Then maybe I would be invited to the friendly garden party of the Family Pride Picnic...
Let's take a look at the invitation letter first:
"David Pressman, Ambassador of the United States of America, Mr. Daniel Basila and their family cordially invite Mr. ... and his family to a Family Pride Picnic, in celebration and support of Hungary's LGBT community and allies. Supporters and families are invited to a holiday gathering with food, games, fun and camaraderie. Sunday, June 23, 2024, 15:00-18:00"
This was received by several people, representatives of the government party and politicians.
Great.
I can see with my mind's eye how Fidesz and KDNP politicians gather their families, their wives and children and go to the residence of the United States ambassador (1121 Budapest, Zugligeti út 93.), to the Family Pride Picnic as "supporters and families". and then they spend there with food, games and especially camaraderie. With Messrs. Meg Pressman and Basila…
Well, it won't be.
Because it can't be like that.
At least I really hope so.
For the simple reason that the laws of Hungary must also be observed by the ambassador of the United States of America. In other words, it should... But it doesn't. He does not follow our laws, nor the most basic rules associated with the position of ambassador. Because he imagines himself as the governor of the colonies, the limes, the ends.
On the other hand, our representatives and politicians obey our laws. For example, that LGBTQ propaganda is prohibited for minors. (Really, where did the Q go from the invitation? What about poor Q?)
And since it is forbidden, not a single ruling party politician or representative will show up as a family to be filled with camaraderie.
And now that we've cleared that up, let's stop for a moment at the residence.
My God... Zugligeti út 93.
I grew up there, in that neighborhood. I went to the primary school on Virányós út for eight years, and it is right next to Zugligeti út 93. At that time, tram 58 was still running, and we used it to go up to Libegő, or if we went to climb the Tündér rock, and with some inexplicable admiration and reverence we peeked into the "American garden", we always stared at the American flag waving there, and we knew, because we heard at home, that America is the promised land, the miracle, the forbidden fruit.
We had no such thoughts at the Embassy of the Soviet Union.
And of course, all this was between 1969 and 1977. It was a long time ago.
Now, every time I see the American flag waving or pass by the ambassador's residence, I feel and think the same way I did when I saw the Soviet flag and the Soviet residence. Weird what? Those who worshiped the Soviet flag and the Soviet Union and reviled America back then, for example between 1969 and '77, and their descendants now worship the American flag and the United States and revile the Russians.
And they will all be there today to be filled with "LGBT camaraderie" and to bathe in the charm of the governor and his lovely "wife".
Of course, it could also be a problem that back home, on the shelf in my father's library, I found József Geréb's The Most Significant Features of Roman Culture (published by Franklin Társulat Magyar Irod. Intézet és Könyvnyomda, Budapest, 1917), and among other things, I read this at that time, in the most receptive period of my life , sometime around 1976–77:
"'Otium perdidit urbes': peace destroys countries," exclaims Catullus, and Plutarch also shares this view. The Roman state had hitherto been the home of strenuous labor, now it became the resting-place of laziness; and Seneca sighs that happy is he who finds an enemy, for without him strength is diminished. […]
This is the unnaturalness that manifests itself in homosexual love, which is persecuted by criminal law in our country, as well as elsewhere, but which was so widespread in the ancient civilized states that no one considered it ugly to talk about it, to sing about it poetically. Just not like our younger generation of poets considers lost love to be a worthy subject.
[…]
In the past, scientists wanted to cover up this perversity, downplayed the phenomenon, mainly because it tended to take its victims in adolescence and the elderly. Many people only saw in him a passionate but innocent act of physical beauty, which wanted to develop spiritual beauty in the charming young man, and the Platonic Eros would have been the ideal of such relationships. But this was only an exception; in literature, this unnatural feeling was expressed shamelessly, no matter how much Seneca claimed that it was a phenomenon contrary to the Roman character.
However, it is striking and certainly not accidental that the Roman literature about these perversions in AD. at the beginning of the second century, it suddenly becomes silent; the trouble almost vanishes, and the beautiful mythos of Cupid and Psyche appears instead.
Novel literature, which develops at this time, knows nothing of such homosexual feelings. And the reason for this significant turn is that the simpler morals of the provinces win over the corruption of the capital. As well as the big cities of the world today, in ancient times Rome was the world's festering pulp. Pliny clearly distinguishes the capital from the entire world empire in this respect. For the man from the capital, the concept of the rural population was coupled with moral purity; the honesty of the Italian rural population is spoken of firmly and with envy; The writers also remember the pure life of the people of Spain.
However, Rome was oppressed by the curse of its central position. It was the imperial city, the seat of unlimited indulgence. In general, the free exercise of individuality was the principle of antiquity, and indeed the whole empire enjoyed freedom and excellent administration, even under the cruel imperial rule of Tiberius; only Rome, the ancient nest of freedom, felt the terrible pressure, here the best were constantly in the greatest danger. Now the emperors were there on the Palatine hill, all-powerful through their military, and infallible according to the course of their insane minds.
The heirs of the law-abiding Augustus considered themselves to be above law and morality, among whom the successor often trampled underfoot the good that his predecessor might have created. Because most of the time, imperial families degenerated already in the second generation; and these oppressed and humiliated the proud lords of Rome, the senators, to whom the constitution granted a share in governance, until self-esteem was broken and servility, creeping Byzantinism developed. And this had already begun under Tiberius.
But in addition to the emperorship, another power of no less importance played its unrestrained game: the crowd, as the writers say: faex mundi, the scum of the world. This scum from all parts of the empire flocked to the capital, the majority of humanity remained in the provinces. And Rome had to feed this garbage of humanity. This is an unheard of and unprecedented phenomenon.
The state treasury, or in other words the taxing provinces, feed the hundred thousand-headed naughty monster in the capital every day, which threw stones if it didn't get enough to eat. That is why the import of grain to Rome was one of the main concerns of the government. He entered into a supply contract with the city baking guild to feed 200,000 citizens per day. Some emperors went even further and distributed meat among them.
They were gluttonous sidewalk trampers, puffing idlers, but in their scurrying they were more powerful and more terrifying than the emperor himself. Even the large-scale gladiator fights and animal fights served only to entertain this lovely crowd, which demanded panem et circenses (bread and circus spectacles). These games served as an occasion for the emperor to appear in public. He gave interrogations in his lodge; and the people, a rude people in their terrible multitude, roared until the emperor consented to what he desired. And this was not a building sight. The emperor was only a great power in the eyes of the province."
That way. Such readings can be decisive. And even this:
""Our age is laden with vile sins: / it infects the lives of married people, / then the dirty price poured out / and covered our whole country," Horace, one of the official poets of the Augustan era, sang in his defeated ode. The first ruler of Rome, Augustus, really had a lot to do in terms of correcting morals. In Rome, the institution of marriage reached a crisis: even husbands and wives openly accepted their adulterous lifestyles. "Greek love", i.e. homosexuality, became completely common among both men and women, and even "boy love" (paedophilia) was widely accepted. It is no wonder that families belonging to the upper social classes did not have children, contraception and abortion were rampant, and child abuse took on astonishing proportions. The latter meant that unwanted babies were placed in a basket next to road crossings and busy public buildings; or simply thrown in the trash. Here, either wild animals killed them, or they were picked up and raised as slaves (most often prostitutes or gladiators). (Tibor Grüll: Rome: a pornographic society, HETEK, 08/09/2013)
Oh well. This might not even appear today. Neither does this:
"In the work titled Majestic Stories (Historia Augusta), interspersed with quite a lot of sensationalist elements, we can read about the "unspeakably unpleasant life" of Emperor Heliogabalus. The ruler, who came to power at the age of 15 and was assassinated at the age of 18, already caused a huge scandal by trying to introduce a sun cult with Eastern roots into the religious life of the Romans and placing the respect of the Sun God before that of Jupiter.
The perversions of the openly homosexual young emperor only increased his unpopularity. It is said that »« he used every opening of his body for pleasure and sent people out to search for men with as large penises as possible... The size of a man's genitals often influenced how high a position he could expect in the imperial court.« Later, Heliogabalus' desires went even further. in order to satisfy. He offered a huge fortune to any doctor who would provide him with a female genital organ – or, as the Roman historian Cassius Dio put it, 'insert a vagina into his body by means of an incision.'" (In bed with the Romans - sex and perversion in ancient Rome; Múlt-kor historical magazine, 22/09/2017)
Maybe I shouldn't read everything together. Then maybe they would invite me to the garden party of camaraderie...
Featured image: Tamás Kaszás / Index
