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brother-emperors · 9 minutes

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POMPEY & SULLA

Pompey, however, was not cowed, but bade Sulla reflect that more worshipped the rising than the setting sun, intimating that his own power was on the increase, while that of Sulla was on the wane and fading away

Plutarch, Pompey

political alliances are like bets, you know. sometimes you come out winning, sometimes the guy you were grooming to be your heir has ambitions beyond you and you can’t fully get rid of him. sometimes an alliance is like sharing a pomegranate, like a bad deal. hand in hand, & you’re stuck with them till the end of the line.

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#day after srb

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brother-emperors · 7 hours

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Giovanni de' Pazzi had married the daughter of Giovanni Buonromei, a very wealthy man, whose riches on his decease, without other children, came to his daughter. His nephew, Carlo, however, took possession of part, and the question being litigated, a law was passed, by virtue of which the wife of Giovanni de' Pazzi was robbed of her inheritance, and it was given to Carlo. In this piece of injustice the Pazzi at once recognized the influence of the Medici. Giuliano de' Medici often complained to his brother Lorenzo of the affair, saying he was afraid that by grasping at too much they would lose all.

Machiavelli, Florentine Histories

I was going to say that Francesco should've been allowed to stab Lorenzo twice over, but he (along with Baroncelli) did get Giuliano somewhere between twelve and nineteen times. so. that's something.

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#this one too actually #wait hang on. I need to remember to do another painting with this brush wtf. why did I ever take it out of my go-to set of brushes

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brother-emperors · 7 hours

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tyrannicide never goes out of style, or renaissance conspiracies along side images of the assassination of julius caesar

april blood, lauro martines / lampugnani’s conspiracy, francesco hayez / the death of julius caesar, vincenco camuccini / the pazzi conspiracy, stefano ussi / la mort de césar, jean-léon gérôme / the assassination and funeral of julius caesar, workshop of apollonio giovanni

#yeah :)

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brother-emperors · 7 hours

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THE APRIL PLOT 26 April 1478

Lorenzo, flushed with youth and power, would assume the direction of everything, and resolved that all transactions should bear an impress of his influence. The Pazzi, with their nobility and wealth unable to endure so many affronts, began to devise some means of vengeance. The first who spoke of any attempt against the Medici, was Francesco, who, being more sensitive and resolute than the others, determined either to obtain what was withheld from him, or lose what he still possessed.

Machiavelli’s Florentine Histories

francesco de' pazzi should've gotten to stab lorenzo de' medici twice over tbh 😔ALAS

April Blood, Lauro Martines

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#happy belated pazzi conspiracy day to all who celebrate

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brother-emperors · 7 hours

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happy belated pazzi conspiracy day

HAPPY BELATED PAZZI CONSPIRACY DAY TO YOU TOOOOO

#I CANT BELIEVE I FUCKING MISSED IT thank you for sending this. I have. 2/3rds of an illustration somewhere I should finish #up and post for it. pazzi conspiracy day 2 perhaps #ask tag

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brother-emperors · 7 hours

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POMPEY & SULLA

Pompey, however, was not cowed, but bade Sulla reflect that more worshipped the rising than the setting sun, intimating that his own power was on the increase, while that of Sulla was on the wane and fading away

Plutarch, Pompey

political alliances are like bets, you know. sometimes you come out winning, sometimes the guy you were grooming to be your heir has ambitions beyond you and you can’t fully get rid of him. sometimes an alliance is like sharing a pomegranate, like a bad deal. hand in hand, & you’re stuck with them till the end of the line.

⭐ places I’m at! bsky / pixiv / pillowfort /cohost / cara.app / tip jar!

#ye haw! what a fun dynamic #there was a version of this where they were both biting into a split pomegranate but I didn’t feel. like rendering all that #I do want to do a portrait of Pompey and Crassus after Juan Luna’s Tampuhan tho. that one will require work #drawing tag #gnaeus pompeius magnus #lucius cornelius sulla felix #roman republic tag #cant believe Sulla fucking marriage trapped him. so allow me to take it a step further (inhale) (I am forcibly removed from #the podium)

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brother-emperors · 2 days

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The way you draw lines from Cassius to Brutus, Trebonius, Messalla, even Antony, has me like that Silvia Pepe gif (I am enjoying it immensely).

tbh, I’m not really drawing any new lines that didn’t already exist/haven’t already been written about by other people, but it’s a lot of fun to see where the threads connect and to make comics speculating about whatever was left unsaid. on the other hand, my brain does feel like soup keeping track of who knows who. shoutout to people who write articles and books diving into how everyone knew each other, you’re the real champions of the historical fiction crowd

like, what was up with Brutus and Gaius Antonius! every now and then Servilia appears when I least expect to see her and I have to readjust the scope of what I was imagining. conspiracies and economics are mentioned and Crassus’ name shows up and it’s a real ‘I’ve been here the whole time!’ moment. the Herodian dynasty is here as well. do you ever think about the Herodian dynasty, because every day I think about how Herod Agrippa knew Caligula, and now I have to remember to keep Gemellus in the back of my thoughts.

#honestly with the Herodian dynasty I keep getting surprised by the Romas like what do you MEAN this is relevant to Gemellus #servilia and crassus are in unintentional competition for jumpscaring me with surprise mentions in stuff I think is unrelated #they’d be an upsetting power broker couple for conspiracies but I will confess servilia’s long running affair with Caesar is sexier #ask tag

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brother-emperors · 5 days

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Could we get more thoughts on the possessiveness of your version of Pompey please?

a lot of it has to do with wanting everything sulla had and more, and crassus is at that very fun intersection of something sulla had and more. so naturally. he wants crassus in every way sulla had him, and in every way sulla did not. and he'll never get crassus coming to him (like crassus went to sulla) but he can get something else that is more valuable on this stage of politics: a partner.

crassus' own attitude is complementary to pompey's, since he decided to be co consuls with pompey! more than once! in a way, crassus bet his life on pompey. wow.

#there's sulla's position in power being founded on crassus' military success under his command #and there's pompey who was not legal for the consulship but managed to get in on it anyway with crassus #ask tag #anyway i dont even mean it in a totally romantic sense but sulla is very much the meeting point for both of them #i was reading smth about how sulla's treatment of crassus and pompey creates the rivalry that plutarch spends most of his #biography on crassus focusing on and i was like. oh! wow. okay!!#its true! you get a much clearer glimpse of crassus' actions in other biographies or in cicero's letters but in crassus' biography #it's still very much. hmmmmmm. something else is going on in there #anyway im getting off topic. there's a secret other thing that they both want from each other but they can't say it aloud

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brother-emperors · 5 days

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I love the way their rivalry and antagonism binds them together ngl

Julius II: The Warrior Pope, Christine Shaw

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#there was that one incident where Giuliano was trying to force Rodrigo to chose one or the other and all of That involving #Ascanio’s possessions like my god okay just eat the man already and call it a day #as per usual Vincula is della Rovere etc #italian renaissance tag #komiks tag #ascanio sforza #giuliano della rovere #anyway their dynamic is fun bc they genuinely wanted to hurt each other in some kind of way and ohhhhhhh wow #there’s so much to do with that

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brother-emperors · 7 days

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this

but it’s Pompey, Crassus, and the ghost of Sulla

incredible phrasing, fascinating subtextual implications happening here

#it’s always the ghost of Sulla. Sulla is even in my favorite corner of Renaissance guys because SOMEONE decided to name himself #after Julius caesar when he became pope #went back and forth on how to order Pompey’s and Crassus’ names for this and went by matching theme over age lmao #sorry crassus you’re king of my heart but the thematic matching won out

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brother-emperors · 7 days

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incredible phrasing, fascinating subtextual implications happening here

#thank you for your service sulla #god. he’s like that erotica author/mentor in mood indigo (2019) creating the best narrative tension to a train wreck of a relationship

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brother-emperors · 7 days

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most likely it was Publius that prompted Crassus’ doomed expedition, but this whole ‘seduction by gold’ thing involving Lucullus is too sexy not to explore on it’s own narrative and thematic merits

in a way, it was lucullus who was pouring gold down crassus’ throat

#wild who gets the blame for this depending on if you’re reading lucullus’ biography/Crassus’ biography/cicero #Crassus if you were less of a scheming bastard the Catholics would have done deranged things to you several centuries down the line #it’s giving a very weird flavor of martyr but thank god we can instead assign him the sexier title of failed imperialist #devastating for Rome ofc but sexy to me #technically I’m a Catholic doing deranged things to him now but the Catholicism is only because of Spanish imperialism so it doesn’t count #I want to grill a 15th century Catholic cardinal on his opinions on Crassus like shut up about Julius Caesar we need to talk #abt the other guy.

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brother-emperors · 7 days

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