Armchair Classicist (Ryan Schaller)
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armchairclassicist.bsky.social
Armchair Classicist (Ryan Schaller)
@armchairclassicist.bsky.social
2.9K followers 3.9K following 2.1K posts
Ancient history and lit, photos of my cats. Writer, reader, fantasy, sci-fi, 🏳️‍🌈Ally, No🚫GenAI content. Lawyer by day.

Probably followed you for mentioning reading, history, or writing in your profile.

"Armchair Classicist: The Page" on FB
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Armchair Classicist (Ryan Schaller) @armchairclassicist.bsky.social · Sep 3
1/4
One of my posts earlier this week has been shared 500+ times over the past few days. So if you're looking at the page for the first time, here's a pin status explaining what this page is:

I am not a professional Classicist or historian. I am an enthusiastic amateur who works by day as a lawyer
armchairclassicist.bsky.social
LOLs, from the @csmfht.bsky.social facebook page.

#myth #AncientGreekTragedy
top text: "every oracle in greek tragedies like" Image is a man in a tuxedo with the closed captioned text: "Why are you booing me? I'm right."
December 28, 2025 at 6:30 PM
armchairclassicist.bsky.social
Nonfiction reading for today:
"Empires of the Silk Road" by Christopher Beckwith
📚💙 #HistoryBookChat
Cover of the described book.
December 28, 2025 at 6:15 PM
armchairclassicist.bsky.social
Happy #Caturday Eve from Chaucer.
🐈📷 #fluffy #CatsOfBlueSky #chonky
large gray cat lies asleep on a lap
December 27, 2025 at 5:44 AM
armchairclassicist.bsky.social
The Roman poet Catullus -
But that, Flavius, hardly nice or honest This thy folly, methinks Catullus also E'en had known it, a whisper had betray'd thee. Some she-malady, some unhealthy wanton, Fires thee verily: thence the shy denial. Least, you keep not a lonely night of anguish; Quite too clamorous is that idly-feigning Couch, with wreaths, with a Syrian odor oozing; Then that pillow alike at either utmost Verge deep-dinted asunder, all the trembling Play, the strenuous unsophistication; All, O prodigal, all alike betray thee. Why? sides shrunken, a sullen hip disabled, Speak thee giddy, declare a misdemeanor. So, whatever is yours to tell or ill or Good, confess it. A witty verse awaits thee And thy lady, to place ye both in heaven.
December 27, 2025 at 4:16 AM
armchairclassicist.bsky.social
Zora when she was still a kitten.
🐈‍⬛📷
Brown tortoiseshell kitten
December 23, 2025 at 3:32 PM
armchairclassicist.bsky.social
I usually try to not get too political on here, but this one had me rofl.
"This is fine" dog with a MAGA ballcap. All of the fires in the image have been redacted out with black boxes.
December 22, 2025 at 3:12 PM
armchairclassicist.bsky.social
🤦
Oh Ares...
December 22, 2025 at 2:57 PM
armchairclassicist.bsky.social
From On the fortune of Alexander: "Greatness lies, not in the possession of good things, but in our use of them, since even infant children inherit their fathers' kingdoms and dominions." Plutarch, Moralia IV
December 21, 2025 at 3:40 AM
armchairclassicist.bsky.social
One more for #Caturday.

Chaucer ( #fluffy) and Zora #MaineCoon
🐈📷 #CatsOfBlueSky #Cats
Two long haired cats, one belly up, on a tile flor.
December 21, 2025 at 2:23 AM
armchairclassicist.bsky.social
Babrius wrote Aesopic fables in Greek during the early Roman imperial period.

#Folklore
Fable 19: The Fox and the Grapes Some bunches of grapes were hanging from a dark-colored vine on a hillside. A crafty fox, seeing the clusters so fully laden, tried with many a leap to reach the dangling purple fruit; for it was ripe indeed and ready for the vintage. After toiling in vain and being unable to reach it, he went away beguiling his grief with these words: “The grapes are sour, not ripe as I supposed.” Babrius, Translated by Ben Edwin Perry
December 21, 2025 at 1:28 AM
armchairclassicist.bsky.social
#Classics
White text on a black and white photo, "So true it is that a man's fatherland and his parents are what he holds sweetest, even though he has settled far away from his people in some rich home in foreign lands." Homer, Odyssey, Book 9, translated by E.V. Rieu
December 21, 2025 at 1:07 AM
armchairclassicist.bsky.social
Some humor for your Saturday.
Top text: Some say Diogenes was a great philosopher. Picture of stone statue of Diogenes. Bottom text: But I'm pretty cynical about that.
December 20, 2025 at 9:32 PM
armchairclassicist.bsky.social
The origins of the Alcmeonid Curse
December 20, 2025 at 7:20 PM
armchairclassicist.bsky.social
Happy #Caturday from Zora.
#Cats 🐈📷
Brown tortoiseshell Maine Coon cat sleeps on an exercise step.
December 20, 2025 at 7:08 PM
armchairclassicist.bsky.social
In this fable, Babrius calls attention to the consequences of acting in anger.
White text over a black and white photo of a farm: Fable 11: The Fire Bearing Fox Someone caught a fox, the enemy of his vines and garden. Wishing to punish him with a new kind of torment, he set fire to his tail, after trying some tow upon it, and let him loose to run. But the spirit of Retribution that keeps watch over such acts guided the fox with his burden of fire straight into the grain fields of the man who had done him hurt. It was the season of standing crops, and the grain was fruitful, fair, and full of promise. The owner ran after the fox, bewailing the loss of his hard work, and the grain never saw his threshing floor. One must be calm and not unbounded in one’s anger. There is a certain retribution for anger—and may I guard against it—bringing loss upon such men as lose their tempers.
December 20, 2025 at 2:38 AM
Reposted by Armchair Classicist (Ryan Schaller)
feralstreeep.bsky.social
these documents are more blacked out than Pete Hegseth on New Years Eve
December 19, 2025 at 10:33 PM
armchairclassicist.bsky.social
Zora, on one of her thrones. 🐈‍⬛📷
#CatsOfBlueSky #Cats #MaineCoon
Brown tortoiseshell Maine Coon cat sitting on a chair
December 20, 2025 at 1:46 AM
armchairclassicist.bsky.social
An Aesopic Fable by Babrius.
White text over a black and white photo of a tree: Fable 3: The Goat and the Goatherd Once a goatherd had need to call in the she-goats, in order to drive them into the fold, and as he called some of them came, but others lingered. Down in the ravine one of the disobedient goats was still cropping the fragrant leaves of goatswort and mastic when the goatherd hit her horn with a stone thrown from a distance and broke it off. Then he entreated her: “Don’t, I beg you, goat and fellow-slave, in the name of Pan who watches o’er these glens, don’t, friend goat, betray me to the master. I didn’t mean to throw that stone so straight.” “And how,” said she, “am I to hide a deed that is self-evident? My horn shouts out the truth, even though I hold my tongue.”
December 20, 2025 at 1:17 AM
Reposted by Armchair Classicist (Ryan Schaller)
icysedgwick.bsky.social
An image a day for December 2025 no 18. Anemone!

In myth, anemones were said to have sprung forth from the blood of Adonis after he was fatally wounded by a boar and Aphrodite decreed he would live on as a flower.

In Mrs Burke's language of flowers dictionary, anemones meant 'forsaken'.
A white anemone surrounded by green leaves.
December 18, 2025 at 8:09 PM
Reposted by Armchair Classicist (Ryan Schaller)
oz-of-the-ancients.bsky.social
#FindsFriday This fabulous little figurine of a woman was found in Egypt from ~3000BC

But based on the pose she was probably carved in Mesopotamia

Buuuut she's made from Lapis Lazuli from Afghanistan!

Quite a journey!

#archaeology #photooftheday

📍Seen in the Fitzwilliam museum in Cambridge🏺
A tiny blue stone figurine with arms crossed standing on a red museum plinth
November 28, 2025 at 6:54 PM
armchairclassicist.bsky.social
Finally set up my holiday tree.

#Classics
Green and red Loeb volumes stacked on a desk in the vague shape of a Christmas tree.
December 18, 2025 at 2:23 AM
armchairclassicist.bsky.social
Zora, the queen of floof, granting me some cuddle time today.
🐈‍⬛📷 #CatsOfBlueSky
#Cats #fluffy #MaineCoon
Brown tortoiseshell Maine Coon cat
December 17, 2025 at 6:51 PM
armchairclassicist.bsky.social
screenshot of a facebook post by "Armchair Classicist the Page" Spouse: It's weird that it autocompletes to Oedipus. Me: It probably listens to me talk. Spouse: [heavy pause] Spouse: [heavier pause] Me: Because it’s a classical play!
December 17, 2025 at 1:04 AM
armchairclassicist.bsky.social
Chaucer and Zora have an abundance of their favorite packing material to play with thanks to @thebrokenbinding.bsky.social

Their Inheritance Tetralogy set is quite lovely.
#Cats #Chonky #Books #CatsOfBlueSky
🐈📷 🪐📚💙
Two large cats lying down with honeycomb paper packing material covering part of one cat. 4 spines of the Inheritance Tetralogy in the colors, from left to right, blue, red, black, and green. A different angle of the two large cats and honeycomb packing material. This photo shows the images painted on to the exterior of the text block. Each book has a dragon of a different color in flight against a a cloudy sky.
December 16, 2025 at 10:10 PM
armchairclassicist.bsky.social
In this fragment from the Greek poet Stesichorus, we're reminded that differences in taste are nothing new. Steishorus here invokes the muse to "thrust wars aside" in favor of happier subject matter.

#Classics
White text over a black and white photo: "Muse, thrust wars aside, and in my company, celebrate the marriages of gods, men's banquets, and the festivities of the Blessed." Stesichorus, Fragment 210, translated by Andrew M. Miller.
December 16, 2025 at 3:45 AM