It's #InternationalBatNight this weekend! The #BatNight has taken place every year since 1997 in more than 30 countries in Africa and Europe on the last full weekend of August. 🦇 #Bats rarely feature in #GreekMythology but they appear in #Aesop's fables as a creature of dual nature, neither bird nor mouse. As an animal blurring the lines, it fits well with #Dionysos, a god who blurs the lines not between mouse and bird but between male and female.
The story of #Dionysos and the Minyades appears in Plutarch's Greek Questions 38 and in the Metamorphoses of both Ovid and Antoninus Liberalis. The daughters of Minyas, Leukippe, Arsippe and Alkathoe were startlingly diligent. They strongly criticised other women for abandoning the city to roam the hills as Bacchantes. Dionysos took on the likeness of a girl and urged the Minyades not to miss out on the rites and mysteries of the god. But they paid him no heed.
It's #InternationalDogDay! There are several #dogs from #GreekMythology that we still know today, like Kerberos guarding the entrance to the underworld, Odysseus' faithful dog Argos who was the only one who recognised him in his disguise, and Hekuba, the Queen of Troy, who became Hekate's constant companion in the shape of a big black bitch.
But what do we know about the ancient Greeks and their dogs? @amayor researched how the dogs were named:
@amayor@antiquidons@histodons Adrienne Mayor says that #dogs were typically given short names that evoked ideas of things like power, speed, or beauty.
"Popular names for dogs in antiquity, translated from #ancientGreek, include Lurcher, Whitey, Blackie, Tawny, Blue, Blossom, Keeper, Fencer, Butcher, Spoiler, Hasty, Hurry, Stubborn, Yelp, Tracker, Dash, Happy, Jolly, Trooper, Rockdove, Growler, Fury, Riot, Lance, Pell-Mell, Plucky, Killer, Crafty, Swift, and Dagger."
@antiquidons@histodons The ancient Greeks were keen dog breeders and more than 29 distinct breeds are mentioned in #ancientGreek literature, each with their own traits that made them useful for specific tasks. Large mastiff-type dogs guarded flocks and fended off wolves. Hunting dogs were bred for speed, tracking, and tenacity to hunt deer, hares, and boars. And there were also small pet dogs, companions to children and adult women.
@hiramfromthechi There is a video by Jim Stephanie Sterling (#TheJimquisition) about the gambling elements of video games and how they are actually targeting players with a gambling problem. It's fucking sick!
1/ Quand tu pirates un bouquin à 8 euros, tu voles (au mieux) 70 centimes à l'auteur. 70 centimes. Alors, certes, les premiers "voleurs", c'est certains des intermédiaires qui font qu'un auteur ne touche que 70 centimes sur un bouquin à 8 euros, mais il n'en reste pas moins qu'il faut être un sacré trou du cul individualiste pour voler aux auteurs les 70 centimes qu'il leur reste en se faisant passer pour un justicier anticapitaliste.
@s_mailler@loevenbruck Les livres epub payent mieux seulment quand c'est l'auto-édition de l'auteur. J'ai choisi l'auto-édition parce que je gagne ~70% de le prix de vente au lieu de ~10%.
For #FannyFriday I bring you a special photo I took on my #museum trip yesterday: #Aphrodite inspired by the Aphrodite of #Knidos — copies were forbidden by the Knidonians! She is special to me because not only is she beautiful and wears a cool arm ring, the artist has also added a slit to the pubic triangle. I very rarely see this and it filled me with excitement and joy when I discovered it 🥰
@a8e I will keep it a secret for now because I'm considering a raffle among those who can guess correctly (once I post more photos, of course).
I won't show the museum's most iconic exhibit for the same reason 🙂
So I'm back from my #museum trip. I am severely disappointed by all of the statues having been vandalised. The only intact phalloi I could find were on a relief and a modern reconstruction. I DID meet a beautiful statue of #Aphrodite, though! She even still has a visible slit! I will share the images on Friday, the Day of Aphrodite.
As a sneak peek, enjoy this beautiful bum!
@ricorodriguez@antiquidons It was, sadly, quite common. Vase paintings have the genitals scratched off. Sculptures are missing their penis or were covered with a fig leaf. There is also the theory that labia were filed away on female sculptures but I don't know if there is evidence or if it's speculation.
Full text search has been merged in #Mastodonmain branch, and will be in the next (and final?) 4.2.0 beta 🎉
It is opt-in, so it will take some time to be filled with people content as they enable their profile to be indexed, but this was one of the most wanted Mastodon features for some time.
We plan to deploy it to mastodon.social and mastodon.online in the coming days to have a bit more feedback on it and see how it behaves in the wild.
I want to let everyone who voted in this poll know that I am travelling to a museum today to take photos and attend a guided tour on the subject of ideal nudity in ancient art.
I will share photos and write about the tour on my blog ☺️
@arratoon I am a woman of my word! 😌
The blog post may take a while to put together because I have two other projects that need to be finished first but I will post the first pics tonight!
It's the Day of Zeus / Jupiter's Day / #Thursday! ⚡
"[Zeus] made Hera his blooming wife: and she was joined in love with the king of gods and men, and brought forth Hebe and Ares and Eileithyia."
Hesiod, Theogony 921
🏛️ #Hera and #Zeus, marble relief from Temple E in #Selinunte, dated ca. 450 BCE. Today in the Museo archeologico regionale di #Palermo.
I'm currently working on my #website so you guys can subscribe directly to me instead of going through a platform like #Patreon. I still have to pay the fees of the payment provider and technically they can dictate what I can sell on my site but it's easier to change the payment provider than to appeal to Patreon in case something happens.
What do you think? Worth the hassle or should I rather focus on Patreon?
@dameoutlaw@dontpanic Patreon doesn't show any adult content creators in their search function or suggest them to patrons.
I don't know about CSAM or paedophilia accounts on Patreon, I haven't seen any, but that obviously doesn't mean they aren't there.