The Blogographer

“What a [Herculean] Manoeuvre!”: Inventing the Bear Hug What do the following men all have in common?  • Superstar Billy Graham • Ted Arcidi • Tony Atlas • Mark Henry • Bill Kazmaier • Brock Lesnar • The Yeti • Bruno Sammartino • George Hackenschmidt Aside...

Immense game intellect for Hercules to invent a contest-winning move during the actual contest... problem-solving at its very best...

#Greeks #Greekmythology #Hercules

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A Soldier and a Scholar 59 - The Golden Age of Pericles Episode 59 - With its wide political hegemony and booming economic income, Athens brings about an artistic and cultural flourishing considered a Golden Agehttps://mncvgk.podbean.com/e/a-soldier-and-a-...

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Did the Romans Accidentally Invent "BAE"? - The Most Blessed Tetrarchs Just for St Valentine's Day, let's look at an ancient iteration of the more modern phenomenon that is "bae." While seemingly an acronym for "before anyone else" which has somehow morphed into an adjec...

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"...maybe fighting is useless… Perhaps it’s too late… but I’ll tell you this… if I could do it again, I’d wake up early and be fighting these bastards from the start! FIGHT THE EMPIRE!”

“there is a darkness reaching like rust into everything around us. We let it grow… and now it’s here… it’s here and it’s not visiting any more. It wants to stay… The Empire is a disease that thrives in darkness…"

Looking for a quotation that encapsulates what Vercingetorix and the Gauls might have been thinking in the winter of 52BC... found a perfect one...

The (Brief) Gothic Takeover of Constantinople II: The ‘Tyranny of Gainas’ It seems then that there was some potential background to the accusation that Gainas and Tribigild were in cahoots. And even if Gainas was not directly involved in aiding and abetting Tribigild as a p...

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When Is An Antipope not an Antipope? Fifth Century Edition By 519, the Acacian Schism between the Roman and Eastern churches had raged for 35 years. This was the latest falling out over the nature of Jesus Christ - was he fully human, fully divine, both, neit...

Was the papacy ever hereditary...?

@raoulmclaughlin.bsky.social @rogueclassicist.bsky.social
#Romans #papacy #Rome #pope

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The (Brief) Gothic Takeover of Constantinople III: Demilitarisation and Debarbarisation? The Gothic sack of Rome in 410 was undoubtedly a traumatic event for those involved and a major psychological blow to the Empire as a whole, but it was lacking in long-term effects. In comparison, the...

Gainas may have been ousted in rather rapid order, but what impact did his brief coup have on Eastern Roman politics?

@raoulmclaughlin.bsky.social @rogueclassicist.bsky.social #Romans #Goths #Constantinople

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Other than Odysseus: Survivors of the Odyssey Odysseus: We now set out on our odyssey. Crewman: [raising hand] what's an ‘odyssey’? Odysseus: A long journey named after the only survivor. Crewman: Oh ok… wait… what?!? An amusing joke for a classi...

The Odyssey was seemingly named after its only survivor... except until Virgilian 'fan-fiction' got involved again...

@raoulmclaughlin.bsky.social @rogueclassicist.bsky.social
#Odyssey #Odysseus #Greekmythology #Virgil #Aeneid

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The (Brief) Gothic Takeover of Constantinople I: The Revolt of Tribigild The sieges, capture and Sack of Rome by the forces Alaric the Goths in 410 has been seen as a major landmark in the fall of the Western Roman Empire. From his writing desk in Bethlehem, St Jerome decr...

Alaric was not the only Goth to capture an imperial capital in the early 5th century... indeed, he was not even the first...

@raoulmclaughlin.bsky.social @rogueclassicist.bsky.social
#Romans #Alaric #Goths #Constantinople

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A Soldier and a Scholar 57 - The Clash of the Champions Episode 57 - The Athenians and Spartans square up to each other in battle long before the actual Peloponnesian War...https://mncvgk.podbean.com/e/a-soldier-and-a-scholar-57-the-clash-of-the-champions/...

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Before the Romans Got Hold of Him: Aeneas in the Iliad You might see people opining that the story of say the Star Wars movie Rogue One is built upon a question that no one really needed answering – why has an exhaust port connected to vital systems of th...

Is it a little unfair to call Virgil's Aeneid 'fanfiction'?

@raoulmclaughlin.bsky.social @rogueclassicist.bsky.social #Aeneid #Virgil #Romans

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Victory Through Defeat: The Battle of Avarayr 451 Part II - Battle and Aftermath Taking advantage of his numbers and the knowledge of Vasak and his Zoroastrian Armenians, Mushkan invaded Armenia, building a fortified camp in the province of Her and Zarevand and sending out raiding...

When you do not properly follow up a victory, it can morph into a defeat...

@raoulmclaughlin.bsky.social @rogueclassicist.bsky.social #Romans #Armenia #Persians

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“What a [Herculean] Manoeuvre!”: Inventing the Bear Hug What do the following men all have in common?  • Superstar Billy Graham • Ted Arcidi • Tony Atlas • Mark Henry • Bill Kazmaier • Brock Lesnar • The Yeti • Bruno Sammartino • George Hackenschmidt Aside...

How do you defeat a seemingly invincible, semi-divine being in a wrestling match? By inventing a new move, of course (and being a demigod yourself...)

@raoulmclaughlin.bsky.social @rogueclassicist.bsky.social

#Greeks #wrestling #WWE #AEW #EliminationChamber

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A Soldier and A Scholar 56 - The Golden Empire Episode 56 - As we enter the Athenian Golden Age, an enlarged empire comes with it...https://mncvgk.podbean.com/e/a-soldier-and-a-scholar-56-a-golden-empire/A (hopefully) fun and accessible portal int...

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A Roman Presence in Ireland - the Example of the Coleraine Hoard A Roman Presence in Ireland - the Example of the Coleraine Hoard, Peter Crawford

A full Roman conquest of Ireland? No... A Roman presence in Ireland? Absolutely...

@raoulmclaughlin.bsky.social @rogueclassicist.bsky.social #Romans #Ireland

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Victory Through Defeat: The Battle of Avarayr 451 Part I - Background and Numbers The kingdom of Armenia had been a persistent flashpoint for both the Roman and Persian empires. In the fifth century, it was no different, with the added dimension of religion being thrown in since Ar...

A lost battle that ultimately ensures victory and religious freedom... the Battle of Avarayr...

@raoulmclaughlin.bsky.social @rogueclassicist.bsky.social

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A Soldier and A Scholar 55 - I Have Become My Enemy Episode 55 - The Persians have been ousted from all shores of the Aegean Sea... so what is the point of the Delian League...?https://mncvgk.podbean.com/e/a-soldier-and-a-scholar-55-i-have-become-my-en...

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I Killed A Roman Emperor At first glance, this list of people thought to have killed a Roman emperor might seem somewhat short. Indeed, there are plenty of other people who killed or ordered the death of a Roman emperor, but ...

Over 1,500 years, perhaps far fewer Roman emperors were killed than you might think... and the list of names we know committed those killings is even shorter...

@raoulmclaughlin.bsky.social @rogueclassicist.bsky.social #Romans #romanemperors

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The Real Severans VII: Challengers to Elagabalus While hindsight is 20/20, Sextus Varius Avitus Bassianus did not appear to be the best candidate for the imperial throne in 218.  He was only 14 years old, reliant on his mother and grandmother for po...

Elagabalus' tenure was controversial enough, but it also saw some challengers to his rule...

@raoulmclaughlin.bsky.social @rogueclassicist.bsky.social

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A Soldier and a Scholar 59 - The Golden Age of Pericles Episode 59 - With its wide political hegemony and booming economic income, Athens brings about an artistic and cultural flourishing considered a Golden Agehttps://mncvgk.podbean.com/e/a-soldier-and-a-...

ASAS59 - With its wide political hegemony and booming economic income, #Athens brings about an artistic and cultural flourishing considered a Golden Age

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A Soldier and A Scholar 54 - A Honourable Sunset Episode 54 - An Athenian general returns from exile for one last hurrah... https://mncvgk.podbean.com/e/a-soldier-and-a-scholar-54-a-sunset-with-honorA (hopefully) fun and accessible portal into Ancie...

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From Aberglaube (Superstition) to Zweifrontenkrieg (Two-front War): 210 Reasons for the Decline of the Roman Empire Look at a map of the Roman Empire in 420 and you might be forgiven for thinking that talk of a decline was a little overblown. In terms of outline, the empire does not look all that different from its...

Just why did the Roman Empire in the west fall? I bet you cannot come up with all of these suggestions...

@raoulmclaughlin.bsky.social @rogueclassicist.bsky.social
#Romans #RomanEmpire

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The Real Severans VI: Was This The Best They Had? Were There Other ‘Severans’? Had Severus Alexander not suffered a mutinous death at the hands of the supporters of Maximinus Thrax, perhaps instead dying of an illness whilst on campaign without having annoyed the military, what ...

There were other Severans?!? And the choices fell upon Elagabalus and Alexander Severus???

@raoulmclaughlin.bsky.social @rogueclassicist.bsky.social
#Romans #Severans #GladiatorII

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1) Start reading new book
2) Get new writing ideas from it
3) Look sideways at already on-going writing projects
4) Repeat ad nauseum, ad infinitum

A Soldier and A Scholar 53 - The Fall of Inaros Episode 53 - With the river diverted, the Athenians and their Egyptian allies are no longer in de-Nile... this expedition and rebellion is doomed...https://mncvgk.podbean.com/e/a-soldier-and-a-scholar...

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Pecunia non-olet: Vespasian and the Smell of Money After his takeover of the Roman Empire during the Year of the Four Emperors (AD 69), Vespasian and his advisors sought any avenue of raising taxes. One seemingly unsavoury tax they (re-)employed in AD...

Does money really not smell as Vespasian claimed?

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The Real Severans V: The Fates of the ‘Severan Women’ Aside from its eponymous founder, the imperial men of the Severan dynasty all met murderous ends - Geta was butchered in his mother’s arms, Caracalla was stabbed whilst answering the ‘call of nature’,...

What happened to all the women of the Severan/Neo-Severan dynasty?

@raoulmclaughlin.bsky.social @rogueclassicist.bsky.social #Romans #Severans #GladiatorII

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