Fame is but the empty noise of madmen

Fame is but the empty noise of madmen. Epictetus quoting Diogenes. The Golden Sayings. Book 2. Number 187.

Image: The Roses of Heliogabalus, Leo Reiffenstein, 1891. Many of us are familiar with the "Roses of Heliogabalus" by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema but here is a different take on the subject by Austrian painter Leo Reiffenstein. The emperor Heliogabalus/Elagabalus was renowned for his excessive banquets. This event supposedly depicts the emperor suffocating his guests to death with rose petals. Some later historians report the emperor brought back the use of the Greek's brazen bull, a torture device in which a victim was placed inside a bronze, hollow bull and a fire was built beneath it. Heliogabalus apparently thought the screams of the bull's victims provided suitable background music for his bizarre feasts.