Reading Wednesday
Dec. 8th, 2015 09:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dhampyresa*dodges fish*
I kid. I just dug up some history tl;dr I wrote a while back, so I'm just going to copy-paste it here, in case it's of interest to anyone.
(Okay, so basically every time I’m going to ask people to talk to me, shit is going to get in my way? Okay, then.)
Favorite female historical figure
I feel like I should say Jeanne d’Arc here (or Aliénor d’Aquitaine or Anne de Bretagne or Marie Curie or Camille Claudel or Joséphine Baker or Artemisia Gentileschi or or or), but actually I want to talk about Dido of Carthage, because I do what I want, so there.
Something you (general you, btw, lunikus knows this already) need to know before we start: I love tricksters. For a very long time, I’ve been clinging to Loki primarily for all my trickster needs. But before I had Loki, I had Dido.
She has the honour of being the first person I ever read about that made me go “this is who I want to be when I grow up”. Her story was proeminently featured in the first book I can remember reading on my own.
Anyway, this is the story of the foundation of Carthage, and how Dido is a badass.
So! Dido is first-born to the King of Tyre. Because she’s also married, that means the throne should go to her. Her brother Pygmalion has other ideas, though, and kills her husbands and claims the throne for himself.
Dido now has two choices: drag her country into civil war or let her brother make her a prisoner in her own home, until such tile as he decides to kill her.
Dido takes the third option.
She tells her brother she’ll move into the palace, if only he’ll let her move all her (and her husband’s) stuff in too. Dido’s husband having been one of the richest men in Tyre -- and we’re talking about Phoenicia here, merchant-kings of the Ancient Mediterranean -- Pygmalion jumps on the occasion.
Dido convinces Pygmalion’s servants to load the wealth onto a fleet of boats and get the fuck of Tyre.
While they’re out at sea, they board the shore of Cyprus. (Tyre is in modern day Lebanon, iirc.) On Cyprus, Dido saves 80 young women from being ritually sacrificed to Jupiter because SHE IS JUST THAT BADASS.
The fleet continues its journey west.
Once they reach the coast of modern day Tunisia, Dido makes a deal with the local Amazigh king. He’ll give her as much land as can be inscribed in a cow’s hide. He accepts immediately because lol that’s nothing (plus, you know, she’s super rich).
Joke’s on him though, because Dido is FUCKING BRILLIANT. She proceeds to resolve what’s now called Dido’s problem and cuts up the cow’s hide into ribbons thin enough that, once tied together, enclose an area large enough to build a city in.
The city of Carthage.
DIDO: USES TRICKSTER POWERS FOR GOOD
She might have won that civil war, but she chose not to drive her people to a pointless war. You gotta respect that. She was a genius and, yes, won her city through trickery and guile, but they made her a goddess after her death and it’s good to know that sometimes being smart and being kind is enough to build something that lasts.
Then there’s the bullshit with Aeneas, but that’s... Look, I don’t want to say Vergil made shit up to make Rome look better, but Vergil totally made shit up to make Rome look better. Ask me about my interpretation of that part of the legend, one day.
(I still want to be her when I grow up, tbh.)
Historical figure I never expected to like as much as I do
Emperor fucking Augustus.
Look, I knew I was going to end up liking Mark Antony, because I end up liking entertaining assholes a lot of the time and if nothing else Mark Antony is entertaining. Often in the same way a trainwreck is entertaining, but entertaining nonetheless.
But Augustus? Nah, mate.
I hate the very notion of empire and Augustus is, well, THE emperor, at least as far as European history is concerned.
There’s a lot you can say about the Roman Empire and the inexorability of it, once the Gracchi are murdered in cold blood (you could even go back further, to the Second Punic War), but I will always maintain that Augustus’ reign was the Golden Age of the Empire and it was all downhill from there.
I’m not sure I like Augustus, tbh, because by all accounts he was a terrifying motherfucker. On the other hand, dude is Something Else.
By the time he dies, his name is literally Imperator Caesar Divi Filius Augustus (Commander Caesar, Son of the Divine, the Venerable). That’s not his title. THAT’S HIS ACTUAL NAME
What the fuck, Augustus, what the fuck
And then there are his last words. (As reported by Suetonius, so, you know, grain of salt.)
In public, his last words were "Behold, I found Rome of clay, and leave her to you of marble." and, well, HE DID. Like I said, I don’t like what he did with that whole Empire business, but he did do a lot for Rome as a city. Those marble monuments you think of when you think of Ancient Rome? 90% of them are either build under Augustus or based on Augustan models. (Then there’s all the aqueducts and sanitation improvements.)
To his friends, his last words were “Have I played the part well? Then applaud as I exit." which, daaaaaaaaaaaaaamn dude. Damn.
To his wife his last words (ACTUAL LAST WORDS THIS TIME I SWEAR) were "Live mindful of our marriage, and farewell." and I find this very charming, because I am apparently a giant sap AND SO WAS HE. Even though it’s his love for Livia which brought down the Roman Empire (maybe that’s why I like them so much). You win some, you lose some, eh?
I also don’t approve of how he brought down the Roman Republic, but I do admire how he went about doing it because that was political theater at its finest. I also admire that he saw what he wanted and went for it, with no hesitation whatsoever. And I find his issues with his name hilarious, tbh.
(He’s about as far from being a good person as you can get, but from 2000 years down the line, it’s weirdly compelling to see him be so completely ruthless and successful at everything political while making a complete hash of everything in his private life.)
In conclusion: I don’t like Augustus all that much (THE EMPIRE RUINED IT FOR THE REST OF US), but I do find him fascinating.
I kid. I just dug up some history tl;dr I wrote a while back, so I'm just going to copy-paste it here, in case it's of interest to anyone.
(Okay, so basically every time I’m going to ask people to talk to me, shit is going to get in my way? Okay, then.)
Favorite female historical figure
I feel like I should say Jeanne d’Arc here (or Aliénor d’Aquitaine or Anne de Bretagne or Marie Curie or Camille Claudel or Joséphine Baker or Artemisia Gentileschi or or or), but actually I want to talk about Dido of Carthage, because I do what I want, so there.
Something you (general you, btw, lunikus knows this already) need to know before we start: I love tricksters. For a very long time, I’ve been clinging to Loki primarily for all my trickster needs. But before I had Loki, I had Dido.
She has the honour of being the first person I ever read about that made me go “this is who I want to be when I grow up”. Her story was proeminently featured in the first book I can remember reading on my own.
Anyway, this is the story of the foundation of Carthage, and how Dido is a badass.
So! Dido is first-born to the King of Tyre. Because she’s also married, that means the throne should go to her. Her brother Pygmalion has other ideas, though, and kills her husbands and claims the throne for himself.
Dido now has two choices: drag her country into civil war or let her brother make her a prisoner in her own home, until such tile as he decides to kill her.
Dido takes the third option.
She tells her brother she’ll move into the palace, if only he’ll let her move all her (and her husband’s) stuff in too. Dido’s husband having been one of the richest men in Tyre -- and we’re talking about Phoenicia here, merchant-kings of the Ancient Mediterranean -- Pygmalion jumps on the occasion.
Dido convinces Pygmalion’s servants to load the wealth onto a fleet of boats and get the fuck of Tyre.
While they’re out at sea, they board the shore of Cyprus. (Tyre is in modern day Lebanon, iirc.) On Cyprus, Dido saves 80 young women from being ritually sacrificed to Jupiter because SHE IS JUST THAT BADASS.
The fleet continues its journey west.
Once they reach the coast of modern day Tunisia, Dido makes a deal with the local Amazigh king. He’ll give her as much land as can be inscribed in a cow’s hide. He accepts immediately because lol that’s nothing (plus, you know, she’s super rich).
Joke’s on him though, because Dido is FUCKING BRILLIANT. She proceeds to resolve what’s now called Dido’s problem and cuts up the cow’s hide into ribbons thin enough that, once tied together, enclose an area large enough to build a city in.
The city of Carthage.
DIDO: USES TRICKSTER POWERS FOR GOOD
She might have won that civil war, but she chose not to drive her people to a pointless war. You gotta respect that. She was a genius and, yes, won her city through trickery and guile, but they made her a goddess after her death and it’s good to know that sometimes being smart and being kind is enough to build something that lasts.
Then there’s the bullshit with Aeneas, but that’s... Look, I don’t want to say Vergil made shit up to make Rome look better, but Vergil totally made shit up to make Rome look better. Ask me about my interpretation of that part of the legend, one day.
(I still want to be her when I grow up, tbh.)
Historical figure I never expected to like as much as I do
Emperor fucking Augustus.
Look, I knew I was going to end up liking Mark Antony, because I end up liking entertaining assholes a lot of the time and if nothing else Mark Antony is entertaining. Often in the same way a trainwreck is entertaining, but entertaining nonetheless.
But Augustus? Nah, mate.
I hate the very notion of empire and Augustus is, well, THE emperor, at least as far as European history is concerned.
There’s a lot you can say about the Roman Empire and the inexorability of it, once the Gracchi are murdered in cold blood (you could even go back further, to the Second Punic War), but I will always maintain that Augustus’ reign was the Golden Age of the Empire and it was all downhill from there.
I’m not sure I like Augustus, tbh, because by all accounts he was a terrifying motherfucker. On the other hand, dude is Something Else.
By the time he dies, his name is literally Imperator Caesar Divi Filius Augustus (Commander Caesar, Son of the Divine, the Venerable). That’s not his title. THAT’S HIS ACTUAL NAME
What the fuck, Augustus, what the fuck
And then there are his last words. (As reported by Suetonius, so, you know, grain of salt.)
In public, his last words were "Behold, I found Rome of clay, and leave her to you of marble." and, well, HE DID. Like I said, I don’t like what he did with that whole Empire business, but he did do a lot for Rome as a city. Those marble monuments you think of when you think of Ancient Rome? 90% of them are either build under Augustus or based on Augustan models. (Then there’s all the aqueducts and sanitation improvements.)
To his friends, his last words were “Have I played the part well? Then applaud as I exit." which, daaaaaaaaaaaaaamn dude. Damn.
To his wife his last words (ACTUAL LAST WORDS THIS TIME I SWEAR) were "Live mindful of our marriage, and farewell." and I find this very charming, because I am apparently a giant sap AND SO WAS HE. Even though it’s his love for Livia which brought down the Roman Empire (maybe that’s why I like them so much). You win some, you lose some, eh?
I also don’t approve of how he brought down the Roman Republic, but I do admire how he went about doing it because that was political theater at its finest. I also admire that he saw what he wanted and went for it, with no hesitation whatsoever. And I find his issues with his name hilarious, tbh.
(He’s about as far from being a good person as you can get, but from 2000 years down the line, it’s weirdly compelling to see him be so completely ruthless and successful at everything political while making a complete hash of everything in his private life.)
In conclusion: I don’t like Augustus all that much (THE EMPIRE RUINED IT FOR THE REST OF US), but I do find him fascinating.