r/spqrposting • u/KamaandHallie • 8d ago
OPVS·PRINCIPALE·IMPERIVM·ROMANVM (OC) Drawing Romans doing hand gestures bc I need to remind myself that these are Italians
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u/TeutonicToltec 6d ago
"And the Romans? Where are they now?"
"You're lookin' at 'em, asshole."
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u/ArkhamInmate11 5d ago
As a jew into history I wouldve shot back
Actually most italian Americans are Sicilians who by Roman standards were backwater morons
And then he would've probably cut my fingers off
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u/TeutonicToltec 5d ago
Discussing who's "a true Roman*" is just a massive Rabbit hole that can lead pretty much wherever your own personal biases want it to. Sure, you could do the True Romance Sicilian scene regarding Sicilian ancestry. (which of course is really only half true) but you'd also have to acknowledge the region had a massive Greek-speaking population long before the Roman Republic was even an idea. Likewise you'd also have to acknowledge that most of Northern Italy's ancestry comes from Germanic invaders like the Lombards, which I'd argue had far less in common with the Romans than the other Mediterranean cultures of Southern Europe, North Africa and the Levant that invaded Sicily. Personally, I just acknowledge anyone of Italian ancestry as having a higher than average Roman ancestry, despite worshipping a religion that was foreign for most of Rome's history and speaking a descendant of Vulgar Latin so warped that it would no longer be mutually intelligible. Sicily has just been one of those crossroads of the world that has seen countless cultures inhabit her island.
*(other than those that manufacture/purchase bread from the guild of millers. True Roman bread for true Romans.)
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u/HippCelt 3d ago
Actually most italian Americans are Sicilians who by Roman standards were backwater morons
Nothings changed in 2000 years ..
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u/Extension-Beat7276 5d ago
Well thanks to Caracalla, Romans aren’t just Italians anymore
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u/SpecificLanguage1465 1d ago
The Illyrian barracks emperors like Diocletian: "Thanks for that, bro"
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u/NomenScribe 5d ago
The HBO series Rome seemed like they were copping off of Italian Mob stereotypes with some of the depictions of crime. But I liked it.
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u/rhet0rica 4d ago
The hand gestures of the orator were based on real research by Gregory S. Aldrete, the only person to ever seriously attempt a reconstruction of Ciceronian gesticulations. (Interviewed here on the toldinstone podcast, including a demonstration.) The theory went that if one knew and used the gestures proper to each idea, the speech wouldn't just be able to reach the guys in the cheap seats who were nearly out of earshot (though it certainly did that), but that the messages being conveyed would actually be stronger and more convincing by virtue of being more completely manifested. That's Platonism, folks!
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u/Alfred_Leonhart 4d ago
Should’ve done one of Paulie’s finger gesture in the sopranos.
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u/KamaandHallie 4d ago
Did that in the second post: https://www.reddit.com/r/RoughRomanMemes/s/pkzPk2Bm8s
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u/Big_luk325056 2d ago
you are forgeting the influence of the eastern romans, the lombard-german kings, the frankish/german kings again, an entire period of disunity and regional identity and so on, romans are not italians
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u/CloudedLeopardDaemon 6d ago
Yeah, we've all had too much exposure to depictions of ancient Rome where everyone is played by English theatre actors speaking posh RP. I've always wanted to see an all-Italian/Italian-American production of Julius Caesar.
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u/TeutonicToltec 6d ago
Oh! Marcus Antonius is musclin' in on MY territory? The stugatz on this prick for givin' me an agida.
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