#greco-roman stuff

[galusandmalus]

It's Ascanius day

"For when Ascanius took over the rule, Lavinia, becoming alarmed lest her relationship as step-mother might draw upon her some severity from him, and being then with child, entrusted herself to a certain Tyrrhenus, who had charge of the royal herds of swine and whom she knew to have been on very intimate terms with Latinus. He, carrying her into the lonely woods as if she were an ordinary woman, and taking care that she was not seen by anyone who knew her, supported her in a house he built in the forest, which was known to but few. And when the child was born, he took it up and reared it, naming it, from the wood, Silvius, or, as one might say in Greek, Hylaios.

But in the course of time, finding that the Latins made great search for the woman and that the people accused Ascanius of having put her to death, he acquainted them with the whole matter and brought the woman and her son out of the forest. From this experience, Silvius got his name, as I have related, and so did all his posterity. And he became king after the death of his brother, though not without a contest with one of the sons of Ascanius, — Iulus, the eldest, — who claimed the succession to his father's rule"

-Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities

i swear ascanius and lavinia lore is shit straight out of its always sunny

Other sources go into how they have a weird system of co-ruling. AND IT WORKS??? i guess there wasn't actually a lot of beef between them lmao. reminder, Ascanius is like 16 or younger in this lmao if the timeline is correct.

[redinthesea]

I HAD PROMISED I'D DRAW FANART OF @rocknpebbles REDESIGNS OF THESE TWO, and I finally found the time to do it!!!

[aroaceleovaldez]

It's so sad ppl forget Magnus has asthma

I'm sad Rick seemingly forgot Magnus has asthma because it only comes up like, once u_u. Please Richard acknowledge his asthma more...

[bvckbiter]

fandom talks too little about hylla and reyna. reyna killed her father when she thought he'd killed hylla. hylla dragged them out of puerto rico and found them sanctuary and employment on circe's island AND became one of circe's favorites. then when they got captured by blackbeard hylla also got them out of that situation by out-pirating literal immortal pirates. then in a span of three years, they split up, found their own ways to the amazons and cj, and became the leaders of their respective factions. when hylla's queenship was being threatened by otrera in son, she plotted a counter-coup and defeated an amazon queen who couldn't die two nights in a row in one-on-one combat, THEN led her cavalry to camp jupiter. (ik this woman slept like a corpse for a week afterwards). hylla used reyna as an absolutely ruthless bait-and-switch to capture orion, and all reyna said in response to that was, "bet." reyna carries insurmountable amounts of both guilt and gratitude towards her sister. even though they havent seen each other in a while, hylla still drops everything and does everything in her power to save her baby sister when she knows reyna needs her.

[guujikaroko]

So, to keep count: Mr. Mydeimos of Castrum Kremnos is an amalgamation of Heracles, Achilles and Alexander the Great thrown into a cauldron and spiced with the quintessential image of a Spartan. At this point he should have the Chaos Blades too.

[eepykeepy]

went to the met and studied ✍️✍️

[unsat-and-strange]

it's so stupid late and I just got off watch but I have a duty I take more seriously than my actual money paying job: sharing the doodles I did on watch

assorted notes including a potential drawing series maybe??? I'm sorry but the war trio is so deep in my skull

ivy got used to having short hair when she was a mouse and so post curse she cut it (raphaella approves)

creature jonny sitting on things he shouldn't

Brian wandering the castle (please mama I put PANTS on for this)

lyf making berties crutch (plus aftermath)

Tim gets cool scars on his eyes because I said so.

maid bertie @blazeismyname YOU BROUGHT THIS ON YOURSELF

ivy and raph cause I like them :) raph still cuts up cheese for ivy

idea for an animatic????? @rocksanddeadflowers may I humbly suggest passerine by the oh hellos for tim and Bertie please the second verse is so burning down your armies camp and running into the wasteland in hopes of a better place coded

[themoonking]

see someone spreading misinformation about ancient greece online, gently correct them, they say "well discerning whats canon and whats fanon in greek mythology is really difficult". i am killed instantly.

[gildedgrimoires]

Bronze age vampire adventure...

[sleepyowlet]

Not quite.

There is one other lil dude who gets the full frontal:

Say hello to Bes. He's a very old deity and one of the most enduring ones - possibly because he was the protector of pregnant women and children; driving away both snakes and evil spirits.

And I think this is why both Bes and Medjet are depicted like this; their power lies in their gaze!

tis the season to remember Medjed aka The Smiter, an invisible egyptian deity with laser eyes and nonbinary swagger:

rotating them gently in my mind as they do a spiffy little dance number

[jupiter-flytrap]

Saw the Elgin marbles. Shit was mad breathing. Also British museum put all that shit back challenge

[snekdood]

lots of ppl say night elves are based on japanese culture and i never really... saw it? idk. i always thought it was more like a fusion of celtic and greek cultures/beliefs, but ig i can see it in some superficial ways like the houses... sorta kinda have the curvy roofs or whatever... but the fact they're trees usually made me think more of celtic druids... ig one of the first items you learn to make is "spider kebab's" but ig when i was a kid "kebab" was so general it didn't apply to japan?? like my best friend at the time would have cookouts w her extended filipino family with kebabs so it was explicitly not just a japanese thing to me? then i could kinda start to see it in some of the hairstyles the men had but also. its a general thing to put your hair in a bun... then i could kinda see it in the armor the sentinels would wear- ig i could see how it might look like some sort of anime thing?? but it kinda just looks like fantasy armor to me... idk. i kinda just dont see it as much as other people seem to? it seems way more celtic to me than anything, celtic and just fantasy made-up stuff.

[libraryleopard]

oh yeah i really enjoyed the prematurely cancelled greek myth show "mud"

[feral-renaissance-cat]

My Special Interest is (and has been since I was 8) Ancient Egypt. I collected history books, taught myself some basic hieroglyphs and hieratic, attended lectures by Dr. Zahi Hawass, and I was going to go to Egypt for graduate school but then the Arab Spring happened. My two areas of focus are the Old Kingdom working class and the military campaigns of Thutmose III. And yet because I’m female presenting I get a lot of people who are like “Oh you’re into Egyptian stuff? That’s cute. I bet it’s because of the all the cats and makeup.”

Did you know Thumose III had an electrum-plated chariot and he planned open-field combat so he could have the sun in front of him to reflect off the metal and blind or confuse the enemy? Did you know absolutely no slave labor went into building the pyramids because foreigners/non-believers weren’t allowed to work on holy sites? Did you know Thutmose had a ship in his navy dedicated to beer production so the sailors wouldn’t run out on long trips? Did you know construction labor was divided into teams with a foreman and each team had a nickname? These and many more facts can be yours if you tell me to my face that I can’t possibly know THAT much about Egypt.

i don't understand the recent "how often do men think of the roman empire" trend. one of the most well-known recent academic and popular historians of the roman empire is a woman, mary beard. why do this? it isn't cute or funny if you think about the implications for more than five seconds

[cryptotheism]

most histories of the occult are like Greco-Roman magic! Gnosticism! Hermeticism! uhhhhhhh the medieval era happens, THE RENAISSANCE. And that's kinda real. The birth and ossification of Christianity created a shower of wonderful occult dross, and most of the interesting occult stuff in medieval Europe didn't get the spotlight until it was collected and republished in the Renaissance anyway.

But that said! It bugs me because the interesting shit in the medieval era was happening over in Baghdad. Thats where Alchemy was being kicked into high gear, and where that good late platonism was caramelizing. But so many intro texts just kinda brush past the Jabirian corpus and Al-Razi.

[twstfanblog]

I am scrambling for a topic, hn...

Maybe Yuu talks about how they went about naming the planets in her world to the Ignihyde boys?

YuuTalks! Explaining the Planet Names

A/N: Some quick edits I didn't realize I didn't do. Sorry!

"What a lovely turnout."

Idia sat curled up in a section of the bench seating, Ortho sitting beside him in the otherwise empty classroom.

Giggling, Ortho tilted his head as he read over the chalkboard, "Most of our friends have made the connection that if one of your events isn't mandatory, it's in their best interest to not attend. But, your world's space exploration far exceeds our own. So, I wish to hear more about the advancements from your home!"

"I'm just here to make sure you two don't start making blueprints for weapons again..." Idia mumbled, glaring over the tablet he clutched to his face.

"Fuck you. Anyway, welcome to YuuTalks! A fun little thing I've decided to do to explain topics from my world to you poor little rat boys."

Yuu clicks a button on the master remote, sending the room into darkness and illuminating the chalkboard from the overhead projector. Smiling, Yuu gestured to the title, "YuuTalks! How We Named the Planets!"

Ortho's eyes widened, already recording the presentation and leaning forward in rapt attention, "You have multiple planets!?"

"Well...We don't live on multiple planets. But we've been aware of them since ancient civilizations took notice of the stars. Seeing how we can see most of them with the naked eye..." Yuu erased the board, drawing several symbols in chalk.

Idia quirked a brow, able to recognize a few symbols. Two were gender emblems, but another two were logos he had seen in his own family registry.

Yuu made a final symbol in the beginning of the line, a circle with a single dot in the center, "I'm gonna make this a game-"

"Oh no-"

"Shut up, this'll be fun. The planet names that I was taught were actually based on Greco-Roman astrology. Which makes the fact that only you guys showed up so fucking  funny to me."

"Greco-Roman...Ah! Those are your world's equivalents of the Valley of Woe and the Union of Mourning, Prefect Yuu?"

"Yep! The Romans basically ate Greek culture and passed it off as their own once Greece fell. But then they renamed a bunch of stuff to piss me off."

Idia frowned, though more interested than before, "I really doubt that's why they did it-"

"Shut up. It totally was. BUT! Since you guys are the smartest boys on campus about who these planets were named after. I'm going to describe the planet and you will guess who its namesake is."

Ortho clapped his hands, internally opening a search window while Idia himself poised his hands over his tablet.

He smirks, throwing Yuu a subtle challenging stare, "Bring it."

Yuu turns, pointing to the first symbol in the lineup, "First up, a freebie. This is the symbol for the Sun. It is the star at the center of our solar system, the gravitational pull dragging us and our planetary brethren behind it as we all go hurtling in space together. Now-...Yes, Ortho?"

Ortho turned the flashing lights of his arm off, putting it back down to the desk, "Was the Sun not named in the same fashion as the other planets?"

"It was. This is a freebie, Ortho. Trust me the pattern is quick to pick up and then I will fuck you over later. But, 'Sun' is from an old English — Queenian — word 'sunne' which itself is from a Proto-Germanic — Fuck, um...Central Shaftian — word 'Sunnōn'. But the most common name was Sol, after the Roman sun god."

Idia was actually taking notes, brow pinching at the information, "Wait...I'm not gonna try to say her name, but you said it was a goddess of the sun* when you told me about the gods you pay respect to."

Ortho tilts his head, "I thought it was the Star Lord, Lord of the Solar Palace?"

"The wha-"

"Ok. Quick crash course. My planet has many religions. Which, if I'm remembering what Lilia and Trein have told me, doesn't really happen here. You guys have more like...'Icons of Concepts' compared to whole ways of life based around group beliefs. But MOVING ON-"

"So wait. You said the Roman god. But these names are based on Greco-Roman? Where's the Greek? Are they taking turns?"

Ortho raised his hand again, lights flaring up to be noticed more easily in the dark, "What was the Greek name for Sol, Prefect Yuu?"

"Thank you for raising your hand, Ortho. The Greek equivalent to Sol was Helios, persona of the sun-"

"OOOOOOOOOOOO!" Idia’s eyes widened, an almost giddy vibe taking over as he tapped his tablet, "Helios was an Elden mage who pioneered fire magics."

Ortho nodded his head, "He created a large number of fire spell basics that we still use today! He died via immolation, so the fact your world saw him as a persona of the sun itself is fascinating!"

"Yeah, that's a word for it. Ok, let's start round one. The first planet in the solar lineup is currently the smallest planet. It's also the closest to the Sun, meaning it makes a full trip in only 88 days compared to my world's 365-ish days."

"Aaaa. So quick..." Ortho and Idia both took notes before whispering as to who they believed the planet to be named after. Idia had proposed the symbols would be helpful, seeing how Helios in his magical studies was the first to spell weave using archaic magic circles.

"Our worlds' ancient histories are weirdly closely linked. I think symbols were some of the things that were crossed over, like the stories about the Great Seven and such..."

"True...Then..." Ortho raised his hand again, thankfully without the blinking lights and called out when Yuu nodded, "Was this planet named for Hermes?"

"Correct! Romanized to Mercury, the planet is named after the God of travelers and communication."

Ortho giggled, "Because it's so fast!"

"Next planet." Yuu tapped the female symbol, "Second from the sun, yet the hottest planet in our system. It's covered in clouds of sulfuric acid and is literally the landscape of actual hell on the surface. But from the view of our world, it was the most beautiful star in the sky..."

"Hmmm...Maybe Eris? History did paint her as a rather malicious trickster, but she was known to be quite beautiful..." Ortho tapped at the desk, mentally reviewing the overwhelmingly large records of Woe and Mourning historical figures.

"It does sound like a pretty horrific status of a planet...pretty from afar, but a toxic environment up close- It's Aphrodite."

The laugh Yuu let out was short and barely contained. She smiles, looking at Idia with a head tilt, "What made you come to that conclusion?"

"Ah…A few hundred years ago, we found  what we think were Aprodite's journals. She wasn't much of a mage, but she did dabble heavily in potion crafting. The research she had put into her potions was interesting enough to be published as a scientific memoir. While most of it was her recounting on the properties of plants and other magic objects, she was also ripping on her family viciously..."

"She recounted several ways she's cheated on her husband..."

Yuu laughed harder, "Messy bitch, I love her. Yes. Aphrodite, Romanized to Venus, is the name of the planet. Venus is also called my planet's twin, since they're roughly the same size. Now skipping to the fourth planet-"

Humming under his breath, Ortho's brows creased but he skipped over the third info section in his notes, "We're skipping your planet, Prefect Yuu?"

"If you guys do well on the others, you can guess my planet's name." Yuu taps at the male symbol on the board, "Known as the little red planet, it's the planet we've studied the most. We've sent multiple explorer robots up there and have learned the planet is red because its soil is rich in iron. In fact, it's so red that it's a key naming feature in every culture that discovered the planet."

Idia hummed under his breath, scrolling through the list of historical figures linked to his homeland, "Little and red, huh..."

Ortho perked up and yelled, "Ares!"

"Ding ding ding!" Yuu tapped the symbol, "Ares, the god of war,  is the namesake of the little red planet. Romanized to Mars!"

"How'd you guess that Ortho?"

"Do you not remember the legend? Ares and Aphrodite had an affair for many years. During one such meeting, Aphrodite's husband came home. And since he knew what Ares looked like, she poured what was possibly the first draft of a color-changing potion over his head. Unfortunately, it was permanent as Ares remained red for the rest of his days..."

"We just named it because to the Greeks it looked blood-soaked. Your legend is cuter. Now," Yuu taps the next symbol, a stylized '4', "This is the fifth planet. Big as fuck, like insanely big, too big. Like, 13,000 of my planet can fit in this fucker."

"That is big…"

"That's cracked stats big..."

"We also sent a satellite up there named after his wife since a bunch of the moons are named after his lovers."

Ortho and Idia looked at each other, eyes glancing back to Yuu as Ortho asked, "Is that...a cute thing?"

"More along the lines of hilarious."

Idia sighed, "It's Zeus."

"Damn, say it with a bit more hope in your soul at least."

"I don't wanna talk about that asshole..."

Yuu held up her hands, nodding her head, "Fair. But, yes, the fifth planet is named after Zeus, romanized to Jupiter, the big daddy king of the gods."

"Don't...call him that..."

Ortho giggled, "You named a satellite after Hera and sent it to revolve around him?"

"The Romans called her Juno, but yeah, it's funny. Now...This one might be tough because they are not...the same person this time? But are? It's weird."

Yuu taps the next symbol, a stylized 'h', "The second largest planet in our solar system, after the big daddy king-"

"Don't call him that!?"

"Fine. The second largest after Jupiter, it's known for its dazzling outer rings made up of rock and ice. It also has the most moons of any planet."

"Oh? Quick query, Prefect Yuu. What are the moons of the other planets?"

"Well, Mercury and Venus don't have moons. My planet has one moon. Mars has two, Deimos and Phobos named after Ares’ sons. Jupiter has...95 that we know about? Or at the very least ones that are recognized as moons. And...the planet we're talking about now has...274-"

Idia’s eyes widened, even Ortho pulled back in surprise, "What, like, all at once!?"

"We think Jupiter has 600 we just haven't categorized all of them...Jupiter is so fucking big, it's annoying to think about..."

"What...what did you even name them all? At some point, you have to start using numbers instead..." Ortho tilted his head, brows creased in thought.

"Well, the biggest moon is named Titan..."

Idia groaned, "Just tell us, there's...there's too many titans to guess from if the themeing is following what I think it is. And you're saying there's 274 moons? We'll be here all afternoon."

"Well...Saturn is the Roman equivalent of Cronus-"

Both Ortho and Idia jumped back in their seats even more, Idia nearly scrambling backwards to the desks behind him, "Cronus!?"

"Damn...What did he do here? In my world he like...castrated his father and ate five of his children."

"By the Design...I don't...Cronus is theorized to be the first incident of an overblot? It's the only conclusion we can make from what few written accounts of the event we've found. He seemingly went mad one day and attempted to murder his wife and children."

Idia tapped at his tablet, "Was he known as a god in your world? I think after...the incident, his children tried to erase him from history with varying results."

"Uh...varying answer. He was worshipped, but nowhere near as much as his children were. There was kind of a soft spoken respect to him? But he wasn't really worshipped until he was romanized into a god of agriculture."

Ortho squints his eyes, "Agriculture?"

"You know...because of the sickle?"

"...You mean his murder weapon!?"

"Moving on." Yuu turned back to the board, tapping the next symbol, a hybrid of the Sun and Mars symbols mashed together. "We actually only discovered this planet and the rest in the past few hundred years! It and other planets were only theorized to exist, but the technology just couldn't find them yet."

Idia raised his hand, "I wanna keep talking about the fact your world had the legend of a man maiming his father and cannibalizing his children, and they were just cool with him???"

"Shhhhhhhhhhh. This planet has its own iconic set of rings and is actually tilted by 90°. Plus, it's the only planet named after a Greek god instead of Roman. It has fourteen moons, all named after book characters, giving them the title of the 'Literary Moons'."

Ortho hummed, doing brief math in his head before speaking, "So...it rotates normally, but its north and south poles are pointed facing the sun directly?"

Idia let out a terrified peep, "That's way too much sunlight! Wait...how long does daylight last then? If a whole hemisphere is looking right in the crosshairs of the sun?"

"Like 40 years."

"I'd kill myself."

Laughing, Yuu spoke, "It's kind of our fault? The theory is that an object the size of my planet hit it and caused it to tilt."

Idia mumbled under his breath, "Ruining stuff for everyone else is kind of the thing of your world, huh?"

"May we have another hint, Prefect Yuu?"

"Hmmmm...This planet is named after the Greek personification of the sky."

Ortho tilts his head, thinking over his options, "Is it...Ouranos?"

"I'll give you the win." Yuu wrote on the blackboard, giggling, "Uranus is what the planet was called in the end. Here's how we spelled it."

...

"...Prefect Yuu-"

"I know."

Idia held his hand over his mouth, "That's...so disrespectful...Why did you spell it like that...?"

"Because scientists forget at times that children are monsters. Next planet, because I wanna finish and get lunch."

Glancing at the clock, Ortho mused, "It has been a bit since we started."

Yuu tapped the next symbol, very clearly a trident, “This planet-”

Idia and Ortho both spoke, “Poseidon.”

“Let me…fucking speak?”

Idia gestured toward the board, glaring at Yuu in annoyance, “Its symbol is a trident. You’d have to be a noob of the highest degree to not know the symbol of the first Mer-King.”

“Fuck you, I’m still talking. Since it’s so far away, it’s basically a giant ball of ice with dense clouds over its surface. Said clouds were believed to give it an appearance of water though that has been disproven. It has sixteen known moons, all named after lesser sea gods such as Nereid and Triton.”

Idia called out, voice dripping heavily in a sarcastic tone, “Wow, more water-centered historical figures. How could I have not thought it was Poseidon?”

“Shut up, it's called Neptune and your knees are forfeit when we leave this room.” Slapping the board, Yuu nods her head toward the last symbol, “Guess it, you cunt.”

Idia opened his mouth but gave pause, humming as he studied the symbol closer.

Ortho tilted his head, “Is that a ‘G’?

“Ortho, does this look like a G?”

“Yes! It looks like a confused lowercase G!” At Yuu's continued silence, Idia gestured to the board, “Is it!?”

“No! You fucking dumbass- It was the smallest planet of our solar system until it got so unpopular with the scientific community that they declassified it as a planet. Can you guess who this one is named after? Huh? Can you guess, Idia?”

“...That's fucked up and mean.” Idia tapped at his tablet, shrinking back when Yuu leaned over the desk to continue taunting him.

“No, go on say it. Who is the little bitch planet named after that went on to have little bitch descendants?”

Ortho spoke up, the sadness clear in his tone as he looked at the board, “Was it really so disliked…?”

Yuu turns to Ortho, tone softer and all of her hostility gone, “No, it was declassified because after like…80 years of continued study and advancements in telescopes, scientists found that Pluto, romanized from Hades, didn't really…planet right?”

Idia spoke, “How does it not ‘planet’ well?”

“Well, for one, it's small. Like smaller than my planet's moon, small. Pluto's moon is actually only like half its size. And it doesn't orbit properly. It's like riding on Neptune's orbit sometimes. Plus its apparently on a fucking orbital angle different from the other planets, so that's making it weird too.”

Ortho leaned his head against Yuu’s shoulder, playing up his sadness and tapping his fingers together, “Did people really not like it…?”

Yuu sighed, patting Ortho on the head before backing away from the desk, “Nah. From what I remember people were pretty pissed that Pluto lost its status. They just kind of claim its a planet and are debating about it still.”

“Aw…That's nice. So Pluto is very loved in your world?” Ortho's eyes were shining, a clear contrast to Idia’s guarded and half hidden glare.

Rolling her eyes, Yuu smiles, “Yeah. We love that funky little planet. Oh! I have to show you guys a song about Pluto, I think you'd both like it.”

“We'll see about that…” Idia mumbled, glancing at the clock before sighing, “Hey. Did you still…want to do lunch…?”

“Yeah. I really don't even wanna try to find my main trio of braincells right now. So you two get to have me as a lunch date.”

“Oh goody…”

“Shut up, you fucking offered.”

“Wait! Prefect Yuu, you haven't told us your planet's name yet. I want to know.”

“I mean…I've said it before. You know the stuff I'd say when you guys first met me? ‘What on Earth?’ ‘Earth to dipshit.’ ‘Salt of the Earth.’ Stuff like that.”

“...It's Earth?”

“Yep.”

“But…but that's so boring, Prefect Yuu! That just means dirt!”

Yuu couldn't help but chuckle, “And our moon is named Moon.”

Idia huffed, already standing from his seat as Ortho remained fuming in his, “Talk about dropping the ball in the writers room. It's like playing an MMO with an immersive cast of high fantasy names only to find an NPC named Kyle.”

“Yeah…we didn't really see ourselves as a body in the universe…but the other names for Earth and our moon are actually Terra and Luna.”

“Doesn't Luna-”

“Yes, Luna just means Moon. Romanized from the Moon persona, Selene. And Terra is Romanized from the Greek Earth persona, Gaia.”

Both Idia and Ortho freeze, both looking at Yuu with wide eyes.

“...What?”

Idia coughed briefly into his fist, his mouth suddenly dry as his brain raced with theories and ways to soft launch questions to his parents, “Gaea is the name of our Planet…”

“...Huh.” Yuu clicked the remote, holding the door open as the room fell into complete darkness, “It's always kinda weird how close our worlds seem…”

Idia nodded, following behind Yuu and Ortho to the cafeteria, “You're telling me…”

Idia is talking about Xi He of Chinese mythos. Ortho follows up by referring to Tai Yang Xing Jun. She hasn't actually explained this to them, though.