#fall of the roman republic

[duxfemina]

Have you ever tried to avoid litigation so hard that you end up starting a civil war, irrevocably altering history, and destroying the current system of government?

I swear Caesar can't have anything but completely unhinged responses to his struggles. "Oh no I'm in debt! What do I do? Let's go start an endless campaign in Gaul with little to no provocation so people will forget I'm a crook and I can make some cash off the slaves I make of captured Gauls" and then when that's done it's like "oh no my political colleagues and enemies think I just fought an unjustified war all these years and wanna see me in court! What do I do? Start a fight with my former son-in-law that will plunge Italy into another bloody Civil War the same crap that was going on when I was a kid"

[sforzesco]

miscellaneous roman nonsense lmao I very briefly thought about un curling octavian's hair, but cleopatra 1963's influence remains as strong as ever

[greekmythcomix]

Wondering how many of us nerds on here are actually teachers hiding from our schools

[sillyboyrock]

[idylls-of-the-divine-romance]

I love how I've completely switched sides on Edward Gibbon. I used to be like "No, nincompoop, Christianity is not the cause of the fall of the Roman Empire. That's freaking stupid; how thick can you get???"

Now I'm like, "HECK YEAH!!!! THAT'S what happens when Babylon comes up against (G)Arden: it's gets freaking DEMOLISHED!!! Abandon wealth, BECOME A MONK!!! Abandon war, SEEK PEACE!!! NO KING BUT KING JESUS!!! SUBMIT IN HUMILITY OR COWER IN FEAR!!!! ALL EMPIRES WILL BE DESTROYED!!! DEATH WILL BE ABOLISHED!!! ALL NATIONS WILL COME TOGETHER AND WORSHIP THE PRINCE OF PEACE!!!!"

[homoerotic-sea-shanties]

POV Roman senate elections circa 44 BC:

“Look. We gotta put him down somehow”

“What if we run a spear campaign”

“Smear campaign”

“Spear campaign. Run him through”

@frogs-running-in-circles

[theworstcreature]

Experiencing the horrors (a incredibly specific detail that is a question on my homework isn’t on Wikipedia so I have to scroll through glitchy ass old websites and blogs)

[multi-bookworm]

Nah, but why did Octavian declare war on Egypt? 🤣

He had to try and convince all of Rome that it was because of "oriental barbarism and corruption" when the whole city knew it was because of his stupid rivalry with Mark Antony.

What I think is funnier, is that Antony wasn't even doing anything 🤣 he was chilling with Cleopatra in Egypt, living his best life, and then Octavian back in Rome like "THAT IS THE LAST BLOODY STRAW THIS MEANS WAR YOU'VE DONE IT NOW-"

I'm pretty sure most of Mark Antony's and Octavian's rivalry was one sided bc Antony just did not give a shit 🤣🤣🤣

[the-casbah-way]

two weeks into term we have to give presentations about our final dissertations and i have not touched mine all summer because i have been busy working and trying not to kill myself and writing fanfiction

[duxfemina]

Titus Albucius

Albucius was a famed orator and an epicurean. He studied in Athens and was such a huge fanboy of all things Greek. He was THAT guy who spoke the Greek language and affected a Greek style as often as possible, quoting Greek philosophy and generally acting very self important about how cool he was for knowing all about Greek stuff. He was probably the kind of guy who would go to Greece and tell them that they were pronouncing their own language wrong. That's the vibe.

Anyways. In 105 he is the Praetor of Sardinia and he gets a triumph for defeating a few robbers. Seems weak. In 103 BC daddy Caesar accuses him of "repetundae" (the illegal acquisition of money or property by Romans in authority abroad) Pompeius Strabo had wanted to be the prosecution in the trial but because he had served as Albucius' Quaestor in Sardinia he wasn't allowed.

But the hilarious twist is the satirist who roasted Albucius for all his Greek affectations was Pompeius Strabo's uncle Gaius Lucilius!

Source for Titus Albucius

[sforzesco]

TRY AGAIN LATER

it's like. well. its several things.

(Plutarch's Crassus, trans. Warner)

and also this

(ibid.)

that compliment sounds like an insult, baby.

anyway, there's a fun kind of eroticism in being given everything, in taking things that aren't yours without any real consequence, in climbing towards becoming a Roman Alexander, only for one man to deny you, over and over and over again, at every turn. Sulla tried, Crassus did it better. who would put a butcher in their place? who else knows you well enough to do it? who else can match you step for step like this? doesn't it feel like a kind of intimacy, a kind of—

it's also about the 'even sulla kissed my sword/so you want me on my knees too?' innuendo was too good to pass up. that was actually the first line I wrote, I figured out the rest of this to justify making a comic with it

and finally! the sword line is referencing/playing off of Lucan's Pharsalia a little bit because it fucks hard

(Lucan's Pharsalia, trans. Jane Wilson Joyce)

EDIT: oh, and that's a public domain anatomical illustration of a heart. you know how it is with love and hate.

[greekmythcomix]

Reading Q. Cicero’s Commentariolis Petitionis with my A Level Ancient History class on US election day which is also the same day we read In Catilina IV on UK Guy Fawkes Night is some serious political mashup

[miroana]

Curia of Pompey locked room murder mystery

[richo1915]

I am a Roman,' he said to the king; 'my name is Gaius Mucius. I came here to kill you - my enemy. I have as much courage to die as to kill. It is our Roman way to do and to suffer bravely. Nor am I alone in my resolve against your life; behind me is a long line of men eager for the same honor. Brace yourself, if you will, for the struggle - a struggle for your life from hour to hour, with an armed enemy always at your door. That is the war we declare against you: you need fear no action in the battlefield, army against army; it will be fought against you alone, by one of us at a time.'

Porsena in rage and alarm ordered the prisoner to be burnt alive unless he at once divulged the plot thus obscurely hinted at, whereupon Mucius, crying: 'See how cheap men hold their bodies when they care only for honor!' thrust his right hand into the fire which had been kindled for a sacrifice, and let it burn there as if he were unconscious of the pain. Porsena was so astonished by the young man's almost superhuman endurance that he leapt to his feet and ordered his guards to drag him from the altar. 'Go free,' he said; 'you have dared to be a worse enemy to yourself than to me. I should bless your courage, if it lay with my country to dispose of it. But, as that cannot be, I, as an honorable enemy, grant you pardon, life, and liberty.'

'Since you respect courage,' Mucius replied, as if he were thanking him for his generosity, 'I will tell you in gratitude what you could not force from me by threats. There are three hundred of us in Rome, all young like myself, and all of noble blood, who have sworn an attempt upon your life in this fashion. It was I who drew the first lot; the rest will follow, each in his turn and time, until fortune favor us and we have got you.'

The release of Mucius (who was afterwards known as Scaevola, or the Left-Handed Man, from the loss of his right hand) was quickly followed by the arrival in Rome of envoys from Porsena. The first attempt upon his life, foiled only by a lucky mistake, and the prospect of having to face the same thing again from every one of the remaining conspirators, had so shaken the king that he was coming forward with proposals for peace.

Titus Livius

[catilinas]

i will not reread the october horse rereading the october horse is the mind killer etc etc

[dionysus-complex]

…populumque potentem in sua victrici conversum viscera dextra