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What ridiculous history fact is your favorite? (lemmy.world)

submitted 4 months ago by TehBamski@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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[–] Skua@kbin.earth 97 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

The oldest recorded words from any woman living in (what is today) Scotland are someone telling the empress of Rome, to her face, that they fuck better than her

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 24 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

That checks out for Scotland.

[–] shinigamiookamiryuu@lemm.ee 15 points 4 months ago (1 children)

TIL Rome once had an empress.

[–] Skua@kbin.earth 40 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Empress-consort rather than empress-regnant, I'm afraid. She was Julia Domna, wife of emperor Septimus Severus and accompanying him on his attempt to bring the north of Britain under his control

[–] Skua@kbin.earth 17 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

That said, there absolutely were empresses-regnant of the Byzantine empire, and there's no reason to consider that a separate entity. Irene Sarantapechaena and about four or five others absolutely were ruling Roman empresses

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

TIL. Did the Greeks get less patriarchal over time? In the classical era they were Taliban-tier and complained they even had to see women.

[–] Skua@kbin.earth 8 points 4 months ago

I'm afraid I am completely unqualified to answer this beyond that Irene's reign was a very messy one, ending with a rebellion against her. Her own son (the legal heir to the throne for who she was originally just regent) also rebelled against her earlier, and she had his eyes put out. It seems to me like Irene specifically was just absolutely ruthless enough to get past whatever societal rules may have been levelled against her

[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 10 points 4 months ago

I had to look that up, it's just too good to pass.

(Cassius Dio, contemporary historian) tells us that the empress teased her companion (the wife of Argentocoxos, a Caledonian chief) by saying that Caledonian women indulge in a sexual free-for-all, sharing their beds with different men while making no attempt to conceal their adultery. To a respectable aristocratic lady like Julia, such brazen promiscuity would indeed have seemed worthy of comment. We then see the wife of Argentocoxos swiftly responding with what Dio calls ‘a witty remark’ of her own:

“We fulfil the demands of nature in a much better way than do you Roman women; for we consort openly with the best men, whereas you let yourselves be debauched in secret by the vilest.”

A bit further below, however

The consensus view among present-day historians is that he simply invented the speech quoted above.

Sauce - https://senchus.wordpress.com/2019/08/14/julia-and-the-caledonian-women/