Okay, it’s official. I’ve found my favourite historical anecdote of all time.
So in ancient Rome they had this tradition where they had to consult the gods and check they had divine approval before they went into battle. They did this by bringing forth a flock of sacred chickens and throwing grain at them. Their behaviour would then determine whether or not the gods were on your side. If the hens didn’t eat or wouldn’t leave their cage, it was a Bad Omen and you had to postpone battle and ask again the next day. If the chickens ate happily it was a Good Omen and you could go and chop up some Gauls or Carthaginians or whoever you happened to be fighting.
Now, there are lots of little stories about these chickens, but I just found one I hadn’t seen before. In 137 BC, the consul C. Hostilius Mancinus tried to take auspices before battle, but:
the chickens once released from their cage fled into a nearby wood and even though they were sought with the greatest diligence, they could not be recovered.
Can you fucking believe that. Can you actually believe that happened. The Romans have a reputation for being so stern and sensible and stoic and that happened. Like… everyone’s ready for battle, so you turn to your assistant and say “BRING FORTH THE CHICKENS” and you throw down the grain and open up their cage and the chickens just. run. they fucking run. those tiny velociraptor bastards abscond screaming into the woods like there’s no tomorrow. Blinking in disbelief, you send soldiers into the woods to recover them but those feathered bandits are gone. Vanished. The gods have deserted you. You’re beating bushes and following the sounds of triumphant clucks. The soldiers are frantic. The chickens are gone.
He lost the battle. It was a Bad Omen.
That sounds like the ultimate Bad Omen like at that point you go home and start drawing up an armistice bc the gods told you to go fuck yourself with chickens
That’s… pretty much what happened. The chicken omen, along with a few other Bad Omens, resulted in:
infelici pugna, turpi foedere, deditione funesta
“a lost battle, a shameful peace treaty, and a calamitous handover.”
so yeah, he lost the battle and had to go home and sign an embarrassing peace treaty that the Romans complained about years later, and when they talk about him they curse him for his praecipitem audaciam - “reckless audacity” - and vesana perseverantia “insane obstinacy” because NONE OF THIS WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF YOU’D LISTENED TO THE CHICKENS AND POSTPONED BATTLE LIKE THEY TOLD YOU.
Don’t forget naval commander Claudius Pulcher, whose sacred chickens refused to eat anything before the battle of Drepana. He tossed the chickens overboard, saying if they won’t eat, then let them drink, and went into battle where he promptly lost almost all of his ships and crew. I forget if he died or returned to Rome in disgrace, but it was a freaking disaster and the sacred chickens called it.
I’m not sure which phrase in this post is my favorite, “bring forth the chickens” or “this would have never happened if you listened to the chickens.”
What about Pulcher’s line: “Bibant, quoniam esse nolunt!” - They can drink if they won’t eat! - after which the sacred chooks went swimming.
I bet the spreading news of what he’d done ruined the morale of his entire fleet and went a long way towards why he lost the battle. Men who think their commander has offended the gods aren’t going to fight well on his behalf, in case the gods spread their offended wrath around. (If I remember my “Myths of Ancient Greece and Rome” correctly, the Olympian lot tended to do that a lot.)
AFAIK when Pulcher* returned to Rome in disgrace the Senate immediately tried him for impiety (a Senatorial message to the gods that they didn’t approve of him either) then banished him to exile where he died soon after.
Moral: don’t be horrid to the holy hens.
(*For the second time in this post, spell-checker wanted me to spell his name as “Pucker”. Appropriate, I suppose. Go figure.)
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I’m late to the pokemon Gold Beta bandwagon due to computer problems. But I’m happy I was able to draw some of my and chats’ favorites on stream. Went with Ken Sugimori’s old style.
This is a list off different exercises I pair together to create a workout. I also like to superset exercises by combining moves that pair well together. Ex. squat into shoulder press, shoulder press into pec dec
I grouped them by the part of the body and the primary muscle they target (most exercises target multiple muscles so I chose the most dominant muscles used)
Upper Body
Tricep
Overhead extension
Bench dips (shoulder, chest)
Tricep extension
Bicep
Curls
Back
Rear felt fly (shoulders)
Chest
Pushups
Push-up row (core, back, bicep, triceps)
Front raise (shoulder)
Chest press (shoulder)
Pec dec (shoulders)
Shoulder
Shoulder press (back, biceps)
Side raises (back, bicep, tricep)
Upright row (back, chest, bicep)
Lower Body
Outer thigh/Inner thigh
Abductor machine
Clamshell w/ band (glutes)
Quads
Squats (glutes, hamstrings)
lunges (glutes, hamstrings)
Bulgarian squats (hamstrings)
Wall sit (hamstrings, glutes)
Hamstring/Butt
Side lunges (quads, inner thigh)
Romanian deadlifts (hamstrings)
Lateral walk w/ band
Glute bridge w/ band or weights
Donkey kickback w/ band
Core*
Straight leg situp
Penguins
Inside heel touch
Russian twist
Dead bug
Roll outs w/ ball
Knee crunch
Flutter kicks
Reverse crunch
Bicycles
Super(wo)mans
Tabletop crunch
High Intensity Moves
Step ups
Burpees
Shoulder taps
Rope waves
Bosu ball toe touches
Mountain climbers
Skiers on steps
Jump rope
Up Downs [push-up to forearm plank]
High knees
Jump squats on steps
Skier squats on steps
Inch worms
Jumping jacks
Plank
*The core includes a lot more than just your abs but for the sake of simplifying things I’m referring to the abs
Fantastic shots of urbex places around Germany by Markus Ecke Wie Kante, talented self-taught photographer, adventurer and urban explorer based in Berlin, Germany. Markus focuses on abandoned photography. He travels all over Europe to capture impressive urbex places.
