Should Denzel Washington have played the bad guy in Gladiator II?

Eh, I’m not sure.

First of all, I haven’t seen the movie. So, is Denzel playing something like the Emperor of Rome? Or a slave gladiator?

The first role seem very dubious.

The second seems plausible, if unlikely/unusual.

For example, New Zealand Maori character actor Cliff Curtis can plausibly play Arabs and Mexicans. (Presumably, there are also Mexicans and Arabs who likewise can get by credibly as Maoris.)

In the 1968 film The Shoes of the Fisherman, Mexican actor Anthony Quinn played a Russian pope. He spoke in a Hollywood all-purpose foreign accent, replacing ‘r’s with ‘l’s, as in “Chlist was clowned with thorns.� When told he couldn’t do something, he said “I want to tly.�

Kind of like the black Vikings shown in movies. Go figure.

We were on vacation in Spain and Portugal and noticed other American tourists, including African American tourists. I would think instead of visiting Europe they would visit the lands of their ancestors, like Nigeria and Ghana. Or maybe they avoid them for the same reason we do. Not much to see, unclean conditions, and the likelihood of getting mugged.

Yes they should, because Denzel Washington is probably a really nice guy.

When the superb traditional Egyptian aesthetic, such as hieroglyphics, first emerged about 5,000 years ago, the population was largely descended from Caucasian farmers of the Fertile Crescent.

The earliest Egyptians probably were darker-skinned than the Egyptians of Greco-Roman times, though.

(In fact, many human populations are now known to have become lighter-skinned over the centuries, contrary to certain doom-pilled white nationalist historiographies about recessive genes and rising tides of color)

Like most American museums, the Metropolitan has been terminally woke for decades now, with very few exceptions.

The Met Museum’s current show about African-American infatuation with ancient Egypt is embarrassing because it lacks the guts to mention that blacks didn’t have much to do with Egypt’s artistic accomplishments.

Ancient Egyptian accounts are actually consistent and specific about distinguishing themselves from the “Nubians” upriver. Some were brought downriver from time to time.

Was honestly surprised by the gay Denzel stuff.

Hasn’t the way movies are being financed changed dramatically? Hasn’t the road to success for big budget movies become more difficult?

I would have thought that would make the investors turn against any woke stuff. If you were one investor, out ot many financial partners, wouldn’t you demand no woke stuff? Wouldn’t it only take one?

one of the more prestigious early converts to Christianity in The Acts of the Apostles (Acts 8:26–40) is the “Ethiopian eunuch,” treasurer to Queen Candace of Kush, whom Philip the Evangelist encounters in his chariot on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza. He was probably not from modern Ethiopia, but instead was a brownish Nubian from modern Sudan up the Nile River from Egypt.

Probably. Incidentally, Rembrandt’s and Bruegel’s depictions of the convert show that those two painters were familiar with sub-Saharan African models but were apparently unfamiliar with eunuchs, who tend to rotund softness.

The existence of the Nile made north-south travel in northeast Africa easier than crossing the Sahara in parched northwest Africa. … (However, the impenetrable Sudd swamp on the upper Nile effectively blocked Mediterraneans from reaching the blackest parts of Africa by river.)

Also the infamous Six Nile Cataracts meant that it was impractical to transport above Aswan any cargo that couldn’t walk under its own power.

the Roman Empire controlled the easy sea route to India: sail down the Red Sea

Well, ya gotta get to the Red Sea first. And without the benefit of the Suez Canal, you have to build your ships to India from scratch somewhere on the sparsely-settled and thinly wooded Suez coast. And then you have drag your cargo back over a hundred miles of Egyptian desert.

Richard Francis Burton has a good account of crossing this troublesome neck of land in his Personal narrative of a pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina. Even a millennium and half after the Romans, it was still a depleting undertaking prior to the Canal. One sees why the British prioritized the defense of the Suez Canal second only to the English Channel in the wars that followed.

But there was less to trade for in Africa than in India.

Then as now, Africa wasn’t a big value-add. Back then though, they just didn’t pretend otherwise.

Harvard ancient DNA geneticist David Reich estimated in 2017 that among Egyptians around the time of Christ there was 6 to 15 percent sub-Saharan ancestry.

I’ve always suspected, though I haven’t seen enough ancient DNA reports to verify, that most of that sub-Saharan DNA arrived in Egypt in the 25th Dynasty (ca. 700 BC) when Nubian invaders took over the prostrate and exhausted Kingdom, a condition from which it has never really recovered. How did Egypt get that way? Would it surprise you to learn that Egypt had spent the previous centuries doing the old Invade/Invite routine in Nubia and up the Med coast?

In opera, for instance, singing ability is far more important than visual authenticity

This is something of tradition going back to the 1960s starting IIRC with Jessye Norman. She was a pretty good singer, but unfortunately her success set off a hysterical competition among more recent opera producers to cast the The Next Jessye, or The First ______ [Asian or Queer or All-Black Cast or All-Female Production or whatever] Opera, which has led to some absurd and degraded opera, not only because even opera has limits on visual authenticity (there’s a reason they spend plenty on set designers), but also because a lot of the people they use to mount these monstrosities don’t actually sing that well. Hiring and promoting black singers with powerful pipes but no feeling for nuance is a particular bugbear.

Denzel Washington, one of the great movie stars of his generation. (Check him out in 2012’s Flight for an example.)

I suppose, but wasn’t Flight just an affirmative action vehicle for Denzel, and by extension for blacks generally?

The media-infotainment-indoctrination complex has been shoving Blacks! into just about everything for quite a few years now.

The Persian Empire was the equal of the Roman Empire. What happened? The Aryans ended up mixing with non-Aryans and it permanently hurt them.

The same thing happened in India. Ancient India was very impressive when it was ruled by Whites after the Aryan “migration”. But then they mixed with the locals and it led to 2,000 years of misery.

We forget those examples because they turned brown and went down and we don’t feel connected to them. Europe, on the other hand, stayed white after the Western Roman Empire fell and Europeans went on to built Western Civilization and land on the moon.

The goal of the investors is the woke stuff. They have said so. Hollywood is money laundering. When they want returns they buy land or government handouts.

The Roman emperors looked like this.

Caracalla in the film look closer to Denzel Washington than the actor who played him

The original Gladiator began with the Romans fighting the Germanic barbarians, the ancestors to most white Americans.

He says to Russell Crowe: Ihr seid verfluchte hunde! “You are cursed dogs!” White Americans should be proud of their ancestors who resisted Roman conquest.

In actuality, the Roman Empire survived for another 284 years.

That’s completely false. Roman Empire survived for another 1261 years after Commodus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Empire

But you deliberate obfuscate that because the modern lands of the Eastern empire are full of brown people that you want keep out of Europe right?

Here’s all you need to know.

Given that the average African American has 24% European ancestry (and educated affluent blacks probably have more than that), they should view Europe as an ancestral home. Most white American tourists to Spain and Portugual probably have as much Iberian ancestry as black Americans – almost none.

If we could restrict tourism to Italy only to Americans with demonstrable Italian ancestry, Italy would be a far more pleasant country to visit.

There are plenty of reconstructions of Caracalla. None paint him as an African.

You forgot to mention that many Germanic tribes had been living in the Empire for centuries and that they were thoroughly romanized.
For instance, the Visigoths, Vandals and Ostrogoths were heterodox Christians ( arians), not pagans.

Not sure where you get the idea that Anatolians and Syrians were swarthy brown people.

I once played the role of Joseph (stepfather of Jesus) in a public performance even though I am not a Jew. I believe I pulled it off rather well and that the audience was fooled.

It is called acting. That means pretending to be someone else.

I recently watched the first two episodes of a TV detective thriller called Death In Paradise, which is filmed in Guadalupe.

It may have been escapist entertainment, but in the first episode a black female cop was found to be a villain, and in the second, a black employee in an expensive resort hotel was the murderer. In both the local cops were comically inept.

Furthermore the title of the show to some extent gave away the game. Places like Jamaica, Turks and Caicos, and St. Kitts may be promoted as subtropical paradises, but they have some of the highest per capita murder rates in the world.

So certainly there was a dose of realism in what was otherwise a kind of commercial for Caribbean tourism. I believe the show has been running for 15 seasons now and is globally popular.

If Denzel Washington wanted to take the role, who are we to criticize? UK cop shows are full of black detectives and late middle-aged female detectives, even when set in the first half of the 20th century. Viewers want to see characters like their fantasy selves and a lot of black people watch movies and TV and buy stuff they see in commercials.

White Americans should be proud of their ancestors who resisted Roman conquest.

Even Americans of German descent are probably mostly descended from Roman subjects. During the Völkerwandlung German tribes conquered local Romanized populations but didn’t fully replace them. And most German Americans come from the Rhineland and Southwest Germany – areas which did not resist Roman conquest.

It’s also not really clear what relation the tribes wandering around Europe in the 5th century AD had, if any, to the Germanii who fought the Romans in the Teutoburg forest. Those “Germanii” may have even been Celtic speakers. When the Goths showed up, who we know for a fact spoke a Germanic language, the Romans did not consider them to be “Germanii”. But Romans were not great linguists, to be fair.

Perhaps but who knows how many years the film has been in development. Let’s see what movies look like five years from now.

First of all, I haven’t seen the movie. So, is Denzel playing something like the Emperor of Rome? Or a slave gladiator?

He thought he was being signed up for a remake of “The Graduate”, but it was only when he arrived at rehearsals that he discovered he was in a sword and sandals epic in which he would be required to wear a miniskirt without panties. Being a consummate pro, he just got on with the job.

Speaking of the changing norms of believable casting, despite constant internet grumblings that “only trans actors should play trans characters�, my streaming platforms recommended me the 2021 movie “Together Together� in which an ex-man plays… a biologically female pregnancy surrogate. (It’s still characterized as a “gay-themed� film.)

Mister Gallagher,
Oh, Mister Gallagher,
I wonder what you think of Tulsi Gabbard?
I think she’s kind of cute,
And I envy the galoot
Who gets to put the sword into her scabbard.

Mister Shean,
Oh, Mister Shean,
I’m afraid her cheeks are better left unseen.
The Noriega-like complexion
Would dampen my affection.

From behind, Mister Gallagher?

I wouldn’t mind, Mister Shean.

Not only that, but they apparently divided them into “red” and “black” Nubians.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nubians#History

Still, Disney is “reimagining” the 1980s to some effect. Walt Disney is rotating at 3,600 rpm.

“Hotep is back!” says the NYC Met.

I suppose this homage to Kamala was planned before Kamala’s flop.

The actual Egyptians won’t be happy.

The original homeland of the Germanic people (or “urheimat� as linguists call it) was southern Scandinavia. They spread out from there to the rest of the continent. The pagan Vikings were the last “pulse� of Germanic invaders to come out of that territory. Even their Germanic blood became diluted over time, as many of the Vikings brought wives from their conquests abroad back to the homeland. Even today, I think you will find that most Swedes have a little bit of Slavic ancestry, while most Norwegians have a bit of Celtic ancestry.

Without having seen Gladiator II yet, I’d respond that casting Denzel is fine:

Disagree. Ok it’s not as offensive air dropping blacks into Victorian costume drama. Still stupid and annoying.

Someone who looks like Denzel–at least as he did 30 years ago–would be an oddity as gladiator, a “circus freak” for entertainment. But as someone wealthy and playing power politics in Rome–non-existent, ahistorical–and hence annoying.

And the producers seem blind to the reality that the rest of the world has not been fully pickled (yet) and does not share America’s “must have blacks!” Stockholm syndrome style brain disorder.

As a kid, I thought the West, the world was very fortunate to have America as the big winner of the War and the superpower of the post-War world. But since the coup, we’ve become just a big sewer pipe flushing garbage culture, abject stupidity (“race does not exist”, “racism!”, “diversity!”, “you go girl”, homos, trans …) and absolutely toxic minoritarian ideology out to the rest of the world.

The further a nation is from the English language and American culture, the better its chances. If
you want your nation to survive, itself, cut yourself off from the big sewer pipe spewing our ridiculous, toxic shit your way.

America’s “must have blacks!� Stockholm syndrome style brain disorder.

I call it:

“Black Moral-Superiority Doctrine.”

Egypt was black (Kushite) — after it had already been Egypt for thousands of years, and in what was regarded as a come-down, something like Rome becoming German or China becoming Qing — and they were eventually driven out. Also, Thomas Jefferson never had a child with Sally Hemmings.

Very, very nice, at first I thought I was reading Kaganovitch.

Why would Ridley Scott feel the need to manufacture a fictional villain for his story when he has a perfectly real villain available – the Emperor Caracalla? I see from the imdb page that he is a character in the movie, but seemingly a secondary one. Caracalla was a real creep, even by the standards of Roman Emperors.

I thought that Gladiator was a bloated, steaming load of crap. And nobody at the time seem to notice that it was largely ripped off from the 1964 epic The Fall of the Roman Empire. I’m sure that the sequel will be no better. So if Denzel Washington, however anachronistic his casting may be, can make the movie more entertaining, then good for him. He is a very entertaining actor, and as Steve pointed out, is good at playing bad guys.

I find it strange that movies about Rome seem to focus almost entirely on Gladiators. They did other things too. It would be as if, 2,000 years in the future, all the movies (or whatever they have then) about 20th / 21st century America entirely revolved around pro Football.

While I normally grit my teeth at this kind of thing, I have to admit that I like Denzel as an actor and I could probably buy him in this role. As a villain in Training Day he made the movie. Similarly, although I groaned at the House of the Dragon show to see the Velaryon family portrayed by blacks, the guy who plays the patriarch is actually a very good actor so I can sort of suspend my disbelief there…unfortunately, the black actors that play his legitimate and bastard children are not good, and the next season that will address their rise will be painful to watch.

As for the Met, as I have commented before, blacks in America are desperate to have some kind of identity associated with past glory but don’t actually have one, which leads to absurdities like claiming they are the original Hebrews or Egyptians. To some extent I get it – virtually every other group here can claim ancestry with peoples who did something significant, and even the conquered natives are still revered as warriors which is why multiple military weapons systems are named after different tribes. It’s got to suck to be the one segment of the population without any of that going for you in popular lore or entertainment.

Still, it shouldn’t be humored and the Met thing shows the white progressive fondness for head-patting blacks whenever possible, which ranks high on list of objectionable characteristics of that group – and there are many to choose from. It’s dishonest and makes a people who crave respect from broader society look pathetic.

Does this mean we know where Steve spent this last week’s vacation from UR: field testing his theory about how easy it is to screw around with stuff on the bottom of the Baltic Sea? Rent a boat, hire a few divers, voila…

https://www.newsweek.com/baltic-cable-sabotage-nato-1988689

Chinese Ship Suspected of Undersea Cable Sabotage Detained in ‘NATO Lake’

Should have used Ukrainians though. They have cloaking technology which allows them to move about the Baltic at will, completely undetected by the patrol ships, RPAs and satellites which could otherwise determine the sex of a minnow.

In opera, for instance, singing ability is far more important than visual authenticity

Like when the part of a fragile waif dying of consumption is sung by a 200-lb. soprano.

OT — Some bits from Simplicius — the Bryansk strike was a waste of dwindling ATACMS and did no damage, which makes it just like the occasional and ineffective “deep strikes” Ukrainian bandits were already doing with drones — Russian missile strikes vastly outnumber these gestures and are rolling up irreplaceable infrastucture — winter is coming —

Though Putin had to make some escalatory show [the updated nuclear policy], it’s more realistic to expect Russia not to react in any overt way until Trump’s term settles in. Putin is aware that an outgoing senile despot who doesn’t care if the world burns behind him may seek to start WWIII, and that Zelensky may see his final two months’ chance to provoke Russia into overreacting. As such, it’s best for Russia to do nothing, and continue grinding the offensives which are destroying Ukrainian lines everywhere.

—

A couple months back, you may recall World Bank announced that as per their calculations, Russia had finally surpassed both Germany and Japan in GDP PPP. However, the official IMF and CIA figures still scoffed at this, with Russia trailing both countries on their counts. This allowed the popular narrative to be maintained that the World Bank figures were some kind of inaccurate fluke or anomaly.

Well, the IMF has just done their latest report and has officially concluded that Russia has blown past both Germany and Japan as of 2024, and is now the number four economy in the world. And not only that, but the IMF has Russia in the lead by an even larger margin than World Bank. On top of which, the CIA also updated their numbers and likewise reflects Russia at the number four position.

The neocons have failed in Iraq, they failed in Afghanistan, they ran away without a fight from the Houthis, they allowed October 7th to happen, they have utterly destroyed the Ukraine as was predicted, they have failed to steal Donbas mineral wealth, they have failed to weaken Russia, they have made Russia stronger by every measure, they have failed in Iran, they have damaged American prestige, they have not built up American war manufacturing as they promised they would, they failed to plan properly for any of these wars, and they have managed to damage our critical allies like Germany. There have never been bigger failures in the history of warfare than the neocons. For how much longer will we allow the neocons to fail?

OT: I’ve been thinking about the difference between Democrats and Republicans. To piss of democrats, you have to make a steak out of one of their sacred cows. You have to say something negative about gays, women, blacks, or transgender prostitutes. To piss off Republicans, all you have to do is quote their leaders, in context. That’s all it takes to puncture their fantasies. Here’s Pete Hegseth:

Simply put: if you don’t understand why Israel matters and why it is so central to the story of Western civilization—with America being its greatest manifestation—then you don’t live in history. America’s story is inextricably linked to Judeo-Christian history and the modern state of Israel. You can love America without loving Israel but that tells me your knowledge of the Bible and Western civilization is woefully incomplete

Or here’s Dr. Oz supporting transing of very young children:

Dr. Mehmet Oz has promoted transgender ideology for toddlers, endorsing "cutting-edge" gender surgeries for kids.

He also supported parents who groom and pediatricians pushing child transitions.

During a "regular well-baby exam," a pediatrician suggested to the mother that her… pic.twitter.com/VSgU3Y2rxj

— Shadow of Ezra (@ShadowofEzra) November 19, 2024

The psychology is this:

1. I want X and I think Trump will give it to me.
2. He won’t give you X.
3. Ok, I won’t get X. But I’m pissed off at you, libtard, for taking my fantasy away from me, and I will support Trump just to piss you off. I’m going to redouble my Trump support now.

Wow – do you have the complete set of Topps Emperor Rookie cards? All I”ve been able to find is the commemorative reproduction set issued by Justinian in the 500’s, and they had replaced the official photographs with artists drawings then – Belisarius’s card makes him look like a Mexican cartel boss.

“and promoting black singers with powerful pipes but no feeling for nuance”

So like, in other words, pretty much all of them.

There is a well known tomb painting from ancient Egypt (2000 BCE) showing a group of Canaanites visiting Egypt and bearing tribute to the deceased ruler. The Canaanites wear multi-colored clothing (see Joseph and his coat of may colors) and are distinctly lighter skinned/Caucasian looking) and the Egyptians are quite brown.

Yet Denzel wasn’t totally on board with the gay kiss scene.
https://people.com/ridley-scott-says-denzel-washington-acted-same-sex-kiss-gladiator-ii-didnt-happen-8747771

There were plenty of Africans in Rome. Including rich ones. Just like there were plenty Indians. And Cappadocians. And even Chinese. It was Rome. All roads lead to it.

Foundational Americans are predominantly Protestants. Are Rhineland, Southwest Germany and other areas that were under Roman control, predominantly Protestant?

Gladiator falsely depicted the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, as having conquered “last of the Germans”. When in reality he failed to annex north of the Danube:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcomannic_Wars

Those defeats and struggles inspired the philosopher king’s timeless work on Stoic philosophy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meditations

the Germanii who fought the Romans in the Teutoburg forest.

And the chieftain of that battle became the symbol of German nationalism, of liberation against rapacious Roman invaders, didn’t he?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arminius

The existence of the Nile made north-south travel in northeast Africa easier than crossing the Sahara in parched northwest Africa… However, the impenetrable Sudd swamp on the upper Nile effectively blocked Mediterraneans from reaching the blackest parts of Africa by river.

Much of the western Sahara was still verdant, wooded grassland, not long before the rise of Egypt.

…from Caucasian farmers of the Fertile Crescent.

Somehow, Caucasian seems a little off here. Though certainly closer to accurate than European or white. Pointy-headed, perhaps?-

On the subject of pointy heads, our old friend, iSteve comment perennial Vermin Supreme, is back. Speculation abounds that the Biden family might have voted for Trump this year, to get back at their betrayers. (Who says Democrats don’t steal elections? They just stole one of their own!)

They didn’t have to go that far. Vermin made it on the ballot in one state this year– Delaware. Joe and red-clad Jill may have given their vote to him instead. In 2012, at an alternative-to-Obama Democratic primary debate, Vermin glitter-bombed the other candidates, including Randall Terry. Terry was back on the presidential ballot in several other states, but not Delaware, so this particular October surprise was unavailable in 2024.

You can register for your own government-issued pony at Vermin’s site.

https://vermin2024.com/
https://ballotpedia.org/Vermin_Supreme

Vermin got a regular ballot line in Delaware, above RFK’s no less, while Jill Stein and Cornell West were reduced to “declared write-in candidate” status, along with President [sic] Boddie and Princess Khadijah Maryam Jacob-Fambro. Delaware evidently wouldn’t let President use his given name on the ballot.

https://elections.delaware.gov/candidates/candidatelist/genl_fcddt_2024.shtml
https://elections.delaware.gov/candidates/candidatelist/genl_wcddt_2024.shtml

The number of years each region was part of the Roman Empire.

Anatolia, the Levant and North Africa were more core Roman than NW Europe.

There’s no shame in white Europeans for being on the peripherals of Roman civilization.

For white Europeans to claim Roman heritage solely for themselves is completely shameless.

So they declined as the got blacked. Lol.

As Macrinus he’s not too far off. The oddly cast Caracalla could have been more Med looking.

The core Roman population existed at the faultline between Gauls (today norther Italians) and Greeks (today southern Italians).

Tuscany today would be a good match.

Severus descends from Roman Equite colonists who settled in Libya. Caracalla had a Syrian Arab mom. He is the emperor who extended the citizenship to all free residents of the Empire. Typical sort of diversity hire action really. Rome really didn’t recover after that.

That’s because Western Europeans don’t claim Eastern Roman Empire heritage. All those darker areas mark just that.

If we could restrict tourism to Italy only to Americans with demonstrable Italian ancestry, Italy would be a far more pleasant country to visit.

Right, it’s the American tourists that are the problem, not the African migrants.

Kind of like a TV show substituting a black woman for an actual historical Norse nobleman.

Yes, Vikings Valhalla actually did that, and it made the show unwatchable for me, which is a shame, as Valhalla was a sequel to Vikings, which I thought was quite good. (Although it did get kind of woke towards the end, conjuring up entire armies of female warriors. Shieldmaidens do show up in the old sagas, and probably did at least occasionally see battle, but the show overdid it).

Are Rhineland, Southwest Germany and other areas that were under Roman control, predominantly Protestant?

The Rhineland is the most Catholic part of Germany after Bavaria. The southwest, now the state of Baden-Württemberg, is split almost evenly between Catholic, Protestant, and other, with 6% being Moslem.

It was not uncommon though, especially in the earlier centuries, for immigrants to America to come from a religious or ethnic minority in their part of the world. The Huguenots, for example. Frankenmuth, Michigan was founded by Bavarian Protestants. Slovaks and Czechs in the Upper Midwest are often Lutheran.

I worked with a guy whose grandparents were immigrants, and at least two of his own grandchildren were not only 100% Swedish, but 100% Swedish Baptist. After four generations here. Sweden was not friendly to other faiths!

However, most post-Civil War immigration consisted of members of the majority sect and tribe back home. They had just been born into the wrong class.

Denzel Washington is nearly 70 years old. Is he playing an old man? I hope he is not playing a gladiator, at that age.

although there would’ve been hardly any blacks, at most those the normen would later call “bluemen”, the emperate/czardom was filled from all over the empire. so in this sense the roman empire wasn’t roman. the roman (soi-disant universal) church’s emperate has not had such representative diversity and so is roman, italian. sad.

We can all be grateful that Ancient Egypt and Ancient Rome didn’t have Antifa around to destroy all those statues they left us. We can see how these people depicted themselves in statuary. If they had Antifa, we could not have done that.

Denzel’s role in this sequel appears to mirror Proximo from the original film, a gladiator trainer portrayed by Oliver Reed. It’s sad to see Ridley, in the twilight of his career, waste his waning energy on this desperate attempt by the Jewish homosexuals and crazy white women who run Tinsel Town for the asset management firms to greenlight a movie that might actually eek out a profit. The above-the-line talent that made the Industry rich and culturally relevant the past few decades are dying off. Sad. I was hoping to interest Ridley in my brother’s spec script, Bomb Cyclone! It could’ve led to a rebirth of the Disaster movie. But who would fill out the roster of stars that made those 70s pics so much fun. Sad.

Interesting. Unz garbled my link to a Reddit post on shieldmaidens by substituting “(dot)” for the dots in the URL. Looks like I can fix it in Click to Edit though.

Your map proves the Romans could never conquer the Picts!

Nope, got garbled again. You’re going to have to fix it yourself.

Is it historically accurate to cast a black villain in the Roman Empire?

I don’t think Shakespeare had much concern with historical accuracy, but he did set Titus Andronicus in the Roman Empire, and made its most villainous villain, Aaron, a blackamoor.

a fragile waif dying of consumption is sung by a 200-lb. soprano.

You saw that one too? A profusely sweating 200-lb. negress soprano.

“It’s the aesthetics, Stupid!”

People with WN inclinations should give far more reverence and gratitude to the one creature that kept blacks on the other side of the Sahara.

If not for this one species, blacks would have migrated northward on the Nile, spread along the far more hospitable Mediterranean coast of Africa by 2000 BC, and since the M. Sea has weak tides and short distances between land, blacks would have migrated across the Levant and Turkey to the European coast, and taken over the good-weather land in what is now Spain, Southern France, Italy, Croatia, Greece, etc. by no later than 1400 BC. Even if Blacks chose not to go further north than Central France due to cold winters, their presence in Southern Europe from 1400 BC onwards would have precluded the formation of Greek and Roman societies. This would have prevented Western Civ outright, since Northern Europe might not have advanced without Greece and Rome having existed for a long time first. The Vikings, Goths, and Kievan Rus might have been the high points of white society, after which the Mongols would have come over to take over Kievan Rus as well as purge blacks from Europe. So Europe today would be Mongol.

So, what is this noble creature to which Western Civ owes its gratitude?

The Nile Crocodile.

See the range of the Nile Crocodile (per Wikipedia) :

It clearly kept blacks bottled up in Sub-Saharan Africa by preventing them from migrating northward (downstream) on the Nile. It is a large, aggressive, and dangerous creature that happily eats humans.

WN wiggers need to express more gratitude to the Nile Crocodile. Fortunately, one of the last of the classical National Geographic wildlife specials from 1995 was titled ‘Last Feast of the Crocodiles’. It is very good, and features the legendary NatGeo theme music with trumpets and drums in their full glory :

Lest you think the Nile Crocodile is just a counterpart to our own American Alligators, this video reveals how much larger the Nile Crocodile is :

Hence, WN beliefs require veneration of the Nile Crocodile, and the NatGeo special should be seen as religious material for WN wiggers.

The black girl in the picture is written in the original book as having “clear olive skin”, but I don’t think Ms Cooper had black olives in mind.

And in the book the character, Cameron Cook, also rips into PC/wokeness. We are discussing TV shows:

“I think it could be a good idea if you introduced a black unmarried mother into the cottage of the agricultural students, to appeal to the regulator”

“Black unmarried mothers don’t become agricultural students”

“Well, she could be the girlfriend of one of the boys”

“For Chrissake, why not have a gay shepherdess with one leg?”

You’ll note that Jilly Cooper ain’t no Jane Austen.

For white Europeans to claim Roman heritage solely for themselves is completely shameless.

Most white Europeans don’t claim this. We have better things to do, and far more recent accomplishments to cite.

What you have to recognize about White Trashionalism is that it is copium for the bottom 10% of white men (as rated by intelligence, looks, character, etc.). They feel cheated by God, because what is the point of being in the top group when they are in the bottom 10% of that group? Hence the need to say ‘we’ did all this, when they were not part of the ‘we’ in terms of any actual contribution.

See here for more :

https://www.unz.com/jcook/western-racism-laid-the-foundations-for-israels-genocide-in-gaza/#comment-6372831

General Hannibal Barca:

My proposal would also prevent African migrants from coming, unless they have demonstrable Italian ancestry. Obviously.

a black villain

Now, now. It’s “justice-impacted individual”.

Late add? It doesn’t say that up there.

And the chieftain of that battle became the symbol of German nationalism, of liberation against rapacious Roman invaders, didn’t he?

A millenium after the fact based on some Germans reading Tacitus. No German folk memory of Arminius survived over the intervening centuries. There is no real evidence that any of the other German tribes saw Arminius as some sort of pan-Germanic hero even during the centuries immediately after the event.

OT — The UK is so concerned about the growing Russian menace that they have announced plans to scrap warships, helicopters, and drones, with the goal of saving half a billion pounds. Of course, later, when everything rebounds, y’know, they’ll just get newer stuff.
https://news.sky.com/story/uk-to-scrap-warships-military-helicopters-and-fleet-of-drones-to-save-money-despite-threats-abroad-13257285

OT:
Russia’s mega gas pipeline to China complete – CCTV
Construction of the East Route natural gas pipeline has been finalized, according to its operator
https://www.rt.com/business/607946-russia-china-gas-pipeline/

“My proposal would also prevent African migrants from coming, unless they have demonstrable Italian ancestry.”

You don’t understand how this works. Let’s just say, for fun, that your sci-fi proposal is enacted. In that case, all African migrants simply claim Italian ancestry on arrival, they are merely coming to Italy to rejoin their families of old; they are assigned a court date and a formal procedure to investigate the validity of the claim. And then they either just never show up for the hearing and are free to roam about Italy causing mayhem forever, or else each individual investigation drags on for years, lining the pockets of unemployable “social historians” and so forth, and the Africans are still free to rape and plunder Italy as they please.

Oh, and once this grift becomes known as a can’t-lose play, the African invasion increases ninefold.

As some wag once noted, The appeals process will always continue until the immigrant wins.

I don’t see anything in the text to support that the eunuch in Acts was a “brownish Nubian.”

The fact that he was studying Jewish texts (while serving as treasurer for Cush) would indicate he was a Hebrew…probably descended from the time of the exile, but that is speculation.

I think the often missed point of this passage was that eunuchs were considered unclean under Jewish law and therefore barred from the temple. The fact that Christianity made no distinction between clean and unclean was a precursor for the gospel going out to the gentile world.

The taking of the word to the gentiles through Cornelius was a monumental shift accompanied by Peter’s vison and the appearance of angels and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit. As well as an express reference to the identity of Cornelius as a gentile that was lacking in the episode with the eunuch:

“And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost.”

“I never get the girl; I always get the country�.

-Anthony Quinn (purportedly).

Given that Egypt is a lot closer to the equator it would not surprise me if their skin color tended to be darker than their counterparts in, say, Scandanavia.

Arminius/Hermann didn’t attain popularity until the mid to late 19th century, not surprisingly at a time when Germany was emerging as a nation-state (thanks to Bismarck) to challenge France and Great Britain.

From the Dept. of Unintentionally Hilarious Headlines:

Disillusioned by the Election, Some Black Women Are Deciding to Rest

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/19/well/black-women-harris-trump-election-rest.html

I can only imagine the enormous struggle these black women must have gone thru in order to abate their natural inclination toward vigorous hard work.

Mel Gibson’s casting was in a sense a missed opportunity. In Passion on the Christ, Pilate’s Samnite origins could have been exploited. Additionally the Roman soldiers should have simply been local Jews joined up in the auxiliary cohorts raised by Pilate, seeking citizenship in exchange for policing their own. The conversations between Pilate and his men might have been
Comical interactions of Aramaic/Greek speaking Jews in Roman like uniforms with a spivvy up and coming Italic chancer.

No Roman legionary was ever stationed in Jerusalem. Until Titus came to burn it all down.

Sim, quem sabe porque os portugueses, os italianos, espanhois, romenos etc. vao sentirem-se mais ligados ao patrimonio romano do que os arabes ou turcofonos musulmanos?

That map is absurd. If the Byzantines are counted as Romans, then so too should the Holy Roman Empire. The Frankish and Visigothic states also were de facto successor states to Rome, adopting both its language and religion.

Denzel Washington is a very mediocre actor; the extent of his range pretty much being how far the blackity-black dial gets turned up or down. Otherwise he’s the same guy in every film, and so many movies would have been better all around had a white lead been in his place (think Bruce Willis leading in Man on Fire, for example.)

I watch lots of old movies. One of my friends once told me I know more about old movies than anyone else he has ever met. One thing common in those old movies, along with cartoons of the era, was to take Black laziness, lack of intelligence or tendency towards pompous behavior and exaggerate it for comic effect.

You do not see Blacks portrayed that way anymore in movies but Blacks in real life still often display the characteristics that Whites laughed at in a less politically correct era. When Kamala tried to be profound in the recent presidential campaign but came up with her hilarious word salads it was hard, at least for me, not to laugh at her.

A couple commenters here have expressed the opinion that we are past Peak Black. Hispanics and Asians do not share the same high opinion of Blacks that they have of themselves and these two groups are increasing in numbers in this country. The Democrats are going to have trouble in the future with their messaging that lack of Black achievement is due to racism. No racial group other than Blacks themselves believes that.

Blacks invented everything while the White man was living in caves, yo.

You don’t have to go all the way to Scandinavia. Levantine people are white or are least as white as Greeks or Italians.

This is a very silly comment. The “hospitable Mediterranean coast of Africa” was fully occupied well before 2000BC, and the inhabitants were quite capable of repelling invaders from the south. Beyond that, crocodiles didn’t stop the Egyptians from navigating the Nile, did they? Not a very effective barrier! And why would you need crocodiles when you have a much more effective barrier: the Sudd?

They actually did it – the premiere art museum of the United States, the Western Hemisphere, maybe the world – and one with an absolutely incredible and comprehensive Egypt wing – literally made a “We Wuz Kangz” exhibition and they expect everyone to take it seriously. Memes become reality. I know it takes a very long to make an exhibit like this, it wouldn’t surprise me that they started planning it in the heady days of summer 2020. It was aged and out of date before it started.

As a villain in Training Day he made the movie

I agree, as did the Academy, as he won his second Best Actor award for this. This also refutes what Steve said in the linked article…

due to pro-black racial favoritism, black actors don’t get hired as often as they should to play antagonists

Do we have say in who gets cast in these movies?

All we can do is accept or reject, and this is part of a trend of blackening white history. As such, it must be rejected. Who cares about Washington’s status as a star? That’s supposed to make a difference?

Even if he’s the villain, it’s part of the blackening. Making exceptions here and there cuz of X-reasons is weak. It must be rejected and condemned. The equivalent of this would be casting Shaka Zulu as some Irishman. (We understand many Irish want to be black, but it’s not the same thing.)
Weakness must be rejected. Too much of the white spectrum on cultural issues ranges from fervent conformity to fashions to spineless prevarications about ‘gee, maybe they have a point’. No, they don’t.

Also, there’s a difference between historical inaccuracy, the feature of just about all historical movies, and total fantasy. Braveheart may have little to do with history, but imagine if the Gibson role(or the villain’s role for that matter) went to some Arab, Hindu, or Chinese guy. That’s beyond inaccuracy. It’s pure fantasy.

The article tries to be balanced and fair-minded but such is a totally wrong approach to the current madness. There were blacks in Ancient Rome, but the current trend is to put blacks in historically prestigious roles. Just as we can’t be fair-minded and go for ‘ambiguity’ with the tranny madness, we can’t make exceptions for the blackening of white history. Who wants to waste verbiage wondering if Bruce Jenner is a man or woman? No, he’s a man who’s nutty.

Scott made a few decent movies and mostly garbage. Gladiator was garbage that appealed to trashy tastes. Hell with him.

Present day Italians looked pretty white to me on my travels there. I think we Americans get an impression that Italians are quite swarthy because of the large numbers of Sicilians among them in America. We had a Sicilian guide from eastern Sicily (the Greek part, as she put it) who scoffed at “those Arabs” in Western Sicily.

Byzantine is a term used by historians. The people termed Byzantine considered themselves Romans and were so considered by their enemies.

I know Syrians who could pass at the Rotary Club meetings in Des Moines.

“I find it strange that movies about Rome seem to focus almost entirely on Gladiators.”

Aw, I bet you don’t like movies about Turkish prisons, either.

Call me when you sell your spec about Syrian architects and engineers building the aqueducts. I can just see the pitch meeting — “It’s The Fountainhead! But set in ancient Rome! So we can have gladiators too!”

“dubious assertion that blacks are responsible for ancient Egypt’s artistic glories?”

Flight into Egypt: Black Artists and Ancient Egypt, 1876–Now examines how Black artists and other cultural figures have engaged with ancient Egypt through visual art, sculpture, literature, music, scholarship, religion, politics, and performance. In a multisensory exploration of nearly 150 years of artistic and cultural production—from the 19th century to the Harlem Renaissance to the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s to the present day—the exhibition includes nearly 200 works of art in a wide range of media.

https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/flight-into-egypt-black-artists-and-ancient-egypt-1876-now

Not featured was the now deceased poet laurate of the State of New Jersey. After Baraka’s public reading [of Who Blew Up America], Governor McGreevey sought to remove Baraka from the poet laureate post. Baraka got cancelled in 2001! He’s like the first of the cancellation wave.

It’s American blacks that have this ancient achievers complex. Brazilians, Colombia’s blacks, Africans,…. simply don’t care.

Human genetic diversity in southern Europe is higher than in other regions of Europe. Most American tourists, including black Americans, but except of course Native Americans, could claim some genetic relatedness to a place like Iberia.

This all is American psychotic stuff.

In French, Spanish, German, Polish, Russian, Japanese…cinema no one of “other� race would be allowed to play a person who is known, whether from history or from fictional universes, to belong to a well defined racial category as is the case with Europeans.

Black in the role of Stalin? No.

Japanese in the role of Bismarck? No.

Asian Indian in the role of Robespierre? No.

African black in the role of Turgenev’s Bazarov? No.

American black in the role of Goethe’s Werther? No.

One can make adaptations of some works to different racial-cultural ambient (Kurosawa did it with Shakespeare and Dostoevsky), but to put actors of visibly different races in “others’� roles is a form of madness and mental suicide.

And even in the case of “a few could have been”, as with parts of the ancient Mediterranean, it is a sign of psychotic Negrolary & a pathological attitude towards one particular racial minority that all non-degenerate world finds uncomfortable to be around.

But how real was Roman Antiquity though?

How much of what the film claims to know about Rome is real?

Reading this article one gets the impression that we don’t really know much about it:

https://www.unz.com/article/how-fake-is-roman-antiquity/

Well, Levantine people, as well as people from the Middle East broadly, did colonize the Mediterranean, Southern Europeans have significant ME ancestry.

Interesting. Hochart, Fomenko and Laurent Guyenot have claimed that Tacitus works were “discovered” by a plagiarizer, which seems true, Poggio Bracciolini had the reputation, and for instance his work on Germany may have been written by a different person.

Ethiopia (especially greater Ethiopia, including Eritria) makes sense for the convert. There was a lot of Jewish and Christian exchange across the lower part of the Red Sea. Just look at a map and it kind of makes sense. Many common plants, cultural features, etc. are found on the Horn of Africa and in South Arabia (Yemen). It actually makes total sense that the connection was via the Horn as opposed to going past the Cataracts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Aksum

It is also speculated that one of the influences on the Muslim religion (which if you don’t believe in God, is reasonable to assume that it emerged as a state religion based on modifying various aspects of previous religions) were Jewish and Christian communities from Africa, interacting with Arabia.

—-

Also for the guy who thought portages across Sinai were done, uh no.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canal_of_the_Pharaohs

The United States Court of Appeals for the 10th circuit has ruled against a second amendment challenge to Colorado’s ban on selling firearms to young adults.

William Kirk discusses four separate pieces of legislation that are kicking around the Michigan state capitol, all of which will significantly affect where and when you can carry a firearm.

LEGAL ALERT: Pennsylvania Supreme Court unanimously upholds the state's firearm preemption law: https://t.co/WAAKNi28ZN pic.twitter.com/TJzfhhPXOG

— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) November 20, 2024

https://t.co/Wvyd0lIL8L pic.twitter.com/r2wxtR1fFJ

— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) November 21, 2024

Translated from legal language, this means "your argument sucks" https://t.co/kokyAMlvax pic.twitter.com/zIvPt2lHrt

— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) November 21, 2024

What about Mother Russia? Its claim as successor to Rome is based on marriage to House of Eastern Roman emperors, and European laws of inheritance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow,_third_Rome

Are the Russian title Czar (cf. Caesar) illegitimate?

Nah. Tanit.

The English are crazy for it. Dickens. Austen. etc

Then why didn’t Charlemagne claim the title of Western Roman Emperor?

Because the barbarian regent Odoacer deposed the last Western child emperor and returned the Western regalia to Constantinope, thus recognizing authority of the East.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deposition_of_Romulus_Augustus

Charlemagne claimed the title “Holy Roman Emperor”, but he didn’t have a claim to title Roman Emperor based on inheritance, and was not recognized by Constantinope and medieval Christians.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_two_emperors

By your logic, Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian Tsars, even Turkish sultans can also claim to be successors to Rome.

What is your point? Is it not a fact that Germans permanently expelled Romans to west of Rhine after Teutoburg Forest (9 AD)?

Is it not a fact that modern German nationalists were kanging “We defeated the Romans n shiet”?

A millenium after the fact based on some Germans reading Tacitus.

You are implying ancestors of NW Euros at the time of Tacitus were mostly illiterate. Yes that’s true too.

There is a whole museum devoted to this stuff in Big Rapids, Michigan, on the campus of Ferris State University.

Enjoy the virtual tour. Or just learn other neat stuff from their exhibits:

Similar to how gun ownership was highly restricted for African Americans, the ownership of dogs was also regulated, for enslaved people and for free African Americans.

In 1792, George Washington wrote a letter to his estate manager at Mount Vernon. In the letter, George Washington addressed some issues about dogs on the estate. Washington was very clear about his expectations about African Americans and their ownership of dogs. “It is not for any good purpose Negros raise, or keep dogs; but to aid them in their night robberies; for it is astonish to see the command under which their dogs are.� Washington also stated that if a “negro presumes under any pretence (sic) whatsoever, to preserve, or bring one into the family, that he shall be severely punished, and the dog hanged� (University of Virginia Press, n.d.).

https://jimcrowmuseum.ferris.edu/question/2022/august.htm

My uncle, who spent his career teaching in the state’s public colleges, told me 40 years or so ago that Ferris had the reputaion of being the worst in the state. Doesn’t sound like anything has changed. Indeed, they’ve doubled down– the museum was founded after my uncle’s passing.

The people termed Byzantine considered themselves Romans…

So there were two Roman Empires that lacked a Rome, one in the east and one in the north.

OFF TOPIC:
Minneapolis mayor, Jewish group want teachers union to cancel event with anti-Israel speaker

A pro-Palestinian branch of the Minneapolis teachers union is holding a seminar Friday featuring Taher Herzallah. Mayor Jacob Frey and the JCRC are objecting, calling his remarks antisemitic.

Deena Winter

The Minnesota Star Tribune
NOVEMBER 20TH AT 11:53 AM CST

Mayor Jacob Frey and others are calling on the Minneapolis teachers union to cancel an upcoming seminar featuring a speaker who has openly expressed antisemitic views.

Taher Herzallah is scheduled to speak at a Friday event called “being an educator in a time of war & genocide� at the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers Local 59 office. The event is sponsored by MFT Educators for Palestine.

Frey, who is Jewish, said on social media Tuesday night that the group should cancel the seminar with Herzallah, who has called Jewish people “enemy number one.�

Students should be learning about love, not hate.

The MFT Educators for Palestine should cancel their seminar with Taher Herzallah, who has openly expressed anti-Semitic views, including calling Jewish people “enemy number one.�

Schools must be spaces for unity, not division. pic.twitter.com/SzbW0OEXK3

— Mayor Jacob Frey (@MayorFrey) November 20, 2024

Well said and spot on! Despite the black nationalism and pan-African imagery that many African Americans routinely engage in, only a very limited number really want to visit their ancestral homelands in West Africa, such as Ghana and Nigeria. If they do have a passport, and if they want to travel at all, it will be to places such as France where they can engage in elite consumerism of such luxury brands as Hermes, Hennessy and Lacoste. Given that educated and influent blacks are the only ones who generally travel internationally (only roughly 33% of all African-Americans even have a passport), Europe is definitely considered an ancestral homeland, even if only reluctantly

Lately I’ve been reading Gore Vidal’s novel “Julian” about Julian the Apostate, the last Roman Emperor who seriously tried to evict Christianity and re-install the old pagan gods. It’s rather interesting for a lot of reasons, but it does get into elaborate detail about the zany power-sharing game of Twister that went on between the Western Emperor and the Eastern Emperor and all the kooky politics involved. Also the personal-life stuff is fascinating; I had thought that by that point, most educated Romans regarded the old pagan gods as metaphorical, not real; but Vidal has Julian say things like “I actually stood at the place where Persephone returned from Hades to the world above” apparently he believed it. WG Sebald once posed the thought experiment, “Who was the last person alive who actually, really believed in Zeus?” Whoever he was I guess he lived after Julian.

Vidal is a lively, engaging writer and evidently he did his homework, so the novel is a pretty good portrait of what post-Constantine Rome/Byzantium was like, more fun than a history book and probably a lot more accurate than a book written by a Woke academic.

This is AT LEAST the second time you posted this � story.
Yes, thank you for telling all of us that the Nile crocodiles are larger than American alligators. Damn, we had no idea 🥴. Lol. I have heard of some gators about 14 feet, no idea of weight, still significantly smaller than large crocodiles but would be about average for a average crocodile.

Okay, Jim Fowler, R.I.P ( my GP was related to Jungle Jim) let’s have an Animal Face-Off

Hippo vs. Rhino ?
Who wins?

Eastern Europe is different. They do claim Byzantium. And they do not have hang-ups about “swarthy” Greeks. For cultural, political and religious reasons, Western Europeans look down on Byzantium. There was plenty of bad blood between Constantinople and the West, and not only because of the Crusades.

In ancient Rome Negroes were such a rare sight they would be pitted against one another in gladiator battles in the coliseum. Looks like it is not just British history that is being black washed.

If the relentless woke propaganda results in keeping alive the backlash, resulting in Vance elected in 28, let it happen.

John Wayne played Genghis Khan in The Conqueror. The Swede Warner Oland and Anglo American Sidney Toller played Charlie Chan.

Well after all, it’s the only other country where “pussy” is pronounced “puss-AY.”

We have our own monument to Hermann, in New Ulm (not in Hermann!) Dressed more warmly, naturally.

https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/11260

Southern Italians on average have more Middle Eastern ancestry than African, and more from North Africa than from sub Saharan Africa, and Middle Easterners do look pretty white. Italians also cluster very close with Ashkenazi Jews who of course also do look white.

Human genetic diversity in Italy and southern Europe generally is higher than in other regions of Europe. And Italy appears to be a zone of sharp differentiation over small distances. When compared to other populations, Italians do not cluster all together, but are distributed among European and Mediterranean people. Southern Italians show a higher similarity with Middle Eastern, North African and Southern Balkan populations than northern ones.

And Sicily and many parts of Southern Italy have similar genetics.

Rome usurped Byzantine and claimed its culture as its own. This is all very well explained in the articles by Laurent Guyenot and First Millenium Revisionist on this site.

Pure garbage.

There is *ONE* and *ONE* reason only that black Africans are taking over Europe, crocodiles or no crocodiles: The existence of an Economist magazine whipped political class which has absolute monopoly political power in Europe which most earnestly *WANTS* black African immigration.

For whatever reason, Black Africans were never sea fearers – perhaps this is down to deep atavistic fears that often have a real hold on the African mind, taboos which cause a real mental paralysis, which are most often seen today in matters involving superstition. In short, the open sea held a real inhibiting terror for Africans. It is curious to note that Africans never sailed to the various Portuguese colonised islands lying relatively near to the west African coast. Neither did they reach Madagascar lying off the east African coast, which was settled by Micronesians, sailing from the other side of the world.
So it is unlikely that black Africans would haver ever crossed the Mediterranean under their own volition.

“Gay kiss scene� Thanks for the warning.

Gladiator had great fight scenes, and Crowe chewed up the role, (Are you not entertained?!!), but as story telling it was poorly done.

For white Europeans to claim Roman heritage solely for themselves is completely shameless.

As far as the Western half of the empire goes, Latin became the sacred language in much of Western Europe for a long time, until the 1960s for Catholic Europe. So that is ~1500 years when it was in daily use all over that area. Religion used to be more central in life and people were praying and reading in Latin all of the time, religious material but also surviving Roman authors. 

And their religion was about how God became incarnate in the world in the time of Divus Augustus, and Christ acknowledged the political authority of Caesar. Dante wrote about how God blessed the Roman Empire in this way. 

A large part of the population spoke languages derived from vulgar Latin in the rest of their life and were partly descended from Italian origin colonists who arrived during the time of the Roman Empire. They were still using Roman Law as one of their legal references, and writing philosophy, history and science in Latin until the 18th century.  

The populations who didn’t speak Latin derived languages tended to be influenced culturally by those who did. The ongoing presence of the Roman empire as a political reference point has already been mentioned in relation to Charlemagne. 

We can compare that with the surviving Latin cultural legacy in North Africa and the Middle East, after the Arabs arrived with Islam and had been established for some centuries, or the Turks later on. Imo this is likely to be why, after a certain point in time, Western Europe became de facto the main carrier of the Latin Roman heritage. 

“Is it historically accurate to cast a black villain in the Roman Empire?”

Uh,…no. Because black lives matter, and certainly not as villains. To even ask the question smacks of, or definitely has a touch of racism about it.

Racist, racist, racist, racist, and racist.

Five racist cards played to a Full House

I wonder how long it will be until we see affluent African-Americans complaining about how the Cameroonian, Congolese and Senegalese immigrants are destroying Paris?

Thank you, Nile Crocodile. What a good boy.

About Rome and its relation to Byzantine read the many very insightful articles by Laurent Guyenot and First Millennium Revisionist on unz.com.

https://www.unz.com/article/how-long-was-the-first-millenium/

https://www.unz.com/article/a-short-history-of-civilization/

Because there were actually no Asian actors. And there is such wide difference between whites and Asians as is the case with blacks and all other races.

I’ll fix this a bit… (((Those people))) in America who run the media have told blacks that they were ancient achievers, therefore they’ve developed a complex about it. Remove (((those people))) and the blacks in America simply wouldn’t care either.

-Rooster

In the early eighties when I lived in Chicago I had a friend of Syrian ancestry. His grandparents arrived in the early 20th century. He resembled a Caddyshack Rodney Dangerfield. He actually knew the Syrian language a bit. Once we were out in downtown and a car of a recently arrived (from Syria) middle aged couple stopped and asked for directions. We couldn’t help them and the woman complained to her husband in Syrian about dumb Americans. They were shocked and embarrassed when my buddy started talking Syrian to them. They were profusely apologetic and courteous after that.

What is the basis of the claim on Thomas Jefferson?

Yeah, they’re US copycats, that’s why.

I meant “no such wide …”.

The Persian Empire was the equal of the Roman Empire. What happened?

Eh, Alexander happened.

This all is American psychotic stuff.

More like Anglophone psychosis. It’s as bad or worse in the UK.

This may be the origin of the phenomenon you discuss:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-fifth_Dynasty_of_Egypt

Alexander was before the Roman Empire.

So what? That can’t be the reason Persia sank in the big picture. There were tons of conquerors that came and went all over Europe. But they stayed white and they literally took over world and space.

Denzel Washington is a very mediocre actor; the extent of his range pretty much being how far the blackity-black dial gets turned up or down. Otherwise he’s the same guy in every film, and so many movies would have been better all around had a white lead been in his place (think Bruce Willis leading in Man on Fire, for example.)

Washington was excellent in films such as Glory, Crimson Tide and Training Day. But even good (or great) actors coast once they reach a certain age – see Robert De Niro or even Marlon Brando.

Darker doesnt mean racially subsaharian. Like they may had an olive skin and semitic features, even thought i have no problem if ancient Egyptians were kind of “Black”, if they were a different and currently extinct breed than the negroid variant of today. The same way happened with ancient Romans and Greeks.

Byzantine is a term used by historians. The people termed Byzantine considered themselves Romans and were so considered by their enemies.

“The Byzantines” called themselves Romaioi, a term I always found amusing, it being “Romans” in Greek, rather than Latin.

So there were two Roman Empires that lacked a Rome, one in the east and one in the north.

The Holy Roman Empire was actually: Heiliges R̦misches Reich Deutscher Nation/Sacrum Imperium Romanum Nationis Germaniae РHoly Roman Empire of the German Nation.

And Byzantion/Constantinopolis was the Second Rome, so… It was Roman.

My proposal would also prevent African migrants from coming, unless they have demonstrable Italian ancestry. Obviously.

Nah your comment was just taking a whiny shot at core (GermanoCelt) Americans and parroting a current leftist trope of “over tourism”. Basically to play up problems caused by “tourists”–white people–and downplay/ignore the real problems caused by immigrants–non-white people.

Of course, tourists can be annoying as hell. (I try to behave and not be an “ugly American”, but I’ve failed a time or two.) And the rising world prosperity has meant more and more “tourists” out and about with most of them going to a lot of the same places crowded the “hot spots”–the monuments, markets, museums, plazas and piazzas, cathedrals, restaurants, sidewalks, trails … (You don’t have to go to Italy or Barcelona. AnotherBrother and I were moving AnotherDaughter’s car in 2021 and drove through Yellowstone–we were not alone. Or try Yosemite on any nice summer day. LOL.)

But tourists … go back home. You can easily regulate their numbers with visas, permits, hotel taxes, admission fees, etc. etc. The reason they’re around at all is lots of people make money off of them. Tourists provide “free money” a city/region/nation doesn’t have to come up with by trading something people actually want–wheat, maize, lumber, oil, gas, steel, autos, airplanes, electronics, ships, software …

Immigrants in contrast, do not go home. The problems they bring are permanent. They leave their genes behind to keep those issues and conflicts going forever.

I like the occasional sword & sandal movie. So one night Mrs. Tex and me are watching some Hercules film where the strong man gets enslaved and put to work building a road. Sinister baddies want to make him a gladiator though. So we get several scenes where the slave boss is complaining that the road building will be behind schedule if they don’t have Hercules. I tuned in for a peplum and got a lecture on project management!

“It’s as bad or worse in the UK.”

The Rivals (Jilly Cooper not Sheridan) was written in 1988 and already (in the book) the TV regulator was arguing for more diversity in the programming.

But it goes back to the 1960s – Til Death Us Do Part (of which All In The Family was a clone) was basically a huge pro-immigration tract disguised as comedy, and BBC execs were disconcerted when a lot of people approved of Alf Garnett, not having got the memo that only ignorant people were racists.

All three of those movies are garbage.

No matter how much I might otherwise be interested in a show/movie, woke crap like that turns me off completely and I refuse to watch.

Romans also invented self healing concrete some of which is still standing 2000 years later. But it’s hard to make a movie about concrete.

https://news.mit.edu/2023/roman-concrete-durability-lime-casts-0106

Romos, latinized in Romus or Remus, is a Greek word meaning “strong�. The Italian Romans were Etruscans from Lydia in Asia Minor. They were well aware of their eastern origin. But then Roman clerics, followed by Italian humanists, produced an inverted chronological sequence, using the real history of Constantinople as the model for their fake earlier history of Italian Rome. A great confusion ensued, as “many mediaeval documents confuse the two Romes: in Italy and on the Bosporus,� both being commonly called Rome or “the City�. The prototype for Titus Livy’s History was about Constantinople, the original capital of the “Romans�.

I find it strange that movies about Rome seem to focus almost entirely on Gladiators. They did other things too.

I would certainly enjoy a movie about Rome’s Samian pottery industry. I once found a piece that had the maker’s thumbprint on the base.

A movie could be made starring Washington, called The Last Potter Movie.

“The Byzantines� called themselves Romaioi, a term I always found amusing, it being “Romans� in Greek, rather than Latin.

And the Romanians called themselves Romanians, instead of Dacians. Once a Roman, always a Roman.

WG Sebald once posed the thought experiment, “Who was the last person alive who actually, really believed in Zeus?�

It depends. It is certain that Aristotle, 300 BC, did not literally believe in Zeus. But he gave a copy of “Iliad” to Alexander.

A fair number of educated African Americans feel warmly toward France, not unreasonably.

Remember Ta-Nehisi Coates’s goofy sojourn in Paris?

OTOH, bon vivant Blacks truly steeped in authentic French culture are quite entertaining:

“In-cray-ah-blay!�

The Romans hated a certain ethnic group on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, the only group who wouldn’t tolerate their culture or religion. I’m sure they were actual jealous of their monotheism.

OT — It’s over! The Mayor of Dearborn, Michigan, has declared that as soon as the infamous war criminal (and by far most valued US asset) Benjamin Netanyahu sets foot within city limits of the town that Henry Ford built, Bibi will be arrested! Netanyahu has lost his Dearborn privileges!
(I can’t help recalling that when Ariel Sharon visited the Dome of the Rock, he did so behind an entire brigade of security. Even granting the normal triple defense advantage, how many cops work in Dearborn?)

Black people watch movies. Black people want to see heroes (or villains) who look like them. It is that simple.

For the same reason there are a lot of middle-aged female detectives on TV.

WG Sebald once posed the thought experiment, “Who was the last person alive who actually, really believed in Zeus?�

I was in Crete earlier this year and Zeus was there, albeit sleeping.

I therefore turned down the opportunity to visit his cave–apparently one of several that he has claimed as his home.

As far as I am concerned Zeus is just as good as any God, given his interest in earthquakes, thunderstorms, and the price of olives. Certainly a lot more credible than Yahweh or Allah.

Iranians now are not more mixed than contemporary Greeks, Italians etc. I know this racial theory of “blood contamination leading to stupidity”, but it doesn’t hold water. Iran from 500-300 BC was significantly less powerful than Iran from the 8th to the 18th C, from creativity (Al Khwarizmi, Omar Khayyam, Hafiz, Rumi,..) to the military expansion (Nadir Shah & the rest). Contemporary Iranians excel in science and technology, lunatic religious ideology aside.

If you don’t want to become ill-suited for civilization:

a) don’t mix with Africans

b) don’t take Islam seriously

It is that simple.

No, it isn’t. There is a world of difference between “We want stories about us” and “All stories must be about us.”

An old black propaganda slur from an election, plus modern black credulity. The basis of the rebuttal is a conference of historians.

Steve, in reference to your Johnny Carson Substack post:

I’m going to go back to running a higher proportion of paywalled items. The way Substack works is that you only get to post comments on a paywalled item if you have a paying subscription.

Or I can make items readable all the way through by everybody and let anybody post comments.

Unfortunately, Substack doesn’t let me compromise by allowing everybody to comment but only paying subscribers to see the entire post.

Does Substack let you compromise by making items readable all the way through but restricting comments to paying subscribers? That would be the ideal. I still think you are overdoing the paywall thing. What you want to maximize your influence by maximizing the number of readers; paying subscribers will follow if you give them just a little extra, like commenting and occasional hidden posts.

The Iliad is full of good stuff beyond faith in the gods — indeed, if faith in the gods was the goal, then the Iliad would probably be the last text you’d want to hand out.

Not to quibble but they were speaking “Syrian”? I thought Syrians spoke Arabic.

As far as the Western half of the empire goes, Latin became the sacred language in much of Western Europe for a long time, until the 1960s for Catholic Europe.

ATMs in Vatican City use it. Inserito scidulam quæso ut faciundam cognoscas rationem.

Remember to use the ecclesiastical pronuniation, not the classical, let alone the English legal kind. (All three are defensible in their own spheres, but ridiculous in the others’.)

Note, too, the lack of a ligature. Does it run on Windows 3.0?

Romanians are interesting in having a Latin derived language but Orthodox religion, so in some way they bridge the two spheres.

Except nobody has paid any attention to Romanians since the heyday of a certain Count.

Some of them maybe, but is this not a myth though? 6 million Jews were living in the Roman Empire, but outside Israel, mainly in Italy and Southern Europe. In contrast, only about 500,000 lived in Judea. The Jews also intermarried with the Roman elite and their God Yaweh conquered Roman paganism. During Greco-Roman times, recorded mass conversions led to 6 million people practicing Judaism in Roman times or up to 10% of the population of the Roman Empire.

Aristotle was a philosophical monotheist, in that he believed that there was one ultimate cause or prime mover.

Romanians are interesting in having a Latin derived language

Latin is a language originating from Dacia; ancient Dacian did not vanish mysteriously but is the common ancestor of both Latin and modern Romanian. Dacian, if you will, is Vulgar Latin, which preceded Classical Latin. A likely explanation for the fact that Dacia is also called Romania is that it—rather than Italy—was the original home of the Romans who founded Constantinople. The Roman language (Latin) remained the administrative language of the Eastern Empire until the sixth century AD, when it was abandoned for Greek, the language spoken by the majority of its subjects.

Certainly a lot more credible than Yahweh or Allah.

Yahweh, God, and Allah are just different names in various languages for the same thing. Excuse me, Thing.

They may have widely– even wildly– differing views of the nature and desires of this Person. One Catholic priest even referred to “the alien god of Calvinism”. But one can carry this too far.

My boss for years was an Italian guy whose people came from Naples. His skin was fairer than my Dutch/Norwegian hide and I have known other Italians in a similar condition. I assumed this was a legacy from the Goths, Lombards, and Gauls that inhabited/invaded Italy in the past.

At a Russian immersion class taught by (mostly) natives I attended back in the late Soviet era, a fellow student said he’d overheard a couple of the teachers referring to “Saint Petersburg”. Another replied that that was nothing; he had heard them talking of Constantinople.

Lyrics by an Ulsterman, no less. Saint Petersburg would be back within seven years; Constantinople didn’t change until the lifetimes of the older teachers, so it wasn’t as radical (or reactionary) as we thought.

This is the state of America, but Sailer is wondering when it’s okay to blacken European history?
Hey, it’s okay when the celebrity is cool enough.

No wonder his side keeps losing.

Jussie Smollett‘s conviction in an alleged hate crime hoax was overturned on Thursday by the Illinois Supreme Court.

The “Empire� actor was convicted in December 2021 of five felony counts of disorderly conduct for allegedly staging a hate crime against himself and was sentenced… pic.twitter.com/dN33sCPbjR

— Variety (@Variety) November 21, 2024

We couldn’t help them and the woman complained to her husband in Syrian about dumb Americans. They were shocked and embarrassed when my buddy started talking Syrian to them. They were profusely apologetic and courteous after that.

Is Syrian a language? I thought Syrians speak Arabic.

Matt Gaetz has withdrawn his nomination.

test

Maybe the Africans should go to India.
Might make them feel better.

Which makes him free to be appointed to Rubio’s Senate Seat when Rubio is confirmed.
They don’t just throw this shit together…

Hey, Denzel is cool. Let’s not be racist.

This is so funny. The first 45 seconds are marvellous cuts of the British countryside. I thought they'd rushed it out to to set themselves apart from Woke Jaguar. And then it comes. They literally can't help themselves. https://t.co/wtH1mQn3C5

— Maximus 🇬🇧 ðŸ�˜ðŸŒ² (@landofangle) November 20, 2024

Probably modern Assyrian, Suret.

As should 30-40% of Trump’s first picks.

It’s basically the same in all high traditions. And spontaneous experiences.

Under the Ming dynasty (16th century) a disciple took up his dwelling beside a master who had been meditating for thirty years in a cave. One night, when going along a mountain path, the disciple “felt a light circulating inside his body, and heard a rumbling of thunder at the top of his head�. The mountain, the stream, the world and his own self disappeared. This experience lasted “as long as it takes five pinches of incense to burn�. Afterwards he felt that he had become an entirely different man and had been purified by his own Light.

…………….
Similar though much briefer experience is described by Warner Allen in “The Timeless Moment” (1946); it took place between two successive notes of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony and involved no conscious hiatus in listening to the music. Here is Warner Allen’s description: “I closed my eyes and watched a silver glow which shaped itself into a circle with a central focus brighter than the rest. The circle became a tunnel of light
proceeding from some distant sun in the heart of the Self. Swiftly and smoothly I was borne through the tunnel and, as I went the light turned from silver to gold. There was an impression of drawing strength from a limitless sea of power and a sense of deepening peace. The light grew brighter, but was never dazzling or alarming. I came to a point where time and motion ceased …I am absorbed in the Light of the Universe, in Reality glowing like fire with the knowledge of itself, without ceasing to be one and myself, merged like a drop of quicksilver in the Whole, yet still separate as a grain of sand in the desert. The peace that passes all understanding and the pulsating energy of Creation are one in the centre . . . where all opposites are reconciledâ€�

OT- Ukraine

I just watched Piers Morgan for fun. This time, it was about Russian war in Ukraine. For any person with IQ higher than room temperature & maturity more than that of a spoiled child, matters are obvious just from this clip.

The oldest guest is a retired general, a cautious man who actually didn’t say anything worth remembering.

Then, it is Jake Broe, a strong supporter of Ukraine whom I respect & may disagree only on the strategy vs tactics issues. But his heart & mind are in the right place.

Then you got two MAGA types, Benny and Scott, who are not just infantile, but they cannot behave. They are jumpy, hysterical & ill mannered. They are certainly not Russian bots, but Jake is, and here I agree with him, rightly says that there is some “homoerotic fixation” with Putin on the Trumpist side.

This entertainment is not something serious; you don’t have nuances analyses etc. But for any mentally sane & normal person, it is obvious who is right- and who is wrong.

As silly as those casting decisions were, the movies were not saying that Genghis was white or Chan is white. Rather, they were cases of white people made up as Asians, much like blackface was about whites-as-blacks. Like what Robert Downey Jr. does in Tropic Thunder. He plays black.

In contrast, the recent castings pretend that prominent European figures of the past were indeed blackity-black.

Macrinus briefly suceeeded Caracalla. A half Roman half Arab emperor.

It is worth noting that the museum’s false exhibit takes a page right out of Mao’s China. Mao recognized that many people, children especially, have a difficult time grasping political or historical concepts in the abstract, but are quite receptive when seeing a museum exhibit illustrating the idea. Seven years ago, how time flies, Yale’s Denise Ho wrote a great book called “Curating Revolution� that explored this idea in detail. This included the fact that the convincing artifact did not need to be a formal museum exhibit. Rather, an object could be seized from a person’s home, and somehow be successfully deemed to constitute “ironclad evidence� and “proof of crime.� (There is a Chinese word for the aforesaid quoted phrases, but I can’t remember the word.).

So… a people who couldn’t figure out how to overcome a crocodile were somehow nevertheless going to become the masters of the Mediterranean and Europe.

Okay.

Matt Gaetz has withdrawn his nomination.

Maybe he was offered a better job.

after a certain point in time, Western Europe became de facto the main carrier of the Latin Roman heritage.

Maybe. But what is that “point in time”? For most of Early Middle Ages Europe was illiterate.

Charlemagne’s empire was not sound or durable was it? It fragmented among his heirs and lapsed into feudalism.

Whereas Eastern Empire maintained institutional continuity and undertook revivals under Justinian and Irene.

A large part of the population spoke languages derived from vulgar Latin

Why does that matter? Vulgar Latin failed to maintain the ancient Indo-European case system. Such that someone like Heidegger claimed that philosophy can only be done in Greek and German.

We can compare that with the surviving Latin cultural legacy in North Africa and the Middle East, after the Arabs arrived with Islam

The ancient classics were in Greek. But for many centuries Germans were not interested in learning were they? Thus that there were very few Greek texts in Europe until the Renaissance.

Learning was carried on by Muslims who translated from Greek to Arabic, such that later Europeans had to learn Arabic to read both the original works and the Muslim commentaries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmission_of_the_Greek_Classics

Thus the Islamic world was the de facto the main carrier of classical learning, from 8th to 13th CE, wasn’t it? Until Mongols sacked Baghdad.

they have pratically gone by now from the Middle East and North Africa,

The Byzantine scholars brought along their Greek texts, to the West where it largely didn’t exist due to destruction by Germanic barbarians.

But what if Constantinople hadn’t been sacked, would the Renaissance even have taken place?

Constantinople and Baghdad were both sacked by the most formidable warriors in premodern era– Eurasian nomads. Europe is in the corner of Eurasia and happens to be insulated.

It is a pity that the series of emperors in the picture is interrupted before reaching Diocletian, so we could see about 20 Serbian emperors (Constantine, Galerius, Licinius, Maximian, Justinian, etc.).

However, there are still several Serbian emperors in this picture – Decius, Thrax, Probus, Quintilius, Herennius Etruscus, Hostilian, Aurelian (&Ulpia Severina), Claudius Gothicus.

Among them (when the picture is enlarged) the figures of, for example, Quintilius, Claudius and Probus can still be found daily on the streets of Serbian cities.

William Kirk gives a warning today for anyone deciding to 3D print firearms or firearms parts, as it appears that several tech companies will not only try to prevent this activity, but might report you to the authorities as well.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued a powerful decision in favor of the state’s preemption laws, which had been attacked by anti-gun supporters.

The discredited, scandal-ridden smear factory known as the SPLC is about to publish a hit piece doxxing several of our “Not the Bee� writers who wished to remain anonymous so they could speak freely, without fear. The SPLC extracted sensitive information from our site, then used… pic.twitter.com/toQLfga5SU

— Seth Dillon (@SethDillon) November 19, 2024

Who will be the first Republican mayor to issue letters of marque to citizens that want to volunteer to help deport illegals? https://t.co/rw3PDRUTZP

— Fenið�•� Ammunition (@FenixAmmunition) November 21, 2024

Your rights do not cease to exist at New York’s border, period. pic.twitter.com/IcNB3LjQqX

— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) November 21, 2024

How much of what the film claims to know about Rome is real?

Reading this article one gets the impression that we don’t really know much about it:

https://www.unz.com/article/how-fake-is-roman-antiquity/

Maybe you shouldn’t believe everything you read in unz.com.

Does anybody else find it ironic that we’re debating whether it’s historically accurate for Denzel Washington to be in the movie when he’s playing a bisexual bad guy that gets buttfu*#ed by a centaur in the movie?

Visigoths, Vandals and Ostrogoths were Serbian speaking tribes, not Germanic.
Do you know when the Germanic tribes came from Asia to Europe? There are many historical forgeries, such as that the ancestors of today’s Germans were Aryans and Goths. Today’s Germans got this name from the natives of today’s Germany, and I have already established that not a single German at unz knows the meaning of their name.

Emperor Justinian and his general Belisarius were Serbs.

Really confusing.

Muslims translated only some parts that were useful- Galen, Euclid & parts of Aristotle & Plotinus. They did not inherit the culture, from sculpture and aesthetics to spiritual orientation.

The Latin west was simply richer & priests copied manuscripts that frequently run contrary to their beliefs. That’s why works of Tacitus, Caesar, Virgil, Horace, Lucretius, Juvenal, Ovid, …survive. They absorbed pseudo-Dionysius through Scotus Erigena, the most original thinker between 500 and 1000 in the world. They also developed visual arts, especially in manuscripts & later sculptures, as well as music around 900.- Hildegard of Bingen.

Both Islam and Byzantium clearly lagged in the intellectual production from the 500 to 1300, although, especially Islam, was more technologically advanced.

But mentally, except a few fields like parts of nascent sciences, they were limited by their dogmas and not interested in the varieties of human mental experience.

Islamic best minds were not bold nor imaginative enough. They did have a golden age with better food & comparable architecture, perhaps better sewer system etc.- but they don’t have civilizational continuity with what was Greco-Roman Antiguity, neither in letters, thought, unquenchable humanism, artistic culture and human values.

Islam & Byzantium remained mired in mysticism and oriental despotism.

Especially after Europe exploded after 1300. Dante, Eckhart, Hildegard and Giotto were active before anything happened to Constantinople.

Romans also invented self healing concrete some of which is still standing 2000 years later. But it’s hard to make a movie about concrete.

There are no bad plots, just lazy writers and directors.

I’m thinking some time lapse photography might be useful…

It’s a shame that desire to please and ingratiate a politically correct academia and those who sponsor it leads to spurious race science. Thankfully it may be passing. For example, some more recent constructions of Cheddar Man in England have moved from portraying him with black skin to merely being dark, more in keeping with Early European farmers out of Anatolia and Persia.

https://twitter.com/Sulkalmakh/status/1858163182440693941/photo/2

There were certainly Blacks in the ancient classical world. Cleopatra for instance is depicted with several distinctly Black handmaidens and Black gladiators are known, but while the Nubian and Kush kingdoms are interesting by themselves, they weren’t the driving forces in ancient Egypt’s history.

Our legacy media has lost the trust of half the country. Organizations like the Met Museum shouldn’t presume on public trust. They aren’t the gatekeepers they once were and at some point, a loss of confidence in the ability to carry out their mission will have disappointing consequences among those who appreciate them. And for what? Conflating East Africa, along with Berber tribesmen and Semitic colonists in North Africa with the entire continent is just a con game in the end. We can appreciate pre-conquest societies in the Americas for their own sake and we should adopt that view in Africa.

For most of Early Middle Ages Europe was illiterate.

No, it wasn’t. There were monks, scribes, clerks, even scholars. Alcuin didn’t reinvent the alphabet.

You are carrying on the “dark ages” fallacy. Next you’ll be telling us Columbus “discovered” the roundness of the world.

But it’s hard to make a movie about concrete.

I’m thinking some time lapse photography might be useful…

Was Brutalism a film genre as well?

Maybe Scott’s next effort as a director will be a sequel toThe Duellists. Scott could cast Denzel Washington as the elderly Feraud.

D’Hubert and Feraud could continue their pistol duels in Vibrant America, typically missing each other but unfortunately hitting everyone else, illustrating Sailer’s Law of Mass Shootings.

The Duellists – Final Duel: Pistols in the Ruins

Or their parents may have had kids with a trophy wife from the North.

I have seen many of them have children with blond Russians, Polish, Romanian, Ukrainian women.

I just threw up a little in my mouth.

Can’t wait for the second commercial, when it breaks down in the middle of the countryside.

Exactly, bravo Steve. Their descendants are now playing basketball in the NBA. Emperor Maximinus Trax was 8 feet tall (NBA: Manute Bol – 7ft 7in, Yao Ming – 7ft 6in)

For example, all the Tetrarchy emperors were Serbs – Diocletian, Maximian, Severus, Galerius, Maxentius, M.Dazza, Constance Chlorus (Constantine’s father), Constantine, Licinius, etc., etc. Justin, Justinian (and his general Belisarius), etc.

The next 6 min video shows generated faces of several emperors from the Tetrarchy period. They were all Serbs, but few people know that.

It is a great benefit for those who follow Steve’s texts to be able to identify some forgeries related to the Roman Empire, and there are really a lot of them in the comments of some readers.