4nywhere3lsewhere - Tumblr blog

[4nywhere3lsewhere]

LOOK ALIVE, SUNSHINE

I was going to skip doing an Ides illustration this year, but I decided to pull out something from my illustrations vault at the last minute after watching the news in the Philippines the other night. the first Ides illustration was prompted by feelings of frustration and grief seeing the Marcos family come back into power and also that ballot substitution bullshit. and. well!!! you know how it is! we're on year 3 of making these illustrations, baby!

so let’s get into it: fuck Brutus, my man Cassius is getting center stage this time! after all, it’s Cassius who typically initiates the conspiracy while Brutus steals the spotlight. Brutus is here, though, he’s the one with blood on his hand, in reference to the account where Cassius accidentally stabs him in the hand trying to get another hit on Caesar.

it’s thematically compelling if you take into account that Cassius is mentioned at the start of Brutus’ biography as someone who finds tyranny intolerable (in addition: that dinner scene with Mark Antony)

Cassius and Brutus: The Memory of the Liberators, Elizabeth Rawson

Brutus, the Noble Conspirator, Kathryn Tempest

Cassius Dio 44.34

and Brutus is later mentioned to have taken part of Caesar’s power only to be dissuaded from people from fully embracing all of that

Plutarch, Brutus 7 (trans. Ian Scott-Kilvert)

and Cassius, by accident, wounds Brutus in the act of assassinating Caesar. It’s like….he’s being compelled…..to act as a hand of Justice on behalf of the Republic……a little bit…..

Life of Augustus, Nicolaus of Damascus (trans. Toher)

and to preemptively cut off people from doing Caesar apologia in my inbox: we are engaging in a long and established tradition of using the Ides of March and the people who participated in it to discuss other stuff. you know. allegory and allusion and all of that. also ancient Roman conspiracies are fun. thank you & goodnight.

⭐ places I’m at! bsky / pixiv / pillowfort /cohost / cara.app / tip jar!

[4nywhere3lsewhere]

a very important day for very annoying people (me)

[4nywhere3lsewhere]

unpopular opinion: Julius Caesar didn't say anything to Brutus when he got stabbed because he didn't want to break his mewing streak.

[4nywhere3lsewhere]

going to blame good old Julius and Octavian for this one :D

[4nywhere3lsewhere]

It's generally thought that the Prima Porta depicts him as barefoot because it is inspired by Classical Greek sculpture which generally depicted divine figures as barefoot and Augustus wanted to aline himself with divinity (divi filius yada yada).

i was going to post something about roman shoes but that post is CANCELLED i dont know how i did not notice that the prima porta augustus is BAREFOOT. shocked appalled etc. what was he fucking thinking!!!!!!!!

[4nywhere3lsewhere]

no one understands me (I think brutus by the buttress mischaracterizes brutus (julius caesar) as a character)

[4nywhere3lsewhere]

happy birthday to him!!! ignore that other bit though

[4nywhere3lsewhere]

[4nywhere3lsewhere]

Concept: A comedy play set in the late Roman republic with the audience playing the role of the Roman people. The characters prompt the audience to 'vote' in elections (shouting "yay" or "boo"), to harass other characters making speeches, to join Caesar or Pompey as their "legionaries" in the civil war, and to revolt while the armies are fighting overseas.

Then Caesar comes back from the war, victorious. And he doesn't prompt the audience anymore, he tells them what is going to happen next. Including having the set redesigned, changing the genre of the story, and critiquing the theater the play is happening in. When theater managers (planted actors) step in and remind him he can't do that, Caesar has them dragged out of the building. The voice of the people has been silenced, and the rule of law is suspended, just like it was in real life.

The audience is never again prompted for input. Both the conspirators who kill Caesar and the mob that runs them out of Rome are entirely actors, acting on their own initiative. We hop briefly over the war of Mutina, then to the formation of the second triumvirate, and the final scene of the play is Antony, Octavian and Lepidus having audience members killed (more planted actors). Even the curtain call is framed as if the audience is reduced to giving a rubber-stamp approval to a three-headed dictatorship.

Sweet dreams, everyone!

[4nywhere3lsewhere]

Why does Suzanne Collins name her characters like that? We're supposed to root for Sejanus in TBOSAS, but his name kept reminding me of the guy from I, Claudius who was executed for betraying Tiberius and then had his head used as a football by the local children.

[4nywhere3lsewhere]

what if cicero was there

[4nywhere3lsewhere]

idk if Teucer being my favourite Greek in the Iliad is something I should admit...

[4nywhere3lsewhere]

“if women want equality then they should be drafted” what if — just hear me out — what if nobody should be drafted. not even *looks behind my shoulder* not even men.

[4nywhere3lsewhere]

his complete lack of swag, mildly gay behavior, and bad posture have captivated me

[4nywhere3lsewhere]

 LAST OF THE ROMANS

pour one out for cassius in honor of him dying on his birthday!! he did not do tragedy by halves!

Plutarch, Brutus (trans. Scott-Kilvert)

and on the topic of the flowers:

Senatorial Wealth and Roman Politics, Israel Shatzman

like, I would have done the flowers anyway, but I’ll take any excuse to justify it, you know

[4nywhere3lsewhere]

Happy birth and death day to Cassius. Forever in our hearts.

💔💔💔

[4nywhere3lsewhere]

Do you guys think that Judas was awkward in the mouth of Satan in the ninth circle of hell cuz the two other guys he was trapped forever with know each other. Like do you think Cassius and Brutus had a lot of inside jokes and Judas would try to join in and they would have to gently let him down. While being chewed on.