Friday, August 21, 2009

1831

Every August 21st, we remember the real Nat. Don't believe the propanda. He wasn't insane. But he was touched.

"If you all didn't have it coming, it wouldn't have happened."

--translated from Latin, a rebel slave under Spartacus to one of Pompey Magnus's soldiers, 70 B.C.

13 comments:

Bob G. said...

Chris:
That is a great quote.
Now...if I could ONLY find it in the ORIGINAL LATIN.

My wife teaches it, so maybe she can help out.

Thanks.

BekkaPoo said...

Happy Nat Turner Day! Woohoo!
Go out and scare a slavemaster today. ;)

Derek said...

Bwhahahaha Let's relive the day and kill Bob G first.

Anonymous said...

Rebekka-- They're already scared. lol

Snowman said...

In the film "Spartacus," there were homoerotic scenes edited out between Tony Curtis and Sir Lawrence Olivier and Tony Curtis and Kirk Douglas. When the scene with Olivier and Curtis was re-introduced for the retoration and DVD, Anthony Hopkins had to do Olivier's voice because Olivier had died (the original soundtrack for the segment had been damaged and Hopkins apparently can do an exact imitation).

Just a bit of film trivia.

The film was actually highly inaccurate historically. The screenwriter was blacklisted by the McCarthyites but Kirk Douglas, very much a liberal, brought him (Dalton Trumbo) on. The ironic aspect fo that is the real story. It is inspiring and uplifting for people like Douglas, Trumbo and their political ilk on it's own. Their was no need for the melodramatic flourishes. Nevertheless, the scenes of looting and then abject greed trumping prudence were not in the script. Of course why should these slaves loot and kill not only masters but the ordinary Roman citizens who benefitted from the that "mud sill?" That is what slaves do. Apparently some non-slave Roman poor farmers and urbanites did join the revolt, but their numbers were minimal. They did not want to leave the Republic even though they had a serious problem with the patricians in the cities and on vast estates that were swallowing small farms.

Pompey the Great ("Magnus" as Nat Turner alludes), interestingly had a greater part in reality than in the film. It was he who hunted down the surviving rebels near the Alps and other points indeed around 71-70 BCE, after Crassus had destroyed the main slave body under Spartacus. Pompey claimed the entire victory and of course this put Rome on the course toward Julius Caesar's rise, civil war and the end of the Republic.

Pebbles Flintstone said...

This moron in the camouflage and guns most be headed for another Obama lynching!! I wonder what he's compensating for?! ;-)

Hey, on the other hand I always wondered if William Styron's book did more to influence people about Nat Turner than did Southern propaganda? Styron made him a crazy man and gay (like Spartacus movie LOL!!) but neither was firmly based on real materials or accounts, correct?

Christopher Chambers said...

OK "Snowman" thank you for the treatise. Bravo on the movie thing--I'd seen Spartacus (the director's cut) and the homothuggery with Olivier and Tony Curtis was amusing as hell. So that was 70 year old Tony Curtis redubbing his own voice...and Hannibal Lecter doing Olivier???

As for history, so you're saying I was wrong for attributing to a slave "directly under" Spartacus, b/c Spartacus was likely already defeated by the other Roman armies? I can live with that, as you seem to have the movie and fact stuff down. So I swallow my pride and bow down.

BobG: try stuff like Pompey in Cicero's Correspondence (Lucan and Servile War), and anything on The Fall of the Roman Republic.

ch555x said...

happy anniversary!!!

...and I still feel it was an unlucky wanderer getting busted instead of Nat!

Citizen Ojo said...

Great Quote...Now can Nat get a Postal Stamp??

Bob G. said...

Chris:
Thanks for the "411"

Ditto to Snowman for setting the record straight on the movie vs Reality.

Pebbles & Derek:
(ah, part of the "engage the MOUTH before the BRAIN is in gear" crowd)

LMAO!

Anonymous said...

By Christopher Chambers, at Mon Aug 24, 02:51:00 PM: But..."I want MY America back!"


Well, maybe, we got it coming, right Chris? I'm sure you'll go and post that a few more times likes it's not you being sad

Christopher Chambers said...

Sorry last Anonymous (post in t he you real name, and photo, not in the digital "sheet" lol), but I was busy looking at Amber's ass...

Anonymous said...

Yep, you stay classy, Chris.