this post was submitted on 01 Jan 2025
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Rough Roman Memes

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A place to meme about the glorious ROMAN EMPIRE (and Roman Republic, and Roman Kingdom)! Byzantines tolerated! The HRE is not.

RULES:

  1. No racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, bigotry, etc. The past may be bigoted, but we are not.

  2. 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.

  3. 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

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MY CABBAGES (lemmy.world)
submitted 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) by PugJesus to c/roughromanmemes
 
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[–] PugJesus 13 points 4 weeks ago

Explanation: Emperor Diocletian was the only Roman Emperor who retired - to a little villa in modern-day Croatia, where he spent his remaining time being waited on by his slaves and gardening, like an ordinary aristocrat. When his co-emperors begged him to return to unfuck the mess he made, he wrote back that they would not ask such a thing of him if they saw his serene and peaceful cabbages.

[–] CheeryLBottom 5 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

How do you know all these small facts?

[–] PugJesus 8 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (3 children)

I sacrificed basic life skills in exchange for an obsession with historical minutiae.

Can't check the engine of a car to save my life, but you can bet your ass I can talk at length about the favorite hobbies of Roman Emperors or the history of the crossbow!

[–] CheeryLBottom 3 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (1 children)

Point me to your sources! (They're not in my history books from college/ University ;)

And miniscule/mundane was the word I was looking for last night...I was tired :p

[–] PugJesus 3 points 4 weeks ago

About Diocletian retiring to farm cabbages? Epitome de Caesaribus is one source.

  1. Diocletian actually relinquished the imperial fasces of his own accord at Nicomedia and grew old on his private estates. 6. It was he who, when solicited by Herculius and Galerius for the purpose of resuming control, responded in this way, as though avoiding some kind of plague: "If you could see at Salonae the cabbages raised by our hands, you surely would never judge that a temptation."
[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 weeks ago

Relatable.

I miss OkayBuddyPhD on Reddit because it was basically all memes about this.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 weeks ago

Ooh I'll take the history of the crossbow.

Sure, I could look it up myself, or I could let a fellow nerd indulge and share in their delight.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 weeks ago

I learned most of this stuff from listening to "the History of Rome" podcast by Mike Duncan. There are many resources available to learn about Rome and the ancient world, and they are full of interesting anecdotes that have survived the passage of time

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Isn't that one of the last anti- or non-Christian emperors?

[–] PugJesus 7 points 4 weeks ago

It is indeed! Diocletian was the last major pagan Emperor (284-305 AD) before the Christian Emperors came in - and he was the worst persecutor of Christianity of the lot. Unlike previous pagan Emperors, who mostly didn't understand Christianity or didn't care, or both, Diocletian initiated an actual imperial persecution of Christianity which ultimately killed several thousand Christians during his reign.

There's one pagan Emperor after him, Julian the Apostate, who comes after a string of Christian Emperors (306-361 AD) and reigns for two years (361-363 AD). He's a cool guy, doesn't persecute anyone, but at that point, Christianity is deeply entrenched, and poor Julian catches a Persian javelin in his gut before he can carry out his grand plans for reform anyway.