Ryan Jaroncyk

Award-winning and produced screenwriter. Writes short stories, flash fiction, and poetry , too.

[Ryan Jaroncyk @RyanJaroncyk]

Trying to save lives
Plague defeats all remedies
Physician flees Rome

#vss365 #haiku #romanempire

[Ancient History Hub @AncientHistorry]

The question everyone asks is why the people of Pompeii just stood there and let it happen. The surprising answer is that most of them did not. Most of them ran, and lived.

That gets lost because of the famous body casts. But out of a city of somewhere around ten to twenty thousand people, archaeologists have found roughly a thousand to two thousand bodies. The overwhelming majority got out. Pompeii is not really a story about people who refused to leave. It is a story about the ones who left a few hours too late.

So why did anyone hesitate at all? Start with the biggest reason. They had no idea Vesuvius was a volcano. There was no living memory of it ever erupting. It had been quiet for centuries, so long that it was just the beautiful green mountain over the town, covered in vineyards and farms. They did not even have a clear concept for what was about to happen. You do not flee a mountain that has never once in anyone's lifetime done anything but grow grapes.

Then add the earthquakes. Campania shook all the time. A massive quake had wrecked the region about seventeen years earlier and they were still rebuilding from it when the eruption came. So when the ground started trembling in the days before, nobody panicked. It was just Tuesday. The one warning sign that might have saved them was the exact sign they had all been trained by experience to ignore.

Now the eruption starts, and here is the cruel timing of it. The first phase was falling ash and pumice, frightening but survivable. Plenty of people did grab what they could and flee right then. But others made the reasonable call to shelter inside and wait out the storm, the same thing you would do in a blizzard. That decision was fine for hours. The problem was that the truly lethal part had not arrived yet. Overnight and into the next morning, the eruption column collapsed and sent pyroclastic surges racing down the mountain, walls of superheated gas and ash moving faster than anyone could run and hot enough to kill in seconds. The people sheltering indoors, waiting for it to blow over, had no way to know the worst was still coming. By the time it came it was far too late to outrun it.

On top of all that, leaving got physically harder by the hour. Pumice piled up in the streets and on the rooftops, some roofs caved in under the weight, the sky went black in the middle of the day, and the roads out clogged with panicked crowds and debris. Some people went back for money or family or belongings and never made it out again. Some were old, or sick, or enslaved and not free to simply go.

So the real answer is not that Pompeians were foolish or frozen. It is that they were ordinary people making sensible decisions against a threat their whole civilization had never seen before. They did not stay because they were stupid. They stayed because nothing in a thousand years of experience told them that the pretty mountain could do this, and by the time it proved otherwise the exits were closing.

[Edward Lee Poetry @PoetryEdward]

New poetry collection ‘To Place Stars In The Sky’ now available via link in bio

#poetry #poems #poet #creativewriting #poetryisnotdead #poetrycommunity #edwardleepoetry #poetryblogger #writerscommunity #spilledink #wordsofwisdom #writer #stars

[Ryan Jaroncyk @RyanJaroncyk]

Vaunted haruspex
Interprets will of the gods
Sacred entrails speak

#vss365 #haiku #ancientrome

[Orthodox Christian @orthodox_33ad]

🔸 August 10 - Saint Lawrence the Archdeacon of Rome ♨️ 🔸

Today, we commemorate the Holy Martyr Saint Lawrence the Archdeacon of Rome. He served under Pope Sixtus II, and was grilled to death over hot coals in the year 258 during the persecution of the Roman Emperor Valerian. Little is known about the early life of Saint Lawrence, but when Sixtus rose to the papacy in 257, Lawrence became his Archdeacon.

He is especially remembered for his charitable work, as he was charged with the administration and distribution of ecclesiastical alms for the poor and crippled (shown on the right of the icon). In early August of 258, the Emperor Valerian issued an edict commanding all bishops, priests, and deacons to be put to death immediately without trial. This command was immediately carried out throughout the city of Rome, and Pope Sixtus was arrested and executed.

The imperial authorities soon came to Saint Lawrence and demanded access to the church treasury. In the course of three days after the death of the Pope, Saint Lawrence worked quickly to distribute as much of the ecclesiastical monies to the poor as possible. On the third day, the Saint presented himself to the Roman prefect. When the prefect ordered him to give up the treasures of the church, Lawrence led them to a room where the poor, blind, crippled, and orphaned were gathered, and said:

“Behold the jewels of the Church! The Church is truly rich, far richer, than your emperor.”

Infuriated by this, the emperor had Saint Lawrence grilled to death on a gridiron. The Saint continued to glorify God until his final breath. Legend says that he was so strong-willed that, instead of giving in and releasing information to the Romans at the point of death, he cried: “I’m done on this side! Turn me over”. For this humorous line, he is also considered a patron Saint of comedians as well as cooks.

[Ryan Jaroncyk @RyanJaroncyk]

Parabolani
Nursing the sick through the plague
Warriors of mercy

#haiku #poetry

[Ryan Jaroncyk @RyanJaroncyk]

https://t.co/O0rLaUBOdC

[Ryan Jaroncyk @RyanJaroncyk]

THE RECKLESS ONES: 20 Snapshots During the Plague of Cyprian is now out.

Link below and in bio.

#vss365 #HistFic #FlashFic

[Ryan Jaroncyk @RyanJaroncyk]

Will be releasing THE RECKLESS ONES: 20 Snapshots During the Plague of Cyprian, tomorrow. Here are some of the story titles-

The Absconding Physician

The Orphaned Rooster

Prayers for the Dead

The Cat Girl of Carthage

The Leper

#vss365 #HistFic

[Ryan Jaroncyk @RyanJaroncyk]

My novelette-length, flash fiction collection called THE RECKLESS ONES: 20 Snapshots During the Plague of Cyprian is coming out soon…

#vss365 #RomanEmpire #ChurchHistory

[Ryan Jaroncyk @RyanJaroncyk]

1st-4th centuries. Abandoned babies are not left behind. The Christian community seeks them out to save & raise them.

#vss365 #AncientRome

[Ryan Jaroncyk @RyanJaroncyk]

4th & 5th centuries. The disabled are not forsaken. Christian lay groups scour the streets of the #romanempire and carry them to hospitals.

#vss365

[Ryan Jaroncyk @RyanJaroncyk]

4th century. Charity explodes. The Christian community launches hospitals, orphanages, leprosariums, rest homes, poor houses, hospices, & burial guilds throughout #RomanEmpire.

#vss365

[Ryan Jaroncyk @RyanJaroncyk]

4th century AD. Lowest of the low get a reprieve. Christians open the world’s first leper hospitals.

#vss365

[Ryan Jaroncyk @RyanJaroncyk]

390 AD. Fabiola makes history. The Christian noblewoman funds and serves in Rome’s first hospital.

#vss365 #ancientrome

[GODFOE UNIVERSE @GODFOE_UNIVERSE]

https://t.co/7IBOvZ2pMX

[Ryan Jaroncyk @RyanJaroncyk]

373 AD. Famine hits Edessa. Deacon Ephraem fills public porticoes with 300 beds for the sick & dying.

#vss365 #RomanEmpire

[Ryan Jaroncyk @RyanJaroncyk]

370 AD. Famine erupts in Roman Empire. Bishop Basil responds by launching the world’s first hospital.

#vss365 #ancientrome

[Ryan Jaroncyk @RyanJaroncyk]

Julian lamented. Rome left true gods. Galileans won not by the sword, but by care of the poor and burial of abandoned corpses.

#vss365 #SPQR

[Ryan Jaroncyk @RyanJaroncyk]

312 AD. Smallpox strikes Roman Empire with a vengeance. Christian caretakers & gravediggers launch new campaign of mercy.

#vss365