Home
Creators
Search Recent Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register Favorites Keys Review DMs Logout
Community
Telegram ThePornDude
Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

Rome Episode 4 (Patreon)

Published:
2022-11-06 00:37:49
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:
haven't archived this post yet. have a subscription? use the importer!

Videos

Content

If you have a bad memory, NOTHING kicks your ass like a bi-weekly upload schedule. Almost got me this time. LOL

Files

Previews only

Rome4Pat.mov

This is "Rome4Pat.mov" by Dexter Goad on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

Comments

paul cook

One of the things that surprised me the most when i started reading roman sources, is how much they seem to have actually believed in omens and portents. They seemingly treated it like we treat science, even otherwise very rational people (who mocked stuff like astrology) believed entail reading. Though there was a lot of variation in how seriously they took it, the same as with how seriously we take religion; Julius Ceaser seems to have been rather irreligious and non-superstitious for example (I'm glad the augur in this episode calls Julius out on this in the episode!). The sources are wary of entrail reading 'scammers' who lie about what the entrails mean, but they did seem to think the entrails actually meant something (it's like we don't deny medicine when we deny quacks pretending to be doctors). It's also hard to tell how much those at the top cared about entail reading, and how much it was just used to manipulate the masses who did care; there was at least one general who repeated sacrifices in battle until he got the result he wanted then showed that off to his troops to show 'the gods are with us on this' and motivate them (though i doubt he bought into it himself if he kept repeating the sacrifice!). There are various stories where the person telling it MUST have been lying (of walking talking statues, trees that rise up in a single night, Titan-sized people descending from heaven to lead the troops) unless the old gods are actually real, so they can't have taken it that seriously themselves, but did the people? It seems like north korea or ww2 era japan - the leaders who say they don't pee or poo know this is untrue, but do the masses? Tacitus even describes an occasion when a general knew(from astronomy) that an eclipse was going to happen and staged a speech to coincide with it, to manipulate his superstitious troops, which implies the men really did believe it but the general probably didn't. One of the funnier things is the spin doctoring the romans did with omens, things that could clearly be bad omens will be twisted into good omens by people who want to twist them (or vice versa).

paul cook

The Romans seem to have been sexist with infidelity. If a guy cheated on his wife that seems to have been expected, but if a woman cheated she'd get punished. As most marriages were arranged, it was not expected you would love your wife, that you would get those feelings of love from a mistress. Sometimes the sources even use a guy not taking mistresses, as evidence he was probably a homosexual!