ITT: Veeky Forumstorical Banter

Diogenes

Zaporozhian Cossacks to the Turkish Sultan

O sultan, Turkish devil and damned devil's kith and kin, secretary to Lucifer himself. What the devil kind of knight are thou, that canst not slay a hedgehog with your naked arse? The devil shits, and your army eats. Thou shalt not, thou son of a whore, make subjects of Christian sons; we have no fear of your army, by land and by sea we will battle with thee, fuck thy mother.

Thou Babylonian scullion, Macedonian wheelwright, brewer of Jerusalem, goat-fucker of Alexandria, swineherd of Greater and Lesser Egypt, pig of Armenia, Podolian thief, catamite of Tartary, hangman of Kamyanets, and fool of all the world and underworld, an idiot before God, grandson of the Serpent, and the crick in our dick. Pig's snout, mare's arse, slaughterhouse cur, unchristened brow, screw thine own mother!

So the Zaporozhians declare, you lowlife. You won't even be herding pigs for the Christians. Now we'll conclude, for we don't know the date and don't own a calendar; the moon's in the sky, the year with the Lord, the day's the same over here as it is over there; for this kiss our arse!

- Koshovyi otaman Ivan Sirko, with the whole Zaporozhian Host.

>Yes, the current situation is shit. But it's the fertiliser for our future.
- a president addressing his nation
Motivational bantz.

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best fucking banter in history
they even held a mock session of congress where they unanimously voted to burn the white house down while drunk and wrecking the place

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Where the brits going to intervene, never knew this

how credible is that?

Not very

Literally everything Aristophanes ever said ever. Ywn be a patrician Athenian.

seeand

I once met a girl who thought Assemblywomen wasn't satire. She unironically thought aristophanes was some kind of ultra-progressive feminist.

>Women's rule ruins the state
How even?

>implying she actually read the comedy

Letter exchange between Pope Innocent IV and Güyük Khan

What the actual fuck?

We're having a thread about historical banter and nobody has mentioned the single greatest banterer in human history?

For shame, Veeky Forums, I'm not even British and I acknowledge history's true king of wit

>U.S. President Harry S. Truman once defended Churchill’s replacement, Clement Attlee, by saying “He seems a modest sort of fellow.“
>To which, Churchill replied “He’s got a lot to be modest about.“

Complaining about former Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald’s lack of gusto, Churchill said:
>“I remember when I was a child, being taken to the celebrated Barnum’s Circus, which contained an exhibition of freaks and monstrosities, but the exhibit on the programme which I most desired to see was the one described as “The Boneless Wonder”. My parents judged that the spectacle would be too demoralising and revolting for my youthful eye and I have waited fifty years, to see the The Boneless Wonder sitting on the Treasury Bench.“
> “a sheep in sheep’s clothing.“
>“We know that he has, more than any other man, the gift of compressing the largest amount of words into the smallest amount of thought.“

>“He is one of those orators of whom it was well said: Before they get up, they do not know what they are going to say; when they are speaking, they do not know what they are saying; and when they have sat down, they do not know what they have said.“
Winston Churchill on Lord Charles Beresford

>Speaking of conservative politician Stanley Baldwin, Churchill said: “I wish Stanley Baldwin no ill, but it would have been much better if he had never lived.“

>Liberal politician Joseph Chamberlain was once a mentor to Churchill, but after a disagreement over free trade, Churchill said “Mr. Chamberlain loves the working man, he loves to see him work.“

>“Why don’t you go into politics? I mean to be Prime Minister of England: it would be a great lark if you were President of the United States at the same time.“
To American Novelist Winston Spencer Churchill

>“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile hoping it will eat him last.“

>Bessie Braddock: “Winston, you are drunk.“
>Winston: “My dear, you are ugly, but tomorrow I shall be sober and you will still be ugly.“

>After being disturbed on the toilet by the Lord Privy Seal, Winston said “Tell him I can only deal with one sh-t at a time!”

>“What can you do with a man who looks like a female llama surprised when bathing?“
On Charles De Gaulle

>“All dogs look up to you; all cats look down on you… only the pig looks at you as an equal.“

>“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.“

>“I’m just preparing my impromptu remarks.“

>“In the course of my life I have often had to eat my words, and I must confess that I have always found it a wholesome diet.“

>"Tact is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip."

>"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened."

>"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject."

>"For myself I am an optimist - it does not seem to be much use to be anything else."

>"From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put."

>"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes."

>"We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out."

Fuck churchill, overrated for reasons which I cannot bother to explain with one being his arrogance, two "just invade turkey bro it will be easy" 3 "dood i fucking love war" 4 "haig sucks", 10 years later "whoops turns out i was wrong. and 5, lol let the indians starve they are niggers XD, also lets fucking kill gandhi.

good at creating zingers though.

This isn't a discussion about political merit, it's a discussion about banter

That one Irish Monk who sat opposite an English King, and when asked by the king "what separates you from a drunkard?" the monk replied "Naught but a table."

Hewson: I ask the Prime Minister: if you are so confident about your view of Fightback, why will you not call an early election?
Keating: The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm out of this load of rubbish over a number of months. There will be no easy execution for you. You have perpetrated one of the great mischiefs on the Australian public with this thing, trying to rip away our social wage, trying to rip away the Australian values which we built in our society for over a century.

It's really a shame Keating has become an SJW cuck.

meanwhile this bad boy was based until his death.

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Not an argument.

based cossacks. Love the Repins painting of this occasion

When asked by the English King why he burned down a church in Ireland, a Fitzgerald noble is said to have replied that he thought the bishop was inside. The bishop who was sat to the left of the King. The bishop advised the King to arrest the noble, because no one in Ireland could control him or is he family. The King responded by appointing the Fitzgerald noble as hereditary governor of Ireland.

Like some primitive version of FALC

n a meeting of the Senate dedicated to the Catilina affair, Cato harshly reproached Caesar for reading personal messages while the senate was in session to discuss a matter of treason. Cato accused Caesar of involvement in the conspiracy and suggested that he was working on Catilina's behalf, which might explain Caesar's otherwise odd position—that the conspirators should receive no public hearing yet be shown clemency. Caesar offered it up to Cato to read. Cato took the paper from his hands and read it, discovering that it was a love letter from Caesar's mistress Servilia, Cato's half-sister.

>Communism in a nutshell

>Roman

When he was visiting London Gandhi was asked by a reporter what he thought of western civilization.
"I think it would be a good idea"

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The madman poked fun at Marxism 2000 years before it even came to exist.

>"Behold, a man!"

That's actually a collection of two separate quotes. The real one is just as funny nonetheless.

>but tomorrow I shall be sober
Why would someone do that? Just go to a dinner party and tell lies?

does it count if they apologized for it

Apparently he also asked if the spartans wanted him to come as friend or foe, to which the spartans replied "neither"

Equality between citizens sets up the moral justification for equality between citizens and slaves.

When you give an inch, you really do give a mile.

>“Why don’t you go into politics? I mean to be Prime Minister of England: it would be a great lark if you were President of the United States at the same time.“
>To American Novelist Winston Spencer Churchill

Underrated
>m-muh longbows

>Huemac then had sex with these sorceresses.

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>we don't know the date and don't own a calendar; the moon's in the sky, the year with the Lord, the day's the same over here as it is over there;
this bit always gets me

>tfw you'll never fuck laughing hags with your bro Huemac
JDIMSA

>Before the First World War started, the young Wilhelmina visited the powerful German Emperor Wilhelm II. The Emperor thought he could impress the queen of a relatively small country by telling her, "My guards are seven feet tall and yours are only shoulder-high to them." Wilhelmina smiled politely and replied, "Quite true, Your Majesty, your guards are seven feet tall. But when we open our dikes, the water is ten feet deep!"

I don't get it.

I dont get it either

okay but seriously, ww1
>dikes
ahhh

DELET THIS

Kill yourself

The Netherlands are made of lowlands that can easily be flooded, something the dutch have used many times in the past by drowning invaders.

When the Byzantine emperor Nicephoros seized the throne from his mother, Irene, he stopped paying the bribes that his mother had been sending to the Caliph Haroun al-Rashid to keep the peace, and he sent Haroun a smartass letter to let him know. Haroun sent an answer: "From Haroun, Commander of the Faithful, to Nicephoros the Roman dog. I have your letter, son of an infidel. You shall not read, you shall behold my reply." Haroun then marched his army to the Bosporus and besieged Constantinople. Nicephoros paid up.

>When the whole squad starts roasting one dude

whether or not its true it doesn't really matter, by the time of the Macedonian invasion Sparta had been completely crushed by Thebes and was basically a non-entity. Without the Helots they couldn't realistically continue their traditional way of life and constant war had reduced their numbers to practically nothing.

It wasn't until after the Romans took over that Sparta was rebuilt as a tourist destination and while some of their heritage remained the Spartan military traditions were actually reestablished in the time of Caracalla, with the roman government just cutting them a check to pay for their food in return for Spartans promising to serve in a special military unit that was designed to look and fight like the Hoplites of classical greece. Apparently after the battle of Adrianople this unit actually faced off with and destroyed an advance force of visigoths. Although the main force of the visigoths later destroyed what was left of Sparta.

>government just cutting them a check to pay for their food in return for Spartans promising to serve in a special military unit that was designed to look and fight like the Hoplites of classical greece. Apparently after the battle of Adrianople this unit actually faced off with and destroyed an advance force of visigoths. Although the main force of the visigoths later destroyed what was left of Sparta.

more on this? i always thought the idea of spartans and romans fighting with/against each other was cool

not exactly banter, but my favorite Sherman quote because of how accurate his prediction turned out. This was when speaking at a university in Louisiana in December 1860.

You people of the South don't know what you are doing. This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end. It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization! You people speak so lightly of war; you don't know what you're talking about. War is a terrible thing! You mistake, too, the people of the North. They are a peaceable people but an earnest people, and they will fight, too. They are not going to let this country be destroyed without a mighty effort to save it … Besides, where are your men and appliances of war to contend against them? The North can make a steam engine, locomotive, or railway car; hardly a yard of cloth or pair of shoes can you make. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical, and determined people on Earth — right at your doors. You are bound to fail. Only in your spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else you are totally unprepared, with a bad cause to start with. At first you will make headway, but as your limited resources begin to fail, shut out from the markets of Europe as you will be, your cause will begin to wane. If your people will but stop and think, they must see in the end that you will surely fail.

>Cato's face when

>When a British captive officer challenged Surcouf with the words "You French fight for money while we fight for honour", Surcouf replied "Each of us fights for what he lacks most"

In the Hellenistic period there was a significant brain drain from the greek heartland, because all the best and brightest were entering the administration or creating art/architecture in the newly conquered territories. So it became something of a backwater, and the art from the period reflects this. Athens became basically a living museum and enormously popular tourist destination. This continued in the Roman period and most of the temples in the acropolis were actually built by Rome. Because Athens was so famous people decided they wanted to visit their ancient enemy as well, Sparta. The problem was that Sparta had been basically reduced to a village by the Thebans, and there wasn't much left behind from the classical period so in order to build it up as a tourist destination the people who lived in the village resurrected a lot of the old traditions just to make a show for the tourists
It was Caracalla who really restored it though, from Herodian's history
>Caracalla himself went around in Macedonian dress, affecting especially the broad sun hat and short boots. He enrolled picked youths in a unit which he labeled his Macedonian phalanx (Phalanx Macedonica); its officers bore the names of Alexander's generals. He also summoned picked young men from Sparta and formed a unit which he called his Laconian and Pitanate Battalion (Cohors Laconica et Pitanata?)

>When he (Caracalla) observed that the city was overflowing with people who had come in from the surrounding area, he issued a public proclamation directing all the young men to assemble in a broad plain, saying that he wished to organized a phalanx in honor of Alexander similar to his Macedonian and Spartan battalions, this unit to bear the name of the hero.

>Furthermore (Caracalla wrote to Artabanus), the Roman infantry were invincible in close-quarter combat with spears

that guy really was out there, not just creating an entire army of military reenactors but then going into battle with them

This is fucking interesting. Is there any more on the units? Do we know when/how they ended?

Also do you have sources?

give this a read
tabulaenovaeexercituum.pbworks.com/w/page/14246743/Middle Imperial Roman

Holy shit, Caracalla was an absolute fucking madman. 10/10 would share a beer with material.

Thanks!

livius.org/sources/content/herodian-s-roman-history/herodian-4.8/
start at 4.8.6 and read to the end of 4.9

>disdain for plebs: rising

>Particularly galling are quips that reveal one's shortcomings. Thus they made many jokes at the emperor's expense about his murdering his brother, calling his aged mother Jocasta, and mocking him because, in his insignificance, he imitated the bravest and greatest of heroes, Alexander and Achilles.

S
A
V
A
G
E

> expecting them to actually read it

These are the same people who argue for open borders and cite Native Americans as an example in their favour.

>Once, when a hostess at the Congress of Vienna apologized when a group of French officers turned their backs on him, he replied, “I have seen their backs before, madam.”

Plato was discoursing on his theory of ideas and, pointing to the cups on the table before him, said while there are many cups in the world, there is only one `idea’ of a cup, and this cupness precedes the existence of all particular cups. “I can see the cups on the table,” said Diogenes, “but I can’t see the `cupness'”. “That’s because you have the eyes to see the cup,” said Plato, “but”, tapping his head with his forefinger, “you don’t have the intellect with which to comprehend `cupness’.” Diogenes walked up to the table, examined a cup and, looking inside, asked, “Is it empty?” Plato nodded. “Where is the `emptiness’ which precedes this empty cup?” asked Diogenes. Plato allowed himself a few moments to collect his thoughts, but Diogenes reached over and, tapping Plato’s head with his finger, said “I think you will find here is the `emptiness’.

>Empire

Athenian communism has never been tried!

Haha wtf
Post the sad furry's blog

>As Helen was to the Trojans, so has that man been to this republic—the cause of war, the cause of mischief, the cause of ruin.

Fourteen fucking speeches, the absolute madman

wtf I love Athenian humor now

he's talking about Antony?

Please explain, is that the hand sign for "eyes-on"?

i've been looking for an excuse to use this image for about a year now

Absolute savage.

no, it's the hand sign for "Fuck off" or something like that

it's an English thing, the mythology being that it was after that famous battle (Agincourt) where the english rekt the French with their longbows and then, after, showed off their intact bow fingers. Done so because the french would cut the index and middle finger of archers if they captured them.

I probably butchered this, im sorry

Not even gonna lie. Actually pretty embarassed at this major BTFO. DELET THIS NOW.

thanks, that's pretty interesting

not Veeky Forums related but its old and heres a bump

>gets booed by Russian fans at 1980 Moscow Olympics
>sets world record, wins the gold medal
>does pic related, Russians get assblasted
>after the Olympics, the Russian Ambassador to Poland demands that he be stripped of his medal for insulting the Russian people
>Poles refuse, say it was an involuntary muscle spasm

t. Gandhi

LaughCryingPepe.jpg

Literally the old school concept of "where's my money, bitch?"

Absolutely embarrassing

Haig did suck

Diogenes was too witty for his own good.

>During the Polish–Soviet War, Weygand was a member of the Interallied Mission to Poland of July and August 1920, supporting the infant Second Polish Republic against the Soviet Union. Weygand travelled to Warsaw expecting to assume command of the Polish army, yet those expectations were quickly dashed. He had no good reply for Józef Piłsudski, who on 24 July during their first meeting asked "How many divisions do you bring?" Weygand had none to offer.