this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2025
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Rough Roman Memes

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A place to meme about the glorious ROMAN EMPIRE (and Roman Republic, and Roman Kingdom)! Byzantines tolerated! The HRE is not.

RULES:

  1. No racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, bigotry, etc. The past may be bigoted, but we are not.

  2. Memes must be Rome-related, not just the title. It can be about Rome, or using Roman aesthetics, or both, but the meme itself needs to have Roman themes.

  3. Follow Lemmy.world rules.

Not sure where to start on Roman history?

A quick memetic primer on Republican Rome

A quick memetic primer on Imperial Rome

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[โ€“] PugJesus@lemmy.world 26 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Explanation: When the Emperor Pertinax took the throne, he declined to name his wife Empress or his son his heir. This was probably to spare them in case he was overthrown - which he, sadly, was. This was successful! Both his wife and his son survived his assassination, and the next Emperor, Septimius Severus, did not appear to regard either as threats to his legitimacy.

Septimius Severus had two sons, who he elevated as his heirs - Geta and Caracalla. When Septimius Severus died, Caracalla shortly thereafter murdered Geta, leaving him to die in the arms of their mother, despite his mother specifically requesting he not murder his brother ๐Ÿ˜ญ

Pertinax the Younger, the aforementioned son of Pertinax, apparently took this opportunity to joke that Caracalla should take the victory title 'Getacus' - meaning, roughly, 'Conqueror of Geta', in the spirit of traditional victory titles like 'Germanicus' ('Conqueror of Germania'), 'Parthicus' ('Conqueror of Parthia'), 'Britannicus' ('Conqueror of Britannia'), etc. Other than mocking Caracalla's petty murder of his brother by comparing it to great deeds, it also highlighted that Caracalla had very few military accomplishments to his name, despite deeply craving the approval of the soldiery.

Pertinax the Younger did not long survive this joke, for obvious reasons.

[โ€“] Kovukono@pawb.social 10 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

I've learned so many things from these memes. You absolutely could consider writing a book, given how captivating your delivery is.

[โ€“] PugJesus@lemmy.world 11 points 11 hours ago

I fancy myself something of a writer, but I don't know that I have the rigor to write nonfiction! There's a certain expectation of citations and analysis of sources and such, and that's all so tedious!

But thank you, hearing that my delivery is entertaining makes my day! ๐Ÿ˜Š

[โ€“] Aielman15@lemmy.world 6 points 12 hours ago

He liked the name "Pertinacus" more.