TW: There's some cursing I guess? Is that a trigger? Also Roman stuff ie murder suicide references and all sorts of horrible crap that I treat in a very cavalier way because the more I study ancient history the more I find a lot of this is probably deeply untrue. The real trigger warning is for my increasingly bad jokes throughout this article, because I'm hilarious...ly bad at making Classics-related jokes. Is anyone really surprised by this?
Essentially here is a list of all the stuff I've heard or come up with from my studies of classics and ancient history at UNC at Chapel Hill that are often references or allusions to the modern day or modern pop culture-or anachronisms, if you're as smart as me:)
Enjoy!
Tiberius (and Augustus) being pick me boys
So this came up during the reign of Emperor Tiberius, because the first Roman emperors used to do a faux-modesty thing where the Senate would be like "omg take this power, take these honoursssss" and the emperors would be like "noo I don't deserve it" and then the Senate would be like "okay, fine" and the emperors would be like "no, no, give me the power".
Augustus and Tiberius both did this. So did Claudius. Caligula not so much. The point is our amazing lecturer for this class said something along the lines of "it's like the Senate and Tiberius are both saying, pick me", and some of us interpreted it as them being pick me boys, because honestly? They kinda were. And when I say interpreted, I heard some people saying this, because I watched 13 episodes of Gossip Girl and got totally inspired by it, before coming up with a drinking game where you take a shot every time the show makes you want to say "eat the rich". Yeah, that's not the first time I'll mention Gossip Girl in this post largely on ancient Rome.
Germanicus is also a pick me boy (and guilt trips his troops)
Germanicus is Tiberius' nephew and adopted son. In Book 3 of Tacitus, Germanicus and his adopted brother Drusus decided to deal with military mutinies in sliiiightly different ways. Drusus waits for the troops to turn on each other, killing the leaders and quashing it with brute force, hence my Horrible Histories-inspired nickname for him, Ruthless Drusus. I'm hoping it'll catch on. (It won't.)
Germanicus, on the other hand, is literally told by the troops they'd march into Rome for him, something Germanicus is super uncomfortable with and tries to make himself a martyr by sobbing "My wife and son are here at this military base that I brought them to, this'll upset them!" Continuing his victim complex, he then straight up says he'll kill himself if the troops don't shut up and stop inconveniencing him with such an annoying mutiny, which I shouldn't find funny but I do because Germanicus comes across less like he's depressed and more like he's a total drama queen to his troops.
The troops' clapback
This feels anachronistic because I should hear a sound effect of a large mob cheering behind it. The troops' response was basically to say "be our guest", and some offer them their swords to help him do the job. Okay, so eventually Germanicus raises the sword and some of them pull him back, he gets the mutiny under control and it's all going swimmingly until he gets sick/poisoned by Piso/maybe Tiberius. Tough break for our boy Manicus there.
(No? Manicus isn't gonna happen either?)
Germanicus is also basically a Kennedy
People loved Germanicus, for some reason. He's in my opinion one of the most celebrated Roman figures during the empire to have never been emperor. And if I can delve a little further into this, I would argue that's a big part of why he was so popular long after his death. He never got the chance for a historian to write about his tyrannical rule because he never had one. Tiberius, before he became emperor, was honestly kind of similar to Germanicus! He also had a successful military career and seemed relatively popular, but had a....mixed term.
Germanicus is compared to Alexander the Great in Tacitus (though not by Tacitus himself, who was as usual just reporting other people's thoughts), which says a lot, because they were both popular, successful generals who were possibly poisoned and who died at 32. My point is my Early Roman Empire lecturer compared him to the Kennedy family because even three emperors on from Tiberius, people liked Nero in part due to his link to him. This is despite the fact Gaius (Caligula) was Germanicus' son, and look how well his rule turned out.
Apuleius is also kind of a pick me boy
I promise the whole article isn't like this. Jumping forward to approximately 156 CE, in his defense speech, the Apologia, Apuleius basically attacks every single detail in his accusers' arguments, including their referring to him as having an "elegant appearance". He essentially goes out of his way to say "me? Hot? No wayyyy stoooop", and criticises his own appearance in a pretty detailed way. It comes across less like he's being actually humble and more like he wants the audience (and the judge, Maximus) to think "oh poor sweet baby Apuleius, he can't be guilty of sorcery, he doesn't even know he beautiful he is". It's very pick me energy, is what I mean.
The Greek and Roman perception of "Eros" and how it relates Taylor Swift
This would be a great example for me to discuss if it weren't for the fact I manage to force Taylor Swift into every conversation in a deeply annoying manner. 1989 (Taylor's Version)? Old news. I'm waiting for 700 BCE (Taylor's Version), right guys? Gu-guys....?
Whatever. *huffily* My Sex & Gender in Antiquity lecturer made this one, because a summary of Eros is basically that love sucks. I made a whole presentation on this. All the intense stuff Taylor writes about, she said, that's Eros, love in the Greek world, this powerful force that controls everyone and feels kinda good but also physically hurts you a lot and makes you feel awful at the same time.
Disclaimer: this is not me being corny, this is what Eros is. He's also a god.
"Kleomenis is hot"
An actual inscription on an Athenian kylix (a sort of cup) around 510 BCE. I feel like you'd find this scrawled underneath a table at school or something?
The joke cup you might find at a frat house
My archaeology lecturer made this joke about Nestor's Cup, found c.720 BCE. The inscription translates to: “I am the cup of Nestor, good to drink from. Whoever drinks from me will at once be seized by desire of fair-crowned Aphrodite.”-this is meant to be a joke, like "haha yeah this cup gets you the love of a goddess for sure for sure". We were told to imagine this at a frat house. Maybe not exactly that, but something less eloquent, sure, I could see that.
Being "yeeted" off the Tarpeian Rock
A punishment in Ancient Rome, my archaeology lecturer literally said you could be yeeted (thrown) off the infamous Tarpeian rock. Yeet is kind of a historical term itself at this point, but I still found this one funny.
Sejanus' manipulations and Game of Thrones
Have many of you even heard of Sejanus? He is absolutely my favourite character in Tacitus' Annals. Well, okay, Annals is a work of history so he's not technically a character. And he was also a really, really bad dude.
But he was like, so good at being a bad dude. Notable actions in Book 4 of Annals include seducing Drusus' wife, poisoning Drusus, getting shot down in trying to marry her but basically being in control of Rome after potentially coaxing Tiberius into fleeing to Capri, because Tiberius was becoming increasingly unpopular in Rome.
Apparently, Game of Thrones was actually partly influenced by all the Roman cloak-and-dagger BS that I'm totally here for. That and the Wars of the Roses.
Suetonius is basically a gossip columnist
Tacitus likes randomly bringing in figures without mentioning whether they'll be hugely significant figures or if they'll be killed off 2 chapters later, which it makes it quite hard to remember all the important figures in Annals. Compared to Tacitus, reading Suetonius is a joyfully chaotic and graphic ride. Does he embellish details? Yes. Is he downright hysterical and kind of rants and raves and prefers entertainment over historical accuracy? Pro. Bab. Ly. Do I absolutely prefer this to Tacitus' BS "impartiality"? Absolutely. A friend of mine said Suetonius just records all the tea and reads like a gossip columnist, which kinda makes sense. Suetonius, the true non-anonymous Gossip Girl of ancient historical writers.
The Caligula ones
As an out of pocket comment, Caligula is hilarious. Not because of anything he does or because I find the idea of him being "crazy" something to laugh at, but his legacy just reads so much funnier if you just think of it as Caligula being a frat boy put in charge of the Roman Empire. We literally posed the question in class "is this just what happens when a 25-year old is put in power?" I mean, probably a litte. I don't think all of the stuff Suetonius writes about Caligula applies to young men in general. That said, I don't think all of the stuff Suetonius writes about Caligula is true, entertaining as it is. And we'll get to the other stupid reason the Roman Empire is topical today later.
Game of Thrones again
One of my absolute least-read reviews actually compares Game of Thrones to Season 3 of Netflix's Roman Empire, because it's graphic and incesty. But this is a similar and fun link, because King Joffrey (the GoT character) might actually have been slightly based off of Caligula in terms of casting. Look this up. They've reconstructed Caligula's face and he looks kind of like Joffrey. I find this hilarious.
Caligula's #girlsnightout
Please don't believe everything you hear about Caligula, I have absolutely no clue about what the guy was actually like, except unpopular. Tyrannical reputations in the ancient world are hard to assess. However, we talked about his planned invasion of Britain that went, shall we say, severely wrong. (Okay, I forgot the details. Let me reread Suetonius and I'll get back to you if it matters to you that much.) I believe one of my classmates said this sounds like a chaotic "girls' night out" gone wrong. And you know what? I kinda like that.
Caligula's bachelor party
To me, it sounded like an emperor's bachelor party gone wrong. A failed trip involving a bunch of "laaaads", a failed trip, horses (see below)...no?
"Dude, he's trolling you!"
Because I'm super professional and know all about guidelines of blog posts that roughly 12-100 people read, I don't know if I'm allowed to say my lecturer's name here.
But these were the exact words out of his mouth, in response to Suetonius' writing about how bonkers Caligula's attempt to appoint his favourite horse, Incitatus, as a consul (as a very very simplified explanation the two consuls were kind of the two most powerful people in Rome bar the emperor, except technically there was no emperor, there was a princeps or sometimes imperator, which sounds like it's the same which it kind of is but it's technically not because as I've said the Romans loved to do a big song and dance where they pretended the big cheese not-emperor emperor had no power).
I guess men and horses really did rule the world. Shame Incitatus never actually got to be a consul. I would've liked to see how his rein would've gone;)
(I apologise profusely for that.)
"I'm just Caligula"
I'm proud to say I came up with the subheading, but someone else kind of spawned the idea of Caligula basically being Ken from the new(ish, god time flies) Barbie movie. Guy was a 20-something dimwit party guy who tried to make his horse a consul! Men and horses really do rule the world, huh?
"Are you really gonna listen to this guy? He's ugly as fuck."
From Apuleius again, my lecturer really said this as a paraphrasing of his argument. As well as making himself seem humble about his looks, he also insinuates his accuser (Aemilianus) is absent because he's so ashamed of his own ugliness. This is apparently a legitimate legal argument.
"Your wife's bedroom is a train station"
Apuleius says as much to Herrenius Rufus, one of his accusers. (This is not his quote, but also not one I made up either, I heard it in class. I needed a minute after hearing this one because it's hilarious.) Another attempt at making his accusers look like absolute clowns.
"You're wife is a whore, your daughter is a whore, you're a whore. Plus you're also all poor."
Apuleius says everyone's a bit, er, promiscuous. (Again the quote is not featured in Apuleius and not my quote either but a real one I overheard.) A great paraphrasing of Apuleius' insulting of Rufus' entire family as a bunch of....promiscuous people. Again, I laughed for a while at this one.
And also, there's one I haven't included. I didn't know this until recently because I'm not on Tiktok and I don't apologise for this, but men are being asked about how often they think about the Roman Empire. This is so ridiculous I don't even have words for it, buuuut it also annoys me because I'm over here like: "I think about the Roman Empire all the time!! Like every day! But I do Ancient History!!! Stop stealing my thing! Just because you're a man doesn't mean you can pretend you have the slightest clue what Senatus Populusque Romanus means!"
I don't even do Latin, I was just making a point there. Gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss. (I'm so sorry.) So that's modern day anachronistic views on ancient history this term! This was a lot of fun. And in case you were wondering what Suetonius signing off as Gossip Girl would be in Latin, which you weren't, because no-one would, it would be:
XOXO, Rumor Puella. (I'm not even sure this is right, I don't do Latin.)
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