exhibited for tourists in the resort town of Baiae until Suetonius’ day. But Tiberius Nero now fell foul of the complex and shifting tide of Roman politics. Octavian, faced with the prospect of a confrontation with Antony, sought to move closer to Sextus Pompeius. Tiberius Nero was obliged to pack his bags once again and go with his wife and infant son to join Antony in the East, where the Claudii Nerones seem to have acquired a large number of clients.

It might have been at this time that Tiberius Nero was proscribed. We certainly know that it happened at some point—Tacitus states so unequivocally, although without providing a date. We cannot be sure why Livia followed her husband into exile, unless for the uncomplicated reason of personal affection. It was certainly expected that wives would either accompany proscribed husbands or stay at home and work on their behalf. But they could not be compelled. By now it must have been apparent to Livia that her husband was not destined for greatness, and it perhaps says something for her strength of character that as a young mother of eighteen or so she seems to have put duty before personal convenience.

The couple were able to get safe passage by joining a distant kin of Livia’s, Lucius Scribonius Libo, who left Sicily to accompany Antony’s mother, Julia, to Athens and allowed Tiberius Nero and his family to sail with him. Antony was perhaps no more eager than Sextus to be lumbered with someone so tainted by failure, and he quickly despatched Tiberius Nero to Sparta, where the Claudii had long enjoyed patronage. Sparta, perhaps because of its ties to the Claudians, offered the couple an extremely cordial welcome, in contrast to their earlier experiences.

Livia was later able to acknowledge their support by rewarding the community for the loyalty it had shown her in times of trouble. But Tiberius Nero was unable to break the habit of a lifetime. Once again they had to flee—the reasons are not known. This time it was by night, through a forest where a fire broke out. The family barely escaped. The event would have been especially memorable to Livia, who ended up with burning hair and a charred dress. In ad 40 Antony and Octavian settled their differences at the Peace of Brundisium, and the compact was sealed by the marriage of Antony and Octavian’s sister, Octavia.

A further, even shorter-lived compact, the Treaty of Misenum, was reached by the triumvirs and Sextus Pompeius in mid-39 bc. It promised an amnesty to those who had sided with Sextus. Livia and her husband were thus able to return to Rome at the same time as Mark Antony. Livia’s mood is not recorded, but it must have been sombre enough. Her father was dead, and she must by now have recognised that her husband’s star had started to set even before it had properly risen.”

- Anthony A. Barrett, “Family Background.” in Livia: First Lady of Imperial Rome

#octavian #livia drusilla #roman #ancient #history #livia first lady of imperial rome #anthony a. barrett

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