Not an area of history I know very much about.
Helping bump off Cicero puts him in my good books.

I'm shockingly badly read.
( Lampito rise with the moon, go to bed with the sun, Mon 31 May 2010, 16:37, 2 replies, latest was 16 years ago)

He was vulgar, a cad and a thoroughgoing bounder, if I remember correctly.

( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Mon 31 May 2010, 16:43, Reply)

He was a massive cunt
but a pretty damn good leader.

But my heart lies with Julius Caesar
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Mon 31 May 2010, 16:45, Reply)

Those two attributes often go hand in hand, do they not?
Churchill was a fucking nightmare. That Hitler chappie, too, I'll bet.
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Mon 31 May 2010, 16:48, Reply)

they do
but Julius Caesar wasn't a cunt, and he was even better than Mark Antony. And Augustus was better than them both without very much bad behaviour
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Mon 31 May 2010, 16:49, Reply)

I went off Augustus
when I found out he wore built-up shoes, the Sarkozy-esque twat.
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Mon 31 May 2010, 16:53, Reply)

he didn't generally
And he also slept on a bed hard enough to be a slaves. And ate frugally. And only had a golden laurel outside his house to signify his importance. That was it. What a man
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Mon 31 May 2010, 16:54, Reply)

All self-generated PR stories I'll bet.
Much like Gandhi's 'ooh, I'm such an Indian peasant' schtick, the public-school educated kiddy-fiddling fraud.
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Mon 31 May 2010, 17:10, Reply)

It wasn't lies with Augustus
I bet. Though I may be blinded by admiration, and he did behave quite shittily to the Julias
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Mon 31 May 2010, 17:12, Reply)

I thought he ate frugally
because the weed had constant digestive troubles - this may have been gleaned from a historical novel, though.

When you reach my age you forget such vital things as where you read something...
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Mon 31 May 2010, 17:19, Reply)

He was quite fragile when he was younger
and had a bad illness once, so he did take quite good care of himself. It paid off though
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Mon 31 May 2010, 17:22, Reply)

A weedy midget poof, then.
You're not really selling the chap, I have to say...
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Mon 31 May 2010, 17:24, Reply)

He wasn't short
not really. Nor weedy. He was a golden youth who grew up to be an amazing leader. Three Cheers for ancient historical crushes!
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Mon 31 May 2010, 17:48, Reply)

When you reach your age
You forget your own fucking age, Monters old bean.
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Mon 31 May 2010, 18:06, Reply)

This is demonstrably so, is it not, my dear Davvers?

( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Mon 31 May 2010, 18:10, Reply)

Certainly is old chap.
Why, only yesterday I was convinced I was only 25, and proceeded to drink my own body weight in beer from 3pm - 1am.

Oh, how they laughed in A&E when they informed me that my medical records stated I was, in fact, pushing 40, and should really know better by now.
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Mon 31 May 2010, 18:15, Reply)

My favourite leader probably is Cath the Great
She was awesome.

Just that Russia will never work, the size that it is.
( Lampito rise with the moon, go to bed with the sun, Mon 31 May 2010, 16:48, Reply)

Mine is Genghis Khan by a country mile.
I fucking HEART Genghis Khan, big time.
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Mon 31 May 2010, 16:50, Reply)

Lycurgus, if he ever existed, would have been pretty awesome.

( Lampito rise with the moon, go to bed with the sun, Mon 31 May 2010, 16:52, Reply)

Nah
what a total bastard
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Mon 31 May 2010, 16:54, Reply)

Don't knock the Spartans
they were awesome.
( Lampito rise with the moon, go to bed with the sun, Mon 31 May 2010, 16:54, Reply)

some of them were true
but Lycurgus doesn't sound very pleasant (fictitious obviously)
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Mon 31 May 2010, 16:56, Reply)

I used to know the Great Rhetra off by heart
not hard, as it's like 5 lines long

I love Simonides' epigram at Thermopylae. It's one of my favourite snippits of poetry
"Go tell the Spartans, passer by
that here, according to their laws, we lie"
Ὦ ξεῖν', ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε
κείμεθα, τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι.
( Lampito rise with the moon, go to bed with the sun, Mon 31 May 2010, 16:59, Reply)

When I watched 300
I was annoyed they got the translation wrong I seem to remember. It's such an evocative piece of writing
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Mon 31 May 2010, 17:11, Reply)

If you frequently reminded yourself
that it was an adaptation of a comic book rather than of ancient texts, the whole shoddy thing was a lot easier to cope with, I found.
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Mon 31 May 2010, 17:14, Reply)

I've not seen 300
it's what most people say when I say I'm interested in Sparta.
( Lampito rise with the moon, go to bed with the sun, Mon 31 May 2010, 17:19, Reply)

I laughed
when the Spartans contemptuously called the Athenians 'boy-lovers' in the film. Pot, kettle, black anyone?
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Mon 31 May 2010, 17:21, Reply)

While hammered on Friday
I remember lecturing the poor boy I was with on anal sex.

I may have been preaching to the converted.
( Lampito rise with the moon, go to bed with the sun, Mon 31 May 2010, 17:22, Reply)

Haha
were you lecturing him on the evils? Given your 'big three' attitude.
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Mon 31 May 2010, 17:24, Reply)

It was scary
I mentioned smack, and said it was part of the 3 things I'd never do.

One of the people we were with replied with "So, it's smack, anal and what?"

I almost had a fit. HOW DID HE KNOWWWWWW
( Lampito rise with the moon, go to bed with the sun, Mon 31 May 2010, 17:25, Reply)

That is a tiny bit scary

( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Mon 31 May 2010, 17:34, Reply)

Apparently girls don't like anal
He may have found out the hard way.
( Lampito rise with the moon, go to bed with the sun, Mon 31 May 2010, 17:38, Reply)

As an Emperor
I love Augustus, though I also have some love for Vespasian.
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Mon 31 May 2010, 16:53, Reply)

Trajan always appealed to me.
I cannot remember why, though. Mind you Nero was nowhere near as bad as history traditionally paints him. He was a knob and a deviant, but did much for the architecture of Rome as opposed to beings its destroyer, it is now thought, I understand?
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Mon 31 May 2010, 16:56, Reply)

Haha I did an essay on that
and the conclusion I came too was that while Nero did indeed contribute to architecture, that it wasn't the public that was the beneficiary. And he was still a massive cunt
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Mon 31 May 2010, 16:58, Reply)

Who cares about the public?
If you wander about in Bucharest, you cannot fail to be impressed by Ceacescu's building works, built with the blood of his people or not.
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Mon 31 May 2010, 17:02, Reply)

well
if you're going to evaluate an Emperor, then you need to.

After all some biographers argue that Nero was positing a cultural transition shift, from a military focus to a cultural one. I say that's a load of nonsense, he was an insane wanker who was herded in at the beginning, then broke out at the end
( Amberl was stripey and dominated Europe, Mon 31 May 2010, 17:04, Reply)

I evaluate Emperors thusly:
1. Were they mental?
3. Did they commission huge engineering or architectural works?
4. Were they a sadist and ideally an incest-monger?
5. Did they slaughter any innocents?
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Mon 31 May 2010, 17:07, Reply)