#pliny the elder
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me: brrr, it's a cold day! might grab myself a hot cocoa or a coffee!
pliny the elder: wow. literal freak behavior
#im sorry this is funny to me pliny#he will moralize about anything#pliny the elder#tagamemnon#queueusque tandem abutere catilina patientia nostra
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history + last words
#history#mary wollstonecraft#oscar wilde#giles corey#agrippina the younger#pliny the elder#matoaka#pocahontas in other names but i just went with her actual name#jack daniel#historyedit#words#art
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ROUND 1: PLINY THE ELDER (real) VS DWIGHT SCHRUTE (the office)
#pliny the elder#pliny#pliny ass bitch!!!#dwight#dwight the office#dwight schrute#the office#tournament#a1#now kill
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As late as the fourth century CE in a satire attributed to the emperor Julian, Octavian (the later Augustus) is described as “changing many colors, like a chameleon: becoming now pale and now red”. In the satire, the god Silenus reacts to seeing Octavian by saying, “Bless me, what changeable beast is this! What terrible thing will he do to us!”
For comparison we have Pliny the Elder's comment on chameleons from his Natural History 8.120: "And [the chameleon] is more miraculous for the nature of its color, for it constantly changes its eyes and tail and entire body, and always resembles whatsoever it touches last, except red and white”
Pliny’s mention of the chameleon’s inability to turn “red and white” (rubrum candidumque) makes Julian’s description of Octavian turning pale (ὠχριῶν) and red (ἐρυθρὸς) take on a greater significance because it shows that Octavian is then more skilled than a chameleon at changing color by possessing the capability to turn both red and white.
Although Silenus' comment makes it clear that Octavian's color-changing should be seen as a reflection of his instability and danger, the change in color could also be an allusion to Octavian's constant change in health as ὠχριῶν refers to becoming pallid. Pliny further strengthens this reading by writing that when dead, chameleons are pale (defuncto pallor est). Thus Octavian is constantly changing between a state of near-death and great vitality as implied by Julian's ἐρυθρὸς and Pliny's rubrum, both of which can mean having a ruddy complexion.
#tagamemnon#Octavian#Augustus#pliny the elder#Julian the Apostate#Roman history#Latin literature#Ancient Greek
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Sword and sorcery tabletop RPG setting which includes absolutely no fictional monsters, but all of the animals work the way Pliny the Elder thinks they do.
#concepts#gaming#tabletop roleplaying#tabletop rpgs#game design#worldbuilding#monsters#pliny the elder#classics#ancient greece
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sun shining on a sciapod
in a german translation of "mandeville's travels", illuminated manuscript, bavaria/swabia, ca. 1476
source: Vienna, ÖNB, Cod. 2838, fol. 86v
"He [Ctesias] speaks also of another race of men, who are known as Monocoli, who have only one leg, but are able to leap with surprising agility. The same people are also called Sciapodae, because they are in the habit of lying on their backs, during the time of the extreme heat, and protect themselves from the sun by the shade of their feet."
Pliny the Elder on sciapods in Historia Naturalis, VII: 2, ca. 77 AD (engl. translation by Bostock/Riley)
#medieval art#illuminated manuscript#15th century#sciapods#sciapodes#monopods#mandeville's travels#feet#nudity#sun#pliny the elder
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Time Travel Question 15: The Library of Alexandria (Latin Edition)
If you have any non-Library of Alexandria lost works suggestions or more library of Alexandria items, please pop them in below for future polls.
#Time Travel#Emperor Claudius#Etruscan#Carchedonica#Petronius#Satyricon#Sulla#Agrippina the Younger#Livy#Pliny the Elder#Trajan#Dacians#Sulpicius Alexander
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I may not talk about them as often, since they tend to be less involved in Drama, but my favorite historical figures are those who are kind. Octavia the Younger, for her forbearance, hard work, and compassion for kids who weren't even hers. Atticus, for helping Fulvia, Cicero, Servilia and others when they were in trouble. Pliny the Elder died trying to rescue his friends from Vesuvius' eruption. And Marcus Agrippa rarely got angry, tried to avoid embarrassing others, and was quick to forgive, even in matters of life and death.
The drama and shenanigans are fun, and the politics is fascinating, but kindness is the quality I most respect.
#okay admittedly i talk about agrippa a lot haha#octavia the younger#titus pomponius atticus#pliny the elder#marcus agrippa#jlrrt speaks#kindness
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if you're doing paracelsus, the guy, can you do pliny the elder?
Please reblog for a larger sample size.
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Throwback Thursday: Who named ammonites?
When it comes to ammonites, most folks think of the Jurassic Coast and Mary Anning.
But did you know that she was not the first to find or even name them? The first mention of ammonites was actually around 77 AD in the Naturalis Historia, the world's first encyclopedia, written by ancient Roman naturalist, Pliny the Elder.
He spent about a decade or more writing the 37 book series. It covered everything from botany,
zoology,
astronomy,
geology,
and mineralogy.
Unfortunately, he didn't get to finish (even after 37 books) due to his untimely death due to a certain volcano that blew in 79 AD.
However, he did get to name ammonites, which means "horns of Ammon" after the Egyptian God Amun, who was often depicted with rams horns.
#paleontology#trivia#fun facts#fossils#ammonite#pliny the elder#pompeii#amun#ancient rome#ancient egypt
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Pliny the Elder creating his D&D character background:
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highly recommend reading pliny the elder if only for the footnotes. theyre like video game loading screen tips
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@just-late-roman-republic-things seems to be plowing through Suetonius Augustus and I am here for it!
Your mention of the dinosaur bones that Augustus used as home decoration reminds me of a story about Tiberius! (I swear, everything recently has been reminding me about Tiberius!)
By the way, finding the ancient source for this story was shit! I remembered reading this like a year ago, and I had forgotten which ancient source this was from. Using my critical thinking skills ("hmmm tiberius hmmmm dinosaur"), I assumed that this story came from Pliny's Natural History.
It did not.
I was searching through the Natural History for so long that I was starting to wonder if I had made the story up!
After searching through the Natural History for ages, I finally used more critical thinking skill and was like "Hmmm. Maybe if I google this, I could find an article about the event and maybe possibly it would cite a specific part of the Natural History!"
I googled it, found an article about the event, and it cited Phlegon's Book of Marvels.
Whoopsie! I was looking through the wrong book this whole time! In my defense, Pliny and Phlegon actually are pretty similar names if you squint sooo...
(it was however worth it to look through the Natural History because I found the funniest story about Tiberius ever but that's a story for another day)
Now that I have the ancient source of this story, I can finally tell it!
Basically, there was an earthquake which opened up all sorts of cracks on the ground. And in those cracks, there were dinosaur bones!
The people were pretty spooked so they took a tooth and sent it to Rome. And this was a massive tooth.
The tooth was showed to Tiberius and he was asked if he wanted the rest of the bones. He was like "Well, I'm really curious about this thing, and I'm aching to get an idea of what size it was, but it feels like graverobbing to take the rest of the bones."
So Tiberius got some dude called Pulcher who was skilled in geometry. Tiberius asked him to make a face in proportion to the tooth. The dude estimated the size of the creature using its tooth as a reference and then showed Tiberius a construction of it he had made. Tiberius said that looking at the construction was good enough and sent the tooth back where it came from.
Tiberius and (especially) Pulcher, the world's first paleontologists!
I love this story. It's wild. Though I do wonder what happened to the construction. Did Tiberius keep it?
If Tiberius randomly showed up at my door one day, I'd bring him to Drumheller to go to the Royal Tyrrell Museum. Alberta is one of the most boring places in the world but we do have a banging dinosaur museum!
On the hours-long drive there, I will most certainly give him like a billion questions, though. "How was Caligula like? How was Augustus like? How were you like? How was Livia like? How was Sejanus like? Actually, scratch this. Name every single person you know and tell me how they were like and how they looked like. What did you do in Capri? Explain your entire life from beginning to end, giving extra attention to the personal parts! I don't want to hear about wars I want to hear about what people were like! Could you read Suetonius to me and point out parts where he's wrong? Could we watch Domina together and you can tell me if you like your characterization or not?"
For everyone's sake, it's good that dead Roman emperors usually don't randomly show up sometimes (not counting whatever the fuck was happening right after Nero died!)
If you want to read the Tiberius Tooth sTory (haha Triple T) for yourself, you can here. Look for §13.
#ancient rome#roman history#ancient history#history#tiberius#emperor tiberius#dinosaur#dinosaurs#phlegon#phlegon book of marvels#pliny the elder#paleontology
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Pliny "horses get impregnated by the wind" The Elder: uhmm and what methods were used in your study?
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pliny pulling trans people out of his ass thank u pliny for inventing trans ppl
#yes of course what we call being trans has always existed but#pliny is doing his iconic thing called making shit up here#pliny the elder
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