Julius Caesar was Captured By Pirates, Then Freed, Then Crucified Them

[kangarunner]

https://www.britannica.com/story/the-ti ... by-pirates

This just proves that great leaders are ruthless assholes. Trump. Putin. Jinping.

Pirates captured him when he was 25 years old and then after the ransom was paid, he was freed by them, and then that motherf***er went back and captured them and had them all crucified.

In 75 BCE a band of Cilician pirates in the Aegean Sea captured a 25-year-old Roman nobleman named Julius Caesar, who had been on his way to study oratory in Rhodes. As the story is related in Plutarch’s Parallel Lives, the capture was a minor inconvenience for Caesar but very bad luck for the pirates.

From the start, Caesar simply refused to behave like a captive. When the pirates told him that they had set his ransom at the sum of 20 talents, he laughed at them for not knowing who it was they had captured and suggested that 50 talents would be a more appropriate amount. He then sent his entourage out to gather the money and settled in for a period of captivity. The pirates must have been dumbfounded. It’s not every day that a hostage negotiates his ransom up.

From the start, Caesar simply refused to behave like a captive. When the pirates told him that they had set his ransom at the sum of 20 talents, he laughed at them for not knowing who it was they had captured and suggested that 50 talents would be a more appropriate amount. He then sent his entourage out to gather the money and settled in for a period of captivity. The pirates must have been dumbfounded. It’s not every day that a hostage negotiates his ransom up.

Caesar made himself at home among the pirates, bossing them around and shushing them when he wanted to sleep. He made them listen to the speeches and poems that he was composing in his unanticipated downtime and berated them as illiterates if they weren’t sufficiently impressed. He would participate in the pirates’ games and exercises, but he always addressed them as if he were the commander and they were his subordinates. From time to time he would threaten to have them all crucified. They took it as a joke from their overconfident, slightly nutty captive.

It wasn’t a joke. After 38 days, the ransom was delivered and Caesar went free. Astonishingly, Caesar managed to raise a naval force in Miletus—despite holding no public or military office—and he set out in pursuit of the pirates. He found them still camped at the island where he had been held, and he brought them back as his captives. When the governor of Asia seemed to vacillate about punishing them, Caesar went to the prison where they were being held and had them all crucified.

[MarcosZeitola]

Funny how men in Caesar's age were absolute badasses, joining the military as teenagers, learning how to fight, ride a horse, throw a spear, studying military tactics and philosophy... going out to trade and conquer lands, adding provinces to the Empire.

Now all we have is a bunch of wankers crying over the fact that they can't get laid and girls are mean and "the Jews" are to blame for literally everything that ails us, rather than their own low testosterone, complete and utter lack and ambition and their pointless hedonistic little cucked lifestyles devoid of fire and passion and consisting entirely of video games, junk food and masturbation to various sorts of degenerate anime trash and perverted pornography.

Men like Caesar were "built different". All we have today is pathetic whiners and a few loud-mouthed charlatans like Tate taking advantage of said pathetic whiners by swindling them out of their parents' money with dreams of wealth and success and Hustler Academy gibberish. Oh, how our species has fallen in the last five or so decades. It's pitiful.

[galii]

Funny how men in Caesar's age were absolute badasses, joining the military as teenagers, learning how to fight, ride a horse, throw a spear, studying military tactics and philosophy... going out to trade and conquer lands, adding provinces to the Empire.

Now all we have is a bunch of wankers crying over the fact that they can't get laid and girls are mean and "the Jews" are to blame for literally everything that ails us, rather than their own low testosterone, complete and utter lack and ambition and their pointless hedonistic little cucked lifestyles devoid of fire and passion and consisting entirely of video games, junk food and masturbation to various sorts of degenerate anime trash and perverted pornography.

Men like Caesar were "built different". All we have today is pathetic whiners and a few loud-mouthed charlatans like Tate taking advantage of said pathetic whiners by swindling them out of their parents' money with dreams of wealth and success and Hustler Academy gibberish. Oh, how our species has fallen in the last five or so decades. It's pitiful.

On the other hand Romans kicked the Greek's ass. The bad thing is that the Romans did not care too much about science. One could make the point that they helped to 'destroy' Greek science. So we had to wait 1500 years to get to that level again.

I have to disagree with many things other have said here. It's absolutely true that Greek history and culture is preserved in Roman historiography and literature, but it was mainly preserved by... wait a sec... Greeks. As always, I must note with a centain admiration how Gibbon successfully erased Byzantium from history.

Studying classics you are surprised when you realize how little of Greek literature was translated by the Romans into Latin during Antiquity. You can make a list and I assure you it's pretty short. The first translation was the Odusia (ie. the Odyssey in Latin) made by Livius Andronicus (240 BC). In the philosophical field, the only one of Plato's work translated into Latin was the Timaeus (Timaios). The first fragmentary translation was made by Cicero, who had to coin neologisms and struggle with such an unsophisticated language like Latin in order to convey the convoluted dialogue and its 'multi-layered' meaning. This happened also to Lucretius, even if the DRN was an original work. The second and most important translation of the Timaios was that of Chalcidius (V century, probably) a Christian; thus the only work Early Medieval Latin Europe had of Plato was the Timaeus. About scientific works, the situation is not better: some medical works by Soranus of Ephesus, a famous gynecologist, were translated and preserved by Caecilius Aurelianus and a certain Muscio, again in the Late Empire era; the Christian Severinus Boethius made a loose translation of the Introduction to Arithmetic by Nycomachus of Gerasa. Boethius is mostly famous for his project to translate the entire corpus of Aristotle and Plato, something never done in the centuries before (except the Timaeus, like I said): he only translated a part of Aristotle's Logical works - and the Isagoge by Porphyryus- before being arrested by the Ostrogothic King of Italy Theodoric on account of treason: he was executed, but left us his philosophical masterpiece, De Consolatio Philosophiae, written in prison. And... that's it. I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but you will not find more than 20 translations before the end of Late Antiquity. Now, everyone knows that at least the Roman elite were bilingual: this, however, doesn't mean a patrician could read everything in Greek. They were taught how to understand literary work, and how to speak Greek: but almost noone in the Pars Occidentalis could understand technical (philosophical and scientific) Greek works. Just think about this: how many scientists of Roman culture and language were born in the West? Can you name just 10 Western Roman astronomer or mathematician or physician? We can find some philosophers, of the Stoic (the Roman version of Stoicism) and Academic skeptic schools; but the dominant philosophy from II century on was Neoplatonism- thriving only in the East. The Romans were not really interested in diffusing these ideas in the West.

Now, about preservetion, I'll put it briefly: almost all the philosophical works, the poetry and literature, the historiography, and the scientific works in Greek survived from Antiquity were copied and preserved by the Byzantines. That's why we can read Homer, Aristotle, Lukianos of Samosata, Euripides, Galen, Euclid etc with the original Greek text in the front page. It's true that some scientific works survive only in Arabic (and Syriac also): not because the Byzantines didn't like science, it's just that the Greek copies were all lost for various reasons. Some works survived only in Arabic are the Sphaerica by Menelaus of Alexandia, the Sphaerics by Theodosius of Bytinia, books V-VII of the Conics by Apollonius of Perga, and others.

https://www.reddit.com/r/history/commen ... d_culture/

[MrMan]

'Virile' is related to 'virtue.' In Greek philosophy, ethics had to do with what kind of man a man ought to be. For upper class Romans, I suppose it was expected that they would dominate others, conquer their enemies, etc.

These man had kidnapped him. It's not like they were innocent. Yes, his reaction was harsh, especially considering that he was already free.

It is also possible that he was considering public office or other public roles in society. A low ransom may not have been flattering, and he might have considered a high ransom good for his public image.

Just imagine if you, as a young single man, signed up for some sorority charity event and the girls had to bid to go on a date with you. The average bachelor gets a $40 to $100 bid, but someone takes you out for just $25, in front of a big crowd of hundreds of people. That would be insulting wouldn't it?

[kangarunner]

Funny how men in Caesar's age were absolute badasses, joining the military as teenagers, learning how to fight, ride a horse, throw a spear, studying military tactics and philosophy... going out to trade and conquer lands, adding provinces to the Empire.

Now all we have is a bunch of wankers crying over the fact that they can't get laid and girls are mean and "the Jews" are to blame for literally everything that ails us, rather than their own low testosterone, complete and utter lack and ambition and their pointless hedonistic little cucked lifestyles devoid of fire and passion and consisting entirely of video games, junk food and masturbation to various sorts of degenerate anime trash and perverted pornography.

Men like Caesar were "built different". All we have today is pathetic whiners and a few loud-mouthed charlatans like Tate taking advantage of said pathetic whiners by swindling them out of their parents' money with dreams of wealth and success and Hustler Academy gibberish. Oh, how our species has fallen in the last five or so decades. It's pitiful.

Thank you for this reply Senator. And the "men" of today are even purchasing human size latex dolls to have sex with.

This reminds me of a speech by Zan Perrion. In it, he says we are in the "fight of our lives" to be the best we can be. He said that all great men go through a "renunciation" of the things that hold him back. And its our duty to fight for what we believe to be the best for ourselves.

[WanderingProtagonist]

Funny how men in Caesar's age were absolute badasses, joining the military as teenagers, learning how to fight, ride a horse, throw a spear, studying military tactics and philosophy... going out to trade and conquer lands, adding provinces to the Empire.

Now all we have is a bunch of wankers crying over the fact that they can't get laid and girls are mean and "the Jews" are to blame for literally everything that ails us, rather than their own low testosterone, complete and utter lack and ambition and their pointless hedonistic little cucked lifestyles devoid of fire and passion and consisting entirely of video games, junk food and masturbation to various sorts of degenerate anime trash and perverted pornography.

Men like Caesar were "built different". All we have today is pathetic whiners and a few loud-mouthed charlatans like Tate taking advantage of said pathetic whiners by swindling them out of their parents' money with dreams of wealth and success and Hustler Academy gibberish. Oh, how our species has fallen in the last five or so decades. It's pitiful.

That's because the Jews are responsible for everything that's currently going on even dudes in the damn military are calling them out, if they were around in Caesars time doing the same shit they are doing today, he would be just another bitch owned by them. Japan had plenty of men who did a lot of stuff at an early age. But who the hell gives a shit about conquering lands and all that today? Only War Mongers do that stuff. Plus teenagers still enlist in the military, although anyone who joins up with the military isn't a "badass" they are f***ing stupid, and I don't envy them. There are no benefits what so ever fighting in wars today unless you want to be traumatized for life or mentally ruined. Read Lucas Gage, he'll tell you exactly how he felt about enlisting in the military and it wasn't fun.

Things are also different today than it was in Caesars time. If he were alive today he wouldn't be able to just muscle in and conquer lands that easily against nuclear powers. Even Native Americans knew what was up when the white men came with better weapons to fight them. They didn't even need any skill, guns against bows and arrows you knew who was winning that war. You can argue that guns is a wuss way of fighting because it guarantees you victory against anyone using inferior weapons up against such weaponry. But let's look at how things currently are and in the environment compared to how it was back then.

You also forget that men in Caesars generation weren't being brainwashed and abused on a 24/7 basis. He was allowed to be a man without it being used against him. It's not this generations fault they turned out how they are, you literately have kids today who are having their genders and everything altered and f***ed with. How many trans kids existed in Caesars time? I bet zero.

And I don't think it's so much as guys complain because they can't get laid. Getting laid is easy if you are willing to just pay for it. Hell I had plenty of chances to in my early teens with girls I had dated but simply refused to do it due to being shy or unprepared at the time.
Besides most of those so called "Badass" men you are praising were closet faggots anyway or raping their own mothers, sisters, and everything else in between. Just like Alexander The Great, despite all of his accomplishments. He was still a homo! He conquered a lot of land but he was a rainbow pride bitch before pride was even a thing taking it up his colonizing asshole day and night.

The only difference is back then they didn't have trans people if they did they weren't as vast as how it is today in the world where every country have such people among their population. Every generation also changes including how people approach warfare and so on. Even in Caesars time period it's not like every man went out conquering lands, knew how to fight, ride horses, use weapons etc. They still had men at the bottom even in his timeline.

I'm sure they had complaints about life and women too, they just didn't have the internet to do it on. SO I think this was pretty much a very unfair judgement of men today at least judging from the standards of all those decades ago. You made it sound like Caesars time period had nothing but men like him with all of his capabilities. But a lot of those guys were even dominated by women like Cleopatra that make them do anything.

When they weren't being dominated by powerful wealthy women, they were f***ing other men or little boys in the ass. All that "tough" guy shit doesn't impress me about the past when those eras were full of homosexual men parading around as "badasses." Rome had all kinds of stuff going on that caused them to collapse. Lets stop pretending that these men were all that different from men of the modern age aside from a few things that separate them apart like they were far more willing to defend their territory and fight off invaders.

The thing is most conquerors today don't fight with their own military anymore either. Putin, Kim, etc who are in command of their own military powers. None of them would pick up a gun and fight side by side with their soldiers. The whole way men are built and rule lands is so much different now. So if anything you should have been attacking the leaders who are too much of a coward to fight alongside of their soldiers, and are also guilty of intentionally mentally weakening their own civilization. How many people back then in Caesars time period were trying to purposely wreck and destroy their own civilization aside from a few shit decisions and poor choices they made?