Cripple. History Major. Irritable and in constant pain. Vaguely Left-Wing.
While the Romans were not averse to inventing new gods, more often they just really stretched the interpretation of foreign gods to fit - like interpreting the Germanic Wodan (Odin), the one-eyed god of wisdom and war, as their equivalent of Mercury, the god of trade and travel (they’re both wandering gods, it MUST be so!).
Other times, they’d just adopt the new god wholesale and assign it a suitably Roman name, like Magna Mater for Cybele, an Anatolian goddess.
According to some contemporary stories, yes!
But more likely, and acknowledged as more likely by even strongly anti-Nero sources, is that he actually genuinely gave something of a damn about the disaster, and released funds to help rebuild the city, as well as endorsing new building codes to make another fire of that magnitude less likely in the future.
Nero was a dumbass rich kid who murdered people on a whim, but seeing one’s own city burn down and thousands dying with it is a hell of a thing even for an arrogant autocrat to endure.
The meme version is surprisingly subtle in its design, I was wondering what made it a meme until I really looked at it. XD
Another fascinating facet is that the Romans took a certain aspect of Greek theology and ran with it full speed. Under the Interpretatio Graeca, all gods were actually the same gods - more or less. The Greek god of war was the German god of war - just worshipped under different names, seen in different clothes, with some different stories passed down. They were still, ultimately, the same god; and thus, all the world shared in a common faith.
The Interpretatio Romana is the exact same thing, just as applied to Roman religion instead of Greek religion. As the Romans came into contact with Greek culture, and shamelessly stole the bits they liked, they applied this theology to the world they conquered. Everyone’s gods are everyone’s gods.
While occasionally the Romans would import a foreign cult, even then they often equated that foreign cult with an established god in addition (something which later Graeco-Roman Platonism would use to espouse the view that all gods are emanations of the same, singular divinity). You get a lot of Roman religious epithets from this - the Romans liked addressing their gods with specific relevant titles or sub-names, like Mars Silvanus, Mars of the Woods, or Mars Ultor, Mars the Avenger, when calling upon gods. This becomes relevant in Interpretatio - Romans and provincials would worship the same god under the same name, by using these dual-names - such as Mars Lenus - ‘Mars who is also Lenus (a Celtic god of war)’.
Goes a long way towards defusing concerns that the foreign conquerors are godless heathens - or that the conquered provincials are dirty superstitious savages. Whatever the mutual recriminations leveled between each other, they could at least be assured that the outsiders weren’t risking the wrath of the gods with their strange, foreign ways - after all, they’re paying respect to our gods!
Explanation: While Nero did persecute Christians at this time, he is only noted as having done so in the city of Rome itself, and on (almost certainly false) charges of arson rather than for their beliefs, specifically. Christianity is not recorded as having been banned or outlawed at that time. Christianity would not specifically be outlawed until ~300 AD, and then only for a few years.
Other Roman Emperors sometimes persecuted Christians intermittently, but generally on matters of practice rather than belief (the constant sticking point being swearing loyalty oaths to the Res Publica by Roman gods, or, related, making sacrifices to the gods on behalf of the Emperor), and ad hoc rather than systemically outlawing the sect.
“The enemy general just stole our god.”
“What!? Bullshit! He can’t do that! You can’t just steal a god!”
Can’t have shit in Italia. 😔
‘Luca Bos’, they called them, when they first encountered them ~50 years before Hannibal crossed the Alps. ‘Lucanian Cows’ - because they first saw them in the region of Lucania, and had no other frame of reference for such beasts.
Flamingo tongue, anyone?
I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions. Let them take possession of your beautiful island, with your many beautiful buildings. You will give all these but neither your souls, nor your minds. If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourself man, woman and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them.
If one Jew or all the Jews were to accept the prescription here offered, he or they cannot be worse off than now. And suffering voluntarily undergone will bring them an inner strength and joy which no number of resolutions of sympathy passed in the world outside Germany can. Indeed, even if Britain, France and America were to declare hostilities against Germany, they can bring no inner joy, no inner strength. The calculated violence of Hitler may even result in a general massacre of the Jews by way of his first answer to the declaration of such hostilities. But if the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I have imagined could be turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy that Jehovah had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of the tyrant. For to the godfearing, death has no terror. It is a joyful sleep to be followed by a waking that would be all the more refreshing for the long sleep.
Religious fanatics rarely deserve the adulation their beliefs receive.
That’s been the internet since at least the mid-2000s.
Feet were cold.
Now feet are toasted
We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy.
Possibly? I’m no expert in the history of theatres, but it seems intuitive that the Anglo-Saxons would’ve seen old Graeco-Roman theatre ruins in Britain and used that as a template.
On the other hand, it’s a pretty simple design - may just be convergent evolution, or whatever the architectural equivalent is.
I HAVE A DUTY FOR YOU. AN UNDERTAKING OF VITAL IMPORTANCE. WITH ONE OF MY MOST TREASURED ARTIFACTS IN YOUR CARE. YOU WILL PLEASE ME WITH THE OUTCOME, OR I WILL FEAST UPON YOUR SOUL LIKE CROWS UPON A CARCASS.
“A-anything for you, o mighty Forest Lord!”
[drops a smartphone into the terrified cultist’s hands] CHARGE THIS. AND WIPE THE SCREEN DOWN WHILE YOU’RE AT IT.
Got it in one - it’s a theatre!
I fear death much less than I fear age.
I want eternal youth, not immortality.
Hercules: “You think I WANT to be here? Just gimme your pelt, man.”
Lion: [AGGRAVATED LION NOISES]
The myth is around him playing the lyre, but the modern English saying is “Fiddling while Rome burns”.