empiredeclineandfall

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@JeremyRyanSlate My kids are learning latin and it's incredible discovering how many words or phrases originate there.

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Let Darius Arya guide you through the secret rooms in the back of the Pantheon
https://t.co/llUdtXYrTh

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Great video from @DariusAryaDigs regarding a portion of the Pantheon that many of us didn't know existed. Such an incredible building. https://t.co/jnvnHRPJVy

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@wmarybeard @British_Airways Hopefully they left you with an inflight magazine to pass the time :)

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The US has effectively controlled and distracted its population deploying tactics learned from Rome.

Distraction in the service of Deviousness- The Bread and Circus https://t.co/s4gO1BpWJy

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@JeremyRyanSlate Fascinating! Are there some good sources to learn more about this?

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@RomeInTheEast Can't wait to read. Thanks for sharing!

[Ancient History Hub @AncientHistorry]

The most evil Roman emperor wasn't Nero. They have the wrong man.

Nero gets the headlines, but he never came close to Caligula, and the truth about Caligula is darker than the cartoon version you were taught in school. Forget the story about him making his horse a consul. Historians think that one was political satire invented to mock the Senate. The real Caligula did not need myths. The documented record is worse.

He executed men slowly on purpose. He instructed his executioners with one chilling phrase: "Strike so that he feels himself dying." Death was not the point. The awareness of dying was.

He weaponized grief. When he had a man's son put to death, he ordered the father to attend the execution. When the father pleaded illness, Caligula sent a litter to carry him there so he would not miss it. That same evening he invited the grieving father to dinner, seated him at his table, and pressured him to laugh, drink, and trade jokes, all while the man's son lay dead. The father complied. He had a second son still alive, and he understood exactly what refusing would cost.

He killed for entertainment, not even for anger. At the public games one afternoon the supply of condemned criminals ran out before the beasts were finished. Rather than pause the show, Caligula ordered a section of the spectators, ordinary Romans who had simply come to watch, dragged from their seats and thrown to the animals. He had their tongues cut out first so they could not cry out and ruin the spectacle.

He starved the empire's grain barges to build floating pleasure palaces. He demanded the Senate worship him as a living god. He reportedly opened a brothel inside the imperial palace and staffed it with senators' wives to humiliate Rome's most powerful families.

And here is the part people forget. Rome did not endure him for decades. His own Praetorian Guard, the men paid to keep him alive, decided they had seen enough. They cornered him in a palace corridor and stabbed him roughly 30 times. When the news spread, the city did not mourn. People genuinely did not believe it at first, because they thought Caligula had spread the rumor himself just to see who would celebrate.

He ruled for less than four years. He did all of this before the age of 29.

So who do you think was actually Rome's most evil emperor, Caligula or Nero?

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@JeremyRyanSlate @GodPlaysCards How different do you think Rome is if Germanicus doesn't die prematurely?

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@historigins Best book on the subject in my opinion- https://t.co/dbeW6fJRYK

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@subhanusaxena @sentantiq For me the TE Lawrence (of Arabia) translation of the Odyssey was my "way" into Homer.

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@nonregemesse Can't wait to learn more about Leo III!

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@EmilySm43 My disappointing copy of Windows XP

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@LeoDaVinciWave Can you imagine what that would have looked like when it was painted? The stories depicted on that column must have kept the young boys imaginations running for days.

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@OptimoPrincipi Absolute truth in that statement

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@UpdatingOnRome Don't forget to throw a little respect towards Brennus

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@JeremyRyanSlate Good stuff. I'm going down a similar path on a website project I'm doing with my middle-aged son. It is sad to see the comparisons with us and the end of the once great Roman Empire. Here's the site we are building- https://t.co/5lDQ4BZB7K

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@resclassicae Where is that helmet on display? That looks pristine.

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How debt, inflation, and debasement killed the Ancient Roman economy and what those same things are doing the US. https://t.co/BkU3N6jvgn

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Impressive find- https://t.co/V2PxiCngRH