r/AlternativeHistory

Okay so I found this Medium article and I am actually losing my mind.

This stay at home wife openly admits she has not slept with her husband in over a year because she is touched out. Meanwhile this guy works fifty hours a week to keep a roof over her head.

The guy finally wakes up and stops giving her free validation. He stops being a doormat and what does she do? She snoops through his iPad finds out he is reading some psychology stuff and instantly calls him abusive and apparently divorces him.

I stg they do not truly love us they just want the utility and lifestyle we provide. The second you stop being a resource for them to extract from you are completely disposable. Read this garbage and tell me I am wrong.

Medium Article

Notice the nose looks like a needle and the 2nd picture looks like an ankh being put up to his nose. An ankh looks like a needle too.

This could be part of the explanation for the Bible verse about a camel going through the eye of a needle.

This could connect to the Bible verse about a "camel going through the eye of a needle...."

One thing that has always puzzled me is when posters to this sub uncritically repeat a culture's myths/legends. While obviously I love the myths of giants, fey-folk, and fantastical beasts [I have a well worn copy of Edith Hamilton's Mythology if you doubt me] they are, well, fantastical and shouldn’t be taken literally. But, I would argue that what a culture's legends can tell you about them is far more interesting. So let's look at a case study, and of course where else but the pseudo-historical legend behind Rome's generational trauma, the metus Gallicus (Gallic Fear).

The Gallic Fear:

”Metus Gallicus” or more literally “fear of the Gauls” is a modern label the historian Heinz Bellen paired the phrase with metus Punicus (fear of Carthage) in a 1985 paper. While the term itself is new, the fear is encapsulated in a legal framework: tumultus, of which Cicero said, “Our ancestors spoke of an Italian turmoil, because it was domestic, and a Gallic turmoil because that was on the borders of Italy, but they gave that name to no others.” Not even after Cannae did the Romans invoke tumultus, a law whose sweeping power cannot be understated, if tumultus was declared, life in Rome ceased. The treasury was locked, the courts were closed, and two banners were placed on the Capitoline, one red for infantry, the other green for cavalry. Every male citizen was to self designate to one of these, no exemption. Finally, the toga was discarded to be replaced with the sagum, the simple tunic of war. This was Rome’s most desperate law only to be invoked in the most dire of emergencies, and the only foreign foe worthy of this distinction was the Gauls.

So who were the Gauls? Briefly the Gauls were a Celtic sub-group that lived in a massive territory stretching from the Balkans in the east to Gallia (modern day France) in the west. From their home the Gauls launched raids and migrations throughout Europe, with a branch even reaching as far east as southern Turkey were they became the Galatians.

The Sack of Rome (390 BC):

The migration we care about though is the Senones. The Senones are said to have originated near the city of Sens, France. While Livy puts on his historian hat and says they left because of overpopulation and the promise of loot, I much prefer the other story Livy tells. Where a man, Arruns, in the Etruscan city of Clusium had a ward. Anyway, classic tale of ward seducing and stealing Arruns' wife, ward is of course politically connected, so Arruns fills a wagon full of wine and goes off to find someone to sack his city in revenge. [Totally understandable and valid response to that situation.] Arruns meets the Senones, the Senones are like, "dude this wine stuff is awesome, where can we get more?" Arruns tells them of a rich land protected by weak men, and offers to guide them. Which is where Rome enters the story. While not an ally of Rome, the Clusians were considered friends and requested Rome intervene when the Senones besieged the city.

So Rome was riding high at this time. They had just won a century long conflict with their arch rival, the city of Veii, sacked the city and sold its people into slavery, moving up from a local power instead of just one of several cities.

Rome sent three ambassadors, the Fabii brothers [you’re probably familiar with their relative who gave Hannibal heartburn] to negotiate. Long story short they asked the Gauls to leave, the Gauls said they were peaceful and just wanted some of Clusium's land the city wasn't even using. Romans asked by what right the Gauls were attacking Clusium, and the Gauls replied by asking by what right the Romans were here trying to boss them around. Furious with this barbarian's question, the brothers went inside Clusium. When the Clusians then attacked the Gauls, brothers joined the Clusians, a huge no-no for an ambassador, and to cap it all off, one of them rode out ahead and killed a Gallic chieftain, and while taking the chieftain's armor was recognized.

The Gauls then retreated, and the brothers returned to Rome. However, Gallic ambassadors soon arrived demanding the brothers be handed over for the sacrilege of joining the battle even though they were ambassadors. The Senate agreed that they had violated this sacred duty, but the influence of the brothers' family prevented them from being handed over, and the Senate even went one step further and elected the brothers as Consular Tribunes, essentially heads of state, which meant they could not be prosecuted. Furious, the Gauls returned to their army and began to march on Rome.

According to Livy the Romans then busied themselves by finishing up the organization of the territory of Veii, even ignoring a plebeian who claimed to have heard a voice "clearer than any human's" (Livy 5.32) tell him "The Gauls are coming." When they finally did learn of the Gauls' approach the Fabii brothers gathered the army and went to meet them. But they made no sacrificial offering to the gods, and worst of all, they didn't even consult the sacred chickens. [Seriously guys, do you even want to win the battle? This is the Roman equivalent of running upstairs in a horror film. You only do that if you want the ax murderer to get you.]

So the army marches off to battle, where as soon as the Gauls gave their war cries and blew their trumpets, the spirit of Pavor (fear) was upon the Romans and, "They were terrified, and all they thought about was flight, and so utterly had they lost their heads that a far greater number fled to Veii, a hostile city, though the Tiber lay in their way, than by the direct road to Rome, to their wives and children." (Livy 5.38)

Not to fact check Livy, but Veii had been defeated and wasn’t hostile. Upon hearing of this, most Romans fled the city, some of the young men holed up on the Capitoline Hill, home of the Temple of Jupiter, with the sacred objects. The Gauls then sacked Rome, put the Capitoline under siege, and burned everything else to the ground. The siege is said to have lasted seven months. Now there is an entire story about the sacred geese I don't have time for, but I will briefly tell you that a man named Pontius Cominius, sent by the army hiding in Veii, swam the Tiber and climbed the sheer cliffs of the hill at night to ask the Senate to make Marcus Furius Camillus, the hero of Veii, dictator. [Camillus of course had insisted on doing this by the book]. Approval in hand, he scaled back down and swam the Tiber again to deliver the news.

Eventually the besieged Romans agreed to pay the Gauls 1,000 pounds of gold to leave, but when they began piling the gold on the Gauls' scales, the Romans discovered the Gauls were using rigged weights, the hyper-legalistic Romans complained to the Gallic leader Brennus. Brennus replied with one of the most famous lines in Roman history, when he pulled out his massive iron broadsword, tossed it on the Gallic side of the scales and uttered, "Vae Victis" (Woe to the Vanquished) (Livy 5.48).

Now here is where our sources differ, but this is the hyper cinematic version from Livy and Plutarch, where as the sword hits the scales, who else but Marcus Furius Camillus strides out into the forum and announces to the Romans and Gauls that the fatherland is to be reclaimed "ferro, non auro" [with iron, not gold] (Livy 5.49). Camillus then gives a signal, and his army, which had surrounded the scales, attacks, slaughtering the Gauls and forcing them to flee.

In the aftermath many in Rome thought it best to leave the decimated city, with the Plebeian Tribunes stating "that Veii was standing, a city ready to their hand, with its territory fertile and its buildings intact." Camillus objected, asking, "Shall the monument of our victory be the desertion of our fatherland?" The debate was finally settled by a centurion who, unaware of it, marched into the Forum with his patrol and ordered, "Signifer, statue signum; hic manebimus optime." (Standard-bearer, plant your standard; here we shall do best to remain.) Taking this as an omen, the Romans decided to stay and rebuild.

So what does this story tell us? Hubris is bad, obey the gods, love your country, don’t leave your husband for a younger man: the usual. All fine lessons, but the story has a problem. Rome is one of the most thoroughly excavated cities in the world, [I think it has something to do with a subway], and yet: "Excavations in the Forum and on the Palatine have failed to reveal any trace of a destruction layer that can be dated to the early fourth century." (Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome, 317). Cornell doesn't doubt the sack happened, just the fire and destruction Livy describes. So what's going on? Livy tells us that Rome was torched and the tribunes wanted to move to Veii because "its buildings were intact," but there's nothing in the archaeological record. Did the Romans make the whole thing up, and even if it is partially true, why were they so afraid of the Gauls if the "Sack of Rome" didn't leave the city in ruins and was more of an extortion racket? I'll be discussing my theory on why in Part 2 tomorrow.

[Approved by a MOD]

Hi everyone, I finally published my first novel on Amazon in June. It was written in Italian (my native language), but thanks to the help of others, I managed to translate it into five languages besides Italian. Below, I've provided some information about the book, including the cover and links to the English edition. You'll find all the links and other essential information on my profile. Thanks everyone!

TITLE: NEXUS - A Supernatural Conspiracy Thriller of Ancient Aliens and Forgotten Gods

Author: Ashur E. Kinning

Genre: Supernatural thriller / Conspiracy thriller / Ancient mysteries

Pitch:

Damien Chapman is a jeweler in Lubbock, Texas. Ordinary life, ordinary problems, zero interest in ancient history. Then a car accident changes something inside him. His DNA starts waking up, carrying a bloodline the oldest texts called the Elohim. And a secret Order that has waited thousands of years for someone like him is now coming for him.

Built on Sumerian myth, the Anunnaki, the Nephilim and the Book of Enoch, NEXUS doesn't ask you to believe any of it. It asks what happens to an ordinary man if some of it turns out to be true.

Where to buy:

Amazon Kindle (free on Kindle Unlimited): https://a.co/d/06Mu99bm

Paperback Copy: https://a.co/d/0gyVKYS3

Format: Ebook & Paperback

Release status: Available now

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Ramesses II is remembered as one of ancient Egypt’s most powerful builders

His name is associated with Abu Simbel Karnak and some of the most monumental architecture of the New Kingdom

But archaeology reveals something more complicated

Ramesses II completed projects started by his father Seti I and incorporated earlier monuments into his own building program

In some cases royal inscriptions on older monuments were erased and replaced with the names of later kings

This practice is known today as the usurpation of monuments

It was not unique to Ramesses II and it does not mean that every monument carrying his name was originally built by him

His reign was also marked by an enormous building program designed to make his presence and royal legacy visible across Egypt

So was Ramesses II simply one of Egypt’s greatest builders

Or was he also exceptionally skilled at turning the achievements of earlier generations into part of his own legacy

What do you think