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Caligula’s Garden of Delights, Unearthed and Restored
NYTimes ^ | 1/12/2021 | Franz Lidz

Posted on 01/16/2021 4:05:22 PM PST by LibWhacker

The fourth of the 12 Caesars, Caligula — officially, Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus — was a capricious, combustible first-century populist remembered, perhaps unfairly, as the empire’s most tyrannical ruler. As reported by Suetonius, the Michael Wolff of ancient Rome, he never forgot a slight, slept only a few hours a night and married several times, lastly to a woman named Milonia.

During the four years that Caligula occupied the Roman throne, his favorite hideaway was an imperial pleasure garden called Horti Lamiani, the [fake news edited out] of its day. The vast residential compound spread out on the Esquiline Hill, one of the seven hills on which the city was originally built, in the area around the current Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II.

There, just on the edge of the city, villas, shrines and banquet halls were set in carefully constructed “natural” landscapes. An early version of a wildlife park, the Horti Lamiani featured orchards, fountains, terraces, a bath house adorned with precious colored marble from all over the Mediterranean, and exotic animals, some of which were used, as in the Colosseum, for private circus games.

When Caligula was assassinated in his palace on the Palatine Hill in 41 A.D., his body was carried to the Horti Lamiani, where he was cremated and hastily buried before being moved to the Mausoleum of Augustus on the Campus Martius, north of the Capitoline Hill. According to Suetonius, the elite garden was haunted by Caligula’s ghost.

[*snip*]

The dig, carried out beneath the rubble of a condemned 19th-century apartment complex, yielded gems, coins, ceramics, jewelry, pottery, cameo glass, a theater mask, seeds of plants such as citron, apricot and acacia that had been imported from Asia, and bones of peacocks, deer, lions, bears and ostriches.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: caligula; delights; emperorgaius; garden; godsgravesglyphs; hortilamiani; romanempire; suetonius; unearthed
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1 posted on 01/16/2021 4:05:22 PM PST by LibWhacker
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To: LibWhacker

Leftists tyrannical hero.


2 posted on 01/16/2021 4:07:11 PM PST by madison10 (Democracy dies in darkness.)
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To: LibWhacker

So now the lefties are going to further whitewash the history of their precious ancient Rome. Hideous.


3 posted on 01/16/2021 4:12:01 PM PST by familyop
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To: LibWhacker
Watching a bio on Caligula. The first seven months of his reign, he was actually an excellent emperor. He was in Rome after Tiberius spent the last ten years of his reign at some coastal resort.

Then, Caligula came down with some near-fatal illness. When he recovered, he was Washington-Insider-inspiration we all know and love.

4 posted on 01/16/2021 4:13:37 PM PST by MuttTheHoople (What if the Lord sent COVID-19 to immunize the world from something more deadly?)
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To: LibWhacker
> ...married several times, lastly to a woman named Milonia.

I have to wonder if the NYTimes included this mention only because the woman's name is vaguely reminiscent of "Melania" and they want to slander the First Lady any way they can.

5 posted on 01/16/2021 4:15:03 PM PST by dayglored ("Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.")
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To: LibWhacker; Lazamataz

Are live tours being organized for re-enactors?


6 posted on 01/16/2021 4:15:06 PM PST by Candor7 (Obama Fascism:http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/barack_obama_the_quintessentia_1.html)
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To: LibWhacker

Notice how they are trying so very hard to compare him to President Trump. They don’t even try to disguise it. What disgusting POS the left is.
I don’t usually use that type of language even with initials. So sorry if I scalded some delicate eyes.


7 posted on 01/16/2021 4:16:29 PM PST by GrandmaPatriot
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To: dayglored

Good catch. They probably wouldn’t have mentioned it if her name had been Hillerania or Moochellia!


8 posted on 01/16/2021 4:18:09 PM PST by LibWhacker
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To: LibWhacker

I saw the movie that the Penthouse guy financed. About a third of the audience walked out.


9 posted on 01/16/2021 4:19:06 PM PST by dynachrome ( “The people have spoken . . . and they must be punished.” Ed Koch. Sauve Qui Peut)
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To: GrandmaPatriot

Yep, totally disgusting, sorry. I wouldn’t have posted it if it wasn’t a topic of interest for a lot of Freepers. I despise the NYSlimes.


10 posted on 01/16/2021 4:21:07 PM PST by LibWhacker
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To: dynachrome

Glad I missed it then! HITH did the Left seize the news and entertainment industries in this country?

If our country ever gets out of this pickle, let’s make sure there are strictly enforced laws against it ever happening again, ok?


11 posted on 01/16/2021 4:26:45 PM PST by LibWhacker
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To: LibWhacker

Thanks, you FORCED me to click on the link to see what the redacted Fake News was! LOL!

When I saw the word “populist”, I knew they would be taking a another swipe at Trump.


12 posted on 01/16/2021 4:33:52 PM PST by Fresh Wind ("This claim about election fraud is disputed.")
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To: SunkenCiv

p


13 posted on 01/16/2021 4:35:40 PM PST by SteveH
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To: LibWhacker

According to the references and resources I remember reading, Caligula was insane, probably a form of delusional mental state. He was said to have reenacted a mythological story about Jupiter, by slaughtering his pregnant wife, and cannibalizing her and her fetus. If you added lying to the mix, he would be the perfect woke Classical Democrat hero.


14 posted on 01/16/2021 4:39:29 PM PST by Richard Axtell (So, everything has gone to hell, what did I tell ya?)
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To: LibWhacker

The name Caligula was a derisive taunt which actually meant “little boots”. Apparently in his early days when he was expected to rape and plunder small villages with his guards he wasn’t much of a fighter and the big brawny soldiers made fun of his tiny feet behind his back. Of course, once he was installed as emperor they wouldn’t dare call him that on penalty of torture and execution.

The period after the assassination of Julius Caesar and the eventual rise of his adopted son Octavius to become Caesar Augustus was a cautionary tale of law and order breaking down with the failure of the Roman Republic in 39 BC. There was no longer any clear successor to Augustus so they propped up ambitious thugs and connected idiots like Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and finally Nero who really completed the destruction of the Roman Republic.


15 posted on 01/16/2021 4:42:20 PM PST by Dave Wright
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To: LibWhacker

Got the BBC production of I, CLAUDIUS on DVD. Also read the books (I Claudius and Claudius the God) including Suetonius’ book.


16 posted on 01/16/2021 4:46:29 PM PST by Ruy Dias de Bivar (Democrats have declared us to be THE OBSOLETE MAN in the Twilight Zone.)
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To: LibWhacker

Interesting timing there, NYT. putting lipstick on a pig in imminent display.


17 posted on 01/16/2021 4:49:05 PM PST by stanne
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To: LibWhacker

It had Malcolm Mcdowell and John Gielgud in it. Gielgud died early in the film. Then it degenerated into an x-rated movie. Me and my ex brother in law laughed through out.


18 posted on 01/16/2021 5:16:31 PM PST by dynachrome ( “The people have spoken . . . and they must be punished.” Ed Koch. Sauve Qui Peut)
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To: Dave Wright

“The name Caligula was a derisive taunt which actually meant “little boots”. Apparently in his early days when he was expected to rape and plunder small villages with his guards he wasn’t much of a fighter and the big brawny soldiers made fun of his tiny feet behind his back.”

Actually, it was an affectionate nickname nickname given to him by soldiers as a child because of the miniature uniform he wore. He was only two to four years old at the time.


19 posted on 01/16/2021 6:19:08 PM PST by vladimir998 ( Apparently I'm still living in your head rent free. At least now it isn't empty.)
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To: LibWhacker

Wait. Huh? When was DC buried?


20 posted on 01/16/2021 6:22:42 PM PST by The MAGA-Deplorian (It is the Trump way! It is the only way!)
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