#Philippicae

[philosophybits]

Any man is liable to err, but only a fool persists in error.

Cicero, Philippicae

[muspeccoll]

Why is there a big block of blank space surrounding the first letter on this page?

It’s because it was meant to be decorated. Early printed books often featured hand-colored initials, added after printing by a person called a rubricator. That small letter Q is called a guide letter, and it’s there to let the rubricator know which letter to write in, without having to read the text.

The second image is an example of what this page might have looked like, had its owner paid for the services of a rubricator.

(Image 1 via Lives. Latin. by Plutarch per Nicolaum Ienson Gallicum, 2 Jan. 1478; Image 2 via  Historiae Philippicae. 1470 by Justinus, Marcus Junianus. Udalricus Gallus [Ulrich Han], 1470?)

[caesxr]

cicero was ovulating when he wrote the philippicae

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 9.2 (before 1940)

44 BC – Pharaoh Cleopatra VII of Egypt declares her son co-ruler as Ptolemy XV Caesarion. 44 BC – Cicero launches the first of his Philippicae (oratorical attacks) on Mark Antony. He will make 14 of them over the following months. 31 BC – Final War of the Roman Republic: Battle of Actium: Off the western coast of Greece, forces of Octavian defeat troops under Mark Antony and Cleopatra. 1192 – The Treaty of Jaffa is signed between Richard I of England and Saladin, leading to the end of the Third Crusade. 1561 – Entry of Mary, Queen of Scots into Edinburgh, a spectacular civic celebration for the Queen of Scotland, marred by religious controversy. 1649 – The Italian city of Castro is completely destroyed by the forces of Pope Innocent X, ending the Wars of Castro. 1666 – The Great Fire of London breaks out and burns for three days, destroying 10,000 buildings, including Old St Paul's Cathedral. 1752 – Great Britain, along with its overseas possessions, adopts the Gregorian calendar. 1789 – The United States Department of the Treasury is founded. 1792 – During what became known as the September Massacres of the French Revolution, rampaging mobs slaughter three Roman Catholic bishops, more than two hundred priests, and prisoners believed to be royalist sympathizers. 1806 – A massive landslide destroys the town of Goldau, Switzerland, killing 457. 1807 – Napoleonic Wars: The British Royal Navy bombards Copenhagen with fire bombs and phosphorus rockets to prevent Denmark from surrendering its fleet to Napoleon. 1856 – The Tianjing incident takes place in Nanjing, China. 1859 – The Carrington Event is the strongest geomagnetic storm on record. 1862 – American Civil War: United States President Abraham Lincoln reluctantly restores Union General George B. McClellan to full command after General John Pope's disastrous defeat at the Second Battle of Bull Run. 1864 – American Civil War: Union forces enter Atlanta, a day after the Confederate defenders flee the city, ending the Atlanta Campaign. 1867 – Mutsuhito, Emperor Meiji of Japan, marries Masako Ichijō, thereafter known as Empress Shōken. 1870 – Franco-Prussian War: Battle of Sedan: Prussian forces take Napoleon III of France and 100,000 of his soldiers prisoner. 1885 – Rock Springs massacre: In Rock Springs, Wyoming, 150 white miners, who are struggling to unionize so they could strike for better wages and work conditions, attack their Chinese fellow workers killing 28, wounding 15 and forcing several hundred more out of town. 1898 – Battle of Omdurman: British and Egyptian troops defeat Sudanese tribesmen and establish British dominance in Sudan. 1901 – Vice President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt utters the famous phrase, "Speak softly and carry a big stick" at the Minnesota State Fair. 1912 – Arthur Rose Eldred is awarded the first Eagle Scout award of the Boy Scouts of America. 1923 – Kantō Massacre: Amid rumors that Koreans had been conducting acts of sabotage in the aftermath of the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake, lynch mobs of Japanese begin massacring thousands of civilians over the course of several weeks, mainly ethnic minorities such as Koreans and Chinese. 1935 – The Labor Day Hurricane, the most intense hurricane to strike the United States, makes landfall at Long Key, Florida, killing at least 400. 1939 – World War II: Following the start of the invasion of Poland the previous day, the Free City of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland) is annexed by Nazi Germany.

[eldisconquistador]

Assignment #9 - Cicero’s Philippicae

[garland-on-thy-brow]

Imagine not even being a Philippus and getting philippicaed anyway.

(Can you call Antony a Philippus after he was tentmates with Horse Trebonius?)

[solidarishkeyt]

Servitutem pacem vocas? Maiores quidem nostri non modo ut liberi essent sed etiam ut imperarent arma capiebant: tu arma abicienda censes ut serviamus? Quae causa iustior est belli gerendi quam servitutis depulsio? In qua etiam si non sit molestus dominus, tamen est miserrimum posse, si velit.

Do you call servitude peace? Our ancestors took up arms not only to be free, but also to win power. You think that our arms should now be thrown away in order that we should become slaves. But what cause of waging war can be more just than that of repudiating slavery? For the most miserable feature of this condition is that, even if the master happens not to be oppressive, he can be so should he wish.

Cicero, Philippicae, 8.12.

[girlcavalcanti]

do y'all ever can't wait for everyone to leave the house so you can show all your bookshelves how flawless your delivery of the second philippica is

[achiievable]

17 days to go until the worst exam possible 😬

[bxrrybunny]

٩(ˊᗜˋ*)و ♡

A Mussaenda philippica from a botanical garden in the city!

reblog/credit if used

[philosophybits]

The name of peace is sweet, and the thing itself is beneficial, but there is a great difference between peace and servitude. Peace is freedom in tranquility, servitude is the worst of all evils, to be resisted not only by war, but even by death.

Cicero, Philippicae

[awrldalone]

11th June 2022, 10.58pm

Mosquitos have been poking at my skin angrily, eating my legs, savoring the flesh. They never bothered me that much, I do not know what is different this summer.

Today I did not do much. My final exams are in two weeks, my traffic laws test is next week, and I am severely underprepared. I know I cannot pass any of my exams without actually studying, putting myself to it, but I simply cannot. I just need to run the last stretch, I need to do the last sprint, but my legs fail. 

My sister had a piano concert tonight. I hated it, I always hate that kind of thing, but I smiled at her and clapped my hands and told her she was good, as if I did not listen to her practice every other night.

But now, it is time to pick back up the narration I started yesterday – 

Last Saturday, we took a train to Milan, because that night we had a concert to go to. We took two, actually, because we had to take a connecting train in Verona. It was not what we expected. Not as intimate as we would have hoped. He told me, whispering in my ear through the thick FFP2 mask, that he would have liked to watch a movie with me. Instead, we barely had room to move our legs until we got off. When we sat in the other train, which was cleaner and wider, we had given up on the idea of taking out my laptop.

I studied a bit. Leopardi has always been such a big question mark to me, such a polarizing man. I still have to make up my mind about him, mostly because my school manual on him feels lacking. Considering all that he has done, written, thought in his life, a few hundred pages will never be enough.

Every time he leaned on my shoulder, my heart fluttered. I rarely feel butterflies in my stomach – usually, when I feel insects break out of their chrysalis and fly out of their cocoon in my stomach, it’s moths, brown and rotten – but his chest raising up and down near mine, his fingers braided with mine – his and mine, that is the point – him connected to me – him bleeding into me – we – his eyes looking into mine make me feel things.

In Milan, we were tourists. It is nice to be, sometimes. We had an overpriced salad, in a place I hated for its tackiness. Some restaurants, I have noticed, have this fake elegance to them, so fabricated that it becomes synonymous with decadence. They are instagrammable, sure, but that might be the root of the issue, because they look so intrinsically tied to social media. The little restaurant looked like it was made for instagram, with its pinks and clean marbles and golds. The issue is, trends cycle so fast on the internet that places like that always end up feeling vapid, uncomfortable, in my eyes. 

I did not want to be unpleasant, so I said nothing. I tend to be pedantic, argumentative, unnecessarily dissenter, but I am working on it. Sometimes there’s no necessity to start enunciating a Philippicae on the decor of a restaurant. 

The city center was packed. It was hot, full of people, overwhelmingly crowded. The Duomo was closed, for some reason. We spent some time in a very big bookstore, and I got a copy of Vuoto d’Amore by Alda Merini (some very insane poems; note to self: read more by her, maybe find a good biography). One of the poems paints a particularly beautiful image of a bird blossoming his singing on the branch of a tree. Others are bout despair, and her time in a mental hospital.

By the time we got to our airbnb, it was around six p.m., and we were both tired. 

For the first time, we had a place to stay, and I could not help but think about how it would feel to live with him, to buy a couch, a picture frame, to tape pictures to the walls, or water plants. I was shaving the little stubble that grows on my chin and jaw, the kind that nobody sees but that annoys me, and I thought about what had happened two days before, when he said no. As the water spinned in the dark green sink, I thought that maybe he was right, that maybe it was for the better, because how can we have a future together? 

I washed my face, applied moisturizer and went back to the living room, where he was sitting on the couch, his legs wide, elbows on knees. He greeted me by opening his arms, inviting me to hug him, and despite I was all clean, shaven and showered, and he was still dirty, salty of sweat and warm of sun, I went into his arms. I laid my cheek on my chest, breathing lightly. I always breathe lightly, wanting nobody to hear me, almost ashamed of the fact I need air, penitent for my own existence. He wrapped me in a hug, his strong biceps bulging on my back, until he let me go saying it was his turn to get cleaned up.

When he was away, while I was drinking a glass of water, I realized that that was the gayest fucking thing of my life. Going to the gayest fucking city in Italy with a boy I like to go to the gayest fucking concert (Charli XCX – she is great, her last album is not that good but long live bad taste) and staying in the gayest fucking apartment. 

Getting to the venue was not easy. That same night, none other than Elton John was holding a concert. No taxi cabs responded to my calls. So we ended up taking one of those stupid green scooters. And it was fun.

We rushed through the streets of Milan, following my GPS, wind in our hair, dangerously balancing our weight and laughing. I held tight to him.

At one point, the stupid green scooter stopped working. That was because, we realized a few minutes later, we had gotten outside of the urban area. The service worked only inside of the city center, and the route to the venue lead us outside of it. 

There we stood, between cars, in the damp heat of Milan, thirty minutes away from Fabrique. I said we should run. We ended up finding a tram that lead near there, and then we got in line.

The show itself was incredible. It was the first time for both of us, and for both of us Charli is not our favorite artist of all time. A few days before going to the concert I had realized just for how long I had been listening to her though. Since 2017, minimum, and that reflected during the show. 

I got a shirt, more as a joke than anything, while he got in line for a drink. A way-too-expensive watered down vodka redbull. It was symbolic. We managed to get to the middle of the crowd, and XCX World songs started playing after the opening act left the stage. 

It was fun to see who knew the lyrics and who did not. I knew every word, it’s my second favorite album by her after all, even though I should not have been able to listen to it, since it never came out. A guy next to us was wearing a t-shirt that just said “gay sex”. The boy in front of me was tall, but I liked him because he too knew every beat of the unreleased songs. M. was clueless.

And when she came on stage, it was like the best party I have ever been to. I jumped I screamed I danced I kissed M. I knew every word I yelled louder than everyone. 

We got home late, and we stopped at a kebab place. He got a panini, I got a salad, a grasshopper stared at us from the corner of the room. 

Even though we were tired, after eating we still teased each other. If I close my eyes, I can still imagine him behind me. 

I slept in his sweatshirt, I wish I could have stolen it. I could have, to be honest, I just forgot because it was so hot during the day.

-c.

[relatablepoetryandquotes]

“The name of peace is sweet, and the thing itself is beneficial, but there is a great difference between peace and servitude. Peace is freedom in tranquility, servitude is the worst of all evils, to be resisted not only by war, but even by death.” - Cicero, Philippicae

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 9.2 (before 1900)

44 BC – Pharaoh Cleopatra VII of Egypt declares her son co-ruler as Ptolemy XV Caesarion. 44 BC – Cicero launches the first of his Philippicae (oratorical attacks) on Mark Antony. He will make 14 of them over the following months. 31 BC – Final War of the Roman Republic: Battle of Actium: Off the western coast of Greece, forces of Octavian defeat troops under Mark Antony and Cleopatra. 1192 – The Treaty of Jaffa is signed between Richard I of England and Saladin, leading to the end of the Third Crusade. 1561 – Entry of Mary, Queen of Scots into Edinburgh, a spectacular civic celebration for the Queen of Scotland, marred by religious controversy. 1649 – The Italian city of Castro is completely destroyed by the forces of Pope Innocent X, ending the Wars of Castro. 1666 – The Great Fire of London breaks out and burns for three days, destroying 10,000 buildings, including Old St Paul's Cathedral. 1752 – Great Britain, along with its overseas possessions, adopts the Gregorian calendar. 1789 – The United States Department of the Treasury is founded. 1792 – During what became known as the September Massacres of the French Revolution, rampaging mobs slaughter three Roman Catholic bishops, more than two hundred priests, and prisoners believed to be royalist sympathizers. 1806 – A massive landslide destroys the town of Goldau, Switzerland, killing 457. 1807 – Napoleonic Wars: The British Royal Navy bombards Copenhagen with fire bombs and phosphorus rockets to prevent Denmark from surrendering its fleet to Napoleon. 1856 – The Tianjing incident takes place in Nanjing, China. 1859 – The Carrington Event is the strongest geomagnetic storm on record. 1862 – American Civil War: United States President Abraham Lincoln reluctantly restores Union General George B. McClellan to full command after General John Pope's disastrous defeat at the Second Battle of Bull Run. 1864 – American Civil War: Union forces enter Atlanta, a day after the Confederate defenders flee the city, ending the Atlanta Campaign. 1867 – Mutsuhito, Emperor Meiji of Japan, marries Masako Ichijō, thereafter known as Empress Shōken. 1870 – Franco-Prussian War: Battle of Sedan: Prussian forces take Napoleon III of France and 100,000 of his soldiers prisoner. 1885 – Rock Springs massacre: In Rock Springs, Wyoming, 150 white miners, who are struggling to unionize so they could strike for better wages and work conditions, attack their Chinese fellow workers killing 28, wounding 15 and forcing several hundred more out of town. 1898 – Battle of Omdurman: British and Egyptian troops defeat Sudanese tribesmen and establish British dominance in Sudan.

[asklepiean]

The Big Bad Book List For Cultores

Update April 27 2022: I haven’t updated this list since I wrote it, and I don’t think I’ll do it in the future (I read too much and never remember to write the titles here). If you’d like some suggestions on what to read because you can’t find anything that suits your needs, feel free to ask.

When approacing a new tradition is vital to study the culture that gave birth to it. Here you can find a list of books/papers(*)(**) I think can be useful for anyone interested in Roman culture. This list is in fieri, I'll update it regularly and with every book suggestion you will write in the comments/reblog.

Books are not in chronological/alphabetical order are divided in:

General

Historiography

Literature and philosophy

Politics and society

Religion

Society

Army and warfare

Rome in the history of political thought

(*)Library Genesis, Electronic Library, academia.edu, ResearchGate and sci-hub are your best friends - use them

(**) I’ll try to find an english translation for the books, but it won’t be possible for every one of them. I’ll write the original title and you can decide if you want to use Google Translate or skip it.

General

Beard M. - SPQR, A History of Ancient Rome

Erdkamp P. - The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Rome

Flower H.I. - The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic

Johnson D. - The Cambridge Companion to Roman Law

Scheidel W. - The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Economy

Reddé M. - Mare nostrum

Sallares R. - Malaria and Rome. A History of Malaria in Ancient Italy

Rüpke J. - A Companion to Roman Religion

Historiography

Ancient

Sallust - The War With Catiline

Sallust - The Jugusthine War

Suetonius - The Twelve Caesars

AA.VV. - Historia Augusta

Erodianus - The Empire From The Death Of Marcus

Livy - From The Founding Of The City

Appian - Roman History

Plutarch - Parallel Lives

Polybius - The Histories

Modern

Mommsen T. - History of Rome

Gibbon E. - The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 

Ferrero G. - Greatness and Decline of Rome

Literature and philosophy

Seneca - De Ira

Seneca - De Brevitate Vitae

Seneca - De Vita Beata

Seneca - De Tranquillitate Animi

Seneca - De Clementia

Seneca - Epistulae morales ad Lucilium

Seneca - Apocolocyntosis Divi Claudii

Epictetus - The Discourses 

Marcus Aurelius - Meditations

Martial - Epigrams

Vergil - Aeneid

Vergil - Georgics

Vergil - Eclogues 

Ovid - Heroides

Ovid - Ars Amatoria

Ovid - Remedia Amoris

Ovid - Metamorphoses 

Ovid - Fasti

Ovid - Tristia

Catullus - Poems

Politics and society

Ancient

Cicero - De Re Publica

Cicero - De Legibus

Cicero - De Officiis

Cicero - In Verrem

Cicero - Pro Caelio

Cicero - Pro Lege Manilia or De Imperio Cn. Pompei

Cicero - Philippicae

Cicero - In Catilinam

Cicero - De Domo Sua

Cicero - Epistulae ad Atticum

Cicero - Commentariolum Petitionis

Modern

Syme R. - Roman Revolution

Gelzer M. - The Roman Nobility

Millar F. - The Crowd in Rome in the Late Republic 

Millar F. - Rome, the Greek World, and the East vol. 1-3

Millar F. - The Emperor in the Roman World, 31 BC–AD 337

Millar F. - The Political Character of the Classical Roman Republic, 200-151 B.C.

Millar F. - Politics, Persuasion and the People before the Social War (150-90 B.C.)

Millar F. - The Mediterranean and the Roman Revolution. Politics, War and the Economy

Millar F. -  Political Power in Mid-Republican Rome Curia or Comitium

Badian E. - Roman Imperialism in the Late Republic

Badian E. - Foreign Clientelae (264-70 B.C.)

Morstein-Marx R. - Mass Oratory and Political Power in the Late Roman Republic

Mouritsen H. - Plebs and Politics in the Late Roman Republic

Mouritsen H. - Politics in the Roman Republic

Münzer F. - Roman aristocratic parties and families

Yakobson A. - Petitio et Largitio. Popular Participation in the Centuriate Assembly of the Late Republic

Lintott A. - The Constitution of the Roman Republic

Goldsworthy A. - In the Name of Rome: The Men Who Won the Roman Empire 

Canfora L. - Julius Caesar: The Life and Times of the People’s Dictator 

Fezzi L. - Crossing the Rubicon: Caesar's Decision and the Fate of Rome 

Religion

Beard M., North J., Price S. - Religions of Rome, vol 1-2

Dumezil G. - Archaic Roman Religion

Flower H.I. - The Dancing Lares and the Serpent in the Garden, Religion at the Roman Street Corner

Gradel I. - Emperor Worship and Roman Religion

Price S. R. F. - Rituals and Power. The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor

Rüpke J. - On Roman Religion. Lived Religion and the Individual in Ancient Rome

Rüpke J. - Pantheon. A New History of Roman Religion

Scheid J. - Quand faire, c'est croire 

Scheid J. - The Gods, the State, and the Individual. Reflections on Civic Religion in Rome

Fishwick D. - The Imperial Cult in the Latin West 

Fishwick D. - The Imperial Cult in Roman Britain

Army and warfare

Harris W.V. - War and Imperialism in Republican Rome. 327-70 B.C

Rich J., Shipley G. - War and society in the Roman world

Starr C. G. - The Roman imperial navy

La Bohec Y. -  L'armée romaine sous le Haut-Empire

La Bohec Y. - L’armée romaine sous le Bas-Empire

Goldsworthy A. - The Roman Army at War 100 BC – AD 200 

Goldsworty A. - Roman Warfare 

Goldsworthy A. - The Punic Wars

Goldsworty A. -  The Complete Roman Army

Rome in the history of political thought

Machiavelli N. - Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livius

Constant B. - The Liberty of Ancients Compared with that of Modern

Rousseau J.J. - The Social Contract 

Montesquieu - Considerations on the causes of the grandeur and decadence of the Romans

Mably G.B. - Observations sur les Romains

Millar F. - The Roman Republic in political thought

[philosophyquotes]

“The name of peace is sweet, and the thing itself is beneficial, but there is a great difference between peace and servitude. Peace is freedom in tranquility, servitude is the worst of all evils, to be resisted not only by war, but even by death.” - Cicero, Philippicae