“Yes… good… let the civilization flow through you!” - Romans trying to assimilate G*rmanics

Just doing my best to make a little historical trivia humor accessible! 🙏

Explanation: Octavian, later known as Augustus, was the grand-nephew and adoptive son (posthumously, by will) of Julius Caesar, of conqueror and dictator fame. Caesar was, famously, assassinated by the Senate, including by many Senators he had pardoned during the civil war, despite them taking up arms against him.

When it became apparent that the assassins of Julius Caesar had little support amongst the people of the city of Rome, they fled to the east and tried to raise an army to retake power (they would lose the ensuing, second civil war), while the ‘moderate’ conservatives who had only cheered on the assassination, not participated in it, tried to negotiate with Caesar’s supporters for some sort of reasonable accord to preserve their power. Of the ‘Second Triumvirate’, as they became known in historiography, Lepidus was a no-one, and Mark Antony was a brute who would have cheerfully executed every Senator who spoke out against him if he could have gotten away with it. Luckily, Caesar’s grand-nephew, so young and impressionable, was willing to work with the Senate towards a reasonable future

Unfortunately for the oligarchic Senate, the deeply cunning and manipulative Octavian had no intention of being their champion. Unfortunately for the Republic, he had no intention of being the champion of the democratic People’s Assemblies of the Roman Republic either. Instead, Octavian consolidated power and quietly sidelined (and sometimes executed) rivals until no one was left brave enough to openly oppose him. After his military victory over Mark Antony (who had allied himself with the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra during this third and final outbreak of civil war in Octavian’s lifetime), Octavian/Augustus made it clear, if only implicitly so, that there was no more power in the Republic without his say-so.

‘Funny’ enough, the Republic was not formally abolished after this, and Augustus, publicly, kept up the pretense that he was just a really special boi who had come into all these crazy offices of ultimate power with indefinite term lengths basically by accident during a period of crisis, just normal Republic things! After all, would some aspiring autocrat insist that he was merely the First Citizen, and First Amongst Equals? (Princeps and Primus inter pares)

The Romans would struggle with this split between reality and theory for the next ~300 years of what-we-now-call the Roman Empire, sometimes acknowledging the Emperor as autocratic, other times insisting that no, there was TOTALLY still functioning republican institutions, and that the Emperor was JUST the First Citizen who was a mouthpiece for the Senate and PEOPLE of Rome! Nothing to see here, folks! (Most elite writing took a view somewhere in-between these two extremes, acknowledging the Emperor was crazy-powerful to the point of dictatorship, but still envisioning the position of Emperor in basically magisterial, republican terms)

Also, the map is inaccurate, as that’s the 117 AD map of the Roman Empire, which had a few more bits and pieces than it did in Octavian’s time. XD

Touching grass makes my allergies flare up.

Reposting staves off my ADHD while I work.

I know which one gets my vote!

@pugjesus@piefed.social

Kbin is my original, but Kbin went down years ago, before I even moved to Lemmy.world!

uwu

For the same reason Chaos and Wholesome are opposites

for the shitpost o7

“Talk is a national institution, but it does not help the slave!”

Life truly imitates art 😭

The furries are taking over

@rickyrigatoni@retrolemmy.com your people

Best lil guys, they recharge my shields

Hey now, I’ve never denied being suss!

There are some ensigns, but lieutenants are still suspiciously missing!

I… that… it… you see, I…

[ahem]

Excuse me for a moment.

THEY’RE ONTO ME

Sadly, while I used to be told I looked like Jesus when I wore my hair long, my hair is neither long at this time nor am I in current possession of a pug due to apartment limitations. 😔

Apologies for the Americentrism (and poor quality editing lmao), but "I don’t believe that user has ever been to a military academy" just didn’t hit the same for me.

Explanation: In the Siege of Alesia during the Gallic Wars of Julius Caesar (of conqueror and dictator fame), Caesar, with a force of about 50,000 Roman and allied troops encircled a slightly largely force under Vercingetorix in the fortified city of Alesia. Caesar, in order to ensure none of the Gauls could escape to regroup, built a wall around the fortified town. Vercingetorix was a charismatic and skilled Gallic warlord who sought to expel the Roman intruders from Gaul, after several years of the Romans increasingly intervening in inter-tribal wars and making themselves increasingly ‘at home’ as overlords of Gallic polities.

Vercingetorix, however, had planned to be surrounded - he had sent out the call for a much larger force to gather and surround Caesar while he was surrounding Vercingetorix!

Caesar played the Uno Reverse card, and built a wall around the wall he was using to surround the walled city of Alesia. That’s three (3) walls in total, for those counting, two by Caesar, one by the Gauls. So when the massive Gallic relief force arrived, they found out that there was no fair fight to be had - they had to siege out Caesar’s own besieging force to rescue Vercingetorix! To make matters worse for them, Caesar had his men ransack the countryside for all available food, burning what they couldn’t take - meaning the relief force couldn’t linger for long without starving.

By Caesar’s counting, he faced nearly ~350,000 Gallic warriors in total. It was likely significantly less than this, with the number exaggerated for both practical (hard to count an enemy hemming you in while you hem them in) and propaganda (big numbers = big victory) reasons. Modern figures range from ~80,000-200,000 enemy troops against Caesar.

Forced into several costly assaults on the Roman walls by their circumstances, the Gauls, even coordinating between the besieging and besieged forces to time their attacks, were driven back, and Vercingetorix eventually surrendered for lack of supplies (and lack of ability to break out of Caesar’s siege), ending the Gallic Wars with one of Caesar’s greatest victories.

Get fucked. When someone asks you to disengage, disengage. You’re being an asshole.

I’m sorry I don’t follow the rules of the Fae, or whichever arcane code you’re following?

If you want to disengage, feel free to disengage. No one is forcing you to respond to me. If you want to get the last word in and then say “Disengage” thinking it’s a “Now my points can’t be responded to :3” card, feel free to go fuck yourself.

The people have armed themselves to protect themselves from people like you.

The People’s Stick, I see.

They are more free than you can possibly imagine, and that idea terrifies you.

Maybe the post-1950s PR campaign was unnecessary all along.