Ancient Roman Objects

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
You do have to wonder what word they would have used to describe a light-blue shade. Would caeruleus have worked? Caeruleus seems to have been rather about dark shades, be they blue or green or downright black.
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
From your earlier link:

"And remember when Julius Caesar was freaking out in his memoirs over all those blue-eyed barbarians he had to keep killing for ages and ages? He evidently could tell the difference. He knew how to spot him some blue."

I don't remember that passage. I'd like to find it.
 
 

rothbard

Aedilis

  • Aedilis

  • Patronus

Location:
London
Not a great photograph, but this is the famous Farnese Bull, a Severian age copy of an original 2nd century BC sculpture mentioned by Pliny the Elder. My uncle tells me that German troops tried to take it away when they left Naples in 1943, but didn't manage as it was too heavy.

1674989040462.png
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
If the passage exists I suspect the word might have been glaucus, which is blue-gray... or... gray-green.
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
You do have to wonder what word they would have used to describe a light-blue shade. Would caeruleus have worked? Caeruleus seems to have been rather about dark shades, be they blue or green or downright black.
Maybe glaucus would have been it.
 

kizolk

Civis Illustris

  • Civis Illustris

Location:
Bourgogne, France
I couldn't find the Caesar passage either, but Tacitus describes Germanic people as having "caerulei oculi" in Germania.
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
The first sentence in that paragraph would have pleased (perhaps did please) Hitler, lol.

Ipse eorum opinionibus accedo qui Germaniae populos nullis aliarum nationum conubiis infectos propriam et sinceram et tantum sui similem gentem extitisse arbitrantur.
 
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rothbard

Aedilis

  • Aedilis

  • Patronus

Location:
London
The famous Farnese Hercules, an early 3rd century copy of a much older bronze by Lysippos, which survived till the 13th century only to be melted down during the sack of Constantinople in 1204. It was found in pieces and put together in the 16th century, but the lower legs were missing, so Guglielmo della Porta, a student of Michelangelo, made some replacements. Then the original legs were found. Here it is with the original legs.

1675013826112.png


Della Porta's legs:

1675014316731.png
 
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