this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2024
28 points (93.8% liked)
Rough Roman Memes
563 readers
29 users here now
A place to meme about the glorious ROMAN EMPIRE (and Roman Republic, and Roman Kingdom)! Byzantines tolerated! The HRE is not.
RULES:
-
No racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, bigotry, etc. The past may be bigoted, but we are not.
-
Memes must be Rome-related, not just the title. It can be about Rome, or using Roman aesthetics, or both, but the meme itself needs to have Roman themes.
-
Follow Lemmy.world rules.
Not sure where to start on Roman history?
A quick memetic primer on Republican Rome
A quick memetic primer on Imperial Rome
founded 8 months ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Explanation: The Romans were quite fond of omens - augury. Good omens, bad omens, all determining whether to go ahead with a plan or pull back. Even the mythical founding of the city was based on an omen - how many birds were seen by Romulus.
One method of omen-taking was by seeing if sacred chickens would eat at the moment - if they would eat eagerly, it was a good omen; it they would not, it was a bad omen. One irate Roman admiral is said to have tossed the chickens into the ocean after finding they would not eat that day, saying "If they will not eat, let them drink!"
He lost the ensuing battle and was shamed and removed from command by the Senate when he returned.
Which is a weird story, because since when does a chicken not want to eat?
That's how you know it's a bad fuckin' omen. Like flipping a two-headed coin and having it land perfectly on its side.