As a former Classics major and a social media "maven," as I've been called, I found the following post from No man is an iland, an email marketing blog, worth sharing. It's not often that you get to see a creative combination of our techno-powered present and the ancient world. (I wonder how many other Classics/social media types there are out there?)
One of the things I enjoyed most about my Classical education was the ability to study a wide variety of subjects - history, drama, literature, philosophy, language, politics. Over and over again, I was astounded to observe that throughout the ages, despite the changes of civilization and technology, human nature remains constant. To wit, I give you:
If Ancient Rome Had the Internet:
- The destruction of Pompeii in 79 A.D. is the most viewed video at YouTube. The first comment is..."OMG so cool! Volcanos ROCK!"
- Attila the Hun has his own MySpace page. Nobody ever rejects his "invite a friend" emails.
- The soothsayer's "Ides of March" email fails to get Caesar's proper attention as it's inadvertently filtered into his junk folder.
- But at least Caesar's "Et tu Brute?" comment is available as a free ringtone download.
- The domain gladiator.rome sells for the record sum of 1,000,000 denarii.
- The owner of hadriansucks.rome is compelled to hand over both the domain name and selected body parts by an independent domain tribunal chaired by...Emperor Hadrian.
- "Naked Cleopatra" is the top search term on Google.
- Unfortunately, the Queen of Egypt dies an early death after misunderstanding IT's call to embrace an ASP solution.
- Hannibal blogs his way across the Alps with posts like, "Whoops, lost another elephant today."
- But he runs out of money when his PPC budget is plundered by an Iberian click scam organized by Publius Cornelius Scipio.
- Tiber.com opens, initially selling scrolls and tablets before expanding to include togas, pottery, and do-it-yourself mosaic kits.
- Websites like handsome-literate-male-british-slave.com pollute the search listings thanks to generous commissions at the slaves.co.rome affiliate program.
- Roman programmers moan about projects outsourced to cheap coders in Mesopotamia.
- The Colosseum is renamed the eBay Colosseum, with free wireless hotspots outside the lark's tongue restaurant.
- The volume of spam collapses when the penalty for not providing a working opt-out mechanism becomes equal billing with the lions at the eBay Colosseum.
- But we still get emails featuring Brunhilda, the lonely Visigoth, and hot deals on cheap peacock livers from Gaul.
- Nobody invents a spam filter good enough for the House of the Vestals.
- Classical geeks wear t-shirts proclaiming, "there's no place like CXXVII.0.0.I" (bonus points if you get that one)
- Finally, Rome burns to the ground while Emperor Nero battles online with Hakkar the Soulflayer in World of Warcraft.
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