Ursus

For me it just wasn't the increasing historical inaccuracies in Season 2. The Vorennus and Pullo dynamic was growing increasingly thin. I never bought V and P as semi-benevolent gangsters, V's new found concern for his children, or P's relation to his two female slave lovers. Then there was the needless subplot with Timon and his reborn Zionism, the utter ridiculousness of Cleopatra and the Ptolemaic court, etc.

This post was moved to the arena for a wide variety of reasons.

Well, there were lots of shadowy clubs in the Roman Empire dedicated to off-color deities. I believe the archaic cults of Dionysus have already been mentioned, where women seized in divine frenzy supposedly uprooted trees with their bare hands and ate raw animal flesh. The associations with drinking wine, which was sometimes seen as the "blood" of the vine, and the interpretations of the perennial coming of the vine as resurrection and immortality, make it fertile ground for someone with imagination. If we look to Germanic and Celtic societies, there are bands of sacred warriors that supposedly took on the spirits of animals (like bears and wolves), probably after ingesting certain drugs and working themselves into a frenzy through exotic religious rites. In Egyptian mythology there is the tale of the warrior goddess Sekhmet. Sekhmet went out to destroy Ra the sun god's human enemies. She killed them and drank their pools of blood. But she didn't stop after the battle, and went out to destroy all of humanity. The world was saved only when the magician god Thoth tricked her into drinking a pool of red colored beer; thinking it was more blood she drank it, but got drunk and became pacified.

Once again I find myself completely disgusted that the so-called greatest country in the world offers such pitiful choices to its citizens. I'm moderate, and McCain in and of himself doesn't seem extremely terrible to me, but his kissing ass of the Religious Right via Palin is a huge black mark. Obama's only real "qualifications" seem to be that he is young, black, and "for change." I would have voted for Hillary over Obama any day.

While the vampire seems to be mostly Slavic, the werewolf has solid Greco-Roman roots. Lycaon, the impious king of Arcadia, is changed into a wolf by Zeus: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycaon_(mythology) And then there is this famous passage in The Satyricon by Petronius (told by a pompous buffoon of the noveau rich): http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/petro/satyr/sat10.htm As far as Julius Caesar, if I am to believe his detractors he sucked several types of bodily fluids, but most likely not blood.

I watched both seasons twice. With the second season it was kind of an effort to get through the 2nd time.

Submit it to Viggen if you do it. I look forward to it.

I have an excellent idea for a novel. Hero is a bad boy. Heroine is a good girl. Good girl falls in love with bad boy after sniping at him desperately for most of the novel. Heroine gets captured by Evil Guy. Hero rescues heroine, defeats evil guy, and saves the world. Hero has a comic side kick. Evil guy has an idiotic henchman. This formula is revolutionary, but I think it may work.

http://www.learner.org/resources/series58....es&pid=819# A free internet registration will get you access to Eugen Weber's lectures on the history of Western Civilization.

UNRV has been richly ennobled by two years of your presence here.

Congratulations on everything.

ROMAN DAYS 2008 will be on the weekend of September 26-28, 2008 at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. The discussion is on the Roman Days list, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/romandays/ . Roman Days has all manner of reenactment endeavors. http://www.larp.com/legioxx/rdays.html

Yes, the Romans did not think much of Egyptian animal headed gods and such, but Augustus wasn't about to agitate the population of his wealthiest province. The Princeps let the Egyptian priesthood operate unmolested if they supported the ruler cult - In Egypt the natives understood the ruler cult as a Pharaoh, the divine mediator between humanity and the highest gods. So in Egypt Augustus allowed himself to be portrayed as Pharaoh making offering to Egyptian gods, even as he forbade the cult of Egyptian gods within the sacred boundary of Rome.

I don't see proper Roman males doing this, LW. A culture that derided actors as "effeminate" would probably find nipple piercings in males to be quite scandalous.

I bet a lesbian bar furnishes one with the opportunities for some colorful blanagrams.

My question wasn't entirely serious, anyway. Basically, while I can appreciate some people can't warm up to Christianity, I equally find it a bit amusing some people chose to pick a religion based on a Joss Whedon character. I watched Buffy too because I thought it was funny. Well, maybe not the 5th and 6th seasons.

But if these young girls become Wiccans because they watched "Buffy", why didn't the "Xena" fans convert to Greek paganism? That's the real mystery.

This was indeed an interesting passage, especially at the office of Urban Prefect. It is ironic that the first Urban Prefect under Augustus resigned after five days in office as he (according to different sources) either didn't know how to properly use his considerable powers, or wasn't up to the tasks trusted to him. His successors obviously had more power and more opportunities to exercise it.

http://www.derby.ac.uk/press-office/news-a...urch-attendance

It's tacky as hell, and I certainly hope they don't bulldoze over bona fide archaeological sites to build it. But what if it does add significantly to Italy's coffers, and they can use some of the money to better preserve actual historical sites like Aurelian's wall or the town of Pompei?

Dost thou not know that tonight Lucullus dines with .. Mickey Mouse

Good. Maybe you should give him some tasty figs as a reward.

Has a wrap-up of the meet and photos been posted?

I sincerely wanted to read, digest, and respectfully respond to your point. But the HUGE paragraph gave my eyes fits. I'm sorry. So I'll just let my last previous statement stand as my final say in the matter.