Passages that give a glimpse of every day life during another era.
“One day our father came to this very place crossing over a great stretch of sea; he left Aeolian Cyme and fled, not from riches and substance, but from wretched poverty which Zeus lays upon men, and he settled near Helicon in a miserable hamlet, Ascra, which is bad in winter, sultry in summer, and good at no time.” […]
“Of all the people I have seen the Welsh are the most particular in shaving the lower parts of the body.” […]
“He led the way to bed. His wife went with him. And now, while the two made love in the large carved bed, Menelaus stalked like a wild beast, up and down the lines.” […]
“And then the king must not consider it a crime of mine when I will not eat with them, nor drink water with them, nor even rise before your Messenger, not inquire of him about Your Majesty’s health, when they come here.” […]
THE SCENE: On topics as diverse as “what’s the right age to get married?” to “should I shit in a river?”, the 8th Century BC writer Hesiod has an answer to all your ancient etiquette […]
“Then he leapt up on to the bull’s neck and clasped his arms below his throat, lying there on the bull’s head between his horns, in the hope of tiring him out. But the bull raced back and forward across the field with him on top.” […]
“You must have neither hat nor cap nor other covering on your head; for one must appear before lords with uncovered head and ungloved hands, with a blithe face and with limbs and body thoroughly bathed.” […]
“. If a Russ commits assault with a sword, spear, or any other weapon, he who has committed this crime shall pay five pounds of silver according to the Russian law, but if he is poor, all his available property shall be sold, even to the garments he walks in, and those too shall be taken from him.” […]
“For he says that Albinus, when hungry, ate give hundred dried figs, a hundred Campanian peaches, ten Ostian melons, twenty pounds of Labican grapes, a hundred fig-peckers and four hundred oysters.” […]
“So Thorgerd married Herjolf and went with him to his home, and they came to love one another dearly. Thorgerd quickly proved what an exceptionally capable woman she was, and Herjolf was considered to have enhanced his prestige and standing greatly by winning such a wife as Thorgerd.” […]
Copyright © 2017 - 2020 | Echoes of Dead Worlds
