seminarist: (Seminarist)
[personal profile] seminarist
For the next five years he (Byzantine emperor Constantine Pogonatus - S.) kept his court at Syracuse. For the Sicilians, those five years were one protracted nightmare. The honour, such as it was, of finding their island selected for the capital of the Roman Empire was as nothing in comparison with the extortions of the imperial tax gatherers - for the satisfaction of whom, we are told, husbands were sold into slavery, wives forced into prostitution, children separated from their parents...

There was, so far as we know, no preconceived plan to assassinate him, far less any deeply hatched conspiracy; but on 15 September 668, while he was innocently lathering himself in his bath, one of his Greek attendants - in what we can only assume to have been a fit of uncontrollable nostalgia - felled him with the soap-dish.

Byzantium: The Early Centuries, by John Julius Norwich

Date: 2014-06-10 07:46 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] klausnick.livejournal.com
Тяжёлая была soap-dish?

Date: 2014-06-10 08:00 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] seminarist.livejournal.com
Ностальгия была тяжелее.

Date: 2014-06-10 10:34 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] el-d.livejournal.com
! это мотив.

C уважением,
Антрекот, прибирая ностальгию в сумку

Date: 2014-06-10 12:17 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] http://users.livejournal.com/_niece/
Каков стиль! Погляжу этого автора - все разыскиваю себе британских историков, которые пишут, как порядочные люди (а не как американцы), и при этом их зовут не Акройд. Подозреваю, что такие преимущественно должны были водить в первой половине прошлого века - когда пафос уже вышел из моды, а ирония еще не. Если знаете таких, поделитесь.

Date: 2014-06-10 04:55 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] seminarist.livejournal.com
Насколько я знаю, Норвич жив и посейчас.

Date: 2014-06-10 05:24 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] rasteehead.livejournal.com
стосковался по дому и забил императора мыльницей до смерти. любо!

Date: 2014-06-10 07:30 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] seminarist.livejournal.com
Не по дому, а по прошлому :)

Date: 2014-06-10 05:50 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cema.livejournal.com
Some soap-dish.

Date: 2014-06-10 07:30 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] seminarist.livejournal.com
Well, it was the Emperor's bathroom - they couldn't put just any cheap celluloid soap dish there.

Date: 2014-06-10 10:12 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dyak.livejournal.com
Из чисто сентиментальных соображений.

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