Trump echo

after Rome failed

trident and weighted net

 Same status as prostitutes and pimps.

music in Ancient Rome

 

apex of world history

Age of Antonines [reigned AD 138–161]: limited historical writings remain, but in this humble anti-tyrannical reign there were few and short lived wars, rare civil strife, prosperity globally and happiness across all ranks. But 180 AD marked the beginning of Rome's end.

Roman Emperor

“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”
- Marcus Aurelius [121-180]

Philosophers

"Look at the bad stuff and see if it can be survived."
- Stoicism: the endurance of pain or hardship without the display of feelings and without complaint.

the only thing that doesn't change is that there will be change

"All things change, nothing is extinguished. There is nothing in the whole world which is permanent. Everything flows onward; all things are brought into being with a changing nature; the ages themselves glide by in constant movement."
- Ovid [43 BCE – 17/18 AD]

novus homo

“The renown which riches or beauty confer is fleeting and frail. Mental excellence is a splendid and lasting possession.”
– Sallust [86-35 BCE]

in the moment

“True happiness is… to enjoy the present without anxious dependence on the future.”
- Seneca [c. 4 BCE – AD 65]

polytheistic axiom

"Rome can only succeed with the gods on its side."

on history

"To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child."
- Cicero [106 BC – 7 December 43 BCE]

stoic

"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."

- Marcus Aurelius [112 AD - 180 AD]

stoic

“Put an end once and for all to this discussion of what a good person should be, and be one.”
– Marcus Aurelius

poet and philosopher

"Pleasant it is, when over a great sea the winds trouble the waters, to gaze from shore upon another's great tribulation: not because any man's troubles are a delectable joy, but because to perceive you are free of them yourself is pleasant."
- Titus Lucretius Carus

a night out with Caligula

"Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we shall die."
- Roman Axiom

true and false

Ronald Spiers:

You wanna know if they're true or not. The stories about me? Did you ever notice with stories like that, everyone says they heard it from someone who was there. Then when you ask that person, they say they heard it from someone who was there. It's nothing new really. I bet if you went back two thousand years, you'd hear a couple centurions standing around yakking about how Tercius lopped off the heads of some Carthaginian prisoners.

Carwood Lipton:

Well, maybe they kept talking about it because they never heard Tercius deny it.

Ronald Spiers:

Maybe that's because Tercius knew there was some value to the men thinking he was the meanest, toughest sonofabitch in the whole Roman Legion.

I am ...

"No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy."
- Roman General Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix (c. 138 BC – 78 BC)

the people's language

The premise of Martin Luther's Reformation.

sick cure

"Romans licked the wounds and ate the livers of dead gladiators for perceived health benefits."
- Michael Mosley