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: this is SO GOOD
♢ courfeyrac and feuilly?
It’s been raining all afternoon, and
showing no signs of letting up, but that’s all right. Saturday was a
busy day–putting in the garden, grocery shopping, laundry, running
errands, scouring the little thrift shops in the suburbs for the
perfect end table–but today there’s nothing urgently hanging over
them. They can afford to spend the gray, sleepy day on the couch,
reading and watching movies and drawing. And the newly planted
tomatoes need the water.Feuilly’s half-asleep, their
paperback slipping from their hands to rest against their chest,
their head pillowed against Courfeyrac’s shoulder, when they feel the
soft touch of lips against their temple. Struggling to blink their
eyes open, they turn to look up at Courfeyrac.“Sorry,” Courfeyrac
whispers. "I didn’t mean to wake you up. I just. This is so
nice and cozy and I love you a lot and–“ He doesn’t need to
finish the sentence. Feuilly knows that Courfeyrac’s most natural
way of showing affection is through touch; that sometimes his love
for his friends just wells up and he has to hug or kiss or caress.
They know–without having to go through that whole discussion again–that
it doesn’t Mean Anything.But at the same time it means
everything Feuilly could ever want and more. They smile sleepily up at
Courfeyrac, then settle back against his shoulder, their eyes
slipping closed again.
feuilly being a foster parent
feuilly taking his kids out to the zoo and the cinema and out to get
dinner (and yes of course they can have ice cream) when he can afford it
and out to the park when he can’tfeuilly letting his kids scream and shout and blame him if they need
to because he knows you just need to let everything out sometimesfeuilly bringing them hot chocolate after and telling them it’s alright
feuilly tearing up when kids who have went to more permanent homes
send him letters or drawings or christmas cards and displaying them all
around his apartment(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ～『✧~*feuilly being a foster parent*~✧』
I have never fallen for a headcanon so hard.
#the one about the yelling at him really gets me #he’d just sit there and let them yell themselves out #and then hold out an arm and let them cry into his side when they realize on their own that it wasn’t feuilly’s fault #and he’d just hush them when they try to apologize#because he gets it # he of all people gets it #ow feels
eirenical17 