So, for the longest time I've been keeping a gigantic list of weird random stuff for
use in some unknown future video.
As a special treat, I've decided to select a few morsels and share them with you today.
First, let's look at Octavian, who would go on to become the Emperor Augustus.
He had this weird thing with birds that I've always wanted to dig into.
When Octavian returned to Rome after defeating his chief rival Marc Antony, a man approached
him on the street.
He had a raven on his arm, and proudly showed Octavian that he had trained it to squawk
"Hail Caesar, Victor Imperator," meaning victorious general or leader.
Octavian loved this, and offered to buy the bird for a ridiculous price, equivalent to
something like 10 year's wages for a normal citizen.
A short time later, a second man approached Octavian.
He was visibly upset, and claimed that the first man was his business partner, and had
left him in the lurch after he was paid by Octavian.
As proof, he showed Octavian a second bird, which had been trained to say, "Hail Antony,
Victor Imperator!"
The two men had been plotting to sell a novelty raven to whoever won the civil war.
Octavian was amused and impressed by this scheme, and praised the man for their ingenuity.
He made it known that he expected the first man to split his profits with his business
partner, and eventually the matter was settled.
It didn't take long for this story to circulate throughout the city of Rome.
Within a few days, a third man approached Octavian on the street, and showed him his
magpie who he had taught to say the same thing, "Hail Caesar, Victor Imperator!"
Octavian happily bought this bird as well, for a similar astronomical price.
Octavian had now established a pattern.
Before too long, he was being presented with talking birds wherever he went.
Rome had descended into bird mania.
A fourth man was one of the many who decided to jump on this gravy train.
He bought what was at this point was an extremely expensive raven, and began to teach it to
speak.
Naturally, he wanted to teach it to say "Hail Caesar, Victor Imperator," but he failed miserably.
Instead, the bird got stuck in a loop, repeating over and over again what the man said as he
was struggling to train it: "all my work and all my money wasted."
Nevertheless, whenever this man went in public, he brought the blasted bird with him.
One day he stopped to listen to Octavian speak, unprompted, the bird start going off: "all
my work and all my money wasted.
All my work and all my money wasted."
Octavian could hear this from the speaking platform, and asked the man to step forward.
The man explained to Octavian that his attempt to train the bird had been an utter failure,
and that he was now stuck with the damn thing.
Octavian found it kinda hilarious that instead of praising his victory, the creature was
trying to tell him that hard work was futile.
He decided that the whole thing offered a valuable lesson in humility, and insisted
on buying the bird at an even higher premium.
Putting aside from Rome's brief descent into bird mania, the Romans weren't bird people,
they were dog people.
Same goes for the Greeks.
The only reason we know anything about how these people treated animals is because writer
after writer insisted on producing these manuals on obscure subjects like animal husbandry
and horseback riding and hunting.
That brings us to our old friend Xenophon, the Greek writer who left us the best surviving
book on the Spartan Constitution.
In fact, a surprising number of Xenophon's books survive, including one called "Cynegeticus,"
which just means "On Hunting."
I read a big chunk of Cynegeticus, and take my word for it, it's extremely boring!
However, it does contain one absolute gem, which I would like to share.
In the middle of the book, Xenophon guides the reader through an excruciating list of
things that one should do with a newborn litter of puppies.
Then, he gets into how one should go about naming their puppies, and helpfully suggestes
that the name should be short, and easily understandable when called out.
He then offers an extensive list of suggested puppy names, and literally all of them are
amazing.
Here we go: "Psyche, Pluck, Buckler, Spigot, Lance, Lurcher, Watch, Keeper, Brigade, Fencer,
Butcher, Blazer, Prowess, Craftsman, Foster, Councelor, Spoiler, Hurry, Fury, Growler,
Riot, Bloomer, Rome, Blossom, Hebe, Hilary, Jollity, Glazer, Eyebright, Much, Force, Trooper,
Bustle, Bubbler, Rockdove, Stubborn, Yelp, Killer, Strongboy, Sky, Sunbeam, Bodkin, Wistful,
Gnome, Tracks, and Dash."
More than 3 centuries later, another Greek writer named Arrian was known to be a massive
fan of Xenophon, so much so that he asked people to start calling him Xenophon the Younger.
As President of the Xenophon fan club, Arrian took one of Xenophon's suggested puppy names
for his Greyhound, and named it Dash, or in Greek, Horme.
Arrian copied Xenophon in another way, writing his own book on hunting, and also naming it
Cynegeticus.
Arrian's book heavily features his dog Horme, and the picture he paints just so charming.
Arrian describes life with Horme: "while I am at home she remains by my side, and accompanies
me when I go out, following me to the gymnasium, and, while I am exercising, sits by me.
On my return home, she runs in front of me, often looking back to see whether I had turned
off the road; and as soon as she catches sight of me, shows symptoms of joy, and again, turns
and trots in front of me.
If I am going out on any government business, she remains with my friend, and treats him
exactly the same."
Later, he continues, "if she has not seen either of us for a short time, she jumps up
repeatedly by way of greeting, and barks with joy.
At meals she pats us, with one foot and then the other, to remind us to feed her."
You might be thinking to yourself, "this is a lot of personal information for a hunting
manual."
Well, it is!
But Arrian's not done!
Apparently Horme was a rescue!
"Having been beaten with a whip as a puppy, if anyone, even to this day, mentions a whip,
she will come up to the speaker cowering and begging, and will jump up and hang on their
neck, applying her mouth to theirs as if to kiss them, and will not let go until she is
appeased."
A Greek intellectual from almost 2,000 years ago just admitted to kissing his dog on the
mouth.
What a world.
Arrian closes this bizzare section of his book almost defiantly in my opinion, as if
he knows that this is TMI and that he'll get criticized for it.
He writes, "now really I do not think that I should be ashamed to write the name of this
dog; so that it may be left to posterity.
[I] had a greyhound called Horme, who was of the greatest speed and intelligence, and
was altogether excellent."
I find it genuinely touching that Arrian wrote this in some random book hoping that somebody
in the future would find it and remember his dog, and by pure luck, here we are.
Let's change gears.
I want to close by talking about what is in my opinion the weirdest anecdote in all of
Roman history.
This is found in Appian's account of the Third Mithridatic War, which took place in the early
1st century B.C.E.
At the time, the Romans were marching against the Kingdom of Pontus, near the Black Sea.
When they got to the town of Themiscyra, the Romans settled in for a siege.
By the way, that name might ring a bell, since Greek mythology claimed that Themiscyra was
the home of the Amazons.
The Romans got to work digging an elaborate series of tunnels, and according to Appian,
over a number of days, "great subterranean battles" were fought under the walls of Themiscyra.
As the siege dragged on, and the Romans continued to make progress, the locals got desperate.
Again, according to Appian, "the inhabitants cut openings into [the] tunnels from above
and threw in bears and wild animals and swarms of bees to thwart the workers."
Unfortunately, Appian's account of the siege ends there.
Presumably the town was stormed, and perhaps even destroyed.
The Romans would eventually win the Third Mithridatic War, and the area around Themiscyra
would be incorporated into a Roman province.
There's a lot that we don't know about ancient Rome, but I'll admit that I think about this
incident more than I should.
I don't care that it was an insignificant military operation.
I wish we knew more.
I wish we knew a lot more.
It is not fair that Xenophon's book on horseback riding survives in its entirety, while everything
regarding these subterranean battles, which were punctuated by swarms of bees and rampaging
Tunnel Bears, has been lost forever.
IT'S NOT FAIR!
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