The Second Zodiac Book

33

the signs as ridiculous things famous ancient romans did

Long but worth it you guys.

aries:publius claudius pulcher, the senior consul in 249 BCE, was taking auspices before a battle in the first punic war. this was done by feeding the sacred chickens; if the chickens didn't eat well, it was a bad omen. the chickens refused to eat at all, a terrible omen. pulcher got upset and said "if they will not eat, let them drink!" and then proceeded to throw the chickens into the sea before going into battle anyway. the battle was a terrible loss for the romans.

taurus:cato the elder lived while rome was fighting the punic wars, and was convinced that the destruction of carthage was the key to rome's victory. he proceeded to shout that carthage must be destroyed at the end of all of his speeches to make sure that everyone knew his opinion.

gemini:publius clodius pulcher, a later relative of the claudius pulcher mentioned above, was well-known for causing a lot of ruckus in the late roman republic. he once snuck into a women-only festival of the goddess bona dea, supposedly to try and have a night of fun with caesar's wife pompeia. unfortunately, he was not very good at maintaining a falsetto, and was subsequently caught when someone realized that his voice seemed suspiciously masculine.

cancer:mucius scaevola (whose name means "left-handed"), a roman from the early republic, once snuck into an enemy camp to kill the enemy king so that he could protect the roman republic. however, due to the king and his scribe wearing similar clothing, scaevola accidentally killed the scribe and was captured. he gave a speech in front of the king talking about how many roman men waited to assassinate him, and to prove his point about the bravery of romans, stuck his right hand into a fire and let it burn. the king was so impressed and disturbed that he let scaevola go free and sent ambassadors to rome to discuss a treaty.

leo:marcus tullius cicero, famous lawyer and politician, stopped a conspiracy to overthrown the roman state during his consulship in 63 BCE. he never let rome forget this fact as long as he lived, and wrote not one but two epic poems about his own accomplishments.

virgo:augustus, the first roman emperor, was a very intelligent, but also sometimes shy, man, and he was not good at speaking extemporaneously. as a result, he often brought notes to important conversations to ensure that he didn't stumble or miss anything he needed to say. this included whenever he had important conversations with his wife livia.

libra:mark antony was friends with a young man named curio in his youth- and, according to cicero, they were more than friends. curio's father had kicked antony out of the house and even set up guards so that antony couldn't get in due to antony being a bad influence and, more than that, a debtor, but antony would just sneak in through the ceiling so that he and curio could be together.

scorpio:gaius julius caesar- yes, that caesar- was once captured by pirates. he scoffed at the ransom they demanded for him and told them to raise it, then proceeded to make friends with the pirates, telling them that it didn't matter because when he was released he would come back and crucify them. they thought it was a joke and handed him over when the ransom was paid. he then proceeded to capture them all and crucify them.

saggitarius:the augustan poet horace apparently hated food with too much garlic in it, and his friend and patron maecenas once served in garlicy food as a joke. horace then proceeded to write an overdramatic poem comparing garlic to various mythological poisons and hoping that maecenas would never get laid again.

capricorn:lucius junius brutus, who led the revolt against the kings and established the republic, escaped an early death at the hands of tarquinius superbus by pretending to be an idiot. he was nicknamed brutus, meaning "stupid," as a result and was generally considered to be a harmless oaf. brutus later kicked tarquinius and his family out and became the first consul of rome.

aquarius:petronius, one of the great neronian authors, was forced to commit suicide by nero. so, to celebrate the event, he threw a magnificent dinner party, during which he slowly let himself bleed to death. before he died, though, he sent his will to nero, detailing all of the reasons he hated nero so that nero could read it once he was dead.

pisces:the emperor hadrian loved his lover antinous deeply. when antinous died, hadrian became deeply depressed. he deified antinous and devoted a cult to him, and then proceeded to order a tremendous amount of statues of antinous to be made. depictions of antinous are particularly common finds in roman archaeology compared to other artifacts due to the sheer number of portraits of antinous made.

Clusterfuck is a good word.