[HN Gopher] Roman priest's exceptionally well-preserved remains ...
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Roman priest's exceptionally well-preserved remains found in
Pompeii
Author : benbreen
Score : 129 points
Date : 2021-08-31 16:57 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.smithsonianmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.smithsonianmag.com)
| Grakel wrote:
| Definitely don't take any close up pictures, I'm here for the
| words!
| op00to wrote:
| I wonder what the priest would think if he knew his bones were
| discovered so far into the future...
| raducu wrote:
| Thinking about death, as in complete anihilation is something
| both awe inspiring and frightening to all, isn't it?
|
| I recently visited a salt mine/museum; as soon as I entered the
| enormous chamber with the low-rumbling noises, beautiful
| geological patterns on the wall, I was struck by the feeling
| that this is an inescapable tomb, our fate is sealed, an
| eternity passed before us and an eternity will pass after us,
| billuons upon billions of years and we won't get to experience
| them, we are both so dumb and so lucky not to think about it
| every day.
| aksss wrote:
| What was the salt mine/museum, out of curiosity? Sounds like
| an old IT job I used to have. :D But for reals, it sounds
| like an incredible experience.
| raducu wrote:
| Slanic Prahova salt mine, you can look up pictures online,
| but the scale, sound effect and chilling effect are lost.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Eh? From our perspective the world may well have sprung into
| being the moment we were born, and will cease to exist a
| moment after we die.
|
| A bit like starting a game of dwarf fortress.
| p1mrx wrote:
| I would be more interested in the method by which he obtained
| that information.
| aksss wrote:
| 5th level necromancy. A cleric or paladin can cast Raise
| Dead, takes an hour, consumes a diamond worth 500gp. I mean,
| if we can transport people to other celestial bodies and
| transform the light of the sun into the power of 100 horses,
| should be kinda easy in the scheme of things, no?
| ithkuil wrote:
| By inspection of animal entrails I suppose.
| [deleted]
| fsckboy wrote:
| listen to and practice his teachings and perhaps you'll be
| able to ask him yourself
| olegious wrote:
| The original announcement from the Archaeological Park of Pompeii
| has more and larger pics as well as a video:
| http://pompeiisites.org/en/comunicati/the-tomb-of-marcus-ven...
| tryagainacct wrote:
| > The fact that Secundio was buried rather than cremated
| contradicts the long-held idea that Roman funeral rites were
| followed strictly for fear of incurring the wrath of the gods.
|
| > Mount Vesuvius' pyroclastic flows and poisonous fumes killed
| around 2,000 people in Pompeii and the neighboring city of
| Herculaneum.
| ahmedfromtunis wrote:
| The joke is on you. Correlation does not imply causation.
|
| On a more serious note, I wonder how people reacted to his
| decision to forgo cremation at the time, especially since he is
| a priest himself; and if there were any discussions, even
| privately among his relatives, on how he can get away with it
| because of his status (if this was really the case).
|
| It's for moment like these, not the ones immortalized by
| historians, that I wish there is/was (does it even matter what
| tense to use) a time machine.
| tus89 wrote:
| I don't think strict beliefs and Rome were really a thing until
| a certain Eastern religion took over.
| [deleted]
| aksss wrote:
| Christianity wasn't granted legal protection until ~300AD.
| Prior to that, you could say that it was a strict belief that
| Christianity was verboten and its members subject to
| persecution (lions, crosses, etc). It would be another half-
| century before the empire started to codify what
| "Christianity" was in a "strict" sense (Nicaean creed,
| right?).
|
| The time period of Secundio's tomb is around AD 60 or so. As
| the article at pompeiisites.org says, "During the Roman
| period at Pompeii, funeral rites usually involved cremation,
| while only small children were buried." This burial of a 60
| year old man stands out for a few reasons, but one of which
| is that it even exists at all given that it's contrary to
| custom of the pre-Christian age.
| tus89 wrote:
| The persecution of Christianity by Rome is a myth and
| largely a response to it's regressive attempts to deprive
| others of religious freedom, and destroy classical
| civilization/education/philosophy more generally. I wonder
| how a crazed, uneducated mob that went around destroying
| churches and temples and murdering educated women would be
| treated in the US today?
|
| Rome was remarkably flexible and adaptive when it came to
| beliefs, including easily incorporating other religions
| into their belief structure, until one of them wanted to be
| the only one.
| linksnapzz wrote:
| Rome was remarkably flexible; until you say you don't
| want a statue of Jupiter or the deified Augustus in your
| Temple...and of course, nobody named Julian _the
| Apostate_ would _ever_ have an axe to grind against
| Christians.
| eloisius wrote:
| If the writings of Porphyry, Emperor Julian, et al are to
| be believed, early Christianity was indeed the ISIS of
| the time. They were reported to systematically destroy
| temples, kill priests and at regular gatherings they
| would report their exploits to encourage each other in
| doing so.
| hulitu wrote:
| If we look at 20th century newspapers we can see that a
| lot of political enemies are categorised as terrorists.
| Natsu wrote:
| That opinion itself is quite a shockingly revisionist
| statement, to simply wave a broad brush like that at a
| rather complex time period and then apply modern
| political coloring to ancient history.
|
| I see no attempt at nuance here, so taking this at face
| value, are we then to simply dismiss Pliny the Younger's
| writings to Trajan about persecution? Should we ignore
| Hadrian's note of slanderous attacks on Christians? Was
| Tacitus writing also 'myth' in saying that Nero blamed
| Christians for the fire in Rome? ...To
| get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and
| inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated
| for their abominations, called Chrestians by the
| populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin,
| suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius
| at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus,
| and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the
| moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first
| source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things
| hideous and shameful from every part of the world find
| their centre and become popular.
|
| -- Tacitus' Annals 15.44
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_i
| n_t...
|
| This was a complex period in history, I would be wary of
| anyone making sweeping judgements or applying modern
| political coloring which acts to cloud issues rather than
| to illuminate history.
| hulitu wrote:
| This wikipedia article is based on 20th century sources.
| Will be very nice when such an article will be based on
| original sources rather than biased interpretations and
| extrapolations 2000 years later. As Frank Herbert said:
| History is written by historians.
| Natsu wrote:
| I must say, "20th century sources" isn't exactly a phrase
| that comes to mind when discussing Tacitus. But pray
| tell, what's your translation of the original Latin? It's
| not particularly difficult to find the original text
| here:
|
| https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/tacitus/tac.ann15.shtml
| bobthechef wrote:
| > It would be another half-century before the empire
| started to codify what "Christianity" was in a "strict"
| sense (Nicaean creed, right?).
|
| The Roman Empire didn't codify anything. The Nicene Creed
| was composed by the Church in response to the Arian crisis.
| That the empire (through Constantine) had an interest in
| peace does not mean the empire performed the clarification.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| That's not quite true. It's really hard to draw a line
| between these two instituons at Nicaea, because that was
| an explicitly symbiotic process.
|
| First of all, the council was summoned by the emperor,
| organized by him, paid for by him, facilitated using
| public infrastructure, and personally attended by him. He
| might have "deferred" to the decisions of the bishops,
| but only happens when everyone recognizes his power to
| just declare things. He also banished some of the losing
| bishops into exile using his personal power. Whether or
| not it's the "empire" or the dictatorial emperor
| declaring a thing is a fuzzy line, but a lot of state
| power was involved.
|
| Secondly it wasn't "the church" who declared anything,
| because no such singular institution actually existed to
| speak with one voice. Rather, the council was a self-
| conscious effort by Constantine to actually create a
| unified church, since he worried that the existing
| discord threatened spiritual safety of the church.
| Remember that Christianity had been legal for only a
| decade or so and it would take a while before the more
| underground organization could organize and finish
| settling old scores. Whether or not the Bishop of Rome
| was recognized as the leader of the church is still a
| hotly debated subject; he however did not actually chair
| the council of Nicaea. At Nicaea we're still a century or
| two out from the first papal bull, 400 years or so from
| the first cardinals, and 700 years from the first
| recognizably modern papal conclave. In any case, only 300
| or so of the 1,800 bishops of the empire attended.
|
| In many ways the church became The Church by taking over
| the mantle of imperial authority as the Roman Empire
| receded from Western Europe. This is the process that
| gives it the power, organization, and bureaucracy to set
| religious policy and speak in one voice, and none of that
| is in place by Nicaea.
| [deleted]
| otabdeveloper4 wrote:
| Historically false. Christians were persecuted in Rome
| because they refused to sacrifice to Divine Ceasar.
|
| Rome was _very_ serious about worshiping Ceasar; the rest was
| optional.
|
| (Rome didn't have a "civil society" or "social contract" in
| any sense we'd recognize. Their laws were supposed to be
| divinely ordained, and refusing to acknowledge this was
| grounds for the death penalty. If you're imagining Rome as
| some sort of freedom of religion place like America with the
| First Amendment then you're sorely mistaken; think Soviet
| communism or China instead.)
| vkou wrote:
| How do you reconcile that claim with the polytheistic
| nature of religion in Rome, and it's practice of folding
| other religions into it, as it absorbed conquered cultures?
|
| Your parallels to 20th century governments miss the mark as
| much as the claims you are criticizing.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| Every place I visited that had a volcano, has been an amazing
| place filled with natural beauty. Hawaii and Costa Rica, and
| Washington. I can see why people want to live close to them. The
| meadows of Mount Rainier, The hot springs of Arenal Volcano, and
| Haleakala in Maui really stand out in my mind to this day.
| vyrotek wrote:
| Is it just me or is the placement of the body in the tomb
| strange? A dark thought, but the first thing that came to mind is
| it looks like he was alive when he was sealed up in there...
| gerbilly wrote:
| Maybe an earthquake moved his body to one side of the tomb?
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Roman burial practices for their clergy are pretty obscure.
| Maybe it was a sect?
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > If he chose this manner of burial himself, that "could mean ...
| there was a certain ideological freedom [in Pompeii]," Llorenc
| Alapont, an archaeologist at Universidad Europea de Valencia who
| participated in the excavation, tells ANSA, per Google Translate.
|
| Maybe if you want to report on something someone said in another
| language, have your translation checked by someone who can
| understand that language.
| asveikau wrote:
| Interesting detail. Assuming the original was Catalan or
| Castilian or some other Latin language, I think a machine
| translation of a short phrase about "ideological freedom" is
| likely to be accurate. Most of Europe uses the same handful of
| Greek and Latin roots to express that. (In English we have
| "freedom" from a Germanic root, but you get the idea.)
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| I agree - in this case, the Google Translate translation is
| very likely to be correct without problems. But I see two
| problems anyway:
|
| 1. This is the kind of thing where if there is a problem, it
| can easily be a _huge_ problem. One of the simplest
| translation mistakes you can make, for example, is to come up
| with exactly the opposite meaning of what the original said.
|
| 2. Smithsonian Magazine is literally adding a tag to their
| article that says _we do not stand by our reporting_. Maybe
| it 's true, maybe it's false; they don't know and they don't
| care. If it's false, that is, according to them, Google's
| problem, not theirs. This cannot meet even the bare minimum
| standard of acceptable journalism.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't pick the most irritating detail in an article and
| then copy it into the thread to complain about it. This leads
| to significantly lower-quality discussion, especially when the
| detail is off topic.
|
| HN threads are sensitive to initial conditions, so this is
| particularly important when there aren't many comments yet.
|
| One thing we're working on learning as a community is how to
| respond to the interesting parts of an article or situation and
| leave superficial provocations alone. Not easy, but important
| for curious conversation.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| whoaisme wrote:
| Learning as a community. LOL cut the crap. If you're going to
| censor have the decency to shut up with the marketing babble.
| Funny how other people found the comment interesting as you
| go about your quest to sterilize people's voices.
| Koshkin wrote:
| He was born when Christ was just 10 to 15 years old. Not sure
| why, but this somehow fascinates me.
| adolph wrote:
| Folks interested in this might be interested in the Told in Stone
| YouTube Channel:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/c/toldinstone
| JohnGB wrote:
| This just shows that Zeus is the one true god! /s
| xdennis wrote:
| Ahem, Jupiter!
| chrononaut wrote:
| > Roman priest's exceptionally well-preserved remains found in
| Pompeii
|
| As someone not familiar with how frequently a situation like this
| occurs, the phrasing of the article title made me think they
| found another Otzi[0] or Lady of Dai[1]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96tzi [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xin_Zhui
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| Those are really cool thanks for linking.
| mariuolo wrote:
| > Marcus Venerius Secundio, a formerly enslaved individual who
| later became a priest
|
| If he was a libertus, I wonder if he came from some remote part
| from the empire, possibly with different funerary customs.
| pandemic_region wrote:
| It's amazing how those few strings of hair turned the skeleton
| bones back into a real person for me. Thanks, nice post !
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