Category: Claims

Classical Doggy Massage?

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ 2 Comments

An item about dog grooming in something called Medill Reports mentions, inter alia:

Canine myotherapy, or muscle therapy for dogs, has been around since for “as long as people have been petting their dogs,” said Sue Olmos, a certified myotherapist at Midstates Myotherapy and Sanchez’s former teacher. While massaging athlete dogs can date back to ancient Roman times, being certified in the discipline is fairly new.

Searching for a source for this, I find a related claim on another site:

Ancient Greek and Egyptian literature includes illustrations of massage being carried out on horses, dogs and cats.

I wonder what an ‘athlete dog’ dog would be in Roman times … whatever the case, don’t eat that Elmer …

Roman Taxation in Judaea?

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

Some sort of conservative publication called Gather claims, inter alia:

In Jesus’ time, the Roman Empire taxed the Israelites at a rate of 65 percent of gross wages or gross agricultural production.Yes, you read that correctly.

The Romans got 65 percent. The Israelites kept 35 percent. This was designed to keep the laborers struggling to survive. The Romans wanted to ensure that the laborers had little time to express their discontent.

An attached comment suggests:

For those who are skeptical about the Roman tax rate, there is a footnote

Robert J. Miller Ph.D., lecture at Epworth By The Sea Methodist Retreat Center, St. Simons Island, GA, 10/07/2003. Fellow at http//jesusseminar.org.

I’ll hold my tongue about footnoting claims made in lectures and also about the appropriateness of referring to ‘Israelites’ at this time … but can anyone come up with a combination of Roman taxes that would give a 65% taxation rate?

Whence Boys? Whence Girls

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ 1 Comment

The Today Show (Australian version), commenting on Tom Cruise’s and Katie Holmes’ desire for a baby boy lists assorted myths associated with choosing the sex of the child, inter alia:

The ancient Greeks used to believe that girls were created from sperm from the left testicle so in order to get a boy, they used to tie up the left testicle during intercourse!

The Greeks (well, some of them at least) seemed to associate ‘female’ with the left side and ‘male’ with the right. Here’s a bit from a passage in Aristotle’s Generation of Animals (765a15ff or thereabouts):

Again, as has in fact been said before, a female embryo has actually been observed in the right part of the uterus, and a male one in the left part, and both male and female in the self-same part, and that not once but several times over ; or the male one on the right side, and the female on the left, and no less both are formed on the right side]. There are some who are firmly convinced of a similar view to this, and maintain that males who copulate with the right or left testicle tied up produce male or female offspring respectively : this used in fact to be maintained by Leophanes. Some allege that the same occurs in the case of those who have one testis excised. This statement is untrue, and is a mere piece of guesswork on their part. They start from probabilities and guess what will occur ; they prejudge that it is so before they see it happen.

(Peck and Leslie trans.)

Well, they had a 50-50 chance of being right …