/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.1388734]

ITT: We talk about interesting stuff that happened in ancient times. The kind of thing you'd learn in a classics class, but which is ironic or interesting. I'll start.


Brutus originally worked for Pompey and fought as one of his top brass against Julius Caesar. When Pompey lost, Caesar ordered his men to take him prisoner if he goes without a fight, but let him go free if he fights because he respected the soul of the warrior. However, when Brutus went free he went straight to Julius for a job. Soon he got into Julius' higher staff too because he was very clever and fr some reason Julius trusted him. Brutus then took part, as we all know, in the conspiracy to kill the man that could have ordered him dead the whole time.

[Anonymous No.1388748]

I wonder how much patrician dick Brutus sucked. Probably a lot.

[Anonymous No.1388750]

Nero was very scary when angry, and he got angry a LOT. Being an emperor he had the power of a god and could get lots of people killed. Because it was so important to the safety of so many, his resident tutor and philosopher, Seneca, made a study of anger. His theory was that if people were more pessimistic, then they would expect misfortune and so would be bitter and not angry when it happened. A born optimist, Nero would get very surprised and angry indeed when anything went wrong, and he had loads of people killed. Seneca offered his resignation twice, but both times Nero rejected it, telling him that he was the exception; that he could not kill his beloved tutor. When Seneca was falsely accused of taking part in a conspiracy on Nero's life, Nero flew into a rage and has several hundred people killed. He sent soldiers to Seneca's house to order him to kill himself or to be killed by a soldier. Displaying his conviction in the belief that a philosopher must die by his philosophy, Seneca had known that this would happen because he pessimistically accepted it, and when they knocked on the door, the soldiers discovered a Seneca with knife in hand, calmly slitting his neck.

[Anonymous No.1388751]

>>1388748
A LOT.
I think that Brutus had been a catamite earlier in life

The Romans were sick fucks.

[Anonymous No.1388753]

Socrates was gay. As well as Alcibiades, along with all the male characters of Homer's Illiad.

Pedophiles were common in the ancient Greece. Actually, molesting a child was a mark of affection towards the father.

Merdae means shit in Latin (hence the French word "merde").

Plato spouted a lot of bullshit. Seriously. An enormous amount.

[Anonymous No.1388758]

Cato the Younger was also a devoted follower of Pompey, and when they lost the was he had such comtempt for Caesar's taking of power that he ended his own life rather than give Caesar the opportunity to spare it.

[Anonymous No.1388763]

>>1388753
>Socrates was gay.
No he wasn't.
>along with all the male characters of Homer's Illiad.
No they weren't.

Enjoy your pedophile classics teacher.

[Anonymous No.1388767]

>>1388763
Sophocles was.

[Anonymous No.1388774]

Caesar was baller as FUCK. This one time, right, Cato the Younger was giving a speech in the Senate, and Caesar was like "yeah whatever fuck you man" so he was just sitting there, not paying attention, reading a letter. And Cato was like "no, fuck you" so he was like "Caesar let me see that letter" and he went over and took the letter started reading it out loud, right? And it turned out that it was a love letter. from Cato's sister

[Anonymous No.1388776]

>>1388774
Cato mad

[Anonymous No.1388778]

Does anyone here know if the stories about Hannibal catapulting snakes onto hostile ships as "biological warfare" are true/have some evidence that supports it? Always wondered. This being in his post-carthage, admiral days.

[Anonymous No.1388780]

Cicero gave speeches against Mark Antony, who was rising in power. When Antony finally became part of the Triumvirate he had Cicero killed, and his head cut off and put on display in the forum. Then Antony's wife went to the forum, pulled out Cicero's dead tongue, and stabbed it repeatedly with her hair pin.

[Anonymous No.1388782]

>>1388774
That's fucking boss

The Romans were bad ass mother fuckers.
Also: More like wincest!

Greeks, too. In the siege of Athens, I think it was Aristotle who was drawing with his finger in sand when the soldiers burst into his house. He calmly continued drawing and when they brandished their swords at him, he said 'Do not disturb my circles.'

Niggers did not give a FUCK about life. Makes us all look like pussies

[Anonymous No.1388785]

>>1388782

That was Archimedes you stupid cunt.

[Anonymous No.1388786]

>>1388785
And that was in Syracuse, wasn't it?

[Anonymous No.1388787]

>>1388782
That was very famously Archimedes.

The awesome thing is that the soldiers were looking FOR HIM. They had orders not to harm him, but to find him and put him into Roman service. So they burst into his house, right, not knowing who he was, and start asking him where Archimedes is. And he's just like "do not disturb my circles." And then they killed him.

[Anonymous No.1388788]

>>1388774
Alpha as fuck

[Anonymous No.1388790]

>>1388787
What a boss.

Thanks for putting me right chaps, I'm an idiot who should have Googled, but now I know I guess.

Yeah, Cicero was a BAMF. He did his sophist-style speech shit all up in Marc's face and got owned, but who the fuck messes with a Roman Emperor? Shit takes BALLS. That's like going to North Korea, standing on a podium and having hour-long rants about how Kim is a dick.

[Anonymous No.1388792]

>>1388774
>This one time, right
>So they burst into his house, right
>right
Good sir I despise you.

[Anonymous No.1388793]

The Nuclear bomb was not such a big deal for Japan- Allied air Raids had been inflicting the exact same level of damage almost daily- this just meant there were fewer planes involved. The Russian Declaration of war is probably the more important factor in surrender

Also, They nearly lost the two bombs to a sea storm while being shipped out on an aircraft carrier

[Anonymous No.1388799]

>>1388788
Still nothing on Diogenes the Cynic

Having been captured and taken as a slave was asked his skills and said "I am skilled in leading men so find me a man in need of a master" and so he wound up becoming a tutor.

Once Alexander the Great sought him out and found bathing. Alexander, the most powerful man in the world, greeted him and asked if there was anything he wanted. Diogenes replied, move a little out of my sun.

Don't even get started on the badass-ness that is Laconic wit.

[Anonymous No.1388801]

>>1388790
Marc Antony was a baller too yo

Fucked Cleoparta and kicked the shit out of Octavian, making Rome his bitch in the process. Also, it must have been fucking awesome when their triremes started firing flaming arrows at each other...

[Anonymous No.1388802]

Every single Greek man was gay or bisexual.

[Anonymous No.1388804]

>>1388790
Cicero's most badass moment is still probably the first Catiline oration - delivered when Cicero discovered Catiline's conspiracy to overthrow the republic - which he delivered with Catiline actually sitting in the audience. The speech begins "For how long, O Catiline, will you continue to abuse our patience? For how long will that madness of yours mock us? To what end will your unbridled effrontery toss itself about?"

Legend holds that, as the speech started, the Senate was seated normally, Catiline surrounded by senators; by the end, everyone else had slowly edged away from him, until he was sitting completely by himself, massively far from anyone else.

[Anonymous No.1388807]

>>1388802
as with most contemporary males as well, apparently. The orientation spectrum really isn't as fixed as popular belief holds it out to be

[Anonymous No.1388809]

>>1388799
Speaking of Alexander, when he took Persia, and wanted to adopt the persian custom of a deep bow to the monarch, but the Greeks reserved that rite only for the Gods. But hell Alexander's the boss so they're gonna do it, they have a ceremony planned where Alexander will meet his court, they will bow to him, and he will raise them up and give them a kiss, all very ritualized crap. Well this happens for a few people, and there's just one badass who doesn't, and Alexander is all "WTF? Get out, bitch." the dude just looks at him and says "So I depart the lesser only by a kiss." Then he gets killed, but Alpha as fuck.

[Anonymous No.1388811]

>move a little out of my sun.
OOOOOOH SHIT
OH NO HE DIDN'T

That's some badass shit

The Chinese might not be the subject of classics, but it's pretty old: During the wars between the 3 Kingdoms, a huge 'battle' was waged along the Yangtze, where I believe it was the canny motherfuckers of Wu that sent wooden ships to sail up there and back near an enemy camp. So large was the camp, though, that it spanned both sides of the river. The enemy fired about 100,000 arrows at the ships, which then sailed right back and away back to Wu kingdom. There was only 20 people in each ship - instead of putting soldiers and arrowmen up in the top bit, they saved their men and sent only rowers up to get shot at and effectively steal a fuckload of arrows they could use later in a battle.

[Anonymous No.1388814]

>>1388807
Meh, its all a social construction, that doesn't mean that its not real. Most contemporary men are heterosexual for either biological, psychological or social reasons, but they're still heterosexual.

[Anonymous No.1388820]

>>1388811
The other even more apocryphal story of Diogenes meeting Alexander is even more badass, Alexander finds Diogenes sorting through a pile of bones and remains, and asks what he is doing. In another account of the conversation, Alexander found the philosopher looking attentively at a pile of human bones. Diogenes explained, "I am searching for the bones of your father but cannot distinguish them from those of a slave."

[Anonymous No.1388821]

>>1388793
It's absolutely true that the nuclear bombs were not the only factor in the Japanese surrender. You have to understand, first, that the United States had basically completely destroyed the Japanese navy by 1945, and had also completely fucked up Japanese logistic capacities - the Japanese basically did not have any supplies. The Americans had also been engaged in a massive, absurd firebombing campaign. During the course of this, around 900,000 Japanese civilians were killed - Tokyo was effectively destroyed, the firebombing of Tokyo killed more people than either atomic bombing - and these attacks were explicitly targeted against civilians. THEN on top of this absurd devastation, the United States dropped two nuclear weapons (on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which had been spared the firebombings), and the Soviet Union declared war, then invaded Manchuria and basically completely destroyed the Japanese Kwantung Army in Manchuria - the biggest problem they had in the invasion was running out of fuel from advancing too fast.

So, yeah - basically, Japan had been completely ravaged, its navy destroyed, its logistic capacity nearly eliminated - around a million civilians killed after the firebombing and the atomic weapons - all of their cities more or less leveled - another front opened by the Soviets - and a crushing land defeat inflicted in Manchuria.

And it took all that to get them to surrender.

[Anonymous No.1388828]

>>1388793
Then didn't one of the ships sink after deliver the bombs but they didn't send help out of risk of acknowledging the existence of the mission at all. The Indianapolis I think it was.

[OUTRAGEOUS No.1388837]

Tiberius had some interesting role playing going on at his summer home with a dozen or so little boys.

Looking back on college, I think that I most enjoyed reading the Greek and Roman stuff,... especially Suetonious' "The Twelve Caesars"

[Anonymous No.1388838]

One of the reasons why the Romans considered the Celts to be barbarians?

The Celts wore pants.

Romans would either wear a toga or a long shirt that went down to the knees. But never pants. Pants were for barbarians.

[Anonymous No.1388842]

>>1388838
The word 'barbarian' originally meant someone who didn't speak Greek. It means someone who goes 'bar bar bar' all the time. like 'blah blah blah'.

[Anonymous No.1388843]

>>1388838
A bit like briefs are considered nowadays.

[Anonymous No.1388846]

>>1388838
"barbarian" was originally an onomatopoeia describing the babbling sound of non-Greek languages to Greek ears.

[Anonymous No.1388848]

>>1388842
>>1388842

I heard that "bar bar bar" was what the greeks thought the guttural Germanic language sounded like.

[Anonymous No.1388849]

>>1388842
damn you beat me too it

[Anonymous No.1388853]

>>1388849
i am the master of pointless classical nerd trivia facts

[Anonymous No.1388857]

>>1388799
When Plato gave Socrates' definition of man as "featherless bipeds" and was much praised for the definition, Diogenes plucked a chicken and brought it into Plato's Academy, saying, "Behold! I've brought you a man." After this incident, "with broad flat nails" was added to Plato's definition.

Diogenes is also said to have been masturbating openly in the marketplace one day, remarking that he wished it were as easy to relieve hunger by rubbing an empty stomach. This is doubly bad when you understand that it was against custom to eat in the marketplace, which he did also.

[Anonymous No.1388859]

>>1388853
Oh yeah, the how did Cato the Elder end almost all his speeches regardless of topic?

[Anonymous No.1388860]

Nearly half (or more) of the people Dante Meets in hell were people he personally hated

[Anonymous No.1388862]

>>1388857
>After this incident, "with broad flat nails" was added to Plato's definition.

For some reason I find that hilarious.

[Anonymous No.1388873]

>>1388859
Awesome, not the person you responded to, but I inexplicably knew that. Thx Latin!

[Anonymous No.1388875]

>>1388857
Diogenes did not give a SINGLE fuck at all. Even Alexander, possibly the most ALPHA nigga on Earth said 'If I were not Alexander, then I should wish to be Diogenes.'

Shit, I wish I was Diogenes.

[Anonymous No.1388880]

Diogenes of Synope

- was begging once, and some guy asked him "lolyudothis"" essentially, and Diogenes replied "To teach you charity" (also, he used to beg outside of brothels then when he had enough money, he'd go inside, then come back out again lol)

- One time some brash student came up to Diogenes who was sunning himself, and said "I can prove there is no such thing as movement or motion!". Promptly Diogenes got up and walked off.

[Anonymous No.1388884]

>>1388859
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Of other things, I think that Carthage must be destroyed. Ended EVERY SPEECH with it regardless of subject matter. "The agrarian laws must be changed! The price of grain is far too high! Also, Carthage must be destroyed."

[Anonymous No.1388886]

>>1388880
Goddamn it, Diogenes is the man. Fuck.

[Anonymous No.1388890]

When Caesar encountered pirates:

First, when the pirates demanded a ransom of twenty talents, Caesar burst out laughing. They did not know, he said, who it was that they had captured, and he volunteered to pay fifty. Then, when he had sent his followers to the various cities in order to raise the money and was left with one friend and two servants among these Cilicians, about the most bloodthirsty people in the world, he treated them so highhandedly that, whenever he wanted to sleep, he would send to them and tell them to stop talking.

For thirty-eight days, with the greatest unconcern, he joined in all their games and exercises, just as if he was their leader instead of their prisoner. He also wrote poems and speeches which he read aloud to them, and if they failed to admire his work, he would call them to their faces illiterate savages, and would often laughingly threaten to have them all hanged. They were much taken with this and attributed his freedom of speech to a kind of simplicity in his character or boyish playfulness.

However, the ransom arrived from Miletus and, as soon as he had paid it and been set free, he immediately manned some ships and set sail from the harbor of Miletus against the pirates. He found them still there, lying at anchor off the island, and he captured nearly all of them. He took their property as spoils of war and put the men themselves into the prison at Pergamon. He then went in person to [Marcus] Junius, the governorof Asia, thinking it proper that he, as praetor in charge of the province, should see to the punishment of the prisoners. Junius, however, cast longing eyes at the money, which came to a considerable sum, and kept saying that he needed time to look into the case.

Caesar paid no further attention to him. He went to Pergamon, took the pirates out of prison and crucified the lot of them, just as he had often told them he would do when he was on the island and they imagined that he was joking.

[Anonymous No.1388898]

>>1388886

There was awebsite that had dozens of anecdotes about him, I'll see if I can dig it up because I need a good laugh.

[Anonymous No.1388912]

>>1388875
>>1388857

You know Diogenes and Alexander died on the same day, right?

[Anonymous No.1388920]

The Spartan Siege of Platea in the History of the Peloponnesian War reads like a Wile Coyote and Road Runner Cartoon except it ends with the razing of a town.

[Anonymous No.1388936]

>Merdae means shit in Latin (hence the French word "merde").

Actually, it was merda. And also, hence Spanish mierda, Italian merda...

[Anonymous No.1388945]

>>1388912
The night Alexander was born, the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, burned to the ground because the goddess was watching over Alexander.

[King of Zeroes !TFB7IfWrrg No.1388946]

>>1388936
Merdae is also the singular genitive (shit's) or dative (to shits), or plural nominative (shits) or vocative (O shits).

[Anonymous No.1388955]

>>1388946
Merda, ae, ae, am, a, a, ae. Merdae, arum, is, as, is, ae, is.

[Anonymous No.1388958]

>>1388955
Yes, we all know how the 1st declension works, we're not retards.

[King of Zeroes !TFB7IfWrrg No.1388969]

>>1388958
>we all know how the 1st declension works
Everybody knows Latin here? Is this the real life?

[Anonymous No.1388972]

>>1388969
this is /lit/ if you can't get through the first declension you don't count as a true /lit/izen

[Anonymous No.1388974]

>>1388958
I apologize; it wasn't an attempt at teaching anyone anything. I hope you can forgive me a little nostalgia?

[Anonymous No.1388997]

About a year ago I read Herodotus's Histories, while he was talking about how Cyrus and Xerxes were conquering every nation on Earth, and were finally (barely) stopped by the Greek city-states.

Now I'm reading the Old Testament, and they talk about Cyrus and how he had a mandate from Heaven to rule over every nation on Earth. Cyrus gave the Jews the okay to rebuild Jersualem after they got their shit slapped by the Babylonians, but Cyrus's son Xerxes canceled the reconstruction because officials around Judah didn't want the Jews in their backyard.

Kind of funny to hear the Israelites shower praises on the Persians while the Greeks are laughing about beating their asses

[Anonymous No.1389006]

>People on /lit/ know Latin declensions.
>I also know Latin declensions.
>Don't know anyone in real life who knows this info.
>Wish I could live with /lit/

Thanks guys. You always make my day brighter. I don't think I've heard anyone use the word "genitive" since HS, and even then those fucks had no idea what they were saying.

[Anonymous No.1389013]

>>1388972
so i guess you could say its the /lit/mus test?

[Anonymous No.1389019]

>>1389013

[CheezPoofz !bXOmjBZB9I No.1389031]

Fuck, I really want to learn Latin.

[Anonymous No.1389033]

>>1389031
So do it bitch

[CheezPoofz !bXOmjBZB9I No.1389037]

>>1389033
I am, brb.

[Anonymous No.1389135]

>>1389031
Me too also bump this golden thread

[Anonymous No.1389146]

Anything on Pythagoras? OP?

[Anonymous No.1389154]

Antisthenes was awesome too, according to some sources he was the on who taught Diogenes to be a badass. And he and Plato hated eachother.

[Anonymous No.1389164]

>>1389146
OP here, Pythagoras was a fucking boss and so were all Greek mathematicians. Pythagoras went fucking ballistic when one student told him pi wasn't 22/7 because he believed numbers were perfect and worshipped them like a religion. The students delivered a proof and concluded that pi must be an irrational number, and Pythagoras went fucking insane and he and his class drowned the poor fucker in a lake

Also: FUCK YES LIT I LOVE YOU
This whole thing about you all knowing Latin and shit has made my Christmas. I don't give a fuck how sad that is.

[Anonymous No.1389168]

recommend some books

[Anonymous No.1389170]

>>1389164
That didn't actually happen.

[Anonymous No.1389180]

>>1389168
The animorphs saga, also books for what? Learning Latin? Oxford Latin Course Balme and Morwood.

[Anonymous No.1389183]

The Greeks were pedophiles, and they expected it.

[Anonymous No.1389184]

>>1389180
Learning latin and history books were you can learn these interesting things about people that you guys are talking about.

[Anonymous No.1389194]

>>1389184
Diogenes Laertius's lives of the Eminent Philosophers is a good for this kind of trivia. Herodotus's Histories, and Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War both have great stories of Ancient Greek Badassery. As for the Romans, I don't know as well.

[Anonymous No.1389254]

Any book on the history and philosophy of mathematics to recommend for a /lit/ engineer?

[Anonymous No.1389260]

Don't you fucking die on me
This is the best thread on /lit/

[Anonymous No.1389262]

>>1389254

Struik - A Concise History of Mathematics

[Anonymous No.1389277]

>>1389262
to the bookstore!

bumping for more stories

[Anonymous No.1389290]

I wanted to bump this thread so that it lives again, but being the best thread on 15 pages of /lit/, it lives on.

Don't you let this thread die on me for 12 hours, now, I'm off to bed.

>one boamite
The thread just needs to survive 12 hours! That's one boamite!

[Anonymous No.1389297]

Alexander the great, late in his career, and somewhere off east, maybe in India. Was leading his army in the siege of a walled city. However the siege was taking far too damn long. So Alexander curses at his troops takes one of the siege ladders and stands atop the city wall, then he gets hit by arrows and falls, inside the city. The soldiers outside FREAK THE FUCK OUT, and break down the gates (apparently they just weren't trying hard enough) sack the city, rescue Alexander, who's still not dead, though its thought these injuries contributed to his eventual death some time later. Then they burned the city to the ground and left no one alive.

[Anonymous No.1389303]

>>1389297
Hmm I watched a documentary on Alexander's campaign in India, and he fought them but the Indians weren't giving up so he kind of just left them, and one of the things he might have died of was malaria which ho could've picked up during this campaign.

[Ziggy Stardust !LrtpfUHOC. No.1389304]

Julius Caesar military discourses and songs are way too filthy, even before a great battle with Pompey he prefered to talk about whores, wine and finally how they were going to fuck the dead body of Pompey.

A great man indeed.

[Anonymous No.1389307]

>>1389303
Malaria or any other infection is a hell of a lot harder to survive when you're low on blood and have holes in your body.

[Anonymous No.1389695]

gonna bump this shit right up

[Anonymous No.1389703]

A series of posts on /int/

>>>/int/2722000

[Anonymous No.1390257]

Back to page one.

[Anonymous No.1390347]

In the war between Octavian and Marc Antony for the throne of Rome, their ships used catapults that fired huge balls of tied-together branches, doused with fuel and lit.

Motherfuckers were Hadoukening each other's ships 2,500 years before Street Fighter

[Anonymous No.1390539]

>>1389146
Pythagoras despised beans.

[Anonymous No.1390542]

Catullus was a poet.

This guy wrote some really poofy-sounding poems like Catullus 101, one of the best-known and saddest Roman poems. Indeed, it was from that poem that we use '(Subject) 101' as the term for the basics. He also wrote famously soppy love poems like Catullus 5. But when some other poets were talking whack all up in his face, he went crazy and wrote Catullus 16 and 21, two poems tearing into these guys. He called one of them a Catamite in Catullus 21, a catamite being the little boys they'd sodomize because they were sick pederasts in Rome. In 16, he told them that 'Pedicabo ego vos et irrucabo', something so rude it wasn't translated until the '60s. It means 'I will sodomise and face-fuck you' (LOL)


He beat the crap out of some guys too, and wrote loads of rude poems. Roman poetry was really profane and had loads of pretty rude and decriptive crap going on, as most of you know. I see rap as just Roman poetry with a beat, now that I've done Latin for a while.

Catullus was the Biggie Smalls of Rome.

[Anonymous No.1390590]

>>1390542
>Biggie Smalls of Rome
Haha oh wow
I lol'd so fucking hard

[Anonymous No.1390621]

>>1390542

Catullus XVI

Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo,
Aureli pathice et cinaede Furi,
qui me ex versiculis meis putastis,
quod sunt molliculi, parum pudicum.
Nam castum esse decet pium poetam
ipsum, versiculos nihil necesse est;
qui tum denique habent salem ac leporem,
si sunt molliculi ac parum pudici,
et quod pruriat incitare possunt,
non dico pueris, sed his pilosis
qui duros nequeunt movere lumbos.
Vos, quod milia multa basiorum
legistis, male me marem putatis?
Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo.

I will sodomize you and face-fuck you,
Cocksucker Aurelius and bottom-man Furius,
You who think that I'm a pussy
Because of my delicate verses.
It's right for the devoted poet
To be chaste himself, but it's not
Necessary for his verses to be so.
Verses which then have taste and charm,
If they are delicate and sexy,
And when they can incite an itch,
And I don't mean for boys, but in
Those hairy old men who can't get their dicks up.
You, because you have read of my thousand kisses,
You think I'm a pussy?
I will sodomize you and face-fuck you.

[Anonymous No.1390704]

>>1390621
YO IF YOU BE HAVING POETS DISSIN U I FEEL BAD FOR YA SON I GOT 99 PROBLEMS BUT A CATAMITE AIN'T ONE

[Anonymous No.1390705]

Rome had no zero (0).

[Anonymous No.1390745]

The most explicit recorded incidents of public sex involving humans and animals activity are associated with the murderous sadism, torture and rape of the Roman games and circus, in which it is estimated that several hundreds of thousands died. Masters reports: "Beasts were specially trained to copulate with women: if the girls or women were unwilling then the animal would attempt rape. A surprising range of creatures was used for such purposes - bulls, giraffes, leopards, cheetahs, wild boar, zebras, stallions, jackasses, huge dogs, apes, etc. The beasts were taught how to copulate with a human being [whether male or female] either via the vagina or via the anus." Representations of scenes from the sexual lives of the gods, such as Pasiphaë and the Bull, were highly popular, often causing extreme suffering, injury or death. On occasion, the more ferocious beasts were permitted to kill and (if desired) devour their victims afterwards.[8] Chimpanzees and mandrills, both in fact ferocious and very powerful species of primate: "made drunk by wine and inflamed by the odor of females of their kind, were loosed upon girls whose genitals had been drenched with the urine of female chimps and mandrills." The victims were often virgins and not infrequently young children. One spectacle is said to have included "a hundred tiny blonde girls being raped simultaneously by a horde of baboons."

[Anonymous No.1390748]

>>1390745

[Anonymous No.1390750]

>>1390745
From "The prostitute in society: A definitive report on the prostitute in contemporary society and an analysis of the causes and effects of the suppression of prostitution".

Biased?

[Anonymous No.1390752]

>>1390745

Good lord.

[Anonymous No.1390756]

>>1390745

This thread now needs to be archived.

[Anonymous No.1390765]

>>1390745

[Anonymous No.1390776]

>>1390745

[Anonymous No.1390789]

>>1390745

[Anonymous No.1390795]

HOLY WHAT THE SHIT

Y'all Romans nasty

[Anonymous No.1390802]

>>1390745
>>1390745
I've seen many things in my life but none of it was so epic as a hundred tiny blonde girls being raped simultaneously by a horde of baboons.

[Anonymous No.1390811]

>>1390745
S.P.Q.R.
Sono Pazzi Questi Romani

[Anonymous No.1390813]

Without a doubt the best informationthread I have ever read on the 4chon.

[Anonymous No.1390814]

www.4chanarchive (dot) com
thread 1388734

[Anonymous No.1390816]

>>1390745
I'd pay to see it, maybe if I'm lucky, with the fall of the american empire will come such extreme entertainment. One can only hope

[Anonymous No.1390824]

>>1390816
with this generation in power...

the roman empires smut will be nothing compared to what we are capable of

[Anonymous No.1390833]

>>1390824
lols, why does everybody say "WITH DIS GENERATION THE PROPHECY WILL COME TRUE". I mean, honestly at this point it's hard to separate how much of it is fear of change and honest degeneration

[Anonymous No.1390836]

>>1390833
...I was talking about how disgusting our generation is

not how powerful it is

if it were to come to power it wouldn't surprise me if we had Romanesque events

[Anonymous No.1390838]

>>1390745
>One spectacle is said to have included "a hundred tiny blonde girls being raped simultaneously by a horde of baboons."

Good God, to live in Rome....brb inventing time machine

[Anonymous No.1390843]

>>1390836
well, I'm talking about that as well really. Just commenting on how hard it is to actually decide if society is really getting "worse" or "better". Y'know?

[Anonymous No.1390844]

I'll just leave this here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catullus_16

[Anonymous No.1390849]

>>1390843
seeing as the american citizen is too busy being complacent with being placated i think we are shit out of luck

[Anonymous No.1390852]

>>1390844
>Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo
I will sodomize you and face-fuck you

D:

[Anonymous No.1390865]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catullus_21

This guy is a sick fuck.

http://www.marshall.edu/classical-studies/translations.htm

Mentula tam magna est, tantus tibi, Papyle, nasus

ut possis, quotiens arrigis, olfacere.

(TRANSLATES TO)

O Papylus, your nose and your dong are both so long

that when your dong grows,

your nose knows.
Latin was a language very good at describing various sexual and otherwise rude things with precision and degrees of nuanced strength and meaning. Poets dedicated their entire lives towards rude comedy in verse, like a written George Carlin or something. Typically, they would be written about a person in the poet's life to whom he would give a pseudonym (Such as Catullus' famous Lesbia), or simply a made-up person. Real people, especially politicians, would rarely be written about without pseudonym because of the possibility of offending someone and ending up in a duel or without a head.

[Anonymous No.1390916]

>>1389303

No, he had to come back because his greek soldiers were getting too home sick, they wanted to go back. a lot of people forget that alexander had control of all the armies he conquered, so the problem wasn't the lack men, but the training. He only got far because of his greek soldiers, without them the army is useless.

[Anonymous No.1390926]

>>1390916
He also kept executing them and their families due to perceived insubordination and fear of revenge. Demoralizing.

[CheezPoofz !bXOmjBZB9I No.1391005]

>>1390745
Truly the majesty of the Romans is all but lost on the dilapidated Europe of today.

[Anonymous No.1391035]

This thread is kinda cool because I recieved Caesar's Conquest of Gaul & The Civil War, as well as Plutriach's Lives

[Anonymous No.1391056]

>>1391035
Conquest of Gaul is actually pretty awesome. The roman style of having one chapter practically every page makes the writing extremely readable and episodic. Makes for nice military history

[Anonymous No.1391111]

>>1390865
How is Latin so good at that?

[Anonymous No.1391127]

More Diogenes

Once during a seige, the occupants of the city were fortifying the city walls with all they could find. Diogenes started rolling his barrel around the battlements to look busy or concerned. The city fell, by the way.

Was walking backwards in the agora once, much to the humour of a small crowd that had accumulated around him. One spectator asked him "What do you plan to gain from this, Diogenes?" or some shitty jibe, and Diogenes responded "To show you all that you live your lives arse backwards, and in such a way that cannot be it cannot be fixed as simply as this" or something, and about-turned and walked off.

Once was drinking with his cup at a stream when he saw a child drinking water from his cupped hand, and remarked "I've been beaten in simplicity by a child!" whereby he promptly destroyed his cup.

Was asked once what his nightmare would be, and replied "Where I wake up, wealthy in a gilded palace, and everyone else lives in barrels"

He was asking alms of a bad-tempered man, who said, "Yes, if you can persuade me." "If I could have persuaded you," said Diogenes, "I would have persuaded you to hang yourself."

There was also a dinner party where he pissed on Plato or some shit, and also another time did a shit in front of people after calling for "Men, not scoundrels!" just to get them to piss back off.

I love Diogenes' portrayal in Raphael's School of Athens mural, where he's just reclining on the stairs like "Whatever, fuck you guys"

[Anonymous No.1391137]

The gesture of thumb up had slightly other meaning that most of the people think, it was like 'take yo sword and kill the mf' and the thumb down was like 'leave dat mf alone'

[Anonymous No.1391144]

>Read Satyricon by Petronius
>SUDDENLY, DILDOS, DILDOS EVERYWHERE

lol rome

[Anonymous No.1391154]

>>1391111
Lots of very specific words that describe specific acts, but few actual swearwords, lead to a language that is very creative with its insults. Most of our dirty words have only started to exist recently with the advent of Urban Dictionary. Did we have a special, individual word for face-fuck? Doubt it.

[Anonymous No.1391373]

Resurrecting this thread, I having read all this now want to read some Latin again

What is some Latin that isn't that hard stylistically, something like Caesar's Commentaries? Prose preferrably

[Anonymous No.1391589]

bump 4 lulz and facts :3

[Anonymous No.1391621]

>>1388802
No, not at all. Sexuality wasn't defined in terms of preference or proclivity, in those days, but in terms of duty. Out-and-out homosexuals (Aristophanes rails on one named Philoxenos in one of his comedies) were derided not for having sex with men, but for effeminacy: manliness not only differentiated Greek men from Greek women, but Greek men from non-Greek (i.e, barbarian) men. Shaving, perfuming your hair, or wearing pants was barbarian, therefore unmanly, therefore effeminate.

Having sex with a woman was a matter of (above all else) duty for the ancient Greeks. Same for pederasty, which was more or less enshrined in every city state as a part of raising a boy to become a young man. NOT fucking boys just because you weren't attracted to them, just like NOT fucking your wife, was considered "queer".

[Anonymous No.1391639]

>>1391621
Socrates seems to have loved his wife. Xanthippe was known in Athens for being sharp tongued and quick tempered. Socrates said " As I intended to associate with all kinds of people, I thought nothing they could do would disturb me, once I had accustomed myself to bear the disposition of Xanthippe."

[Anonymous No.1391650]

>>1390865
>>1390852
>>1390844

I wrote my senior thesis on Catullus. I'm pretty sure I'm the only one in my class whose thesis contained the word "fuck" more than 10 times. :)

[Anonymous No.1391671]

Pericles was another fellow who loved his wife. In fact, people were outraged by him when he kissed her in public!

[Anonymous No.1391731]

>>1391621
Spartans being very different from Athenians though?

[Anonymous No.1391854]

>>1391731
Only in the particulars of their sexual practices. Even in Athens, indeed everywhere in the Classical/Hellenistic Greek, uh, Sprachraum, it was accepted that older, nonfamilial men would play an essential role in the upbringing of the youths, and that this role often included a component of sexual interaction. Males were expected to find young men attractive, and consequently acted out this expectation in their everyday lives--much the way that the intense sexualization of the female body has lead to a huge upswing in female bisexuality in recent years.

[Anonymous No.1392246]

>>1391639

>seemed to have loved his wife.

Socrates: By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.

[Anonymous No.1392251]

Pygmalion loved his waifu.

[Anonymous No.1392256]

>>1392251
That's different.

[Anonymous No.1392886]

I just read the wikipedia for Diogenes. I really wish his writings had survived. He seemed like an awesome person. ;_;

[Anonymous No.1392972]

>>1392246
I like to think that he was joking there. It makes me sad that a genuinely cool guy like Socrates would have been unhappily married.
>>1392886
Did he even have writings? I thought his deal was wandering around being a prick.

[King of Zeroes !TFB7IfWrrg No.1392987]

>>1392251

[Anonymous No.1393008]

>>1391621
>Shaving, perfuming your hair, or wearing pants was barbarian, therefore unmanly, therefore effeminate.
That is weird, did the Thracians or Illyrians do that ?

[Anonymous No.1393022]

Thee Spanish word farol, meaning candle, comes from the Latin word faro, meaning lighthouse.
This word originated from the name of the Lighthouse of Alexandria (one of the Seven Wonders of the World), the Pharos.
This word originated from the word pharaoh, since pharaohs were believed to be offspring of the Egyptian god of the Sun Ra, whose light, like a lighthouse, shown brilliantly in the sky guiding the Egyptian people.

[Anonymous No.1393139]

Please allow me to bump this epic thread.

[Anonymous No.1393140]

Not "ancient" per say, but it is history and not too many people know about it, but there were Irish slaves in the Caribbean

[Anonymous No.1393169]

I finally took the time to read this thread. That's some awesome shit. Much appreciated, lit.

[Anonymous No.1393171]

Henry Bolingbroke was not on friendly terms with Richard II, so in 1398, when Henry said something that pissed off Thomas de Mowbray, Richard II played up the disagreement until he decided to call a duel between the two parties. Right before the duel could begin, however, Richard, being the conniving guy he was, called it off to prevent bloodshed. He banished Henry, getting ride of his enemy. He looks like the good guy in all of this though, because while Henry was banished temporarily, Thomas de Mowbray was banished for life. Henry got Richard back in the end though when he overthrew him and had him secretly killed by starvation in the Tower of London.

[Anonymous No.1393182]

>>1388734
another interesting fact:
http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=Brutus%2CCaesar&year_start=1700&year_end=2000&amp
;corpus=0&smoothing=3

[Anonymous No.1393279]

>>1388753
>Merdae means shit in Latin (hence the French word "merde").
the only related word in modern Romanian is "Demerder". It's means "to cuddle" and is used in the context of lovers.

[Anonymous No.1393708]

reviving the only decent thread on /lit/

[Anonymous No.1393722]

>>1393182

http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=Brutus%2CCaesar%2CCaefar&year_start=1700&year_end
=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3

[Anonymous No.1393732]

I love this thread

[Cook No.1393869]

that's so motherfucking awesome, I can't even describe it

[Anonymous No.1393908]

>>1388848

It occurs to me that if so, the word "barbarian" is pretty much the same logic as calling Asians "ching chongs?"

[Anonymous No.1393918]

>>1393008
And this is why our world is full of pussies instead of men.

[Cook No.1393934]

>>1393908
well spotted
Let us be like ancient wisemen: from this time onwards, word "Chinese" ceases to exist; instead, let's call them Chingchongs, and their country - Chinchongland.
yeah

[Anonymous No.1393942]

>>1393908
People in the past weren't so different, you see

[Anonymous No.1393984]

>>1393908
and americans "herp derps"

[Anonymous No.1393991]

>>1393908
But didnt the Greeks consider Macedonians, Illyrians, Thracians etc to be barbarian ? I dont think they encountered any Germanic tribes before those people, so what was the word used to describe them if barbarian really comes from the sound of Germanic languages ?

[Anonymous No.1394940]

>>1393991
People from Ionia/Anatolia etc were barbars

[Anonymous No.1395763]

bump for ching chong

[Anonymous No.1395789]

Fun Fact: In ancient times the major source of protein for the bulk of the populace was from Sacrifices. They were a regular event when the wealthy would offer cattle for sacrifice and everyone partied it up and ate well. The largest known altar was built by Hieron II and dedicated to Zeus in Syracuse, they could sacrifice hundreds of oxen at once.

[Anonymous No.1395816]

>>1394940

No they weren't. Those were greek settlements...

[Anonymous No.1395851]

Ahh...an infothread basically about Diogenes (epic troll!), the man Plato called "Socrates gone mad," and my next favorite Classical dude--Cato the Younger.

[Anonymous No.1395858]

>>1390745
I like roman culture, mostly the military stuff, but shit like that is fucked up. Shit like that makes me want to make a time machine and go back in time with a shitload of weaponry, preferably laserguns because if I an make a time machine I should be able to make energy weapons, and vaporise every single one of these motherfuckers.

[Anonymous No.1395874]

>>1390745
Sheeit... i was born in the wrong millennium.

[Anonymous No.1395878]

>>1395858

How does it feel to be a retarded christfag?

[Anonymous No.1395930]

>>1388774
>>1388774

Fucking agreed. One time Caesar met this tribe call the blackfoots right and so he took control of them and had them kill every last man, women, and child in the tribe as a warning to all the other ones. Then, this other time, he conquered 86 motherfucking tribes and assimilated them into his legion. This guy is ruthless as fuck.

[Anonymous No.1395946]

>>1395878
>Implying only Christians are against bestiality
>mfw

Let me ask you a serious question, does it hurt to be so retarded? I'm not even Christian, i'm an "atheist" although I dislike calling myself that because that would mean I have something in common with fucktards such as yourself. Suggesting that only they are against bestiality, and to such an extreme level, is a true testament to how much of a fucking dumbass you are.

[Anonymous No.1396617]

>>1395946
You are only against bestiality because it is part of the christian ethic that has been the dominant moral standard for 2000 years, your morals are nothing but christian morals along with some "hey I don't believe in jebus because science" interweaved.

Glad I could help you.

[Anonymous No.1396637]

>>1396617
What about China?

[Anonymous No.1396639]

>>1396637
>>1396617
>>1395946
in;b4 trolls trolling trolls trolling atheists and christfags

[Anonymous No.1396641]

When is this guy going to finish the series?
ANd what do you think about his books so far?

[Anonymous No.1396646]

>>1388848
In the Slavic languages, the Germanic things get called nemacki, coming from an old word for mute (so those who can't speak). Contrast this with Slav coming from the word for "word", so those who possessed the language.

[Anonymous No.1396658]

>>1396637
>There recently was bit of kerfuffle over the exhibition of certain group of historical pictures at the Guangzhou Sex Culture Festival: these pictures, unlike many of the other exhibits, featured some inter-species passion. According to an informal survey of twenty exhibition participants, there were those that a) supported showing such pictures b) did not support such pictures and c) those that were just "observing" and didn't really hold any opinion. Most of those that supported showing such items were men.

The thought of buggering a sheep or pony might make you feel uncomfortable, but judging from Sinosplice's post, some Chinese university students are at least okay with talking about it. As the Barenaked Ladies once said, it's all been done—as you can tell from the picture, once the ménage à trois idea migrated to China, the ancient Chinese went crazy with it. The expression of the monkey in the picture is a bit strange. It's like no one ever talked dirty to him before.

http://shanghaiist.com/2007/11/07/shanghaiist_sup.php

I don't know enough about chinese philosophy and religion but if I were to make a guess, I'd say confucianism is at least partly responsible with it's focus on family values and tradition.

>>1396639
Not at all trolling, I'm not saying bestiality is good or bad, I'm just identifying where the moral repulse comes from, it usually isn't rational thought.

[Anonymous No.1396671]

>>1396658
That's interesting, but you'd need to compare that to people looking at other sex exhibits.

I'm personally unconvinced of the morality coming from Christianity (at least 100%). I would think it has more to do with the social structure than anything else.

[Anonymous No.1396677]

Bump because BAR BAR BAR

[Anonymous No.1396700]

>>1396677
D:

[Anonymous No.1396737]

>>1396658
Regardless, lets not continue this discussion of bestiality unless it has something to do with the op.

[Anonymous No.1396746]

>>1396737
(^Д^)

[Anonymous No.1396752]

Hokusai was considered the greatest artist of the edo period in japan because of his series "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji" (picture attached for familiarity). One of his lesser known pieces however, was titled "The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife" depicting a woman being stimulated by an octopus. This 17th century artist unwittingly invented the erotic genre of "tentacle rape".

[Anonymous No.1396758]

>>1396752
>he isn't kidding

[Anonymous No.1396761]

>>1396752
For western paintings, Leda and the Swan.

[Anonymous No.1396838]

>>1390745
You will never get to see anything as surreal as a hundred little blond girls getting raped by baboons ;_;

sadfrog.jpg

[Anonymous No.1396983]

You guys have read The Golden Ass, right? Guy gets turned into a donkey, then he's afraid to get it on because his dick is too big, but the girl forces him into her, and she takes it all.

[Anonymous No.1397009]

>>1396752
It was actually rather respectable to have erotic images in ancient Japan. To the point were scholars hesitate to call them "pornographic."

[Anonymous No.1397091]

Thanks /lit/. For a really interesting and amusing read. Not only on the history and people but the responses to them.

Happy holidays to all you bastards.

[Anonymous No.1397104]

Bump for interest

[Anonymous No.1397181]

>>1388753

>Socrates was gay. As well as Alcibiades, along with all the male characters of Homer's Illiad.

No, they had sex with men. There's a difference. The ancient Greeks and Romans didn't have a distinction between homosexual and heterosexual people. There were homosexual and heterosexual ACTS, but people weren't seen as being one or the other.

It's an important distinction. We didn't really start talking about "gay people" as such until the 19th century and I think it's a social construct.

[Anonymous No.1397757]

Ba-BUMP

[Anonymous No.1397774]

>>1397181
They almost never had "sex" with men, unless you count non-penetrative sex as "sex"