Roman Resources

[Frank Petrexa]

For those who've dreamed of racing against Ben Hur in the Circus Maximus. Essential advice.

I always thought the most important thing was your relationship with well-trained horses, especially the lead horse. Everything depends on them.
It is said that Stalin had Zhukhov ride a white horse in the victory parade after the Nazi surrender in 1945 that had thrown Stalin. Zhukhov managed it, so there is some skill involved.

 

[malins]

Thrown to the lions...

Thrown to the Lions? New evidence from Roman Britain executions revealed

 

[Praefectus Praetorio]

It appears that the civil servants (stinking bureaucrats!) in ancient Rome set job standards that still prevail today.

"I'm on my wine break!" Riesling?

 

[Praefectus Praetorio]

Knowing the overwhelming interest in authentic Roman Slave Auctions, I have found a video of one

 

[Eulalia]

Knowing the overwhelming interest in authentic Roman Slave Auctions, I have found a video of one

That must qualify for the Oscar for Political Incorrectness, offending pretty well everyone you can think of!

 

[Apostate]

That must qualify for the Oscar for Political Incorrectness, offending pretty well everyone you can think of!

Mel Brooks could get away with MUCH.

This won’t play here, but click on the link and you’ll see one of the scenes from the upcoming "Part II."

 

[Praefectus Praetorio]

Mel Brooks could get away with MUCH.

This won’t play here, but click on the link and you’ll see one of the scenes from the upcoming "Part II."

Wow. That brought tears to my eyes. I haven't felt so nostalgic since I last watched "Springtime for Hitler!"

 

[Alara]

I'm not sure if it's already mentioned in this thread, I haven't found it with the search function, but there is one Roman inscription from a Roman graveyard which essentially was a price list, what it would cost to have your slave crucified by them at the graveyard. Does that maybe ring a Bell with someone?

 

[Praefectus Praetorio]

That must qualify for the Oscar for Political Incorrectness, offending pretty well everyone you can think of!

What do you expect of Mel Brooks. He was willing to take on anybody and any idea, "The Producers" (his first and arguably his best film), "Young Frankenstein", and "High Anxiety," He didn't flinch from taking on the Brits' sacred legends with "Robin Hood, Men in Tights." And the greatest Western of all time "Blazing Saddles" with the most incredible tough-guy scene ever (move over, Clint Eastwood) - after we get a nice dose of the "n" word, Mongo comes to town and punches out a horse!

 

[Apostate]

I'm not sure if it's already mentioned in this thread, I haven't found it with the search function, but there is one Roman inscription from a Roman graveyard which essentially was a price list, what it would cost to have your slave crucified by them at the graveyard. Does that maybe ring a Bell with someone?

Alara, several bells ring. I refer you to

Do You Prefer Your Vicitm

to be tortured before she is cruxed or left as healthy as possible so she struggles as long as possible? Be cruxed and done or cruxed and tortured while hanging? Naked before cruxed or stripped while on the cross? and whatever comments/suggestions you'd like kisses willowfall

www.cruxforums.com

in which my previous CF incarnation refers to a circa 100 CE advertisement by a crucifixion contractor. If memory serves said advertisement was in quoted in this book

THE GLADIATOR | Kirkus Reviews

A US debut from British historian Baker renders a real taste of the unenviable gladiatorial life.

www.kirkusreviews.com

which I"ll soon add to my ebook collection and post the entire text here.

 

[Alara]

Thank you. That's exactly what I meant.
And googling your reference back to it's sources, the relevant paper was already discussed in this very thread a few years ago.

I'm not sure whether a Puteoli municipal law (perhaps 27 BCE-14 CE or earlier in I BCE) concerned with crucifixion has been posted and discussed here, but here it goes; the following is from Envisioning Crucifixion by J.G. Cook, Novum Testamentum 50 (2008) 262-285):

The lex Puteoli concerns a municipality which decided to contract out the services of an undertaker who doubled as executioner. ... The requirements for the contracted undertaker include the following: the undertaker has to have at least 32 workers, the workers have to be between the ages of twenty and fifty, cannot be knock-kneed, blind in one eye, maimed, have a limp, blind, or branded with tattoos. The funerary workers cannot enter town except when engaging in their trade (getting a body or performing an execution). They must live outside of town and cannot bathe after the first hour of the night and cannot live beyond a tower in the grove of Libitina—which was apparently where some part of their trade was carried out. The workers, when in town, had to wear a colored cap.

The text directly relevant to crucifixion is as follows:

II. 8 Whoever will want to exact punishment on a male slave or female slave at private expense, as he [the owner] who wants the [punishment] to be inflicted, he [the contractor] exacts the punishment in this manner: if he wants [him] to bring the patibulum to the cross, the contractor will have to provide wooden posts, chains, and cords for the floggers and the floggers themselves. And anyone who will want to exact punishment will have to give four sesterces for each of the workers who bring the patibulum and for the floggers and also for the executioner.

11 Whenever a magistrate exacts punishment at public expense, so shall he decree; and whenever it will have been ordered to be ready to carry out the punishment, the contractor will have gratis to set up stakes (cruces), and will have gratis to provide nails, pitch, wax, candles, and those things which are essential for such matters. Also if he will be commanded to drag [the cadaver] out with a hook, he must drag the cadaver itself out, his workers dressed in red, with a bell ringing, to a place where many cadavers will be.

So, sorry, it's a long thread

 

[Apostate]

Thank you. That's exactly what I meant.
And googling your reference back to it's sources, the relevant paper was already discussed in this very thread a few years ago.

So, sorry, it's a long thread

Alara, long threads are not considered a vice on CF.

 

[Apostate]

If anyone's interested in the original text:

 

[Praefectus Praetorio]

A more serious resource. Though we do not and cannot include Roman children in our fantasies here, understanding how a Roman, boy, or girl was raised, enlightens the adults we encounter.

 

[Frank Petrexa]

Some people (not just me, I hope) find this stuff interesting. Recently, there was also a paper in Science that tracked a 17,100 year-old mammoth over Ice Age Alaska based on the isotope ratios in the yearly growth bands in his tusks. He apparently died at 28 of starvation above the Arctic Circle.

AAAS

www.sciencemag.org

 

[Praefectus Praetorio]

 

[Frank Petrexa]

Maybe there is interest in this kind of stuff. This is a little sketchy, but it does show that we have more options for digging (pun intended) into the past than just waiting for jars of lost writing to turn up. (If I recall, the "Sabine women" who were raped were Etruscan.)

AAAS

www.science.org

 

[Frank Petrexa]

A more serious resource. Though we do not and cannot include Roman children in our fantasies here, understanding how a Roman, boy, or girl was raised, enlightens the adults we encounter.

If I recall, infant and childhood mortality was horrific.

 

[mp5stab]

View attachment 1064687

Everyone points fingers but there are two main culprits; wear from semi trucks and damage from ice storms and blizzards, neither of which happened terribly often in Rome. Of course we can build better roads, but a mile off interstate costs north of 2.5 million to construct to standard. And some places, well, they just have poor conditions for roads, especially in the north.

 

[Apostate]

Everyone points fingers but there are two main culprits; wear from semi trucks and damage from ice storms and blizzards, neither of which happened terribly often in Rome. Of course we can build better roads, but a mile off interstate costs north of 2.5 million to construct to standard. And some places, well, they just have poor conditions for roads, especially in the north.

When I moved to the Western Reserve (NE Ohio) the locals told me there were only two seasons--Winter and Road Work.

They. Aren't. Joking.