I am a mighty powerful

Something about the Legendary Fish.

thought that was Laois

(glancing around in mild bemusement)

Seriously, people. Where do you think we even got the word "sponsor" from?

In its original usage it meant a guarantor: someone who promised you that you were going to get something out of what they were doing.

Throwing a ludus / game or a series of games was expensive. Local (or national) Roman politicians put down good money to pay for the rental of the event space (you think the Colosseum was cheap to rent? Think again. The Imperials who built it liked to make their money back...), the wages (and overtime!) of the hundreds of venue support staff, the fees required by the fighting talent and the schools that owned them (or their own management, if they were free), and so forth.

Whoever was footing the bill for a given Game (or sequence of Games) was formally known by the title sponsor, and got to parade around the arena at the beginning of the game to remind people in the stands just who was fulfilling their civic duty by throwing this entertainment for them. The message was, "I'm doing something for you. Next election, don't forget to do something for me!"

And it was always political. Never lose sight of that. (Especially when a local political party promises to build you a nice new stadium if you elect them. The more some things change, the more they stay the same...)

(cc: @petermorwood) 😏

The individual gladiators and charioteers also had sponsorship, in the modern product-placement sense.

Ads were written on blank gable-ends often painted white for the purpose...

...and while the ones in that pic are political slogans, this one is an ad for the wines available at that shop...

...including prices ranging from two to four Asses.

The As was a Roman coin, so you lot at the back can stop giggling.

Other ads were outright endorsements (with appropriate payment, of course) and included stuff like "Felix the Thracian, five-time winner at the Saturnalia Games, says 'Tiburnian Olive Oil Keeps My Sword-Hand Swift!' "

Or "Diocles, Top Driver for the Green Team, uses Scaurus-brand garum at every meal!"

Ridley Scott was told about this during the making of "Gladiator", but ignored it as "unrealistic" - then went on to double the size of the Colosseum "for artistic reasons".

Considering how he's treated historical accuracy in later films, my response to his dismissal of graffiti and ads is this:

I made up Tiburnian olive oil, so it's (probably) fictional, but Scaurus-brand garum was real, and famous enough to appear by name in Pompeii mosaics.

Evidently the name carried weight, just like "Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce".

There are other Worcester sauces, but L & P is THE Worcester sauce - or so they would like you to think - and used to be advertised as "not genuine without this signature".

Whether this was suggesting that all non- L & P Worcester sauces were in some way fake, or because there was a rash of Worcester-style sauces packaged to resemble L & P as closely as possible, I don't know,

However, as regards overly similar packaging (deceptive rather than outright deceitful, relying on accident or inattention more than fakery) take a look at this row of Ancient to Modern L & P...

...compared to another sauce called Henderson's Relish, and note that one label, AFAIK for US sale, refers to it as Worcestershire Sauce.

It's from a different county - Yorkshire not Worcestershire - and is made to a recipe so different it can be marketed as vegan, which real Worcester isn't because of anchovies, so it most emphatically isn't any kind of Worcester sauce at all.

And yet there's that bottle shape, also the label design and colour, so I wonder if, way back when, it was someone's deliberate choice.

The other sauce from Yorkshire is "Yorkshire Relish", made both in the usual thin style and also a thick version like HP Sauce (aka Brown Sauce or Steak Sauce).

Although the label isn't orange, both versions have easy-identification bottle shapes (long-neck cylindrical for thin, short-neck square for thick) characteristic for their contents.

It was apparently like that 2000 years ago, because archaeological finds...

...suggest that the one-handled, high-necked "footed" amphora shown on those mosaics was THE standard shape for garum-jars, thus an instantly recognisable form of product packaging.

Zoom in on each photo, and you'll see writing on the jars. Whether either or both read "Scauri" I can't tell, but if they're from Pompeii I'd make a small wager (maybe even, ahem, bet my As) that Aulus Umbricis Scaurus did indeed put his name - "not genuine without this signature" - on any jars which left his factory.

This one is ours. The shape isn't exact (too short) but pretty familiar...

...but though @dduane and I have racked our brains for what was originally in it (not garum!) we've come up blank. Currently it's full of lemon-infused olive oil, but if we ever buy some modern garum, we'll have somewhere obvious to put it. :->

*****

That short-lived but excellent series "Rome" got it just right. This ad for free wine and cakes is both commercial and political, so covers all bases - and ends with a hint that he gets to read that bloody Guild of Millers bloody slogan Every Bloody Time... :->

It cannot be overstated how much insight A. Umbricius Scaurus' obsession with branding has given us into Roman advertising.

In Pompeii, where he lived and had his factory, there are literally stones and small mosaics IN THE ROAD with his ads on them. The level of dedication the Condiment King of Pompeii put into his advertising, putting it into permanent and quasi-permanent forms, speaks to how much money and effort in Roman society went into advertising. Makes me wonder just how many wooden signs might have been about that were lost in the eruption.

wet rat

throwback to 4 years ago when Rooney outed my younger sibling to me

You want to call your House rep now and tell them Trump needs to be impeached immediately for defying a Supreme Court order (re: Kilmar Abrego Garcia), which functionally voids our constitution and means no one in America has rights anymore.

I am not exaggerating.

As of now, anybody can be disappeared, no due process, no recourse. Trump is openly disregarding a Supreme Court order and says he’ll send US citizens to El Salvador.

This is not a drill.

Call your House rep and tell them they must impeach. Tell them if they cannot bring themselves to impeach, they must resign. A more open and shut case to impeach is not possible. Trump and his administration are saying openly, in public, that anybody can be kidnapped by ICE, even in error, and disappeared permanently.

Call your senators, too, and tell them to support impeachment (it goes to them once it passes a majority House vote).

"Hello, my name is _______ and I am a constituent from _______. My address is ________.

I am reaching out today to urge Representative ______ to call for the impeachment of President Trump due to his refusal to comply with the Supreme Court's April 10th decision regarding Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was unlawfully deported and has been charged with no crime. As Justice Sotomayor stated, this inaction implies the government's ability to 'deport and incarcerate any person, including U.S. citizens, without legal consequence, so long as it does so before a court can intervene.' This precedent is unconstitutional, highly illegal, and grounds for impeachment. Every individual, regardless of immigration status, must be guaranteed a right to due process.

Representative _____, I urge you to stand on the right side of history today by calling for President Trump's impeachment. This administration can not be allowed to continue unilaterally defying the checks and balances that are intrinsic to our government."

You can also find your representative and senators and their phone numbers on https://5calls.org/

Please don't be afraid of calling. Your job would just be to be a data point, not to sound perfect. Here's some info on why calling is effective.

Fun fact: Cheetahs only attack prey that runs

jesus that is good to know.

Yup, that’s the point you just stay still and let it do whatever the fuck it wants that doesn’t involved you getting eaten. 

REALLY FUN FACT for big cats cheetahs are fucking docile as shit

my grandfather ran a cheetah sanctuary in south africa and he’d just lie with them and sleep among them and they’d rub against him and chirp at him they’re big fucking babies

Another Fun Fact: Cheetahs are incredibly nervous animals. One of the (many) reason’s they’re going extinct is that cheetahs are so sensitive and nervous, some of them are literally too nervous to breed. Others will breed, but stress themselves out so much, they’ll lose their cubs. So zoos with breeding programs had to figure out how to make cheetahs comfortable enough to first of all, get laid and secondly - not spazz themselves into miscarrying. So what’d they do? They gave the cheetah’s their very own Service Dogs! The dogs make them feel safe, protected and secure!

AJHHHHFDDGHH SO PRECIOUS

this post just got so much better

THIS IS OFFICIALLY MY FAVOURITE POST

this is emmett and cullen they are best friends

This is the greatest thing I’ve seen all day.

Dogs are truly angels.

so THATS why these cheetah ft dogo pics exist

the anxiety cat

Also! Cheetahs are not in fact classified as big cats, they are simply very large lesser cats, due to the fact that they purr, meow, chirp, and cannot roar. Also many cheetahs have learned to recognize wildlife photographers are friends and not foes, so they will just come up to people and be friendly occasionally as pictured at the top of the chain. Some will even leave their Cubs with photographers to look after while they hunt. So. Yeah. Cheetahs are great

this works because cheetahs are actually fairly social animals, and they look to members of their group for context on how worried they should be about any given Situation. but since cheetahs are also nervous social animals, they can work each other into an anxiety spiral pretty easily over things like “being in an enclosed habitat” and “there’s a guy over there”.

so by introducing a dog as a member of the group, the cheetahs will now look to the dog for context clues on how worried they should be! and the dog Is Not Worried At All, Thanks, so the cheetahs think everything must be chill even if they were personally unsure about it, and they stop being so freaked out about literally everything.

Cheetah: oh god what’s going on how are we feeling weird spotless cheetah

Dog: :) fine, thanks

Cheetah: :) oh, okay

Wasn’t expecting this of all posts to be the first tumblr post I’ve ever seen crest 2mil notes, but I’ll take it

Art by Kamura

Cory Booker has been talking in the senate for over 20 hours now

He’s not filibustering. He’s protesting the current administration.

For those of you from outside the US or those of you who didn’t pay attention in government class, in the US senate there’s really no limit to the amount of time a senator can speak. So sometimes if they don’t want a bill to pass they just. Don’t stop talking. To hopefully get past the deadline to vote on a bill. This is called filibustering.

Senator Cory Booker isn’t doing that. He’s disrupting “the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able”. Just in protest. This doesn’t usually happen.

He’s less than 20 minutes away from breaking the record of the longest speech given on the senate floor

Cory Booker has officially broken Strom Thurmond’s record for longest speech on the senate floor and he’s still going

For those of you wondering what he’s been talking about this whole time, his staff wrote down a bunch of stuff for him to read like stories from people across the political spectrum opposed to what the administration is doing. He’s also been telling personal anecdotes about meeting important civil rights leaders and other democratic senators have been pausing him for “questions” but the questions have been as long as a small speech and have both served the purpose of giving him a second to sit down and updating him on the news that he’s been missing while he’s been talking.

He has yielded the floor at 25 hrs and 4 mins. His eyes are so wide they look like they’re going to bug out of his skull so I don’t blame him for stopping. He said to go out and get in some good trouble.

jezus christ im done

ill get to the godtiers l8r

@elodieunderglass At NO POINT in this video did I know what was going to happen next

Oh wow. Thank you so much for thinking of me!!

@elodieunderglass I will never stop following you because people send you the BEST SHIT

I am extremely lucky to be the lightning rod for such energy, it’s true!

Booboo wheel crash no survivors

X marks the spot! Thats where the pirates gold is!

Take me away, soft Norwegian travel butch

love this vibe

a gentle reminder

Idk

this is my favourite addition to this post by far everyone go home. this freak won the post

It’s practically 2014 and you guys still don’t know how to google if an article is real or not before giving it 100,000 notes