An ancient scandal; and peniseses
Jan. 12th, 2004 10:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quislibetHere's your historical tidbit for a Monday morning, from Tacitus, Annales Book 4, chapter 22:
In 24 A.D. the praetor Plautius Silvanus shoved his wife out of her bedroom window. She died. Silvanus suggested that she had thrown herself out. Her father, the decorated general Lucius Apronius, disagreed. He went to the emperor Tiberius, for Silvanus could not normally be brought to trial while serving as a magistrate. Tiberius himself investigated the scene and, finding signs of a struggle, referred the case to the senate. When it was about to come to trial Urgulania, Silvanus's grandmother and a close friend of the emperor's mother, pointedly sent him a dagger. He slit his wrists after trying unsuccessfully to stab himself with it.
Tacitus tells us as an aside that Silvanus' previous wife Numantina was subsequently found not guilty of having driven him insane with witchcraft.
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I would be remiss if I did not link to this article on the proper plural of "penis."
In 24 A.D. the praetor Plautius Silvanus shoved his wife out of her bedroom window. She died. Silvanus suggested that she had thrown herself out. Her father, the decorated general Lucius Apronius, disagreed. He went to the emperor Tiberius, for Silvanus could not normally be brought to trial while serving as a magistrate. Tiberius himself investigated the scene and, finding signs of a struggle, referred the case to the senate. When it was about to come to trial Urgulania, Silvanus's grandmother and a close friend of the emperor's mother, pointedly sent him a dagger. He slit his wrists after trying unsuccessfully to stab himself with it.
Tacitus tells us as an aside that Silvanus' previous wife Numantina was subsequently found not guilty of having driven him insane with witchcraft.
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I would be remiss if I did not link to this article on the proper plural of "penis."
