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The Belmont Mansion looks remarkably like Roman architecture when you think about it! It’s very frontal and has a raised front porch area like a Roman temple. It’s pretty incredible how it’s lasted for so long without being destroyed... Most roman architecture didn’t last which is unfortunate but true. The columns out front borrow from Greek architecture as they are Corinthian style. Statues present on the roof are comparable to St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome which, obviously, carries Roman influence. The central room at the front mimics the style of Roman temples as well. The Belmont Mansion may not be entirely based off of Roman architecture and/or culture, but there is definitely obvious influence!

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Xbr0oz3r_the_bareX

There once was a scene kid named Jim who would dye his hair all the time. It was an extremely unhealthy habit, and in case you didn’t know, it kills your hair over a long period. Unfortunately, it was also the main cause of kids bullying him. Jim’s nickname was Bruiser because he was always getting in fights with people and usually lost, so he was pretty bruised up afterwards.

Every day, Bruiser would change his hair color to something no one else had. Nobody else at his school dyed their hair, so it was always up to him what color he wanted. At the time everything happened, his hair was green. He walked into school and immediately, the group of kids who always pestered him knocked him down and took the money out of his wallet. He was always too scared to say anything to an adult because he thought he would be the one to get in trouble; he was always getting in trouble for things he didn’t do. He got up and went to class, and when lunch time came he had no money because the bullies stole it. Bruiser, sad and hungry, went home. The next day he came to school with orange hair and the same exact thing happened, except they actually beat him up after they took his money. This went on for several days before Bruiser finally got so fed up with the bullies that he tried to beat them up himself - of course, Bruiser was pretty scrawny compared to them so they easily took him down. He was so upset that he went home and ate 17.43 pounds of lean meat, drank 8 protein shakes, and watched a few specials on bears on Animal Planet. He was so inspired and intrigued by the bears’ sheer size and power that he decided he would try to imitate a bear when he went to face the bullies after the weekend was over. Sunday came and went (with more meat and protein shakes) and before he knew it, it was Monday. That morning, the bullies came up to him expecting to beat him up the worst he’d ever been beaten, but instead they were surprised to see he had magically bulked up incredibly over the weekend. Bruiser moved towards them with the intend to beat them up but he misjudged his newfound strength. He raised his hands to attack them and let out a mighty roar like he’d heard from the bears on Animal Planet. As he was about to strike them, Jupiter froze him where he stood so they would not die due to Bruiser’s unknown power. Jupiter punished the bullies for what they did to Bruiser, but Bruiser still remains in that same spot. Many, many years later Belmont University would be erected around frozen Bruiser and they would choose him as their mascot.

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You know what this is.

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AIA Lecture

I attended the lecture on dead Greek babies by Maria A. Liston. Now, despite sounding like an incredibly riveting way to spend an evening based on that description, it was actually pretty interesting.

The real title for the lecture was “Short Lives and Forgotten Deaths... Infant Skeletons from the Baby Well in the Athenian Agora.” It was very eye-opening for me because unless I didn’t ever consciously think about it - you don’t recognize that infanticide was fairly common back then until someone shows you. 50% of babies born alive (i.e. not stillborn or dead immediately after birth) didn’t reach puberty. The babies were obviously thrown into the well because of the masses of bones found about 13-20 meters down the well. Other artifacts such as 2nd century BCE pottery, bronze trash, a baby feeder bottle, and dog bones were found along with the infant bones. It’s theorized that the infants and these other artifacts were thrown into the well as sacrifices and not as super-intentional infanticide. The male-to-female ratio of infant bones discovered was actually very close to a clean 50/50 split, so there was no bias as to which sex was preferred for sacrificing. A full term for children in utero was about 43 weeks - some were found to have been born at about 26 weeks which is wayyyyyy premature; they were most likely D.O.A. So was it infanticide or was the well just a dumpster for these λίγο κουτσούβελα? Well (pun intended), some children were found to have had Battered Child Syndrome and, like the name suggests, it’s basically child abuse. That part suggests infanticide. Now, other things could’ve played a part in their deaths, too: the belief that breastmilk was bad for the children so they fed them other mixtures which in turn killed them, disease, and a plethora of other possibilities. Some babies were killed before amphidromia which was the 5th, 7th, or 10th day after birth ceremony.

So were the Greeks ruthless child murderers or makeshift morgue creators? We don’t know, and we may never know for sure, but as we learned in Classic Civ this semester, that’s okay! Don’t try this at home, kids.

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Corinthian columns on the DAC

Doric columns on the Beaman

Ionic columns on the Massey business center

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“:O another timeline Jason?” “Yes, it’s another one of my special posts.” “Oh, right. Carry on.” Enjoy the Peloponnesian War. Well, don’t enjoy the war, I mean enjoy the timeline. You get it.

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My timeline on the fall of the Roman Republic!

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Hey, I recognize that Oedipus... I still don't understand what was so damn funny about that line.

Special Post: please enjoy our lovely rendition of Oedipus Tyrannus ft. dysfunctional iPhoto background. 

@sarahstuff4

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Solon(ely)

Solon was a pre-socratic philosopher from Athens born in 630 BCE. One of the Seven Wise Men of Greece, he ended aristocratic rule of the government and reinstated more moral and humane law codes to the state. Solon was also a notably great poet - he convinced the Athenians to rekindle a war with Megara over the island of Salamis by reciting a poem and preaching that they should “arise and come to Salamis, to win that fair island and undo [their] shame.” His ideas of reform countered many people’s desire for revolution and gained him infamy. His economic reform was forefronted by a need to eliminate debt in the state. He went on to limit exports in order to prioritize the needs of the Athenians rather than the desire of wealth. His elimination of the aristocracy’s rule and replacement with a wealthy citizen-led government made life easier and less strenuous for the less fortunate citizens; Draconian laws were still in effect, so his new written code of law also improved the general welfare of the constituents. Of course, like with any change it came with criticism. He had not wanted to reach equality - he merely wanted justice and freedom, and if that came without equality than he probably thought, “so be it.” He left for 10 years so he didn’t have to explain his reasonings to anyone but returned only to find that the citizens had divided into factions and Peisistratus had plans to become tyrant.

So although it doesn’t have an entirely happy ending, it’s still a very noble effort on Solon’s part. His desire for justice was well-meaning but it just never really lasted, unfortunately.

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LOL they do look similar!

The many faces of Mary Beard

If we’re gonna watch three hours of documentaries on Roman life, at least the host was entertaining!

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Laws are silent in times of war.

Cicero

Selah. Just pause and think about it… 

(via melody-rhythm-life)

This is such a great quote to ponder about. Ethics could also be thrown into the mix to spice the quote up even more.

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If anything I think that the works that we have read by Herodotus and Homer verify this quote exactly. The wars that we have learned about are fueled mostly by rage and fate, neither of which abide by any laws.

(via ektomso)

This quote endures through centuries of history, from Cicero all the way to more the contemporary history of the United States. The internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII, the suspension of Habeas Corpus during the Civil War, and even more recently the questionable methods of interrogation amidst a “war on terror”. Strange to draw connections in history, perhaps even scary as we wonder if the US is domed to the same fate as Rome?

(via classiestcivilizations)

Interesting to think about. It’s a shame how people throughout history have abused times of war to pull of sneaky deals that usually would have been checked.

(via greece-is-the-word)

Funny how it’s so true even today. Politics is some shady stuff!

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Alexander the Incredible

“Great” really just doesn’t cut it as an adjective to describe Macedonian king Alexander. As someone who commanded a cavalry at 18, became king at 20, and took over the empire of Persia at 26, he truly was an incredible conqueror and leader. I’m 18 now and there’s no way in hell I’m commanding a cavalry any time soon!

If Alexander the Great hadn’t taken over the Persian Empire, Greek culture never would’ve made it into Western Asia and Greece’s share of the world would’ve remained solely in the Mediterranean region. He did so with a tactic different from many militant leaders throughout history - he was patient. He wore away at them slowly instead of merely attacking with 100% power at once. The only times Alexander ever really failed was when his troops refused to go any further east, mutinied against him in Macedonia, and when food and water supplies ran so low the troops were killed not by an enemy, but by hunger and thirst. Many leaders looked to his career for inspiration (including Pompey) because of how extensive and successful it was.

Alexander the Great was pretty good at what he did. “He was ruthless towards those who opposed him... but fair and honest toward those who exhibited courage and skill,” and, although driven by personal desires for glory instead of the greater good for Macedonia, he still was unfathomably powerful and created quite a legacy to follow.

Source (http://www.history.com/topics/ancient-history/alexander-the-great)

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I think my turkey might’ve had some human in it... oops.

Thanksgiving for Classicists...

First:

But then we think of this:

And we just:

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I ran sound for “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” last year in high school!!! I think it’s really creative how they did it with all males, borrowing from Roman culture. (We had a female character played by a male as well last year - it was hilarious.) Just goes to show how much we take from these ancient cultures!

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Bob the Bear loves Bees

The Metamorphosis of Bruiser the Bear

There once was a man named Bob Fisher. Ironically, Bob loved to fish. He was the best fisherman in town and ran a thriving fish business. However, he was a very selfish man, and he would never share his fish with anyone. Bob’s wife began to worry about his selfishness, so one day she called upon the gods to disguise her as a poor, old woman. She went to Bob and begged that he share a fish with her. To her surprise, he refused. Bob’s wife was furious! She thought…next she would return as an orphan child. Still, Bob refused to share any of his fish. Each day she went to the river, she would notice the hungry bears hunting alongside the water. In her anger with her greedy husband, she called upon her father, Jupiter, to turn Bob into a bear. He lived the rest of his life frozen in bear-form, forced to watch the other bears happily catching fish now that he was gone. 

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Everybody loves ancient sanitation, right? This article is actually pretty interesting because it challenges what most everyone’s impression of sewer systems is - that they were used to carry away waste (most likely human waste and trash, but let’s be general here.) On the contrary, it seems that they were not made to remove waste per se, but only to remove standing and dirty water. Koloski-Ostrow writes, “Roman sewers moved filthy water away from where it hindered cleanliness, economic growth, urban development and even industry,” which, in a way, says “it carried crap away from people,” literally. But filthy water is pretty broad; any water left standing out that wasn’t bottled or contained properly would probably be unsanitary and have gone bad, so the sewage systems took all this bad H2O away from populated areas. Makes sense. Coincidentally, sites at both Herculaneum and Pompeii are used as examples to support this. At Herculaneum, “the first excavators found an ancient deposit of hardened sludge measuring about 1.35 meters high. No amount of water, however fast-flowing, would have been able to remove that,” meaning that it had to be manually removed - that implies that it wasn’t hooked up to a sewage system (similarly in Pompeii) and was most likely just a hole that lead nowhere.

Basically, it wasn’t as sanitary as one would think. Sewage system doesn’t always equate to cleanliness!

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I’m gonna have to go with Hadrian’s Villa... Sorry! That would’ve kicked some ancient butt if that was my vacation home, seriously. Camp David’s cool and all, but I mean, look at the Villa! It’s crazy!

Let’s be real…Hadrian’s villa seems pretty awesome.