Vulgar words in Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome (Page 1)
This book at a glance
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~ ~ ~ Sentence 468 ~ ~ ~
And with those things came all the rest; the manners, the household life, the necessaries and the fancies of a conquering and already decadent nation, the thousands of slaves whose only duty was to amuse their owners and the public; the countless men and women and girls and boys, whose souls and bodies went to feed the corruption of the gorgeous capital, or to minister to its enormous luxuries; the companies of flute-players and dancing-girls, the sharp-tongued jesters, the coarse buffoons, the play-actors and the singers.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 852 ~ ~ ~
Peter the Prefect, or Prior, was bound naked upon an ass with an earthen jar over his head, flogged through the city, and cruelly put to death; and at last his torn body was hung by the hair to the head of the bronze horse whereon the stately figure of Marcus Aurelius sat in triumph before the door of the Pope's house, as it sits today on the Capitol before the Palace of the Senator.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,027 ~ ~ ~
One of the parish priests mounts upon an ass, backwards, facing the beast's tail, and a papal chamberlain leads the animal, holding over its head a basin containing twenty pieces of copper money.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,147 ~ ~ ~
Samson slew a lion with his hands, and the Philistines with the jaw-bone of an ass.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,149 ~ ~ ~
But when an ass, without the aid of any Samson, killed a lion in the courtyard of the Palazzo dei Priori, in Florence, the event was looked upon as of evil portent, exceeding the laws of nature.
~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,185 ~ ~ ~
A legend says that Colonna struck the Pope in the face, and that he afterwards made him ride on an ass, sitting backwards, after the manner of the times.