according to you..
caligula because of his erratic sexual deviations...how he lasted is anyone's guess.:out:
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according to you..
caligula because of his erratic sexual deviations...how he lasted is anyone's guess.:out:
Of course this question has already been addressed by the Horrible Histories crew :D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-Nh-zSMzqo
hehe....I am enjoying this The FifthElement this is just abfab...heheh... thank you:thumbsup::lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by TheFifthElement
Tiberius, Caligulla, and Nero were very bad, but in my opinion the worst crime committed by any of the Roman emperors was perpetrated by Justinian when he closed down the Athenian schools of philosophy.
Caesar. "To Caesar what belongs to Caesar."
what were the reasons behind the closing of the Athenian Schools of Philosophy?Quote:
Originally Posted by Des Essientes
Justinian closed the Athenian schools of philosophy beause he deemed them uneccessary remnants of the pagan past's search for truth which had been superceded by what he considered the one and only truth- Christianity. The schools had been supported by the secular aristocracy of the empire much of whose power had been taken away Christian clergymen.
I'm sorry, but you consider closing the schools of philosophy as being worse than murdering thousands of people and burning down Rome? I don't get it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Des Essientes
That video set me straight. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by TheFifthElement
Nero was the "worstest" after all and luckily for me one of the few whose name I remembered.
Diocletian was pretty nasty at times. But why is this thread in the philosophy forum?
Some sources say Nero killed his own mother. Its hard to top the evil of that. He also used Christians for candles, burning them slowly alive. I may be a staunch atheist but I'd never go that far.
You have to be careful in believing everything the Romans wrote about the emperors, because much of the history was political propaganda, or often hearsay written down centuries later.
Nero's crimes were indeed terrible, but the people he murdered and the property he damaged were replaced and rebuilt in good time. Justinian's worst crime was the destruction of the venerable schools of the highest learning whose knowledge, and methods would be lost in Europe for over one-thousand ignorant and superstitious years. Condemning the contintent to an aeon of darkness would alone put Justinian in the running for worst emperor ever, but beyond this he mismanaged the empire by fighting to retake North Africa and other far flung lands, while in his own environs Slavic raiders and other barbarians were depopulating the country by tens of thousands of citizens a year in their annual raids. If Procopius is to be believed Justinian was a sort of devil that never slept, seldom ate even a few bites of food, and instead spent all of his time in evil scheming and evil actions that were every bit as malicious as those of Nero or "Little Boots."Quote:
Originally Posted by BienvenuJDC
We might find the closing of the schools intellectually reprehensible. But such actions are just not comparable to the egregious moral atrocities of a Nero or a Diocletian.Quote:
Originally Posted by Des Essientes
Moreover, Damascius, the last head of the Athenian school and teacher to Simplicius, was a superstitionist in excelsis, a proponent of both mysticism and theosophy. And the neo-Platonist knowledge and methods of the Athenian school weren't lost by any means; they were thoroughly assimilated. The sort of anti-scholasticism you're putting forward here just isn't tenable anymore, given what we now know of the enormous complexity and logical rigour of medieval philosophy.
That one guy who killed Russel Crowe's family and then fought him after stabbing him in the side like a coward. He was the worst.
Great answer!Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandi
:yesnod: He had that weird thing with his sister too, gross! Definitely the worst.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandi
Yeah . . . but, in his defense, his sister was smokin' hot.Quote:
Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf
Correct. On commission.Quote:
Originally Posted by OrphanPip
That's a good point, OrphanPip. I'm glad cafolini quoted this or I would have missed it. We really can't assume that what we heard about these guys is true.Quote:
Originally Posted by OrphanPip
Be fair. It was Russell Crowe. So you can see his point.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandi
Commodus was definitely a nasty piece of work but as to whether he was worse than any of the others is an open question. He actually ruled for 12 years and was unquestionably of a bloodthirsty and licentious disposition. As to whether he ever indulged in single combat with Russel Crowe is somewhat doubtful, however, he did hunt wild beasts in the arena for the gratification of the mob, but afterwards demanded to be worshiped as Hercules. He was eventually murdered by one of his concubines whom he had determined to put to death, but she poisoned him first. The poison was slow to kill him though, so an athlete, one Narcissus, was ordered to strangle him.
Robert Graves and the BBC would have us believe that Claudius was a nice old buffer, but he could be just as psychotic as the rest. He is reported to have blinded one of his officials by stabbing him in the eye with a stylus.
There has been a theory postulated that all the Roman Aristocracy who drank wine were suffering from lead poisoning. The wine was stored in lead lined vessels and the acids in the wine leached toxic compounds from the linings more effectively than ordinary water did. It should be remembered that Romans used lead (plumbum in Latin) pipes for water, which is where our word plumber comes from.
Anyway, I don't think the Roman emperors should be granted sole propriatory rights over beastliness. The modern age has produced its share of maniacs. Uncle jo Stalin was pretty bad, not to mention Pol Pot. The list is endless.
Good points.
most roman emperors were just like the Pharoahs, having it on with their own families. the pharoahs were prolific incestious people.Quote:
Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf
it ranged from mother father brother and sister, young or old. Power stinks when it comes down to that.
gross when you think Cleopatra married her youngest brother..yuk!
amasing when you watch programms about them no one mention how vile they were with their sexual deviances.
What we call incest today was strictly cultural in Egypt and has nothing to do with the behaviour of Roman emperors. It was the way of the aristocracy. Of course that doesn't preclude their corrupted power dealings.Quote:
Originally Posted by cacian
Yea califony is actualy right here, we can;t judge other cultures based on our own cultural assumptions.Quote:
Originally Posted by cafolini
For example our present day culture viewed from the imperial roman standpoint would be effeminate and devoid of any real men, viewed from a 18th century view point we are the vilest of sinners and disgusting deviants.
cultural?since when incest became culture?Quote:
Originally Posted by cafolini
I would not call these poeple anyhting but aristocractic.
Incest is insane leading to more insanity.
How these so called pharoahs/people ruled, being born out of incest, is beyond my imagination.
Pharoahs had nothing to do with culture or aristocracy as far as I am concerned.
Their behaviour was sick beyon belief.
Glad they are gone.Did they really think they were going to last after that?
P.S:
Pharoah in arabic means sinner because they committed incest.
Hence the name pharoah in arabic.
I am afraid I cannot agree.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alexander III
Incest is incest.
It is not jusfified and is never is.
To call incest cultural is an insult on human intelligence.
Sorry but this is my position on this matter.
I cannot possibly justify that.
I agree with you, incest is incest. Likewise can be said about other things as well. Culture cannot justify behavior.Quote:
Originally Posted by cacian
You say incest is incest - fine , we all come from adam and eve, that means by deafult we are all children of incest - how can you justify that then?Quote:
Originally Posted by BienvenuJDC
I think one could argue that this...
...directly contradicts this....Quote:
Originally Posted by BienvenuJDC
Remember this, my friends: there are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are only bad cultivators.
How do youknow for sure it down to adam and yve?Quote:
Originally Posted by Alexander III
I am more likely to believe that we started as group of different races and not from just too people.
IT seems rather far fecthed to think of all the power that god has that he would start with only TWO people.
I believe that we starte with ONE THOUSANDS people because that is power.
Two is a weak number.
One thousand is a powerful number.
If I am going to use power then I am use to BIG as my starting point.
Bad cultivators can only be peopleQuote:
Originally Posted by MarkBastable
to cultivate you need people.
Incest is insanity and so is the incestee.
To cultivate with your own blood it to infest and turn to dust.
same blood can only mean disease and disease leads to infestation and detriment.
Phaorahs are not here anymore. That is their legacy of incest.
The Pharaohs aren't here any more because the Ptolemaic dynasty was conquered by Rome...
That is what it is said.Quote:
Originally Posted by OrphanPip
But Ican imagine that a dynasty that is build on incest would not last very long as you know.
This is my prefered version of events.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemaic_dynastyQuote:
Originally Posted by cacian
Eighteen rulers, 275 years. Not bad going, for a dynasty in a highly-volatile place and time.
so you think 18 rulers and all of them blood related through incest is a lot.Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkBastable
well they are not here to tell the tale and that is enough said for me.
...Huh?Quote:
Originally Posted by cacian
Emperors, Pharaohs -mere amateurs.
The succession to the Sultan in the Ottoman empire fell upon "The Fittest" that meant that sons had to fight it out between them. Then there was the problem of all those potential threats from half brothers in dad's hareem.
The practice of fratricide, first employed by Mehmed II, soon became widespread.[2] Both Murad III and his son Mehmed III had their half-brothers murdered. The killing of all the new sultan's brothers and half-brothers (which were usually quite numerous) was traditionally done by manual strangling with a silk cord. As royal blood must not be spilled. _ (from Wiki)