things my impossibly young looking Roman history lecturer has said
‘listen to your seminar tutors over the booklet, but only for seminars – in lectures i am king. unless you have me as a seminar tutor as well, in which case i am your king and god.’
‘has anybody played Rome: Total War? no?’
‘Cataline tried to burn the city and everyone he hated but he failed because, in short, nobody liked him.’
‘the mediterranean diet didn’t include tomatoes in the ancient world. i know. oh my god. i know.’
‘so of course when Hannibal turns up, the senate goes ‘sod it, lets kick his arse’.’
‘one man’s optimates is another man’s silver-spoon bearing prick.’
‘we don’t have much information about the 70s BC, largely because Plutarch doesn’t care.’
‘i’m not saying Rome: Total War is entirely accurate, but its battle campaigns are surprisingly historically informed.’
[hand drawing a map in chalk because the projector is broken] ‘i’ll give it a go, this is why i hate technology, and oh. well. that’s not italy.’
‘every army needs bakers and prostitutes, this is just a fact of life.’
‘Sulla. He’s a bit of a badass, but also a bit of a prick.’
‘yes, that is a slide from Spartacus. The film, not the series, which is more accurate and less like soft porn.’
‘the Romans liked Campania because its very fertile. they didn’t know this was because of its proximity to a volcano – poor buggers found THAT out later.’
‘Crassus gets given command of Syria and high fives everyone in the senate.’
‘Catullus was very pithy, very hellenistic in style. unlike the Iliad, which is 24 books of tedium.’
‘An Afternoon at Carrhae: the Romans being shot at repeatedly by Parthian cavalry because if there’s one thing the Romans aren’t good at, it’s having a cavalry.’
‘It’s good to have fast legs in war. Caesar moves very fast, not unlike Napoleon. The Usain Bolt of ancient warfare. I’m not sure why I said that, it’s an atrocious analogy.’
‘Athens is the Edinburgh of the ancient world; it has nothing to offer but education and pretty buildings.’
‘Shout out to those of you who spent your teenage years playing Rome: Total War.Which is what I did.’
‘The senate go into a panic and they decide to flee Rome at dawn, but some idiot forgets the treasury. I know. Ridiculous.’
‘Again: don’t use elephants during warfare. They’re not as cool as they look. And given they’re now endangered, it’d just be mean.’
‘I had to use this meme, I’m sorry. You’re all aware of the one does not simply walk into mordor meme right? I’m sorry, we’ll move on.’
‘I put this photo in for dramatic effect but I realise that it’s just a field. I don’t know why people bother going to see battle sites, they’re all really boring. I saw bones once, they were quite interesting. But most battle sites: boring.’
‘Caesar doesn’t tell Rome anything while he’s away in Egypt for a year, so they have no idea Pompey’s dead. All they know is that Antony is being a pain in the ass, which is, in all honesty, not unusual for Antony.’
‘Caesar is very good at one liners. You always draft a pithy one liner before a battle so you have something to say when you win. You don’t want to win and then just be like ‘whoo, thank god for that.’’
This, incidentally, is the methodology I used when I tutored people in history. And D students would end up getting A’s on the subject materials I helped them with. I suspect this is why Shakespeare was considered a fantastic writer too. People pay attention when you’re willing to put something on their level instead of being so caught up in sounding fancy and academia. (Yes, Shakespeare, for his day, was considered quite accessible to the regular people to come to the theater as opposed to only being a high-class affair.) People identify with something when you identify with them. And everyone should identify with history because it’s all human beings who screwed up, some who did some really heroic awesome stuff, and some who got handed a bad hand and turned it around. Sure, it happened in different places and people had ‘strange’ names and fancy titles, but in the end, we see those same people doing the same sort of things today. We spread posts about them, get discouraged at our society’s apparent lack of caring, and wonder how we’ll ever make a difference. Whether we’ll leave our mark. The answer is, we will.
It’s just not history yet.
It will be.
So don’t give up on history. You’re a part of it.
Tag: OMG THOUGH
https://www.tumblr.com/audio_file/eirenical/146584487184/tumblr_nclytdP12Z1ro2o47?plead=please-dont-download-this-or-our-lawyers-wont-let-us-host-audio
PLEASE LISTEN TO THIS YOU DONT REALIZE WHAT YOURE MISSING
when a song ascends through its meme status
this is now officially my funeral song
Jesus help me it’s beautiful what halp.
And in that moment, Obi-Wan knew that Anakin loved him.
Not as a brother loved his brother, or a friend loved his friend, no – Anakin loved him as he loved Padme, deeply and wildly and passionately. It scared Obi-Wan, not because of its intensity or its heat, but because of how immensely he enjoyed the way Anakin cared for him. It should have been a burden, it should have made him recoil, should have made him warn his former Padawan to tread lightly where attachment and affection and want were concerned.
But instead, it only made Obi-Wan warm, to look into Anakin’s eyes, to look into the eyes of the boy he had trained and the man that he called friend and brother, and to know that he loved him enough to throw aside his entire future in the Order. That Anakin would die for him was not surprising – Obi-Wan had witnessed his short-sightedness before, and on more than one occasion had been on the receiving end of his misguided heroism – but what was surprising was that Anakin had chosen to live for him too.
Leaving was for the best, Obi-Wan knew that. Ending the war was far more important than whatever painful, beautiful love existed in Anakin’s eyes when they watched him. It would do both of them good to be apart from one another, to let the stars separate them and know that they were strong enough to survive without one another. Attachment was forbidden for a reason, it clouded the senses and confused the mind, and the sooner Anakin realized that, the better.
“Obi-Wan.”
He stopped, sure that when he turned around Anakin would have that same damnable look in his eyes, that cut him to the quick and made Obi-Wan feel that he could never survive so far from him. Stars, Anakin would look half-starved for him, and Obi-Wan wasn’t sure if he was strong enough to not sate his hunger.
His eyes, while needing, weren’t at all primal with hunger when Obi-Wan faced him. They were soft, pained, and Obi-Wan had to keep himself from reaching out to him.
“May the Force be with you, Master,” Anakin said.
There was a goodbye in his voice. Not only because Obi-Wan was leaving. He felt it, and there was nothing he could do but nod and smile, to wish him the same.
There was something else, hidden under his words, buried beneath his farewell.
Something like ‘I love you.’
Star Wars Age!Squash AU, Comic #06
Padawan Era – Master Windu & Anakin
After spending two years with the Initiates glued to Obi-Wan’s side, Anakin is chosen as Padawan by Master Windu, who had once been most vocal in objecting to Anakin’s presence in the Order. While the boy still has much to learn, Mace now sees great potential Anakin, impressed by his progress in adapting to the Jedi way. Anakin’s relative comfort with the Jedi is no doubt heavily influenced by his friendships with his peers, namely Garen Muln and Quinlan Vox, but mostly his increasingly deep bond with Obi-Wan, a fellow Initiate only two years his senior.
Anakin is still a bit wary of adult authority figures despite Obi-Wan’s insistence that they only want to help. He is especially careful around men, who he saw abuse his mother too many times on Tatooine. While Anakin deeply respects Master Windu and is more than a little awed to be chosen as his apprentice, he is also unsure of the Councilor’s intentions.
Mace’s former Padawan, Depa Billaba, helps break the ice. Anakin finds it much easier to trust her, unintentionally overlapping her reassuring presence with that of his mother’s. She becomes his closest confidant after Obi-Wan while he slowly learns to open up to his new Master, who patiently waits until he can earn Anakin’s trust.
This is part of the Star Wars Age!Squash AU. Find all other posts through THIS MASTERPOST. Update schedule for future posts will also be on the Masterpost!
Waiting on the Dawn
This was made very quickly, because what is Time and Time Management, but I wanted to do something for this Barricade Day. In the days following the barricade’s fall, Musichetta takes care of some final requests for the Amis.
Omfg motorola razrs are relaunching i’m saying goodbye to my iPhone immediately i can finally be the girl i dreamed of being in 2004
they played Great Escape like what kind of knowing exactly who they’re marketing to
this is the most early 2000′s thing i have ever seen in my fuckign life
(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)
eirenical17 