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A certain man came out of a brothel while Cato [the Censor] was going by. When the man started to run away, Cato called him back and praised him [because he was releasing his libido with prostitutes rather than with virgins or married women]. Later, when he had seen him coming quite often out of the same brothel, he said, as the story goes: ‘Young man, I praised you on the assumption that you visited here, not that you lived here.’
– Pseudo-Acron on Horace Sat. 1.2.31-32 (via eush, kbkarma) -
Ritual killing by sardonic grin: a new discovery
By the eighth century B.C., Homer had coined the term “sardonic grin”—”sardonic” having its roots in “Sardinia”—in writings referring to the island’s ritual killings via grimace-inducing potion.
I’m ashamed to admit that I never knew the origins of the term till now
Me too… but I believe the awesomeness of the origin overrides our shame.
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Beware the Ides of March
Caesar: Who is it in the press that calls on me? I hear a tongue shriller than all the music Cry "Caesar!" Speak, Caesar is turn'd to hear.
Soothsayer: Beware the ides of March.
Caesar: What man is that?
Brutus: A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March.
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pica: Beware of Greeks (or DHL Delivery People) Bearing Gifts
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Pic from my visit to Pompeii a few years ago.
There’s not a whole heck of a lot there, most of the artifacts have been moved to Archaeological Museum of Naples.Don’t say ‘not a whole heck of a lot there’ with an archaeologist following you! Sacrilege!
Pompeii itself is an artefact, every street tells a story, every building has generations of life passing through its doors. Pompeii is amazing because you walk through those streets that people were walking through up right up to the 79 AD eruption. It’s so wonderfully preserved I really do think you get a sense of life in a Roman town (although in actuality, Herculaneum is probably better for that, since the buildings survive to a greater height and much more wood survives carbonised there). I just can’t even get my thoughts straight to put into words… visiting Pompeii was almost a religious experience for me.
Reminds me, my mother bought Mary Beard’s new Pompeii book. I am stealing it from her, oh yes.
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Rubicon
(Rubicō, Italian: Rubicone) is a 29 km long river in northern Italy. The river flows from the Apennine Mountains to the Adriatic Sea through the southern Emilia-Romagna region between the towns of Rimini and Cesena.
“Crossing the Rubicon” is a popular idiom meaning to pass a point of no return. This phrase is often used by journalists in newspapers[1][2][3][4]. It refers to Caesar’s 49 BC crossing of the river, which was considered an act of war.
