This morning, I’ve been reading a bit about the Battle of Chalons, where of Attila and his army of Huns fought and lost against a combined force of Romans and Visigoths in the year 451. Considered one of the bloodiest battles in history, with one contemporary historian reporting the tally of dead at 165,000 and another recording that it was a whopping 300,000. Romans, barbarians and Huns. Spears, arrows, axes and swords. Blood, guts, dismemberment, grevious wounds and death. A king, trampled under the hooves of his own men’s horses. The field, “piled high with corpses”. They just don’t fight battles like they used to these days. Pussies.

Entirely truthful or not, I absolutely love this description by the historian Jordanes of the sheer volume of gore:

“For, if we may believe our elders, a brook flowing between low banks through the plain was greatly increased by blood of the slain. It was not flooded by showers, as brooks usually rise, but was swollen by a strange stream and turned into a torrent by the increase of blood. Those whose wounds drove them to slake their parching thirst drank water mingled in gore. In their wretched plight they were forced to drink what they thought was the blood they had poured from their own wounds.” [Link]

This one, by Damascius, while fanciful, is kind of cool as well:

“…[The fighting was so severe] that no one survived except only the leaders on either side and a few followers: but the ghosts of those who fell continued the struggle for three whole days and nights as violently as if they had been alive; the clash of their arms was clearly audible.”

The taurobolium was the practice of sacrificing a bull to the gods (usually Magna Mater and Attis) in ancient Rome.

“A man descends into a pit or trench, wearing a toga of which one fold covers his ribbon-adorned head. The pit is covered with an openwork platform or flooring with many holes in it. A bull is then brought and its chest hacked with blows from a spear.”

“The huge wound spouts a flood of hot blood…which seethes in all directions…Through the countless channels provided by the perforations a stinking torrent falls. The priest enclosed in the pit gets the full force of it, exposing his befouled head to every drop; his robe and his whole body reek. Worse is to come! He tilts his head backwards, exposing his cheeks, his ears, his lips and nostrils, even his eyes. Without sparing his palate, he soaks his tongue in it, until his whole body is impregnated with this horrible, dark blood.” (Prudentius, Peristaphanon, X, 1028-40).

“The victim is removed, the cover taken off, and the ‘the pontiff, dreadful to see’ is extracted from the pit. He is hailed ‘with the idea’ that vile blood…has purified him while he was hidden in these shameful depths.’…in the Roman era the process consisted of being immersed in the spilt blood in order to identify oneself ritualistically, though imaginarily, with the victim. It was a substitution sacrifice. Inscriptions inform us that the slaughtered bull’s testicles were cut off and buried beneath an altar, just as the vires [meaning nutsack] of the castrated galli were ritually interred. [Link]

There’s actually a scene in the awesome, but cancelled HBO television show, Rome, where Attia of the Julii participates in the ceremony and is suitably doused.

Bathed in the blood of a bull, mouth and nose filled—just completely saturated in gore. That must have been one hell of a visual.

So today may be Valentine’s Day, the world’s lamest holiday to throw money away on, but you may or may not know that this stupid-ass card and candy exchanging day was originally a replacement for a Roman holiday called Lupercalia.

To quote Wikipedia:

The religious ceremonies were directed by the Luperci, the “brothers of the wolf”, priests of Faunus, dressed only in a goatskin. During Lupercalia, a dog and two male goats were sacrificed. Two patrician youths were anointed with the blood, which was wiped off with wool soaked in milk, after which they were expected to smile and laugh. The Luperci afterwards dressed themselves in the skins of the sacrificed goats, in imitation of Lupercus, and ran round the Palatine Hill with straps, cut from the skins, in their hands. These were called Februa. Girls would line up on their route to receive lashes from these whips. This was supposed to ensure fertility.

Let’s see… You got goat killing, dog sacrificing and pouring blood over rich young men. There’s some dairy in the mix, nothing wrong with that… Next you’re dressing the bloody dudes in goat costumes, forcing them to laugh and smile while they whip young women with animal skin. Hmmm.

Now that sounds like a fucking holiday.

Why on earth are people still sending cards, buying flowers and [gags on vomit] going to church on this day, when you could be covered in blood, whipping some chick? Where the fuck have our values and priorities gone?