Ancient Roman Politicians on a Modern Date

Gaius Julius Caesar: He invites you to a dinner party at his house and is a fairly witty and engaging host, but all of his stories seem to be about himself. However, friends assure you he's "every woman's man and every man's woman," so stick around for the nightcap he offers you if that makes you curious.

Marcus Licinius Crassus: For a man who is absolutely the wealthiest you've ever met, it seems a little convenient that he 'forgot his wallet' on your date to that expensive gastropub, so you couldn't go halfsies and had to pay for both your meals. The gold flake dessert shines bright, but you sort of wish he'd choke on it.

Gnaeus Pompeius Maximus: It's kind of weird how he takes you around to show you his art collection since it mainly consists of statues of himself, but hey, at least he's interested in art? He also tells a lot of stories about himself. However, he has a reputation for being a devoted husband and he's in between spouses, so if you're ready for that, give him a chance.

Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus aka Augustus: He literally wrote out a plan for your entire date, how it would go, and what he would say to the most commonly asked smalltalk questions. Do not deviate from his script. He takes you somewhere like a museum or a fancy restaurant where they barely feed you, but although he is polished, his romantic delivery seems a little flat until you run into his best friend Agrippa... They are just besties, right?

Marcus Antonius aka Mark Antony: Ok, there are a couple ways this could go. He is either an absolutely fantastic date who takes you to see a hilarious play and finishes off with a fun night on the town, or he takes you to a bar in a seedy part of town where you dance and drink and party all night. Either way he gives you nice gifts and is charming and funny. On a later date he may take you on the most expensive, romantic, fancy date ever. Most likely a good time date, just don't expect things to get serious unless you're the Queen of Egypt.

Marcus Aemilius Lepidus: He never showed up for your date. Completely ghosted you. You track down his coworkers Mark Antony and Octavian and they say they have no idea where he is either. Weird.

Marcus Agrippa: He takes you on a tour of the city, pointing out all the architecture and finishes this off with dinner. He seems nice, intelligent, and is very attentive to your needs. So why isn't he off the market yet? His attachment to his slightly creepy best friend and roommate Octavian, maybe? They were roommates.

Sextus Pompeius Magnus Pius: A much better date than his father, he takes you to his private boat and gives you a seaside tour. He valiantly fights off pirates during your date, but did you catch one of them winking at him? Regardless, it's an unforgettable adventure.

Who would you rather date? And again, I'm sorry, Lepidus.

As always, thanks to @just-late-roman-republic-things for inspiring these posts.

I will be posting about Roman history all day because it is the Ides of March and this is my right.

Caeser was interestingly not the worst of the first triumvirate, a girl band he was in with Pompey and Crassus. That honor, in my opinion, goes to Crassus.

Crassus is most well known for making one of the first Roman fire brigades. When there was an alarm of a house fire the brigade would rush to the scene. However, instead of putting out your fire, Crassus would try to buy your property, only putting the fire out when you sold it to him. And he would keep lowering the price as it burned.

those toxic gay threesomes will be the ruin of the republic

Pompey the Great assassinated, September 28th, 48 BC

Upon landing in Egypt, Roman general and politician Pompey is murdered on the orders of King Ptolemy of Egypt.

During his long career, Pompey the Great displayed exceptional military talents on the battlefield. He fought in Africa and Spain, quelled the slave revolt of Spartacus, cleared the Mediterranean of pirates, and conquered Armenia, Syria and Palestine. Appointed to organize the newly won Roman territories in the East, he proved a brilliant administrator.

In 60 B.C., he joined with his rivals Julius Caesar and Marcus Licinius Crassus to form the First Triumvirate, and together the trio ruled Rome for seven years. Caesar’s successes aroused Pompey’s jealousy, however, leading to the collapse of the political alliance in 53 B.C. The Roman Senate supported Pompey and asked Caesar to give up his army, which he refused to do. In January 49 B.C., Caesar led his legions across the Rubicon River from Cisalpine Gaul to Italy, thus declaring war against Pompey and his forces.

Caesar made early gains in the subsequent civil war, defeating Pompey’s army in Italy and Spain, but he was later forced into retreat in Greece. In August 48 B.C., with Pompey in pursuit, Caesar paused near Pharsalus, setting up camp at a strategic location. When Pompey’s senatorial forces fell upon Caesar’s smaller army, they were entirely routed, and Pompey fled to Egypt.

Pompey hoped that King Ptolemy, his former client, would assist him, but the Egyptian king feared offending the victorious Caesar. On September 28, Pompey was invited to leave his ships and come ashore at Pelusium. As he prepared to step onto Egyptian soil, he was treacherously struck down and killed by an officer of Ptolemy.

28 September 48 BC: Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, in English known generally as Pompey, was killed in Egypt.

Here is the modern reconstruction of what he could have possibly looked like based on one of his portraits.

Three random guys.

I'm back with another late roman republic smut fic :D I was sorely disappointed by the lack of Crassus/Caesar/Pompey fics so decided to do my part to remedy that.

Worst threesome in history!!!!!

WHOever thought of how to dress the Playmates™ Jim Kirk: plaid shirt action figure™...

I HOPE YOU GOT A RAISE *CHEF KISS* WASN'T EXPECTING THIS.

THIS. WAS. WORTH. EVERY. SINGLE. PESO.

happy belated new years!! again!!! 🎊🎉

there are a lot of daddy issues to go around on DS9 in general, but odo, bashir and garak are really in their own special little fucked up 'what am I but wrought in my father's image' club

Hi jlrrt! I was just wondering whether there was a book you'd particularly recommend to dig a little deeper into the Pompey-Caesar relationship and falling out? (or even to a larger extent the first triumvirate) Thanks in advance!

Sure thing! The best treatments I've seen on this subject are:

Julius Caesar and the Roman People, Robert Morstein-Marx, 2021; especially chapters 3-7.

The Last Generation of the Roman Republic, Erich Gruen, 1974; particularly chapters 3, "The First Triumvirate," and 11, "The Coming of Civil War."

Or, if you want something short, pick up A Companion to Julius Caesar (anthology, ed. Miriam Griffin), and check out chapters 3, "Caesar as a Politician," and 4, "The Proconsular Years: Politics at a Distance."

JCRP might as well be called "Everything You Know About Caesar Is Wrong." It debunks dozens of myths that sprung up about Caesar, and is an excellent dive into historiography, narrative bias, and the role of the Roman people in government. It's a bit academic, but well worth the effort in my opinion.

LGRR is denser than lead; skip to the topics you're interested in instead of reading it cover-to-cover. It's semi-chronological, and discusses the First Triumvirate throughout the text, but adds helpful summaries at the end of each chapter. I actually prefer Gruen's explanation for the Caesar-Pompey war over Morstein-Marx's.

I'm afraid I don't know as much about Pompey individually. He's on my "read more about" list.

What about mcspirk in their dress uniforms <3

hell yeah<33333 tysm for the req!! terrific taste 10/10 would draw again (in fact i DID lol

(part 1/2: oh look theyre being professional in the starfleet-mandated high-ranking staff picture)

Please appreciate the meme my non-alterhuman spouse dropped in all our mutual alterhuman chats with the caption:

"This is what it’s like being a normal human who’s been together with Page (in some form or another) for over a fucking decade. Witness the result of me having to constantly overhear the development of panels/essays/surveys by the alterhuman community’s triumvirate of scholars!"

i told him "ur welcome" in response 😹

(I only read TGT once so if I get any details wrong here, feel free to correct me. Same for the historical reference I'm discussing here). I never understood why Nikolai was considered to be a better character than the Darkling when it came to helping the Grisha. I know Leigh Bardugo presents him as the "nicer" option but Nikolai always kind of reminded me of Tsar Nicholas II, who, from what I remember learning in school, was considered to be a nice man who clearly loved his children, but a rather incompetent ruler. He didn't always make good decisions which made relations with the government worse, and increased hardships for civilians and soldiers. He also was really detached and out of touch with the plight of the Russian people and I believe some of his policies ended up alienating people from ethnic minority groups. I brought him up, because Nikolai is also kind of like this, he's not an exact parallel obviously but like, it's kind of there. The only reason really that he's considered effective in the books is because Leigh can't really write politics that well. Like, even the way the nobility would behave is something she didn't really write well, as well as how the public would react to the things that happen in the story. Idk. Did this make any sense? What do you think?

Absolutely.

I can't speak about the historical Nikolai- I've read very little about him, and it's been years-, but while book!Nikolai's ideas aren't bad per se, he's been greatly helped by gross simplification of politics and LB's clear favour.

Nobles are either supportive, or stupid and gullible.

Inclusion of Grisha works 100%. Sure, the soldiers for Nikolai's elite inventors would he handpicked, but either there is no longer hatred for Grisha among the First Army, or the Tsar's too high to see it.

The only peasants we meet are enlightened enough to immediately understand and ADMIT they're faring better (Read the link. OP's no longer on tumblr, but her posts are based on actual Russian history and literature.), which is... well, have you ever MET any real people, Leigh? RoW was published during fucking covid of all possible times! Huge chunk of population will rather die, than accept the unknown!

Making Nikolai visibly think with his cock leads to no trouble. No one's calling him weak, no one suddenly remembers rumors about Grisha girls "being able to put a spell on a man", Zoya's desired and respected, instead of being viewed as seductress or outright Witch Whore.

And one more about Grisha- there have been pogroms barely a few years back. First Army was slaughtering Second only because they've figured they're to blame for the Fold moving (and don't forget the only survivors aside from Malina were the Darkling's people). Am I to believe a new Tsar ascending with THREE Grisha publicly backing him up won't cause decent upheaval?

Sure, Kolya's nice, but he's too nice. Somewhere on his way from Sturmhond to Tsar Nikolai, he forgot how to cut fingers even though it might make him sick. And the situation should look accordingly.