It's a lot of math involved in governing ancient Rome. First you gotta subtract all these voter bribes from your coffers to get yourself a consulship, then rig the lots to multiply your chance of getting a sweet, sweet province like Macedonia. No sooner are you done adding up the loot you extorted from the provincials, then you gotta divide it among the jury prosecuting you for the crimes you 100% committed. And to make it all worse, you have to do it all in Roman numerals!
MMLXVI + DCCXIX = PAIN
But never fear! The Romans found ways to work with their wacky numbers. Pretty damn cool ways, too. I promise you don't need any math skills for this post.
Let's recap the Roman numerals real quick:
I = 1
V = 5
X = 10
L = 50
C = 100
D = 500
M = 1000
If a smaller number comes after a bigger number, like in XII, you add them: 10+1+1 = 12. If the smaller number comes before the big number, you subtract it: IX = 10-1 = 9.
The trick to math with Roman numerals is that you don't write them out for equations the way you would with Arabic numerals. Instead, you put them on a counting board:
In Arabic numerals, each column is worth ten times as much as the one to its right. The same applies here. M is worth 1000, C is worth 100, X is worth 10, and I is worth 1. You mark how many units are in each column by putting pebbles on them. Since groups of 7-9 pebbles get hard to read quickly, the Romans also had half-columns worth 500, 50, and 5.
On the counting board above, we have two 1000s, one 500, one 100, four 100s, one 5, and three 1s. Added together, that's 2,648. To add or subtract, you just add or remove pebbles from the board. In fact, the Latin word calculus (hence "calculate") originally meant little pebble.
But what if those devious provincials flip your board over when you try to extort - ahem, tax them? Could you have a counting board in your hand?
Hell yeah you can.
That's an abacus, baby! (Or a replica, at least.) Here's how it works:
The pebbles are now built-in. Instead of adding or removing them from the board, you flip them up or down to indicate if they're "on."
The 5, 50, 500, etc. columns have been moved upward, and can only be on or off.
Instead of M - which only appeared for 1000 in medieval times - this abacus uses the older notation system of putting (parentheses) around a numeral for 1000, 10,000, and 100,000, or a |box| for "x100,000." The "M" on the far left is probably a muddled |X|.
Ignore the two rightmost columns for now, we'll return to them later.
If you're Japanese, this might remind you of the soroban, an abacus still used for math today:
Let's try reading this thing!
I've decided to read it soroban-style, so beads moved toward the center bar get counted. That gives us:
One 5 million
Two 1-million
One 500,000
One 100,000
One 50,000
One 100
Two 10s
Two 1s
= 7,650,122
However, scholars disagree on the exact method the Romans would have used. And some of the beads are only sort of up, so you might interpret the number differently. That's okay; this is just an example.
Incidentally, this is also why Europe went for so long without a numeral for 0. If you're using an abacus, "0" is represented, just by setting all the beads to the "off" position. If you're writing the number down, you just write "none."
The really cool thing is that you can do more than add and subtract with an abacus. You can also multiply, divide, and find square and cube roots. And those weird columns on the right are a uniquely Roman tool, to handle Roman measurements.
The basic copper coin in Roman currency was the as, which was then divided into 12ths (unciae), not 10ths. The Roman foot (length) and pound (weight) also divided into 12 unciae, which is where we get the words "inch" and "ounce." So the rightmost column is in base 12, to make math easier.
These 12ths could then be divided into 1/2s, 1/4s, or 1/12s again. The 2, 1 and 1 beads in the second-right column let you divide the 1/12s as small as 1/24, 1/48, or 1/144. A Roman abacus lets you do (limited) fractional math!
Once you've worked out the result, the columns are easy to translate back into Roman numerals. Then you stick this gadget back in your tunic, because it's quite small - literally a "pocket calculator."
My favorite thing about abacuses is that you get a concrete feeling for how numbers relate to each other, rather than just memorizing abstract symbols and multiply/divide tables. I've been using a Soroban app to practice, and it's actually pretty fun!
"In our defense, he almost dies all the time, anyway."
Salvidienus pinched the bridge of his nose to hide his mouth twitching up. Really, he wasn't surprised to find saboteurs in the garrison as the Parthian campaign neared. But he'd expected them to be armed with more than a butter knife and a lemon.
"Tell me who hired you, and I'll make your deaths painless. Also, explain how my best friend ended up in the medic tent covered in horseshit."
The oddly-dressed pair of would-be assassins huddled together on the camp grounds, like sacred chickens spooked by a piece of string. Or by the guards' swords pointed at their throats. That would also do it. The more timid, pink-haired one kept glancing at Salvidienus' muscle cuirass, which would have been flattering if the boy(?) hadn't just been arrested for attempted murder.
"We didn't need to be hired," said the other, who wore piercings in terrifying places and was probably some kind of Amazon. "We're here for the republic, not for pay."
"I'd like to be paid," said Pink Hair. "Do you think we could get course credit for this?"
Poor Gaius Octavius. Didn't even warrant professional assassins. Granted, he'd probably never conquer anything bigger than a head of lettuce, so Salvidienus could understand if the enemy wanted to economize.
"I'm not sure how terrorizing an asthmatic teenager in Macedonia is supposed to do anything for the republic."
"Macedonia? Huh," said Piercings. "This must be before he went to Gaul."
"Agrippa tells me you brandished the knife and screamed 'Memento mori motherfucker,' and he had to tackle you to make you stop chasing Gaius across the camp. Then what happened?"
Piercings smiled. "He ran like a dweeb."
"I wish I had been tackled by Agrippa," murmured Pink Hair dreamily.
"Anyway," said Piercings, "Agrippa caught me, but not before Caesar tried to escape on a horse. Parsleigh thought fast and chucked the lemon at the horse, and it threw him off, and he landed in the rubbish pile. And that's why your boss is covered in poop."
Pink Hair piped up, "We were doing him a favor! If he'd landed anywhere else he could've broken his neck!"
"Caesar is in Italy," Salvidienus said, and privately vowed never to hire discount assassins. "He won't be here for another two weeks. Also, Octavius isn't my boss."
The two incompetent assassins froze, faces slowly filling with the horror only seen in undergraduates about to fail a required course, or that's what Salvidienus would have thought if universities had been invented.
"Wrong Caesar," Piercings groaned, and poked at a device on her wrist. "This one must be Octavian. Parsleigh, we have to go."
Pink Hair frowned. "That can't be right. Octavian's a Percy Jackson character."
"Hey, soldier guy, do you have directions to the Senate house?"
Salvidienus obligingly drew them a map of the rats-nest of downtown Rome, because frankly, he wanted to see where this was going. As he handed it over, Octavius and Agrippa emerged from the medic's tent, thankfully with nothing bruised except Octavius' ego.
"No executions yet?" asked Octavius, sounding disappointed.
"Mistaken identity. They were trying to kill your great-uncle."
"Oh," said Agrippa. "That's alright then."
Octavius looked alarmed. "It is not alright!"
"Well, it is rather trendy, at the moment."
Piercings frowned at Octavius, then at the butter knife Salvidienus had confiscated, as if considering whether to have a go at Octavius anyway, while she was in the neighborhood. Pink Hair had squeaked "Agrippa" at a pitch humans shouldn't be able to reach, and hidden behind his co-conspirator.
"We could still try stabbing Augustus Caesar," Piercings said. "It's their own fault for reusing names all the time."
Octavius sputtered. "There aren't any Caesars named Augustus. Salvidienus, can we execute these two already?"
Salvidienus paused, a little taken aback by his friend's readiness to kill a couple of strangers. They'd all been preparing for a war, yes. There would be plenty of killing to come. But...a butter knife? Really? These dolts weren't dangerous to anyone, unless you had the constitution of soggy bread, which Octavius admittedly did.
"We could also try not escalating every problem into lethal violence immediately," Agrippa said blandly.
"See, Dementia," Pink Hair tapped his partner. "Agrippa doesn't think we should, either."
"And of course Agrippa is always right," she muttered, and tapped a button on her wrist device. "Okay. Okay! We'll go to the Senate house like we originally planned and stab Julius Caesar. Thanks for the map, soldier guy."
"Sorry about the lemon!" Pink Hair called, and in a flash of light, they were gone.
Salvidienus flinched, blinking spots from his eyes. One of the guards swore. Everyone else seemed equally stunned, save Agrippa, who was surveying the clear blue sky as if to watch for traces of the odd pair. Or perhaps for bolts of lightning. Why not save time and have all the nonsense in one day?
"The Senate house burned down years ago," Octavius said. "They can't meet Caesar there."
Salvidienus shrugged. "You don't think I'd actually betray your family, would you?"
"No, no. Of course not."
He smiled, and Salvidienus returned it, and they had a haruspex called in to purify the area and schedule a sacrifice for later. The gesture felt like too little, for such a strange encounter, and something still niggled in Salvidienus' mind as they returned to army drills.
The assassins had mixed up Octavius, of all people, with Julius Caesar. They'd thought he was some kind of threat to the republic. And come to think of it...frail though he was, Octavius had sailed straight into a warzone, crawled out of a shipwreck, stolen through enemy territory and nearly worked himself to death before he'd turned eighteen. At times sheer stubbornness seemed to be the only thing keeping him alive. That and Agrippa's reflexes, anyway.
Reflexes that apparently failed as Octavius rolled his ankle on the abandoned lemon, and fell face-first into the dung heap again.
Salvidienus chuckled and shook his head. Who'd name their poor kid "Augustus," anyway?
Hey, what was inaccurate about Domina? I want to watch it but I’m unsure on the characterizations
(oh this got quite long, sorry in advance-)
it's not that it's *super* inaccurate, it's just that (in my opinion) some of the choices made were a little, well. they could have been more interesting. guy who only ever thinks about agrippa all the time voice i am going to talk about agrippa first. i do love how they did agrippa but i also feel like his character was sort of flattened? like we see him for the most part as either a violent warmonger or then flip it entirely to this (i'm going to be mean here, but i don't care) pretty pathetic man who just kind of rolls over and does whatever gaius and livia want, and there's not really much nuance - no mention of the whole quote unquote 'exile' situation in 23, or negotiations with herod or parthia or anything like that.
(this is very much a personal thing, but the [spoilers] sort-of-but-not-really romance plot with him and livia definitely irked me. i think they did it well for what it was, but - they did come close, but when are they going to make a show where him and octavian are as insane about one another as they were historically? the emphasis on his relationship with livia over octavian lessens the effect of his death - and the whole death thing really did piss me off. they show his death, they show his funeral, they focus on how sad LIVIA is in that funeral shot (and not his, you know, childhood best friend other half of my soul etc etc) and then immediately cut to a sex scene with livia and gaius. yay. i haven't seen beyond this episode, so correct me if im wrong, but it kind of feels like people just... forget about him immediately? even gaius. there's not really a mourning or grief sort of thing. it's weird.)
the show also often skips out on events that, in my opinion, could have been more interesting than inserting some kind of weird little random subplot in instead. like - without too many spoilers, they give livia this ex best friend who's now a vestal virgin who was also in love with her as a kid which could have been really interesting! and done really well! but it's. not. it glossed over characters who's stories i think are really intriguing - like octavia adopting and raising antony's children (cleopatra selene isn't in the show at all, which i think is pretty sad) could have been interesting to focus on, but instead after a point in season 1 they just kind of reduce her to her grief over marcellus.
i think the show has a little bit of a problem with girlbossifying livia, but to the point where it sort of comes full circle and goes right back to portraying her how people like tacitus might have portrayed her. despite all the reasoning and motivation the show gives her, it still comes across like she's picking off and poisoning octavian's possible heirs one by one (because, well, she literally is) to protect her and her family's power. i think the whole 'restoring the republic' thing COULD have been really interesting! but they don't really explore *how* they'd do that or anything, they just kind of... bring it up every time there needs to be some kind of dramatic secret scene and never expand on it. i understand the show is the livia show but i think the focus on her sometimes makes the other characters (eg gaius) seem stupid or idiotic when we KNOW they weren't historically.
i am not very knowledgeable about the historical julio-claudian 'kids' (for want of a better word), so i can't really speak on a lot of their portrayals, but the whole 'bad tiberius' thing irritated me. unsure of how grounded in history this is but they give him some slightly odd butchered form of doctor-jekyll-esque did where he has an evil fucked up version who comes out and kills people sometimes. i really really love the portrayal of tiberius for the most part in the show, but this bit... eh. he also wants to kill his mum and have sex with his mum, so that's a thing.
side note but it does feel a little weird that two of the main slave characters (antigone and tycho) are both Black, especially in a setting where slavery wasn't influenced by race.
not sure if this is coherent or what you were asking at all, but here are some slightly disconnected thoughts! but despite all of this i do genuinely enjoy the show, if nothing else i think it's very fun. thanks for the ask :]
That sex scene after Agrippa's death was literally the worst decision they could've ever made. If it was up to me, I don't think I could've ruined Agrippa's death scene that badly even if I was purposefully sabotaging the show. Agrippa had just died and it was really sad, and I was really sad, and Octavian was really sad, and suddenly they're just having sex and Livia says "you don't need him anymore"??? Is this what either of them would've done after Agrippa died?
When I watched that part, I was crying, but I swear that sex scene made my tears go back up where they came from. I just got zero empathy for the characters in that scene.
I really like this one thank you for the tag. I couldnt get the hair and eyebrow colour to match as it disappeared to my skin colour and only just realised the eyebrows are ginger
Tagging: @elliekillsu @resident-demonic-pagan @sleeping-arsonist @chaotic-newt and as always anyone else that wants to join
this one was so cute, thanks for the tag!! did it in between spurts of writing productivity for a psych essay
as per usual, tagging @space---girl @oskithebard @iris-echos @piss-pumpkin @vvanillavveins @darkerthanspace @sunshinegremlin and anyone else who wants to!! (it’s late and i’m tired and i can’t remember anyone’s usernames)
Right now tagging ppl... @dr3adedcherub @interfacefox @kronoose @what-a-fella @styxwings @mrpocketofthewoods @watchers-tea and anyone else who wants to give it a go :D
thanks for the tag! i tried to make something that actually looks like me for once, rather than what i want to look like
anyway
tagging @butchdonne, @veradragonjedi, @theromaboo, @bewitching-season, @ginevralinton, and anyone who wants to participate that wasn't tagged can also do so
Last song I listened to: The Prophecy by Taylor Swift lol, ik it's been weeks but I'm still being weird and obsessive about TTPD 😔
Last book I read: god,,, it's been actual months omg. the last book I read and finished was The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins (amazing book btw absolutely recommend !!)
Last film I watched: umm I guess The Crown Prince 2006? is that a film or technically a tv show? uhh if it doesn't count then the actual last film i watched was,,, [deep sigh] Private Vices, Public Virtues,,,, don't look it up (seriously) ((sorry fitz))
Last TV series: I'm currently midway through Under The Banner of Heaven,,, very good actually. It has Andrew Garfield.
Last thing I googled: something biology related lol (I won't say because i'm not supposed to talk about my exam questions while the exam is live but it was some dna analysis thing)
Last thing I ate: cheese toastie
Sweet, savoury or spicy: sweet most of the time, occasionally get serious savoury cravings lol,,, my mouth is very sensitive to spice xD
Amount of sleep: uhh i think somewhere between 7 and 8 hours last night? i slept longer than i wanted to lol, maybe a good thing since i've slept shockingly little this week x)
Currently reading: i've been trying to read like several books over the last few months,,, i started lolita back in jan/feb and it's still on my bedside table, i'm trying to start the terror, i'm loosely keeping up with dracula daily and i've also been trying to read wuthering heights in a two person bookclub for like over a year now akdjhs,,,
Tagging: anyone who wants to do it !! ((sjdh i get afraid to tag mutuals in things but if u are my mutual just assume you're tagged))
Last song I listened to: Day of the departed by The Fold
Last book I read: What If by Randall Munroe (xkcd)
Last film I watched: I missed the start, but i recently saw Gnomeo and Juliet again. I saw it once ages ago. Was fun to rewatch now that I've seen other Romeo and Juliet interpretations (the musical) and read it.
Last TV series: Got dragged into Schloss Einstein after seeing a bunch of it on my dash. Sorry to everyone who followed me for musical related stuff and got to see a lot of that recently.
Last thing i googled: Took a uquiz with some colors. Had to look up what they look like. I don't remember what the last one was called unfortunately.
Last thing I ate: Gulasch and self made Icecream (Have been running some experiments recently. I'm on day four and I'm starting to get a good consistency)
Sweet, savoury or spicy: Sweet. I'm a huge fan of chocolate
Amount of sleep: Probably around nine hours? I forgot to set an alarm today.
Currently reading: Peter Pan and The works of Raimund. I started a book on Elisabeth but got stuck. also it's a bit too big to be a book I take with me everywhere I go.
Tagging: @catearphanatic, @memorijemand and everyone else who wants to have a go. (Please don't feel pressured)
Last song I listened to: Memento Mori by Feuerschwanz (the song that should have been my top song on spotify last year, but it glitched and completely removed it from the year in review despite me listening to pretty much nothing else for at least a month)
Last book I read: hard to say, probably last book I finished was when I reread Going Postal by Terry Pratchett
Last film I watched: I think that was Nimona. I dont watch movies much
Last TV series: I dont remember. I can't tell anymore if series or movies are less common for me to watch. Good Omens maybe, when season 2 came out? it's been so long I cant recall if that was the last
Last thing i googled: the correct batch file syntax
Last thing I ate: chocolate c:
Sweet, savoury or spicy: S P I C Y (though I do appreciate the other two)
Amount of sleep: too much and yet not enough. I woke up at 11.
Currently reading: trying to reread Pratchett's The Truth as well but I got distracted.
tagging @alienmythologist and @hijinksace because yeehaw
Last song I listened to: N64 remix of 'A Cruel Angel's Thesis'
Last Book I Read: Finished 'The Ministry of Time' by Kaliane Bradley yesterday in something of a frenzy after I had a dream of it going way better than it did. Feel like it's also worth noting I just finished 'May We Be Spared To Meet on Earth Again' after several months.
Last Film I Watched: The 1950's Moby Dick movie
Last TV Series: You'll never fucking believe this (The 2011 Moby Dick miniseries. Because Tubi has both of those)
Last thing I Googled: Non exempt worker meaning
Last thing I ate: Bacon lettuce tomato sandwich. With some cheese I forget what kind.
Sweet, savoury, or spicy: All, but Spicy if I have to choose
Amount of sleep: Almost 9 hours which was more than usual for me
Currently reading: A Lot. Primarily The Wager by David Grann, which I've been meaning to read for at least half a year but am only getting around to now. But at least like 3-5 other books entirely at the same time too. And I'm going to reread Moby Dick some time probably starting next week.
Last Song I Listened To: March Chagu Chagu by Satoshi Yagisawa (I'm playing that song in concert band)
Last Book I Read: I'm quite sick right now and it has wrecked my memory so I honestly can't remember.
Last Film I Watched: I remember this! Yesterday I watched Fellini Satyricon while half unconsious and it was an experience.
Last TV Series: Roman Mysteries, because of course I want to feel the nostalgia of a British child during the late 2000's (my childhood was not like that in the slightest).
Last Thing I Googled: Back pain while having flu
Last Thing I Ate: Egg noodles and mushroom sauce
Sweet, Savory, or Spicy: Savory
Amount of sleep: I did not keep track, but I think I got quite a bit of sleep.
Currently Reading: The Goldfinch by Dona Tartt (I just started so let's see how it goes).
First of all, April 19 (Julian Calendar) does NOT become April 7 (Gregorian Calendar). Right now, to convert dates from the Julian Calendar to the Gregorian Calendar, you have to add 13 days, not subtract 12 days.
There are two separate ways to view bread day. You could view bread day as a specific event that happened in ancient Rome, or you could view bread day as a date on the calendar. That would affect how you calculate.
If you were to convert April 19 (Julian Calendar) into the Gregorian calendar, just as a date, you would have to add 13 to the Julian date to get the Gregorian date. So, bread day will be May 2. When 2100 rolls around, the Julian calendar would be 14 days behind the Gregorian calendar. Therefore, you’d have to add 14.
So, in a hundred years, bread day will be May 3. But right now, bread day is May 2.
However, what if you think of bread day as an event that happened roughly two thousand years ago?
Converting between the two calendars has to take into account what year the date is in. To get May 2, I assumed that bread day, March 19, is happening in 2023, and I’ve calculated accordingly.
However, if I assume that bread day happened in between 100 BC and AD 100, I would have to calculate to support that.
Fun fact: The thing abut the Gregorian calendar is that it was made to calculate Easter accurately. Easter has to come after the spring equinox.
In the First Council of Nicaea in AD 325, the spring equinox happened on March 21. But after a while, the spring equinox started coming before March 21. So the Gregorian calendar was made to shift the calendar so the spring equinox could come on March 21, just like in AD 325.
That means that the Gregorian calendar is simulating the Julian calendar during AD 325, rather than the Julian calendar in 45 BC, when the Julian calendar was made.
That means that to convert April 19th, assuming it happened before AD 200, into the Gregorian calendar, I will have to subtract, not add.
There is no doubt that bread day happened in between 100 BC and AD 100. Vesuvius went JKHDLKSKJHSK in AD 79, and do you really think graffiti from earlier than 100 BC would still exist in AD 79?
Bread day happened on April 19 (Julian calendar) between 100 BC and 100 AD. According to Wikipedia, that means I shall have to subtract 2 from the Julian date to get the Gregorian date.
19 - 2 = 17
The real real real bread day is on April 17.
(I also checked on a calendar conversion calculator, and yes, it agrees)
tl; dr: If you calculated April 19 from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian Calendar, and the year was in between 1900 and 2999, the Gregorian date would be May 2. If you converted April 19 from the Julian Calendar to the Gregorian Calendar, and the year was in between 100 BC and AD 100, the Gregorian date would be April 17. Both May 2 and April 17 are good days to celebrate bread day, and I’d say April 19 is fine too. But you can not celebrate bread day on April 7, not in your lifetime.
im ill today (on my feverish shit!!!) but its okay bc i have just been blessed with an astoundingly clear and vivid split second vision of caesar as a catboy twitch streamer
First of all, April 19 (Julian Calendar) does NOT become April 7 (Gregorian Calendar). Right now, to convert dates from the Julian Calendar to the Gregorian Calendar, you have to add 13 days, not subtract 12 days.
There are two separate ways to view bread day. You could view bread day as a specific event that happened in ancient Rome, or you could view bread day as a date on the calendar. That would affect how you calculate.
If you were to convert April 19 (Julian Calendar) into the Gregorian calendar, just as a date, you would have to add 13 to the Julian date to get the Gregorian date. So, bread day will be May 2. When 2100 rolls around, the Julian calendar would be 14 days behind the Gregorian calendar. Therefore, you’d have to add 14.
So, in a hundred years, bread day will be May 3. But right now, bread day is May 2.
However, what if you think of bread day as an event that happened roughly two thousand years ago?
Converting between the two calendars has to take into account what year the date is in. To get May 2, I assumed that bread day, March 19, is happening in 2023, and I’ve calculated accordingly.
However, if I assume that bread day happened in between 100 BC and AD 100, I would have to calculate to support that.
Fun fact: The thing abut the Gregorian calendar is that it was made to calculate Easter accurately. Easter has to come after the spring equinox.
In the First Council of Nicaea in AD 325, the spring equinox happened on March 21. But after a while, the spring equinox started coming before March 21. So the Gregorian calendar was made to shift the calendar so the spring equinox could come on March 21, just like in AD 325.
That means that the Gregorian calendar is simulating the Julian calendar during AD 325, rather than the Julian calendar in 45 BC, when the Julian calendar was made.
That means that to convert April 19th, assuming it happened before AD 200, into the Gregorian calendar, I will have to subtract, not add.
There is no doubt that bread day happened in between 100 BC and AD 100. Vesuvius went JKHDLKSKJHSK in AD 79, and do you really think graffiti from earlier than 100 BC would still exist in AD 79?
Bread day happened on April 19 (Julian calendar) between 100 BC and 100 AD. According to Wikipedia, that means I shall have to subtract 2 from the Julian date to get the Gregorian date.
19 - 2 = 17
The real real real bread day is on April 17.
(I also checked on a calendar conversion calculator, and yes, it agrees)
tl; dr: If you calculated April 19 from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian Calendar, and the year was in between 1900 and 2999, the Gregorian date would be May 2. If you converted April 19 from the Julian Calendar to the Gregorian Calendar, and the year was in between 100 BC and AD 100, the Gregorian date would be April 17. Both May 2 and April 17 are good days to celebrate bread day, and I’d say April 19 is fine too. But you can not celebrate bread day on April 7, not in your lifetime.
First of all, April 19 (Julian Calendar) does NOT become April 7 (Gregorian Calendar). Right now, to convert dates from the Julian Calendar to the Gregorian Calendar, you have to add 13 days, not subtract 12 days.
There are two separate ways to view bread day. You could view bread day as a specific event that happened in ancient Rome, or you could view bread day as a date on the calendar. That would affect how you calculate.
If you were to convert April 19 (Julian Calendar) into the Gregorian calendar, just as a date, you would have to add 13 to the Julian date to get the Gregorian date. So, bread day will be May 2. When 2100 rolls around, the Julian calendar would be 14 days behind the Gregorian calendar. Therefore, you’d have to add 14.
So, in a hundred years, bread day will be May 3. But right now, bread day is May 2.
However, what if you think of bread day as an event that happened roughly two thousand years ago?
Converting between the two calendars has to take into account what year the date is in. To get May 2, I assumed that bread day, March 19, is happening in 2023, and I’ve calculated accordingly.
However, if I assume that bread day happened in between 100 BC and AD 100, I would have to calculate to support that.
Fun fact: The thing abut the Gregorian calendar is that it was made to calculate Easter accurately. Easter has to come after the spring equinox.
In the First Council of Nicaea in AD 325, the spring equinox happened on March 21. But after a while, the spring equinox started coming before March 21. So the Gregorian calendar was made to shift the calendar so the spring equinox could come on March 21, just like in AD 325.
That means that the Gregorian calendar is simulating the Julian calendar during AD 325, rather than the Julian calendar in 45 BC, when the Julian calendar was made.
That means that to convert April 19th, assuming it happened before AD 200, into the Gregorian calendar, I will have to subtract, not add.
There is no doubt that bread day happened in between 100 BC and AD 100. Vesuvius went JKHDLKSKJHSK in AD 79, and do you really think graffiti from earlier than 100 BC would still exist in AD 79?
Bread day happened on April 19 (Julian calendar) between 100 BC and 100 AD. According to Wikipedia, that means I shall have to subtract 2 from the Julian date to get the Gregorian date.
19 - 2 = 17
The real real real bread day is on April 17.
(I also checked on a calendar conversion calculator, and yes, it agrees)
tl; dr: If you calculated April 19 from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian Calendar, and the year was in between 1900 and 2999, the Gregorian date would be May 2. If you converted April 19 from the Julian Calendar to the Gregorian Calendar, and the year was in between 100 BC and AD 100, the Gregorian date would be April 17. Both May 2 and April 17 are good days to celebrate bread day, and I’d say April 19 is fine too. But you can not celebrate bread day on April 7, not in your lifetime.
gaius marius actually won the numidian war by putting sulla in front of the enemy army and blinding them with his pale ass, this is the history historians don't want you to know
i'm actually a sulla adult cystic acne truther but i couldn't figure out how to draw it so. birthmark it is
well i said i would so: my rec list for queer classics scholarship! this comes from my own experience with the subfield of queer classics during my time as a graduate student and my current life as an independent researcher.
i'll put it under a cut because it's long and because (gasp!) i capitalized more formally while i was writing it. if you find this resource useful and want to support an underemployed colleague, my ko-fi is here.
This list mixes multiple different kinds of scholarly resources, including academic books and articles, public-facing scholarship, blog posts, and conference recordings. It does not include primary source material (i.e., ancient texts themselves) – in part, because I think far more ancient texts are open to queer readings than those that make up the existing ‘canon,’ and in part because this reading list is more focused on methodology than it is on any one ancient source.
I’ve marked which texts are available for free online (*) and which are available with a JSTOR account or Academia.edu account (**). Most academic books or articles should be variously available in academic library systems. I have PDFs of the majority, so if you’re having trouble finding something, feel free to reach out!
Foundations of Gender and Sexuality Studies in Classics
These are some foundational works for thinking about gender and sexuality in the Greek and Roman worlds, which I would categorize under a methodological approach akin to LGBTQ+ studies. The primary distinction for me is that these works provide crucial information about systems of sexuality and relevant sources, but are often a) older and b) don’t use queer theory (or use it in a very limited way). This is by no means exhaustive, but it’s just a short selection of things that get cited often in queer Classics.
Sandra Boehringer, Female Homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome (2021; originally published as L’Homosexualité dans l’Antiquité grecque et romaine, 2007)
Kenneth J. Dover, Greek Homosexuality (1978)
Judith P. Hallett and Marylin B. Skinner (ed.), Roman Sexualities (1997) **
David M. Halperin, One Hundred Years of Homosexuality and Other Essays on Greek Love (1990)
David M. Halperin, John J. Winkler, and Froma Zeitlin (eds), Before Sexuality: The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World (1990) **
Craig A. Williams, Roman Homosexuality (2010; 2nd edition)
John J. Winkler, The Constraints of Desire: The Anthropology of Sex and Gender in Ancient Greece (1990)
Queering Classics
As I mentioned above, these are selected primarily because I think they’re extremely valuable examples of queer Classics methodology. The ground that they cover in terms of sources, authors, time periods, etc. is not meant to be universal. My aim is moreso to show what queer Classics can be and what it can do; the methods can be applied to any source you want!
Kadji Amin, Disturbing Attachments: Genet, Modern Pederasty, and Queer History (2017) **
Marcus Bell and Eleanora Colli, “Queer Theory and Classics” (2022) *
Shane Butler, “Homer’s Deep” in Deep Classics: Rethinking Classical Reception (2016) and “The youth of antiquity: reception, homosexuality, alterity” in Classical Receptions Journal (2019) **
Cyberantiquities, “Sappho’s Yuri of Absence” (2023) *
Kay Gabriel, “Specters of Dying Empire: The Case of Carson’s Bacchae” in Tripwire: a journal of poetics *
Erik Gunderson, Staging Masculinity: The Rhetoric of Performance in the Roman World (2000) **
Ella Haselswerdt, “Sappho’s Body as Archive: Towards a Deep Lez Philology” in Critical Ancient World Studies: The Case for Forgetting Classics (ed. Mathura Umachandran and Marcella Ward; 2023)
Ella Haselswedt, Sara H. Lindheim, and Kirk Ormand (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Classics and Queer Theory (2023)
Tom Hendrickson, “Gender Diversity in Greek and Latin Grammar: Ten Ancient Discussions” *
Maxine Lewis, “Queering Catullus in the Classroom: The Ethics of Teaching Poem 63” in From Abortion to Pederasty: Addressing Difficult Topics in the Classics Classroom (ed. Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz and Fiona McHardy; 2014) **
Tom Sapsford, Performing the Kinaidos: Unmanly Men in Ancient Mediterranean Cultures (2022)
Sebastian Matzner, “Queer Unhistoricism: Scholars, Metalepsis, and Interventions of the Unruly Past” in Deep Classics: Rethinking Classical Reception (ed. Shane Butler; 2016)
Ky Merkley, “Writing trans histories with an ethics of care, while reading imperial Roman literature” in Gender & History (2023) *
Melissa Mueller, Sappho and Homer: A Reparative Reading (2023)
Kelly Nguyen, “Queering Telemachus: Ocean Vuong, Postmemories and the Vietnam War” in International Journal of the Classical Tradition (2021) **
Walter D. Penrose, Jr., Postcolonial Amazons: Female Masculinity in Ancient Greek and Sanskrit Literature (2016)
Queer and the Classical - Their website hosts video recordings from two conferences (2021 and 2022) and two seminar series (2020 and 2021) that brought together queer researchers and artists in the field, in order to bring about new and radical ways to imagine, think, and feel future engagements with the queer and the classical. Strongly recommended that you take a look at their wide selection of video recordings! *
Vanessa Stovall, “‘Quid Si Comantur?’: Pic(k/t)ing out Entangled Epistemologies of Ex(cess) in (Em)bodied Techne” (2021) *
Allison Surtees and Jennifer Dyer (ed.), Exploring Gender Diversity in the Ancient World (2020) **
Trans in Classics - Trans in Classics is a working group of the Society for Classical Studies that seeks to provide a community and source of advocacy for trans folx within Classics and to promote and produce scholarship that discusses trans-identities, issues, and readings. Currently their site hosts announcements on relevant events and publications. *
J. L. Watson, “Reframing Iphis and Caeneus: Trans Narratives and Socio-Linguistic Gendering in Ovid’s Metamorphoses” in Helios (2021)
Queer Theory Recommendations
These are some authors in the field of queer theory whose work nominally has nothing to do with Classics. I would argue that an important part of queer Classics methodology is exposing oneself to queer scholarship outside of Classics. Here are some great starting points!
Sara Ahmed, Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others (2006) **
Marquis Bey, Black Trans Feminism (2022) **
Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990) and Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex (1993) - Really, the secret with Butler is that basically whatever you read of theirs first is going to be immensely confusing BUT the more you read, the more you understand what they’re doing. Their work is very referential (both to itself and to its theoretical predecessors), so it takes time and investment to work through. If a whole book seems to daunting, a good starting point might be an early essay like "Imitation and Gender Insubordination" (1990) * or one of their interviews (like this one with Artforum) *, where they tend to be more straightforward.
Paisley Currah, Sex is as Sex Does: Governing Transgender Identity (2022)
Ann Cvetkovich, An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality, and Lesbian Public Cultures (2003) **
Carolyn Dinshaw, Getting Medieval: Sexualities and Communities, Pre- and Postmodern (1999)
Elizabeth Freeman, Time Binds: Queer Temporalities, Queer Histories (2010) **
Jules Gill-Peterson, A Short History of Trans Misogyny (2024)
Jack Halberstam, In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives (2005) and The Queer Art of Failure (2011) **
Saidiya V. Hartman, Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval (2019)
Heather Love, Feeling Backward: Loss and the Politics of Queer History (2007) **
José Esteban Muñoz, Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics (2005) and Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity (2009) **
Paul Preciado, Countersexual Manifesto (2000) **
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet (1990) and Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire (1993)
Monique Wittig, “One is Not Born a Woman” (1981) *
2087
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