🟡 POENA CULLEI

"Poena cullei" was a Roman form of capital punishment, specifically reserved for those convicted of parricide. It involved sewing the condemned person into a leather sack, along with live animals such as a dog, rooster, snake, and monkey, and then throwing the sack into water, causing them to drown. This punishment was considered exceptionally dishonorable and severe, reflecting the Roman abhorrence of killing close relatives. The practice is documented in Roman legal history, though its usage varied over time, and similar practices appeared in later periods, such as medieval Germany.

About time.

🟤 PLINY THE ELDER ON CHINESE SILK

supplied through the Parthians in the 1st century BC, the Romans thought silk was obtained from trees:

“The Seres (Chinese), are famous for the woolen substance obtained from their forests; after a soaking in water they comb off the white down of the leaves... So manifold is the labor employed, and so distant is the region of the globe drawn upon, to enable the Roman maiden to flaunt transparent clothing in public.”

-(Pliny the Elder (23- 79, The Natural History)

🔶 ATHENIAN VS ROMAN GLORY

“The acts of the Athenians, in my judgment, were indeed great and glorious enough, but nevertheless somewhat less important than fame represents them. But because Athens produced writers of exceptional talent,⁠ the exploits of the men of Athens are heralded throughout the world as unsurpassed. Thus the merit of those who did the deeds is rated as high as brilliant minds have been able to exalt the deeds themselves by words of praise. But the Roman people never had that advantage, since their ablest men were always most engaged with affairs; their minds were never employed apart from their bodies; the best citizen preferred action to words, and thought that his own brave deeds should be lauded by others rather than that theirs should be recounted by him.”

Sallust

🔺REVISIONS

“At first the Romans used the large round shield called the clipeus, afterwards, when the soldiers received pay, the smaller oblong shield called the scutum was adopted. The phalanx formation, similar to the Macedonian of the earlier days, was abandoned in favour of the distribution into companies (manipuli).”

“When the battle formation of the army was completed, the hastati were the first to engage. If they failed to repulse the enemy, they slowly retired through the intervals between the companies of the principes who then took up the fight, the hastati following in their rear. The triarii, meantime, were resting on one knee under their standards, their shields over their shoulders and their spears planted on the ground with the points upwards, giving them the appearance of a bristling palisade. If the principes were also unsuccessful, they slowly retired to the triarii, which has given rise to the proverbial saying, when people are in great difficulty "matters have come down to the triarii." When the triarii had admitted the hastati and principes through the intervals separating their companies they rose from their kneeling posture and instantly closing their companies up they blocked all passage through them and in one compact mass fell on the enemy as the last hope of the army. The enemy who had followed up the others as though they had defeated them, saw with dread a now and larger army rising apparently out of the earth.”

Livy

Interesting video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OWAkNNWo920&t=

🔘 CLAUDIUS BEFORE BEING EMPEROR

“But all this did not save him from constant insults; for if he came to dinner a little after the appointed time, he took his place with difficulty and only after making the round of the dining-room. Whenever he went to sleep after dinner, which was a habit of his, he was pelted with the stones of olives and dates, and sometimes he was awakened by the jesters with a whip or cane, in pretended sport. They used also to put slippers on his hands as he lay snoring, so that when he was suddenly aroused he might rub his face with them.”

Suetonius

“How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you
who once laid low the nations!”

🔵 THE STOIC EMPEROR

“He studied philosophy with ardour, even as a youth. For when he was twelve years old he adopted the dress and, a little later, the hardiness of a philosopher, pursuing his studies clad in a rough Greek cloak and sleeping on the ground; at his mother's solicitation, however, he reluctantly consented to sleep on a couch strewn with skins. He received instruction, furthermore, from the teacher of that Commodus who was destined later to be a kinsman of his, namely Apollonius of Chalcedon, the Stoic;

and such was his ardour for this school of philosophy, that even after he became a member of the imperial family, he still went to Apollonius' residence for instruction. In addition, he attended the lectures of Sextus of Chaeronea, the nephew of Plutarch, and of Junius Rusticus, Claudius Maximus, and Cinna Catulus, all Stoics. He also attended the lectures of Claudius Severus, an adherent of the Peripatetic school, but he received most instruction from Junius Rusticus, whom he ever revered and whose disciple he became, a man esteemed in both private and public life, and exceedingly well acquainted with the Stoic system, with whom Marcus shared all his counsels both public and private, whom he greeted with a kiss prior to the prefects of the guard, whom he even appointed consul for a second term, and whom after his death he asked the senate to honour with statues. On his teachers in general, moreover, he conferred great honours, for he even kept golden statues of them in his chapel, and made it a custom to show respect for their tombs by personal visits and by offerings of sacrifices and flowers. He studied jurisprudence as well, in which he heard Lucius Volusius Maecianus, and so much work and labour did he devote to his studies that he impaired his health — the only fault to be found with his entire childhood. He attended also the public schools of rhetoricians. Of his fellow-pupils he was particularly fond of Seius Fuscianus and Aufidius Victorinus, of the senatorial order, and Baebius Longus and Calenus, of the equestrian. He was very generous to these men, so generous, in fact, that on those whom he could not advance to public office on account of their station in life, he bestowed riches.”

Historia Augusta