An ancient scandal; and peniseses

Here'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."

(no subject)

I'm listening to Renaissance and Baroque music on Magnatune.com (via iTunes). Just before the present piece started playing, a man came on and introduced himself as the 70-year-old neighbor who lives next door to Magnatune. "If you're looking for a phat sack of dope beats," he said, "look no further than Magnatune.com."

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J. and I cannot use our kitchen sink at the moment without flooding the basement. Our plumber is quite occupied with steam heat and frozen pipe emergencies, so we must wait, which is right and proper. It's mildly vexing, though. In the meantime, we have been doing our dishes in the landlords' kitchen. Sadly, the same problem that afflicts our sink also has a foul grip on the brand-new washing machine, which we have not yet used. We have been waiting for a washing machine to appear in the house since e'er we first put foot on its painted hardwood floor -- but yesterday, alas, we had to go to the laundromat.

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Uhm. Got some stuff needs filing. May knowledge of this be of great profit to you.