On the opposite end of the spectrum, Igor Stravinsky's 1913 ballet "The Rite of Spring" sparked a riot by angry theater goers.

And those planners will be from a different planet, and we will have been extinct.

In WW1 trench warfare, why didn't they just dig trenches toward the enemy trench instead of doing suicidal charges? Surely it would be safer/more effective. Even with things like barbed wire in the way they could just dig under it. So why didn't it work?

This is such a fascinating period of history. I remember reading an article about the Roman colosseum during this period and it blew my mind.

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Meanwhile in Boston we filled in a shallow bay with garbage until it was just barely solid enough to build high rises on, and then decided to tunnel underneath the whole thing like a hundred years later. Actually it went pretty well all things considered.

I think it happens throughout the Roman Empire. I was in Germany last fall along the Rhine and their are towns there built over ancient Roman outposts where city utilities crews and new construction sites routinely uncover evidence of Roman villas, roads, city walls and fortifications. (It’s like uncovering ancient treasures because preservation of these sites bring in an influx of tourist dollars.)

Did people have a concept of societal breakdown before/during the Bronze Age collapse? Were they aware of the fact that civilisation was shattering?

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Anyone else listen to the art forgery segment on science Friday on NPR? Estimated 40% of art in museums are forgeries. The easiest to fake? Stone sculptures. Not saying this is fake but it could be..

Tibdius and Clauberius

Having run through most of the History of Rome podcast, after an emperor went king Joffrey, after his assassination it was common to destroy works associated with him. Crushing, burning etc but the sewer was a popular place as well, especially for the corpses.

If I remember correctly, Commodus was a particularily despicable emperor who was obsessed with the idea of him being a reincarnation of Hercules. He started wearing garb like in the statue depicted as well as walking around with Hercules’ club.

The reason why he thought he was Hercules was because his handlers gave him disabled people to fight to the death so he could pretend to be a great gladiator.

Commodus?

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Ditto for Kyoto. It even happened when they were building directly underneath an existing line, which you would think had already disturbed whatever might have been there.

Yeah im mot going so deep as to suggest they all are that way, nor do i want to make any suggestions as to this specific nature of this particular statue. You seem to have some better understanding of its context, so i don’t refute that.

Fans of composer Franz Liszt showed similar behaviour of hysteria and fan fanaticism in 1840s. Only partially related, but there is also Stendhal syndrom of fainting or hallucinating when experiencing peices of art work (writer Stendhal experienced it when visiting Florence basilica).

He must have fallen down there while sluicing out the Stygian Stables.

Was there any precedent for Beatlemania type behavior pre-20th century?

Honestly this is the most realistic, though. The son of Zeus wouldn't need to look roided out to be strong (and most artists at the time probably had no idea what muscles so large would actually look like, since it's very difficult to get size like that naturally). It's always just been modern artistic license that depicts him that way.

It's like Superman having giant muscles, it creates this larger than life appearance but really there's no good reason for it.

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Not really. Those are both significant items in the mythology of Hercules. They were pretty much his trademark props. If the ancient world had action figures, the Hercules figure would have come with a lion pelt and a club.

Fun fact: if you take the names Tiberius and Claudius and combine them into one name, you end up with Tiberius or Claudius.

The cinobites are my favorite item at cinobun though.

I was in Rome last year and they were building a new subway station, they have to get archeologists in to sift through all the piles of ancient stuff they find before they could actually start building anything.