History: the Ultimate Fandom
A place to love History, for the lulz and epic times that lead us to where we are now.
Maintained by lushthemagicdragon
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Photoset reblogged from To the map room, Indy!
January 24, 41: Caligula is assassinated.
Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus, nicknamed “Caligula”, succeeded his moody great-uncle Tiberius as Roman Emperor in the year 37 AD. He was, at first, a popular ruler (mostly thanks to the popularity of his father), but Caligula soon proved himself an extravagant spender, in stark contrast to his predecessor, and unstable; contemporary accounts list among the many scandals associated with his name his attempt to appoint his horse to the Senate, his casual torture and execution of those who displeased him, and his supposed incestuous encounters with his sisters. Caligula’s decadence, cruelty, heavy spending, laughable military campaigns, and heavy taxation transformed him from a popular young emperor into a hated tyrant.
During a sporting event, a member of Caligula’s own Praetorian Guard, Cassius Chaerea, led a group of officers to corner the emperor and assassinate him in a premeditated conspiracy that probably directly involved members of the Senate. Cassius attacked first, and he and the assassins stabbed Caligula around thirty times. According to legend (and artistic depictions), the assassins found Caligula’s uncle, Claudius, hiding in a curtain and proclaimed this pliant, infirm, and most unlikely of men Roman emperor. Hours later, Caligula’s wife, Milonia Caesonia, was killed along with their fiery-tempered infant daughter, Julia Drusilla, whose head was dashed against a wall.
After becoming emperor, Claudius sentenced Cassius to death, and he was executed soon after Caligula.
this is king joffrey
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Photo reblogged from To the map room, Indy!
The Empress Sabina, Roman, C. 130 CE
Museo Nacional del Prado, On View in Room 71
“Vibia Sabina (83-136 A.D.), a relative of Trajan, was married very young to the future emperor, Hadrian. This portrait, made towards the end of her life, around 130, denotes the intention to create an intemporal image, free of the passage of time.”
Sabina was so purty. Too bad her husband was gay. But then she probably managed to gets hers somewhere, since she had a whole palace to herself (and her many, many servants) while Hadrian was out gallivanting across Greece and Egypt.
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Ancient Graffiti portrait of Roman Emperor Nero drawn between 37 A.D and 68 A.D.
This just amuses the everliving shit out of me.
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I’m reblogging this here a) because it’s entertaining and b) because this representation of Commodus was my favorite part of that movie.
(Source: freddiequell)
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Mmm Hadrianic denari.
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Photo reblogged from Brosephine Bronaparte
So, I was trying to find another Hadrian sculpture when I accidentally—
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FUN FACT 1:
This is a truly roman inovation, and there are tons of Roman statues like this. An idealized body and a veristic head, with the idealized body representing your essence and the veristic head representing…well a lot of things but let’s simplify this by saying your identifiable person. You can see the divide between his arms and his head because the bases for these were mass produced with the details added on later.
FUN …hypothesis? 1:
I’m willing to bet that this was made after his death. Hadrian doesn’t seem like the type to idealize himself in this manner, like Augustus wasn’t (there’s one of Augustus like this that most scholars agree was done posthumously) but IDK. It’s a theory.
Trebonianus Gallus is the best example of these sorts of things EVER. It is nearly ridiculous except for how in person it is actually very intimidating.
Also I just finished writing a paper on Venus-type bodies with the portraits of imperial women, including one tremendously upsetting nude one that looked like my grandmother.
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Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine
This was the largest building in the Roman Forum after it was completed
This is most definitely not the Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine. This is the so called temple of Romulus, which was really a new entrance to the office of the urban prefect in the forum of peace, created by Maxentius as an attempt to show the Romans that he cared about Rome. The doors are the sexy original roman doors (one of three pairs still intact in Rome).
