Willow wrote:

It is, indeed, a beautiful explanation but there is considerable doubt as to whether the slave whispering over and over again 'Remember you are mortal' actually happened. Mary Beard's book on Roman triumphs notes that there's not much in the way of contemporaneous evidence to support it, though I have wondered whether the decision by Roman Emperors to become gods may have been influenced by this. I have always rather liked the story of Vespasian commenting that he appeared to be turning into a god, as his ironic way of acknowledging that he was dying...

The Roman republic was founded after the Romans overthrew their corrupt kings and their society initially had many customs meant to deter possible abuse of power as a result of that. For example, they could make some chosen man a dictator if their republic was endangered by enemies and they gave him an unlimited amount of power with that function, but the actual time such man could hold a position of dictator was limited to six months – Romans knew human character well and they were aware that such person would gradually be accustomed to having power, so they never allowed such thing to last for long. Ancient Greeks and Romans were also quite sceptical about pomp and lavish accolades being bestowed on mere mortals – in the first stages of their civilisation, it would be inconcievable for Romans to worship their rulers as gods. They connected such behaviour with oriental civilisations of Middle East which they percieved as barbarous and inferior.
 
I therefore think that it′s not just a legend and that such custom really existed – but it didn′t survive the catastrophe after the Roman republic was destroyed by civil war and after Roman Empire was established over the ruins of that republic. That was also the moment of territorial expansion of Roman Empire which brought acceptance of many oriental customs into their civilisation. They accepted the god-worship of their emperors from ancient Persia in the same manner as they accepted mithraism, cult of Isis and Osiris and other oriental religions. Yet the loss of the principles on which their civilisation was built gradually brought decadence and corruption into their government and it ended with the collapse of their world.  
 

Bear with me; John could sail through life being a popular guy if he made the effort to, he knows how the social world works, his friends 'hate' him becuase he doesn't bother to present himself as charming, he speaks the truth as he sees it and has a dry humour that Sherlock 'gets' eventually. John acts as parent 'you mean, thank you'   ''Do I?''  'Just say it.' ''Thank you.''. He calls Sherlock out on behaviour that does him no favours, 'it wasn't kind' and he consistently acts as the conductor of light from guessing Jennifer Wilson's password 'Rachel' to there was 'a big dog' in Hounds through to the rolling fingers on the lab worktop TRF. John 'knows stuff' intuitively from details as if instinctively- he can read it like a crime scene and Sherlock may have attempted to access Mind Palace John who keeps him right. They are both co-dependent in a good way, neither need to pretend to be nicer people with each other. John has limits to what he'll take off Sherlock and Sherlock calls John out too. They both offer each other constructive criticism and can do so when together but apart Sherlock only has the post graveside John to fall back on for that - sorry about the 'fall back' bit.

 I think ' jealous?' is in connection with John having been able to, apparently, move on which I don't think John really did and Sherlock's attempt to move on by having Molly attend the Skeleton investigation and possibly that both he is a little put out that John and Molly can diagnose COD in corpses as in The Speckled Blonde. For John it shows in his dream/s thoughts/memories and the lie in Many Happy Returns 'probably won't watch it' (the dvd) and when he sometimes thinks out loud which is what Sherlock does too. The necessary other half is missing, which both are attempting to compensate for, so we get shown that in those sequences. IMHO.

RavenMorganLeigh wrote:

Morton wrote:

Bear with me; John could sail through life being a popular guy if he made the effort to, he knows how the social world works, his friends 'hate' him becuase he doesn't bother to present himself as charming, he speaks the truth as he sees it and has a dry humour that Sherlock 'gets' eventually. John acts as parent 'you mean, thank you'   ''Do I?''  'Just say it.' ''Thank you.''. He calls Sherlock out on behaviour that does him no favours, 'it wasn't kind' and he consistently acts as the conductor of light from guessing Jennifer Wilson's password 'Rachel' to there was 'a big dog' in Hounds through to the rolling fingers on the lab worktop TRF. John 'knows stuff' intuitively from details as if instinctively- he can read it like a crime scene and Sherlock may have attempted to access Mind Palace John who keeps him right. They are both co-dependent in a good way, neither need to pretend to be nicer people with each other. John has limits to what he'll take off Sherlock and Sherlock calls John out too. They both offer each other constructive criticism and can do so when together but apart Sherlock only has the post graveside John to fall back on for that - sorry about the 'fall back' bit.

 I think ' jealous?' is in connection with John having been able to, apparently, move on which I don't think John really did and Sherlock's attempt to move on by having Molly attend the Skeleton investigation and possibly that both he is a little put out that John and Molly can diagnose COD in corpses as in The Speckled Blonde. For John it shows in his dream/s thoughts/memories and the lie in Many Happy Returns 'probably won't watch it' (the dvd) and when he sometimes thinks out loud which is what Sherlock does too. The necessary other half is missing, which both are attempting to compensate for, so we get shown that in those sequences. IMHO.

Best insigt I've seen regarding the "jealous" comment. Nice. :-)

Thank you