Do you understand the inscription?
"Anno X." Get it?
ADDED: Here's the Smithsonian's info on the statue, which is in Eden Park in Cincinnati:
The original image of this ancient Etruscan she-wolf, owned by the Capitoline Museum in Rome, dates from 500 B.C. (The original Etruscan babies were lost long ago and were replaced during the Renaissance period with the present images of Romulus and Remus, which accounts for the difference in sculptural styles.) The she-wolf is the symbol of Rome and is known as the 'Lupa Romana,' or the 'Wolf of Rome,' because she is credited with saving the lives of Romulus and Remus, founders of Rome....
The replica of the Capitoline Museum's wolf was given to the City of Cincinnati by the Premier of Italy, Benito Mussolini, through the local chapter of the Sons of Italy. The "Anno X" in the inscription refers the tenth year of Mussolini's regime. The sculpture was given in recognition of the fact that Cincinnati is the only American city to bear the name of a Roman hero, the Roman general Cincinnatus.
AND: Let's take a closer look at those breasts:
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29 comments:
Is that sorta like 2009 - ANNO I?
Yes, but why was 1931 Year 10?
That's a Pit Bull, by the way.
Vicki Hearne. See pp174-175.
1931 was the 10th year of Mussolini's rule. That might be it.
We're so used to thinking of Mussolini as the wimpiest member of the Axis that it is hard, sometimes, to remember that he had already been in power over ten years before the Nazis took over Germany.
Professor, what is it with you at tits?
Just joking. I lub you.
I think it's as with a grave stone. So you get 1931 (the year the statue was dedicated) until whenever Cincinnati dies which is unknown (thus anno x).
I see what you are doing here, you are tweaking poor Ezra again.
Ezra thinking to himself:
'See, she's leaning on fascist statuary, that proves I'm right, why won't anyone else believe that she's an anti-semite? I'm going to cry on the inside now because I'm a sad and pathetic man who knows deep down that I am a fraud and an intellectual lightweight, but at least I run a popular mailing list, so that makes me really, really important and that's my revenge against all those assholes in junior high gym class who laughed at my freakishly small genitalia and snapped my buttocks with wet gym towels'
Yes, but why was 1931 Year 10?
It's either dated from the ascension of Mussolini or Pope Pius XI, although the latter looks to be off a year. Mussolini was my first guess but the Pope has the Rome connection and is probably more likely.
@TRO Yeah, I was going to title this post "Let's take a closer look at those breasts."
Althouse should have been sporting a milk mustache for that photo.
Nice sculpture. Bought a trinket version of it first time I was in Rome. Wiki has a nice story on it.
My parents always said the phrase "raised by wolves" as if it was a bad thing - look what those two guys accomplished.
From Wikipedia, believe at your own risk:
The image was favored by Benito Mussolini, who cast himself as the founder of the "New Rome". To encourage American goodwill, he sent several copies of the Capitoline Wolf to U.S. cities. In 1929 he sent one replica for a Sons of Italy national convention in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was switched for another one in 1931, which still stands in Eden Park, Cincinnati.
Isn't that same statue in front of the DNC headquarters in DC?
fcai,
That's disturbing. So it was sent out by Mussolini as part of an American propaganda campaign. And he was styling the years of his reign (or perhaps the new Rome?) as a pope would.
As a Pope would . . . but also as a king would. And compared to the average medieval monarch, Mussolini wasn't particularly bad. (Not particularly good, either, but . . .)
Certainly gauche, if only because Italy had an actual king.
That story about the she-wolf raising Romulus and Remus is totally plausible. Wolves do that all the time. Wolf milk is highly nutritious for infants' developing brains.
Romulus and Remus are the origins of the Romulan and Remusan races depicted on Star Trek and that explains why they those races are lupine. ← contains possible 2% of fact.
This makes me so happy I made a pie.
BitTorrents are bollox. Every time I try one they creep along. Today one for Bizarre Science said ETA was two weeks! I go, "Piss on this."
They should call them BitSeepage or BitDrizzle.
"Italy had an actual king."
Really? And when was that?
The statue is beautiful, but that wolf has a wicked pair of dentures.
There's a really nice version of the same statue with a more flowery inscription ("Romae Novae ab Roma Aeterna" - "To New Rome from Eternal Rome") in Rome, Georgia. They put it away during WWII and didn't bring it back out until the 80s, I think.
I consider Cicero a hero.
The City of Cincinnati is not named after the Roman hero, Cincinnatus. The name of "Losantiville" was changed in 1790 to "Cincinnati" to honor the Society of the Cincinnati, the organization of former officers who served in the Continental Army under George Washington. The Society still exists.
Founding a new political method of ruling an Empire is worthy of a statute or two. Ole Mussilini was a wannabe, as are all facists. The honorable treatment of a people by a government starts a new political tradition among the governed who return that honor towards their Government. No need to kill, steal and destroy in that equation. Geo. W was our Cincinnatus, ergo the name chosen by the society of his former Officers who knew him firsthand.
Glad to see you made it to Eden Park; I hope you took in the Krohn Conservatory and the Art Museum while you where there?
Isn't the view from the overlook fantastic?
And did you make it to the Museum Center at Union Terminal? The Reinhold Weiss (sp?) murals are worth the trip alone.
Anecdote: My late Italian grandfather was a big supporter of Mussolini's early rule when he (Il Duce) was driving out the Mafia and cleaning up the crime. Apparently, he and my great-grandfather (then living in Italy) were beaten up and intimidated by the Mafia. It was one of the reasons they came to the US.
So, once the war broke out, my grandfather was in deep linguini. He was threatened with internment in Minnesota by the Roosevelt Administration but was instead, allowed to say in New Orleans as long as he never left the state and periodically reported to the government.
Funny thing is that his brother (my great uncle) landed on Omaha Beach in WW II. Was in a tank that barely made it ashore (water was too deep).
Once again: Bush did nothing remotely as "questionable" as FDR.
If Mussolini had been more inspired by Cincinnatus and less enamored of Caesar, Italy would have had a happier destiny. There's a line of military heroes, starting with Hector and going through Cincinnatus and onto Washington, Wellington, and Eisenhower who shrugged off personal glory and lived within the constraints of hearth and home. These men can be contrasted with an alternate strain of hero beginning with Achilles and on thru Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, and Patton who thought hearth and home existed only as an audience to celebrate their greatness.....Artists and intellectuals are fascinated by this latter strain. (During the twenties Mussolini got quite a good press.) This has to some extent skewered our view of history. I would feel more comfortable if someone in Cincinnati had erected a statue to Cincinnatus as a counter point to empire builders raised by a she wolf......The open, honest face of Althouse looks suffused with happiness. She is clearly having a great, good time in Cincinnati. A romance of "We'll always have Cincinnati" is to a romance of "We'll always have Paris" as Cincinnatus is to Caesar. This is a romance that celebrates domestic pleasures prudently sought rather than roses flung riotously in marble halls. In the end, sloppy sandwiches and a beer offer more sustenance than sweetbreads and burgandy.
Chip, are those plums among the berries? Yum.
Of course, the current US government version of the titted wolf is more aptly named "Ream-us".
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