2, 11, and 15 for the classics meme !
2. Best thing about antiquity.I know it sound Cliche/Cheesy but the best thing about antiquity to me is how much the ancients were… like us. How familiar everything is. I love going through ancient sources and being reminded that, throughout history, people have always been people. This is especially true for the Great Historical Figures like Cicero: it’s so amazing to be able to read his letters and see his personal anxieties about his family, his money, his marriage, his children, his friendships, his personal petty complaints, his tongue -in-cheek acknowledgement of his tendency towards… bombast… he’s human, they all were, and I’m struck sometimes by how genuinely relatable and familiar not just Cicero’s letters but so much of what survived from antiquity is. I won’t go into every example, but I will say, I cannot express how emotional I get thinking that 2500 years before I commissioned Oresteia fanart, some Etruscan nobleman spent a significant amount of money on an imported Athenian vase with scenes from the Agamemnon and Libation Bearers on it, and he put it in his tomb.People have always been people11. Athens or Sparta? OH CLEARLY ATHENS this is biased bc I know a lot more about Greek art, literature, and architecture than history lol but i have to love. their Art Architecture Literature So Much and in particular:- exported red- and -black figure pottery to Etruria en masse - my tragedies? which changed my Life? Athenian 15. Most badass epithet.This is kind of out of left field but Mezentius, an Etruscan king from the Aeneid who fights for Turnus and is generally pretty terrible, has the BEST and MOST badass epithet in the world: “Scorner of gods” (Contemptor deum)
