Explanation: While we in the modern day marvel at how thoroughly the Romans assimilated people, the fact is that the Romans were more-than-happy to allow provinces under their rule to continue most of their traditional ways of life - so long as they continued to loyally serve the Roman polity!

Romans, for all of their immense arrogance and chauvinism, were also very capable of recognizing superior foreign ways of doing things, and either adapting them themselves, or using the foreigners in such matters. This is something recognized both by the Romans themselves and Greek writers - Roman society, for all of its clamor about tradition and the CORRECT, ROMAN WAY of doing things, was flexible and adaptable in practical matters (and also abstract matters, but don’t mention that to the Romans, they’ll have a fit over not being as tradition-oriented as they talk themselves up to be).

This varied in form from copying Carthaginian ships, to adopting the Spanish sword (the famous gladius) and Celtic chainmail in their Legions, to Greek philosophy and theology, to Anatolian cults, to Celtic and Germanic clothing. In the other way - the recognition of foreign skills - the Romans used a wide variety of auxiliaries in their armies whom they freely regarded as superior in certain skills to native Roman troops (Numidian, Germanic, Gallic, and Scythian horsemen, Balaeric slingers, Syrian archers, Batavian shock troops) and highly praised the arts and wisdom of foreign cultures - the artisanship of the Gauls, the art of the Greeks, the intellectual pursuits (especially in law and theology) of the near-east.

Rome, extremely cognizant of its origins as a little farming village in the backwoods of Italia which burst onto the scene of the wider, more developed Mediterranean, knew damn well that it was not born the center of civilization which bestowed the achievements of man onto its lessers. It became so!

In the words of the Aeneid, a propaganda piece commissioned by the first Emperor, Augustus, but reflecting pre-existing cultural conceptions in Roman society…

Others will cast more tenderly in bronze

Their breathing figures, I can well believe,

And bring more lifelike portraits out of marble ;

Argue more eloquently, use the pointer

To trace the paths of heaven accurately

And accurately foretell the rising stars.

Roman, remember by your strength to rule

Earth’s peoples—for your arts are to be these :

To pacify, impose the rule of law,

To spare the conquered, battle down the proud.

As you can probably guess from the downvotes, titling a post “New Comm for Lord Of The Rings Memes at !Lotrmemes@Piefed.social” only to ambush the reader with eight paragraphs of instance drama gives a very bad first impression of you and, more relevantly, the community you’re creating, which kind of defeats the point.

I mean, 4 of the 8 listed downvotes are of people who openly have a problem with me to begin with.

The comm and the basic reason for its existence is at the top. All the drama is contained after “Why leave Dbzer0?”

Actually, I rarely use the spoiler tag, but it would probably be useful here.

And as the original announcement in the dbzer0 comm has been deleted by the admins, it feels especially relevant to keep it here now.

Also there are people out there who tend to subscribe to more than one community about the same thing, so you could count on those subscribing.

That seems strange to my eyes, but I’ll take your word for it.

And, predictably, the db0 community post has been removed.

That’s the thing - I presume most people who say “Nice, LOTR memes” are probably already subbed to the Fediverse’s largest LOTR memes comm. Without the context that there is an issue here with the instance, why would someone whose thought process is just “Nice, LOTR memes” join a new, seemingly redundant LOTR memes comm which does nothing but state that it’s for LOTR memes?

I was arguing that denying sexual violence on Oct 7th is unacceptable. They were arguing sexual violence on Oct 7th was Israeli propaganda.

Like a supermajority of some countries believing that Hamas killed no civilians on Oct 7th, ideologically motivated disinformation spreads very quickly and very easily if it is not disputed.

Why would I link to a comm I’m banned from and trying to move away from?

I provided context for why there’s a new LOTR memes comm despite there already being a well-established one, and, for that matter, why the moderator of the current LOTR memes comm felt it necessary to create a new one beyond some lark.

Oh damn, that’s a fantastic feature! Thank you for telling me!

Mm. It looks like it wants the original comm locked. Even if I could, I don’t think I really would want to. Some people doubtlessly will want to remain on the old comm, and that’s fine, considering the circumstances of the move.

The reason for leaving the other comm is what differentiates the two - you’re absolutely right that I failed to describe it though, I keep forgetting that acronyms are not always instantly recognizable lol. Fixed.

I mean, Piefed is still part of the Fediverse. It’s not like I’m going to disappear. My comms and user profile are just going to be hosted on another instance, bit by bit.

There’s also a block function even on Lemmy you can use, though I’m given to understand that the block function is much better on Piefed.

Yeah, Piefed isn’t being developed by genocide deniers, so I feel much more comfortable with it.

You banned me from unrelated community for pointing out you are spreading Israeli propaganda,

Again, if that was the reason, putting aside the fact that your own source disproved you, why would I pick one comm at random to ban you from?

Again, take out your anger on something other than anti-fascist posting next time.

You mean you were spreading Israeli propaganda and get upset to the point of banning me when it has been pointed out to you, sweetie 🤣

I literally quoted the links in your own source, which you apparently hadn’t read, and your ban was handed out because you immediately went and downvoted a bunch of anti-fascist posts without any other rhyme or reason.

If I was banning you purely for responding to my comment, why would I ban you from tankiejerk, specifically, when I mod a dozen other fucking comms I could have also banned you from? The Tesseract ban-all function is very easy to use, I promise. In fact, my tech-incompetent ass used to use it because I didn’t know how to access the “ban-single” function.

Maybe take our your anger at having your own source read to disprove you on targets other than anti-fascist posting next time.

That you?

https://lemmy.world/post/33330562

Yep, not that I can respond to any of the accusations due to being banned! I guess maybe you should’ve thought about not denying sexual assault and then going into an anti-fascist comm to downvote a bunch of posts immediately after being called out for it!

Rich for you to complain about being banned 🤣

I mean, I didn’t deny sexual assault verified by the UN, but I guess “downvoting someone” is a bigger crime in your eyes.

Oh, she was definitely my grandparents’ dog, I tolerated her because she was sometimes cute, but she definitely wasn’t my dog. XD

Marginally related personal story: My grandparents had a Pomeranian that was spoiled rotten when I was younger. My grandfather (sit tibi terra levis) would sometimes buy McDonalds for the family - nothing unusual there. He would feed the dog a few nuggets - nothing unusual there.

… he would tear apart each nugget with his teeth into little pieces for her before giving them.

We human beings can be so weird about these precious creatures we’ve taken in as our charges. XD

Yeah. My old manimal was put down a decade ago, and I still think about him nearly every day. It was crushing, watching it happen.

He didn’t give a damn, though. Cheerful as ever 'til the last breath. Suppose that’s the best any of us can ask to go out like.

Explanation: This is an actual Roman epitaph for a pet dog. Ancient peoples loved their pets just as we do. RIP, sweet pupper

Meatball is such a great name for a dog tho

Bad weather is a state of mind. As long as doggos are happy in it, it’s good weather 🙏

Explanation: As noted, the ancient Romans were very fond of portents, good and bad, whose form could take essentially anything mildly unusual. From how many birds you saw, to tripping as you step off of a boat, to being met by an unexpected person upon returning from a trip. This, of course, is CLEARLY an omen! But… is the omen good or bad…?