Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War.

Chapter 240 The Highly-anticipated Work
But no matter what, in the end Vespa still sighed deeply: "I see, I know. I will take care of it in the near future. You may have to bear a little injustice, because things are not easy to handle. Maybe the wedding ceremony will be omitted because of some technical problems?"

If Orville was here, he would give him a look of understanding, but Tia's eyes were blank now, and she obviously didn't know what this meant.

Vespa was helpless, and patiently explained the problem to the other party: "You are the one who will inherit the throne in the future. If you follow the normal marriage process, where will your dignity be? And if we follow a completely different process, it is really too embarrassing for Orville. Is it okay to say this?"

First of all, it must be acknowledged that after the middle of the Republic, the Roman marriage system had improved. The husband no longer had ownership rights over his wife. However, due to the limitations of the times, both marriage and marriage ceremonies demonstrated patriarchy and husband's authority.

Take the dowry for example. The original meaning of the dowry is to regard women as a burden, an extra mouth to feed, so the woman's father's family has to pay a sum of money as compensation. It also symbolizes a transfer of power, from now on patriarchy becomes husband's power.

For ordinary women, this was the way the times were and the matter just passed, but for Tiya it was not the same. Whether it was "being regarded as a burden" or "the transition from patriarchy to husband's power", it was unacceptable treatment for the emperor, so the custom of dowry alone was something to talk about.

There must be at least five or six similar cultural customs, if not ten. Vespa felt dizzy when he thought about them and didn't know how to deal with them.

The customs of this world are somewhat different from those of the original world because of the existence of gifted people, and gifted people, regardless of gender, can have absolute physical or intellectual advantages over the other party. So even though the previous world was imperfect, the Romans in this world already have a set of procedures that are roughly equivalent to "marriage by marriage."

The problem is that both Orville and Tia are powerful figures in the Roman Empire. The Romans also believe that marrying into a woman's family is extremely shameful and should not be told to outsiders. Accepting a marriage into a woman's family is almost equivalent to giving up political rights, which is at least humiliating. Orville can be thick-skinned and not care about the criticism, but he has to consider the consequences, and the same goes for Vespa and Tia.

After hearing this, Tia realized that there were many complicated things involved in marriage: "This won't cause much trouble for you or Orvel?"

Vespa smiled and shook his head. "It will certainly be troublesome, but we can't give up just because of the trouble. I will make things go as smoothly as possible. There is no need to delay the time with an engagement ceremony. You can just get married directly. You are all quite old, especially you.

Although the most suitable time is the second half of June, I don't have the patience to wait another ten months, so now will do, as long as there is a good time and an auspicious date."

Tia obviously felt a little embarrassed and uncomfortable, but she still responded with a serious face: "I understand, please rest assured, I will take care of it."
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On the other side, Orville, who was busy at work, had no idea what was waiting for him. He was having a headache over the documents presented by the literati.

He originally thought that the works presented would be serious dramas such as "War in Germany", "History of Rome" and "Perseus and Poseidon", but he did not expect that many of the works presented were strange and bizarre.

He pointed at a document and raised an eyebrow. "Kama Sutra? Did I ask for such a book to be made?"

Ptolemy was also speechless: "You asked to release some seats for voting and let the people choose. This is the choice of the Roman people, hehe. This is because we rejected most books with similar content on the grounds of poor writing and inappropriate content. Otherwise, you would see unbearable things like "Open-minded Lady Claudia" and "The Beautiful Old Woman". At least this person's writing rhetoric is acceptable, and he knows how to quote from classics, but the things he wrote are not humane." Ptolemy was not good at rhetoric, but his knowledge of astronomy and mathematics made him a guest of honor in the Library of Alexandria. He was a normal and conservative ancient man, and of course he looked down on these explicit works.

Orwell originally thought that letting the common people nominate would lead to some kind of people's literature, but he didn't expect that everyone would just watch the fun and choose a bunch of frivolous books. Perhaps it can be considered people's literature, after all, it is what everyone wants.

Basically, Orwell could only use this reason to comfort himself. It would not be appropriate to break his promise, so he could only keep his promise and get the book done. Since Ptolemy looked down on it but still chose to pass it, there must be a reason.

He glanced at the author's name with a headache, and then he couldn't take his eyes off it - Ovid's name was clearly marked on it.

Combined with the title of the work, related memories suddenly emerged in my mind.

Due to cultural and temporal barriers, Orville has no impression of works such as "Kama Sutra" or "Love Song", but some works can break these barriers, such as "Metamorphosis".

Dante's Divine Comedy was largely derived from it. Among the four great ghosts Dante saw in Hell, Ovid can be ranked alongside Homer. Petrarch, Boccaccio, Chaucer and others were more or less influenced by Metamorphoses. Later, Goethe, Moliere and others also highly praised Metamorphoses. It can be said that this book has a great influence and significance.

But what Orville was thinking about was not the joy and excitement of meeting a great man, but another kind of excitement.

【So it's you, kid! 】

When Orwell was reading Greek mythology, he was also very curious about why the gods in those myths were so morally corrupt and had no personal cultivation, lagging far behind their peers. Later, he learned that the Greek mythology read by modern people was influenced to a certain extent by Ovid's "Metamorphoses".

To put it nicely, his works have humanistic colors and simple ancient atheistic features, pulling gods down from the altar and treating them as human beings. To put it bluntly, the gods in his works do not do divine things. For example, Zeus does not have the glorious and majestic image of "the father of gods and men", "far-sighted Zeus", or "king of the gods of Olympus" in "Theogony", but is more of a lustful person with low morals.

In his description, the king of gods Zeus seduced the goddess Europa and had an affair with the mother of Hercules. The queen of heaven Hera tortured the beautiful Igus to death out of jealousy. The goddess of wisdom Athena was jealous of a weaver and turned her into a spider. The goddess of virginity Artemis turned an innocent Greek noble who accidentally saw her bathing into a deer and let him be bitten to death by his own hounds.
These are not isolated cases. In his works, to put it bluntly, the male gods are lustful and the goddesses are jealous. It seems that he is writing about Greek gods, but in fact many people think that he is writing about the arrogant and licentious Roman nobles of the time.

(End of this chapter)