Referring to the first sack of Rome around 390 BC, where the Senones, under their chieftain Brennus, defeated the Romans, and sacked the city, with the exception of the Capitoline Hill. When attempting to scale the hill, the Romans were alerted not by their guards, or dogs, but by the geese sacred to Juno. Why the Author references this here would be up for debate, if one were not familiar with their endless need to spout little pieces of trivia, as if to compensate for their shallow and pretentious nature. The first sack of Rome is also the origin of the quote woe to the vanquished. The Romans had agreed to pay the Gauls tribute to leave, but they used heavier weights for the scales than had been agreed upon. When the Romans protested, Brennus threw his sword on the scales, and uttered Vae Victis. According to Livy, the manly Romans wouldn’t let this insult last long. But the Author has been known to be fond of the quote, indeed, a look through the now lost blue diary “the book of things”, reveals it mentioned many times, in triumphal victory and ignominious defeat. ↩

There have been plans to turn Primrose Hill into a necropolis. Though this work has had proper research done, one believes that the Author’s sole knowledge of this had come from a BlueJay YouTube video. ↩

Referring to the story The Raven and the Crow in Book 2 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (the superior Metamorphoses). It’s the story of how the Raven lost its white plumage, and it became black, after it exposed Apollo’s beloved as being unfaithful, and for being a tattle-tale, Apollo cursed it (and killed his unchaste beloved). On its way to warn the god, the Raven was accosted by the Crow, which warned it of how it lost Athena’s favor by tattling on one of the daughters of Cecrops that had disobeyed her instructions, and was replaced by the owl. In lines 537-8, the Raven’s white feathers are compared to the watchful geese of the Capitol, which is perhaps an attempt by the Author to reference their earlier comment about the geese, and why they chose this story, out of the many about divine anger. ↩

Hubris. The Author is here quite obviously wishing to display hubris in the original meaning of the word. Outrage, that is, something contrasted with dikē, justice, or the natural order of things. In Hesiod’s Works & Days, one of the Author’s favorites, the First, or Golden Generation’s respect for dikē (their kingly gift, for dikē means judgement, the privelege of kings) is contrasted with the Second, or Silver Generation’s hubris to each other and disrespect to the Gods, for which they are cut down in their youth. One of the author’s favorite refrains is from the Works and Days:Were I not among the Fifth, I’m torn;Would I be better dead or not yet born? - For this is an Iron Age indeed -Suffering never ceases for our breed;cont’d: ⁷
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According to Polybius, when Scipio Aemelianus saw Carthage burning, his command a success, he wept, and quoted the Iliad, because he saw in Ilium and Carthage what shall inevitably befall his own city, and the fate of all affairs of man. ↩

KiNG MALA, 2026, EAT THE SPOON ↩

Hesiod, as Nagy puts it, is in a world (the Iron Age), where dikē and hubris are engaged in a bitter struggle, and that is, of course, our world. This is an inherently postheroic world, as Homeric heroes are rarely described in such terms. The suitors that vied for prudent Penelope’s hand are described as hubristai, of course. But the Odyssey is the last great adventure, Odysseus the last great hero of the Trojan war. Ithaca in his absence is the closest one gets to a post-heroic context in Homer. The Greeks recognized the Trojan War as the last great showing of their heroes, and the stories after that are the stories of homecoming of the great heroes, and anything that comes after are the stories of their children, e.g. the Oresteia, the Telegony, and the latter life of Neoptolemus; but these are in a way just tying loose ends. Not that one suggests that Odysseus or the other heroes are exemplary paragons of virtue. Greek cult heroes are complicated men, and they display both dikē and hubris. One needs to only look at Odysseus’s taunting of Polyphemus, for is that not “doing and saying things at which the victim incurs shame, not in order that one may achieve anything other than what is done but simply to get pleasure from it”, as Aristotle would define hubris. But it is not simple arrogance. Those that are arrogant already feel themselves superior, if unjustly so, and they have no use for the other, not that they still might not do them harm as a consequence. The hubristai, on the other hand, gain their sense of superiority, and rise to power by mistreating the other, starting with that intent is what distinguishes it from mere arrogance.cont’d: ⁸
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What the Author here seems to try and say is that if one takes this and applies it to a society, it is obvious how hubris ends up a crime in ancient Greek societies, such as Athens. Performing hubristic acts towards another citizen inherently rejects the idea that all citizens are equally worthy of dignity, and if they are not, that some must then be superior to others; and they, that is those who stand in the way of the hubristai’s advancement worthless when compared to the pursuit of power. One thinks it self-evident how such mindset and behavior would lead to a tyrannical state, where one (or few) men have been able to secure for themselves such power to act and their will be the law (or to be outside the law, rather, to set the law for others but to be able to do injustice as they wish), and the rest are bitter and vengeful, and how it is fundamentally at odds with a democratic one. Of course, in an honor-obsessed society, for the ancient Greeks were one, the desire for revenge (as opposed to justice) is strong, and vengeance, though increasing your honor, will invariably humiliate the other, and they should have to retaliate; but that is one of the first hallmarks of the emergence of the polis, and of ancient Greek law, that is, the taking of disputes out of private hands and into courts. Elite dispute resolution was how they had begun, one can see the shield of Achilles, for example. But by the Classical Age, in a democracy like Athens, mass citizen participation in the courts as all-powerful juries was part of the bedrock of democratic societies. Any citizen that offended another could be held accountable. Thus, the Author’s conclusion (one can only try and divine their reasoning based on scattered notes, quotes and common sense) that they no doubt consider profound, even if it is in fact staggeringly obvious, and is akin to the “We live in a society” popular internet meme from years past - to satisfy their anger they’d need to do harm to the other for them to suffer as they have, but to do so would humiliate them, inevitably destablizing the democratic society, as they’d need to retaliate or be shamed, and anyone who elevates themselves by humiliating others is a threat, so for a democratic society to exist, citizens cannot act on their anger. Or, as a sixteen year old when the Joker (2019) movie came out could just as well put it - We live in a society”. ↩