Sodalicium Pardi Qualo Recubantis

The tumblorg for Latin Club at Panther Creek High School (not the IL one) Club of the Panther Reclining in a Wicker Basket

[pchslatinclub]

Numbers for the administration under the wonderful social media tribune D. Saedreus Helias (Sept 2012-Sept 2015):

[ancientorigins]

1800 year old ancient Egyptian letter reveals hopes and fears of young soldier

1,800 years ago, a young soldier from Egypt serving in the Roman army wrote six letters home to his family but without response. Finally, he sent a desperate plea for them to reply and to not forget about him. The ancient letter brings to life the hopes and fears of people from our distant past.

Read more …

[oedipusmotherfuckingtyrannus]

THE ODYSSEY: BOOK XX

ODYSSEUS SLEEPS. PENELOPE DOESN’T SLEEP - SHE JUST FUCKING CRIES INSTEAD. 

AT DINNER, THE SUITORS THROW FOOD AT ODYSSEUS. HE DOESN’T REACT. HE JUST SMILES. HE KNOWS IT’S NEARLY FUCKING MURDER TIME.

[centuriespast]

This remarkable Corinthian style helmet from the Battle of Marathon was reputedly found in 1834 with a human skull still inside. It now forms part of the Royal Ontario Museum’s collections, but originally it was discovered by George Nugent-Grenville, who was the British High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands between 1832-35.

[peashooter85]

Peashooter. Did any roman legions use a wolf as their standard on their flags?

That’s a complicated questions as Roman legionary symbols tended to change over time.  At one point (around Julius Caesars time) the bull was really popular.  Carpicorn also seems to be very popular.  Legions of the late empire had no legionary symbols, but used Christian symbols only.

The wolf was sported by a few legions, in the context of the she-wolf in the legend of Romulus and Remus.  Wikipedia actually has lists of legions over time and information on them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Roman_legions

livius.org has much more detailed information.

http://www.livius.org/articles/misc/legion/

[hellenismo]

Δευτέρα Ἱσταμένου, II day From today’s sunset: second day of Hekatombaion. The second day is always sacred to the Agathos Daimon, to all the Heroes and Heroines and to the Chthonian Deities. It is also a day sacred to Poseidon. (Two sacred serpents. Detail of a fresco from Pompeii, 1st CE.)

[pchslatinclub]

As Troy burns

Hera: now ... back to this bitch who had a lot to say about me in his judgement Paris what's good

[archaeologicalnews]

First ancient genome recovered from the Mediterranean area

An international team of researchers has sequenced the first complete genome of an Iberian farmer, which is also the first ancient genome from the entire Mediterranean area. This new genome allows to know the distinctive genetic changes of Neolithic migration in Southern Europe which led to the abandonment of the hunter-gatherer way of life. The study is led by the Institute of Evolutionary Biology, a joint center of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona, Spain), in collaboration with the Centre for GeoGenetics in Denmark. The results are published in the Molecular Biology and Evolution journal.

The first farmers entering Europe about 8,000 years ago coming from the Near East spread through the continent following two different routes: one to Central Europe via the Danube, and the other towards the Iberian peninsula following the Mediterranean coast. Read more.

[pchslatinclub]

The Bacchae in a (fairly large) nutshell:

Dionysus: What up guys, I’m representing the gods and you tyrannical Theban shits had better all start worshipping me

Pentheus: Wow what a pompous, lying little–

Dionysus: Really, Pentheus, really? We’ve gone through this before

Pentheus: No, fuck you and your flowy hair, you’re under arrest

Dionysus: Fuck da police, I’m a god, I’ll have you know

Dionysus: *causes a big ass earthquake*

Pentheus: ?????? The fuck ?????

Messenger: I’m sorry to interrupt this massive natural disaster and everything, but just to let you know, there are these crazy women who started massacring these bulls and completely tearing them apart ?? Odd, huh? Normally it’s the bulls that get angry at people? Idk man but something’s a little untoward here

Pentheus: That sounds sick!! I want to go and see this for myself

Dionysus: Are you stupid? They’ll totally fuck you up if they see you

Pentheus: Shit

Dionysus: But if you dress up as a woman you’ll totally get away with spying on them (plus you’ll look absolutely HILARIOUS, but yolo that’s not important right now)

Pentheus: Sounds great, thanks pal

Pentheus: (dressed as a woman hiding in a tree, and spying on the crazy women) Nice.

Women: The fuck is that in the tree??

Pentheus’ mum Agauë (one of the women): *tears her son’s limb off*

Other women: Cool *join in*

Agauë: Imma show my dad this beast I’ve just killed

Agauë: Dad! Dad! Check me out

Cadmus: That’s my grandson you dumb shit

Agauë: It’s a lion wtf

Cadmus: Should’ve gone to Specsavers, babe

Agauë: SHIT! Shit! SHIT! I’m holding my son’s head

Dionysus: Lol

Everyone else: Lol ??????

Dionysus: Yeah I did this, you said I wasn’t a god

Agauë: (very sad) Now what happens?

Dionysus: You can haul your ass out of Thebes right now

Agauë: Looks like the flowy haired shit really was a god!? But fine.. Anyway guys, looks like I’m off now, bye Dad, love you xxxxx

[o-eheu]

Dormi, mi fili, dormi – sunt qui dicunt vitam beatam esse: dicunt, dicant, nesciunt. Dormi, mi fili, dormi – veniet dies quo tibi erit larga, largissima quies. Dormi, mi fili, dormi – aderit mox mihi, tum tibi ultima, optima nox.

Canticulum, a lullaby by Johannes Alexander Gaertner

Sleep, my son, sleep – They say that life is blissful. They say, let them say, they don’t know what they say.

Sleep, my son, sleep – The day will come that you will enjoy plentiful, most plentiful calm.

Sleep, my son, sleep – soon there will be the last, kindest night for you and for me.

(via o-eheu)

[archaeologicalnews]

Recreated Pit Roast Offers a Taste of Stone Age Life

Before there was pottery in Cyprus, there was barbecue.

And in the spirit of the Stone Age, archaeologists on the Mediterranean island recreated a prehistoric pit feast this summer — feeding 200 people with pig and goat, slow-roasted underground — to test the cooking methods of Neolithic chefs.

A 9,000-year-old barbecue pit was recently discovered at Prastio Mesorotsos, a site in the Diarizos Valley outside of Paphos, which has been almost continuously occupied from the Neolithic era to the present. It took three years of excavations before archaeologists from the University of Edinburgh got to the bottom of the stone-lined, ash-covered pit, and only last summer could they say with some certainty that they were looking at an ancient oven. Read more.

[thegetty]

Ancient bronze sculptures can be blue, green, brown, reddish, or even black. It all depends on where they’ve spent the last 2,000 years—in sand, soil, or under the sea—and how aggressively they’ve been restored.

—Bronze Patinas, Noble and Vile

[thoodleoo]

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but why did people in Medieval times think Vergil was a wizard or something?

well, i’m not really an expert on medieval stuff, but there are a few reasons i can think of that might have contributed…i’ve read that some of these weird stories may not have originally involved vergil, but came to be associated with his name for moralizing reasons (and thus the magical elements predate his association with the stories and eventually became attributed to him). confusion over the spelling of his name may have had an effect, too (that being the variant spelling virgilius being associated with the word “virga”). it may also have something to do with vergil being seen as a prophet- you’ll notice that a lot of the stories feature christianity, sometimes with vergil’s magic powers coming from his status as a prophet. 

there’s also just that vergil was such an important name that weird stories about him were pretty much an inevitability. he’s a very easy person to mythologize; for example, we have an epigram of martial’s in which martial speaks of how vergil’s birthday was revered even in ancient times, and martial also tells us of a man who watches over vergil’s tomb. it’s not very hard to see how such strange stories could come into being about a man who was rome’s greatest poetic celebrity.

sorry i don’t have much of a definitive answer! i haven’t read enough on the subject to say much more, but those are some possible explanations.

[interretialia]

Hoc est excellentissimum!

[lionofchaeronea]

A plate depicting a winged, Gorgon-headed deity, shown in the traditional pose of the Πότνια Θηρῶν (Mistress of the Animals).  Artist unknown; ca. 600 BCE.  Found at Kameiros, Rhodes; now in the British Museum.  Photo credit: Marie-Lan Nguyen/Wikimedia Commons.

[tearthepagesopen-blog]

When Greek tragedy sounds like a shampoo advert

[archaicwonder]

Roman Bronze Slave Tag, 4th Century

Inscribed: TENE ME NEFUGIA ET REVOCA ME AD DOMNUMEVVIVENTIUM INARA CALLISTI Translation: “Hold me, lest I flee, and return me to my master Viventius on the estate of Callistus.”

(This could have possibly been a tag for a dog’s collar as well.)

[hismarmorealcalm]

Pergamon Altar Asia Minor  First half of second century B.C.  Pergamon Museum and Altes Museum Berlin