I'm shocked -- shocked I tell you! -- to hear that wild stories of a Roman emperor's decadence and depravity might not be true. I mean, I'm sure most of them were murderous assholes whose power went straight to their heads, but I somehow doubt even they could actually ask for made-to-order vaginas.
(Via Books, Inq.)
3 comments:
I am so disappointed. I certainly hope Suetonious' Twelve Caesars is more reliable. It is so much fun to refer to the Divine Julius (for whom the month of July was named, who conquered all of Gaul, wrote such perfect Latin, reformed the calendar, and was famously assasinated on the Ides of March 44 BC) in Suetonious' terms: Every wife's husband and every husband's wife.
Ancient writers loved a juicy bit of gossip, the more scurrilous the better. Whether they were true or not? Eh, they didn't care.
For ancient gossip and nasty verse I recommend Garry Will's translation of Martial's Epigrams. OMFG, talk about picking up shit with silver tongs! Translations are not precise, but the four-letter word insults in formal English verse kept me laughing for days! Yes, the Garry Wills who so famously translated St. Augustine, dissected Lincoln's Gerrysburg Address, and who writes learnedly on the Roman Catholic Church, decided to translate some of the most vulgar verse to survive the fall of Rome! Recommended!
Post a Comment