ALEA IACTA EST: A Roman Republic Game (Gameplay Thread) (user search)
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  ALEA IACTA EST: A Roman Republic Game (Gameplay Thread) (search mode)
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Author Topic: ALEA IACTA EST: A Roman Republic Game (Gameplay Thread)  (Read 2939 times)
Garlan Gunter
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Posts: 702
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« on: December 19, 2017, 06:13:08 AM »

EDICT OF PTOLEMY THE KING, ISSUED AT ALEXANDRIA

As a sworn ally of Rome with her best interests at heart, the Pharaoh and King announces that he looks with favour upon the proposed Dictatorship of Gn. Pompeius Magnus and urges all Roman friends to Egypt in the Senate to lend the motion their support. As a vouchsafe of his own kingdom’s current and future friendship, he further announces the betrothal of his younger daughter the princess Arsinoe to Gn. Pompeius the Younger.
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Garlan Gunter
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Posts: 702
United Kingdom


« Reply #1 on: January 15, 2018, 07:44:21 AM »

Catullus in Egypt



CARMEN CXVII

The spray stiffens upon my tunic; our vessel
Rides rougher even than you could, turbulent Lesbia – do I now burn
From salt, or bitter embers? Do I feel
My blood boil, or only the wine, dross of pirates, curdling in my bowels?

CARMEN CXVIII

Gracious daughter of red-faced Alexander,
Strumpet who birthed my elegant friends,
Callimachus and all the other grasshoppers,
Welcome Catullus, lone and weary,
Save him from tedium at least…

CARMEN CXIX

A sick old dotard, luckily rich
Thrusts on me his idiot youngest –
‘Oh, what’s that, my prince? Crocodiles
Generally dwell in the Nile? Most wise, o divine
Ptolemillus. We’ll make a kingling
And a godlet of you yet…’

CARMEN CXX

You write to me, Aurelius, of all the trials of Rome,
Of the bald conqueror’s shaming, of Lesbius’s pretty gangs;
I say to you now, tender Aurelius, there is nothing more harmful
Nor more offensive, than the dullness of princes.

CARMEN CXXI

In the birthplace of elegant grammar was I maimed,
Tormented beside warm waters by the idiot princelet’s
Many buffooneries. Then I felt a breeze
Alight at my cheek, ruffle at my new silken
Day-robe. At first I flinched, I who have sorely learnt
That refreshment precedes yet more burning pain.
Then I looked on athirst from my yawning casement
Escaping from turgid Ptolemillus to new delight:
Hail to thee, southern star, pale Ptolemilla…

CARMEN CXXII

Does Ptolemilla welcome me? Unaccountably, yes.
Does Ptolemilla embrace me? Lightly, somewhat.
Does Ptolemilla read my gifts aright? That I cannot tell
But that her eyes are alight as she passes
Surpassing her miserly sire’s old lighthouse
This I know…

CARMEN CXXIII

The wine of Egypt differs from Falernian; once
I thought it rough; now I find it sweet,
Headily delusive, stirring lost thoughts
Redeeming the shadow of joy once thought dead.
One evening I feared I had shattered cold Roman
Composure; for where I’d seen one beauty
There seemed to be two. Was I swimming in Bacchic disgraces?
Maybe; but the heavens themselves acknowledge
Selena as well as Apollo; so may not
Two such deities grace the earth too?

CARMEN CXXIV

When I spend an hour with fair Ptolemilla
My head grows light and my limbs languid
From dance and from singing and speculation.
But after a minute with dark Ptolemilla
I doubt my hand, soul, and my own memory…

CARMEN CXXV

You write to me, Caelius, calling me home
Because some fool sliced up the elder Ptolemillus.
You speak of my peril – look to yourself, Caelius
And to your companions – Lesbius has never
Peeled off his flesh upon mine.
As for that hog and whoremonger, brash Antonius
All that I once loved of Romulus’s sty
All that I know and all that I loathe
He is welcome to her, and fair fortune
To his lumbering parts amid Lesbia’s teeth.

CARMEN CXXVI

Some say the miser king favours dark Ptolemilla,
Others swear he means to advance his pale daughter.
I remark only this: the king is unlucky
To be born to a house that weds sisters, then get
Daughters such as these, so close and so far…

CARMEN CXXVII

The tears of armed men are sharper than swords,
And the cries of the crowd blow louder than storms.
So I find myself beside dark Ptolemilla
Bound to Syria and greasy old Crassus. Who am I,
Catullus? A Roman, an outlaw, a poet, a fool?
I remember the face of old leaden Pompey;
I wonder if he showed his fear ere he fell…

CARMEN CXXVIII

Weep, my once Lesbia, weep in vain,
For your Lesbius is to take a new bride.
They have tied him by his long golden hair
To the Nile’s daughter, with its terrible serpents
To hymn his nuptials now…

CARMEN CXXIX

They seek out Catullus the Roman now,
Forgetting Catullus the son of Verona,
Catullus the child of Cisalpine Gaul,
They elect him to speak for the miser king.
Well, conscript fathers, fit your withering ears
For a fairer song than your house usually finds.
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Garlan Gunter
Jr. Member
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Posts: 702
United Kingdom


« Reply #2 on: January 19, 2018, 06:30:28 AM »
« Edited: January 19, 2018, 07:04:13 AM by Garlan Gunter »

A Roman Bride for Prince Ptolemy

The streets of Alexandria were lined and thronged and teeming. There had been no official tidings cried, but somehow the word was out to expect something special. The announcement of peace or war? A grand alliance? A royal betrothal? Or a decision on the despised Roman captive Clodius?

Or several of the above...?




First came a line of gilded royal chariots escorting the well-loved Prince Ptolemy, the boy fresh from such dramatic exploits in Rome and Etruria, a silver mask concealing his royal, quasi-divine, but now scarred features:



At the rear of the procession came a closed litter, heavily guarded, until its curtains parted and a figure was carefully escorted from it, a woman seeming tall, graceful and fair, but veiled:



And now the criers proclaimed: "Behold the bride Prince Ptolemy carries back from Rome!"

And the veil snatched aside, the features that had once impassioned a thousand crowds, haggard but still beautiful, of Publius Clodius Pulcher, yellow hair and beard lank and unshaven, were revealed amid cheers and hoots and jeers to the multitude.

"Some once called this a man, a noble Roman of the Claudian gens. But then this fair creature revealed its true nature by joining a festival to the Bona Dea, a festival meant only for women. Publius Clodius Pulcher, whoever he may have been, is a deceased outlaw and enemy of Rome. But this beauty - shall we call her Clodia - lives on to delight us all.

"Long years since a King of the Ptolemaic blood, the rightful ruler of Cyprus, was murdered and unavenged. This year his rights are restored and his ghost laid with pious sacrifice, the sacrifice of an impious murderer's manhood."

Scented smoke and flame rises from an altar, attended by the eunuch-priests of Cybele.

And upon his chariot, young Prince Ptolemy removes his mask, and smiles broadly across his scar.

[edited as realised the prince's grin might otherwise have been rather hard to spot...!]
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