CYCLES OF VIOLENCE AND REVENGE

or: a scene where sulla and crasso measure each other up and decide to use each other

republikang romano remixed returns!

ALRIGHT SO the historical parallel for scene is crassus siding with & supporting sulla during sulla's civil war. the very brief summary of events are that crassus' family were victims to political violence (cinna, marius) while crassus survived on account of his age and went on to give everyone a very bad day.

but this is also fiction, it's set in the philippines, I get to throw in some teleserye drama if I want to.

originally, the line about crasso's age was supposed to be, 'you WERE so young,' but I fucked up the tense and wrote 'you ARE so young,' by accident. which is. not wrong, crasso is in his early-mid 20s here. he IS young, and it adds in some fun subtext because sulla's going to fuck crasso over later and turn his attentions to pompeyo, who is younger than crasso. subtext, baby!

speaking of the philippines tho, the thing about the tapping and the chicks is that if someone is murdered, you put chicks on the casket because the tapping of the pecking is supposed to eat away at the guilty party's conscience. it's also eating away at crasso because he's haunted (read: traumatized) by being forced to watch his family get murdered. the chicks are just vibing.

Plutarch, Life of Crassus

to me, this is Pompey @ Crassus

i am writing y evil masters of rome sulla/metellus pius story btw. its really fun

this book is um. not very well written. i hope marcus livius drusus has a narratively satisfying character arc and then dies

Suddenly, another noise was heard. A strange noise, that came from above. Saturninus looked at the dark ceiling of the Curia [Senate house]. More noises. Like footsteps. It was as if they were walking on the roof.

I've just started Roma soy yo: La verdadera historia de Julio César by Santiago Posteguillo! Thank you to @publiusscipiospqr for suggesting it!

The story seems to take place in two time periods, alternating between Julius Caesar's early adulthood, and flashbacks to the time of Marius and Sulla. I've just gotten to the point where Bad Things happen to Saturninus, and I really like Posteguillo's characterization of him, Sulla, Aurelia and Dolabella Senior so far. I also enjoy how the past and future sequences play off each other and heighten the story's tension.

It'll be interesting to see where the characterizations go from here. Posteguillo has clearly chosen to simplify Roman politics a bit, and to firmly distinguish the "good guys" and "bad guys." (He has the most sympathetic Marius and meanest Metellus Pius I've ever seen.) But I can understand why he'd make that choice as a storyteller, and for what it is, it's still entertaining. Good suspense and dramatic tension, as you can see above. I also suspect the story will get more morally gray as events proceed.

Character Introduction: Sulla Pinsky (she/her), from O Human Star

" 'hey, Al, you've been dead for 16 years, but we got you back. Our first attempt just got your personality but no memories, so we gave 'you' the supportive, nurturing childhood the original-you never had and she came out as transgender when she was like 11. Her name is Sulla, she's 15 now, want to help raise her?'

"Sulla is a good kid. She is an absolutely wonderful undersocialized-but-mostly-happy, geeky, independent teen girl. She has to wrestle with the turmoil involved with choosing between stealth vs visibility, and the emotional ramifications of meeting the man she was supposed to grow up to be. She's good with robots and has trouble making friends. I read this comic this morning and she's already like a little sister to me. I want to help braid her hair and listen to her talk about the books she's reading. I love her and you should too."

Trans webcomic character tournament master post.

If this comic should come with any significant content warnings, please let me know.

twitter's dead so im gonna start posting art here again. here's a recent bust of one of my own characters, sulla carnifex! he's an intergalactic warlord <3

if crasso had slightly less ethics, he'd take cesar shopping and then fuck cesar in the clothes that he bought him.

however, I still have the queen of bithnyia arc I can make material out of

It would be interesting for the incumbent Inspector to pay Senior Researcher Sulla a visit,

if only to allow FE-Line to visit her creator one last time.

TRIKARANOS: THE PROLOGUE

TRIKARANOS is a dramatized narrative based on ancient events following Crassus (and Pompey and Caesar) through the years 87-48 BCE. Intended for an adult audience.

⭐ Trikaranos will always be free to read (in the near future, you’ll have the option to support this comic & my ability to make it through Patreon!)

⭐ There is no set update schedule (chapters vary in length and will be posted as I finish working on them)

⭐ alternative places to read it (coming soon!)

CREDITS all additional art used are in the Public Domain [as per the Met's Open Access policy]

🍊 The Abduction of the Sabine Women, Nicolas Poussin 🍊 Obverse, a Terracotta neck-amphora depicting Aeneas rescuing his father, Anchises, during the fall of Troy. [description taken from the Met] 🍊 compositional study for The Lictors Bringing Brutus the Bodies of his Sons, Jacques Louis David 🍊The Battle of Vercellae, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo 🍊 The Capture of Carthage, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

UNDER THE CUT creator's commentary, ancient citations, whatever else seems relevant. ideally, this is optional! you shouldn't need the citations for it to make sense as it unfolds since it's a comic and a story first and foremost, but it's here if you're curious and want to see where the inspiration is coming from!

so! there are a couple of accounts about the return of Marius and Cinna, I've chosen Appian's account for the primary source of inspiration, although I've cut the cast down to it's barest essentials because I want the claustrophobia of violence to really eat itself.

Cinna now began to despise his enemies and drew near to the wall, halting out of range, and encamped. Octavius and his party were undecided and fearful, and hesitated to attack him on account of the desertions and the negotiations. The Senate was greatly perplexed and considered it a dreadful thing to depose Lucius Merula, the priest of Jupiter, who had been chosen consul in place of Cinna, and who had done nothing wrong in his office. Yet on account of the impending danger it reluctantly sent envoys to Cinna again, and this time as consul. They no longer expected favourable terms, so they only asked that Cinna should swear to them that he would abstain from bloodshed. He refused to take the oath, but he promised nevertheless that he would not willingly be the cause of anybody's death. He directed, however, that Octavius, who had gone round and entered the city by another gate, should keep away from the forum lest anything should befall him against his own will. This answer he delivered to the envoys from a high platform in his character as consul. Marius stood in silence beside the curule chair, but showed by the asperity of his countenance the slaughter he contemplated. When the Senate had accepted these terms and had invited Cinna and Marius to enter (for it was understood that, while it was Cinna's name which appeared, the moving spirit was Marius), the latter said with a scornful smile that it was not lawful for men banished to enter. Forthwith the tribunes voted to repeal the decree of banishment against him and all the others who were expelled under the consul­ship of Sulla.

Accordingly Cinna and Marius entered the city and everybody received them with fear. Straightway they began to plunder without hindrance all the goods of those who were supposed to be of the opposite party. Cinna and Marius had sworn to Octavius, and the augurs and soothsayers had predicted, that he would suffer no harm, yet his friends advised him to fly. He replied that he would never desert the city while he was consul. So he withdrew from the forum to the Janiculum with the nobility and what was left of his army, where he occupied the curule chair and wore the robes of office, attended as consul by lictors. Here he was attacked by Censorinus with a body of horse, and again his friends and the soldiers who stood by him urged him to fly and brought him his horse, but he disdained even to arise, and awaited death. Censorinus cut off his head and carried it to Cinna, and it was suspended in the forum in front of the rostra, the first head of a consul that was so exposed. After him the heads of others who were slain were suspended there; and this shocking custom, which began with Octavius, was not discontinued, but was handed down to subsequent massacres.

Appian, Civil Wars I, 70-71 (trans. Horace White)

Plutarch's biography of Marius also recounts the same event, but I was leaning more on Appian for this.

ALSO! the choice to use Giovanni Battista Tiepolo's painting The Capture of Carthage as a backdrop to Octavius: it's because Cinna and Octavius were co consuls for a minute and Rome and Carthage are twin cities (instar Carthaginis urbem babyyy), and I do love the doubling/twin-ification of a thing. which is what co consuls are to me. we're overlapping the themes, in addition to the overlapping of violence, which is what all iterations of Rome are founded on.

Textual Monuments: Reconstructing Carthage in Augustan Literary Culture, Nora Goldschmidt

the chapter cover is my own illustration of an Etruscan kantharos because Crassus may or may not have had some kind of Etruscan heritage. YMMV but for me it's fun to think about

Marcus Crassus and the Late Roman Republic, Allen Mason Ward (& the citation!)

revisiting/redrawing of this comic!

now that I'm halfway through blocking out the individual chapters of bad governance, there are: character arcs! themes! conversation that fit in the greater context of a story instead of a handful of loose ideas that rattle around in my head!

the original conversation got chopped up and split across several different scenes (sulla felix is the one who calls pompeyo a wild dog that dreams of being a king now!), so now I'm playing around with this specific one: the start of cassio's politician arc

I'm also kicking around the idea of renaming brutus to liberato. we'll see if it sticks!

I've also been fucking around with photo/collage type backgrounds on my other blog (I like the aesthetic, but I probably won't do it as much for the actual comic itself), the difference is for bad governance, I can just use my own lmao

bsky ⭐ pixiv ⭐ pillowfort ⭐ cohost

honestly i have to thank colleen mccullough for making me think about gaius marius instead of this girl i was insane level hung up on (btw i did not even actually date her) last year

cum duce sullano gerimus civilia bella (we wage war with a sullan general) SO true julius caesar my eternal foe julius caesar

Herculaneum Scrolls Reveal Plato's Burial Place

Researchers used AI to decipher an ancient papyrus that includes details about where Greek philosopher is buried.

The decipherment of an ancient scroll has revealed where the Greek philosopher Plato is buried, Italian researchers suggest.

Graziano Ranocchia, a philosopher at the University of Pisa, and colleagues used artificial intelligence (AI) to decipher text preserved on charred pieces of papyrus recovered in Herculaneum, an ancient Roman town located near Pompeii, according to a translated statement from Italy's National Research Council.

Like Pompeii, Herculaneum was destroyed in A.D. 79 when Mount Vesuvius erupted, cloaking the region in ash and pyroclastic flows.

One of the scrolls carbonized by the eruption includes the writings of Philodemus of Gadara (lived circa 110 to 30 B.C.), an Epicurean philosopher who studied in Athens and later lived in Italy. This text, known as the "History of the Academy," details the academy that Plato founded in the fourth century B.C. and gives details about Plato's life, including his burial place.

Historians already knew that Plato, the famous student of Socrates who wrote down his teacher's philosophies as well as his own, was buried at the Academy, which the Roman general Sulla destroyed in 86 B.C. But researchers weren't sure exactly where on the school's grounds that Plato, who died in Athens in 348 or 347 B.C., had been laid to rest.

However, with advances in technology, researchers were able to employ a variety of cutting-edge techniques including infrared and ultraviolet optical imaging, thermal imaging and tomography to read the ancient papyrus, which is now part of the collection at the National Library of Naples.

So far, researchers have identified 1,000 words, or roughly 30% of the text written by Philodemus.

"Among the most important news, we read that Plato was buried in the garden reserved for him (a private area intended for the Platonic school) of the Academy in Athens, near the so-called Museion or sacellum sacred to the Muses," researchers wrote in the statement. "Until now it was only known that he was buried generically in the Academy."

The text also detailed how Plato was "sold into slavery" sometime between 404 and 399 B.C. (It was previously thought that this occurred in 387 B.C.)

Another part of the translated text describes a dialogue between characters, in which Plato shows disdain for the musical and rhythmic abilities of a barbarian musician from Thrace, according to the statement.

This isn't the first time that researchers have used AI to read ancient scrolls that survived Mount Vesuvius's eruption. Earlier this year, researchers deciphered a different scroll that was charred during the volcanic eruption at a nearby villa that once belonged to Julius Caesar's father-in-law.

By Jennifer Nalewicki.

ARMORED CORE SIX: WHO IS THE MOST BANGABLE NPC?

Hello, independent mercenaries. You are likely familiar with the arena ranking system. This will be a similar exercise.

Every mercenary in our database will be able to receive votes. Please vote on which mercenary is the hottest, most fuckable, and/or attractive pilot. Please share this survey so we can sample as many mercenaries as possible. ALLMIND looks forward to seeing your input. For more information:

There will be a list of all the named characters, each numbered. We will pick two numbers at random, at which point, you may vote on which you would most want in your bed. Here is the current list of candidates: 1. C-Pulse Wave Mutation Ayre 2. Handler Walter 3. "Cinder" Carla 4. "Chatty" Stick 5. "Invincible" Rummy 6. Nosaac 7. "Honest" Brute 8. "Father" Thumb Dolmayan 9. Index Dunham 10. "Uncle" Middle Flatwell 11. Ring Freddie 12. Rokumonsen 13. Gun One Michigan 14. Gun Two Nile 15. Gun Three Wu Hua Hai 16. Gun Four Volta 17. Gun Five "Mistake" Iguazu 18. Gun Six Red 19. V.I Freud 20. V.II Snail 21. V.III O'Keeffe 22. V.IV Rusty 23. V.V Hawkins 24. V.VI Maeterlink 25. V.VII Swinburne 26. V.VIII Pater 27. Augmented Human C4-621 "Raven" 28. Raven (Branch) 29. Raven's Operator 30. Chartreuse 31. King 32. Augmented Human C1-249 "Sulla" 33. Planetary Closure Administration Enforcement System 34. Kate Markson 35. Coldcall

We assure you that though you have not heard of the independent mercenary Kate Markson, she is very capable and quite attractive.

Please submit any individuals we may have missed.

The tournament will begin shortly.

Why do authors (fiction especially dah) hate Lucullus so much? I mean he's a cool guy and deserves better

Alas, most authors have never heard of him.

He's retired by the time Julius Caesar's career gets big, and is pretty easy to ignore unless you're writing about the rise of Sulla, Pompey or Mithridates VI.

Authors who like Caesar or Marius may vilify Lucullus for being an ally of Sulla, while those who like Pompey may vilify Lucullus for being one of his rivals.

My favorite portrayal of him is in Santiago Posteguillo's Roma soy yo (I am Rome), which is also available in English. The overall book is very pro-Caesar and Marius, and anti-Sullan, but Lucullus is a fun, menacing and pragmatic character in one of the later chapters.

A warmer, more sympathetic Lucullus appears in the short story "The Cherries of Lucullus," in A Gladiator Only Dies Once by Steven Saylor. I liked this portrayal too, but the ending is rather tragic.