The Head of Hadrian as a Beehive ?

[Al Kowsky]

Crazy as this may sound, a group of Israelis created a beeswax model of the head of Roman emperor Hadrian, using a famous bronze statue of Hadrian that was unearthed in 1975 at the site of a Roman legion camp near Beit She'an as the prototype. An article in the Times of Israel, Daily Edition, gives a detailed account of this bizarre project, see the photo & link below 🤨.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/making-a-buzz-honeybees-recreate-ancient-statue-of-hadrian-in-jerusalem/?utm_campaign=daily-edition-2023-08-04&utm_medium=email&utm_source=The+Daily+Edition

I think their time would have been better spent if they used the head of P.M. Benjamin Netanyahu as a model instead of emperor Hadrian, but that's a topic for another discussion 😏....

[Ancient Coin Hunter]

Gee I can think of someone else who could serve as a model for that. Who might that be?

[Steppenfool]

One of Titus would have been funny due to the Talmudic Tradition about his death:

He went up on dry land, and a gnat came, entered his nostril, and picked at his brain for seven years. Titus suffered greatly from this until one day he passed by the gate of a blacksmith’s shop. The gnat heard the sound of a hammer and was silent and still. Titus said: I see that there is a remedy for my pain. Every day they would bring a blacksmith who hammered before him. He would give four dinars as payment to a gentile blacksmith, and to a Jew he would simply say: It is enough for you that you see your enemy in so much pain. He did this for thirty days and it was effective until then. From that point forward, since the gnat became accustomed to the hammering, it became accustomed to it, and once again it began to pick away at Titus’s brain.

It is taught in a baraita that Rabbi Pineḥas ben Arova said: I was at that time among the noblemen of Rome, and when Titus died they split open his head and found that the gnat had grown to the size of a sparrow weighing two sela. It was taught in another baraita: It was like a one-year-old pigeon weighing two litra. Abaye said: We have a tradition that its mouth was made of copper and its claws were fashioned of iron.

 

Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 56b

Edited August 8, 2023 by Steppenfool

[Al Kowsky]

3 hours ago, Steppenfool said:

One of Titus would have been funny due to the Talmudic Tradition about his death:

He went up on dry land, and a gnat came, entered his nostril, and picked at his brain for seven years. Titus suffered greatly from this until one day he passed by the gate of a blacksmith’s shop. The gnat heard the sound of a hammer and was silent and still. Titus said: I see that there is a remedy for my pain. Every day they would bring a blacksmith who hammered before him. He would give four dinars as payment to a gentile blacksmith, and to a Jew he would simply say: It is enough for you that you see your enemy in so much pain. He did this for thirty days and it was effective until then. From that point forward, since the gnat became accustomed to the hammering, it became accustomed to it, and once again it began to pick away at Titus’s brain.

It is taught in a baraita that Rabbi Pineḥas ben Arova said: I was at that time among the noblemen of Rome, and when Titus died they split open his head and found that the gnat had grown to the size of a sparrow weighing two sela. It was taught in another baraita: It was like a one-year-old pigeon weighing two litra. Abaye said: We have a tradition that its mouth was made of copper and its claws were fashioned of iron.

 

Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 56b

Maybe a beeswax head of Nero would be a better choice. His oppression of the Jewish people triggered the start of the 1st Jewish war with Rome. 

[CPK]

10 hours ago, Steppenfool said:

One of Titus would have been funny due to the Talmudic Tradition about his death:

He went up on dry land, and a gnat came, entered his nostril, and picked at his brain for seven years. Titus suffered greatly from this until one day he passed by the gate of a blacksmith’s shop. The gnat heard the sound of a hammer and was silent and still. Titus said: I see that there is a remedy for my pain. Every day they would bring a blacksmith who hammered before him. He would give four dinars as payment to a gentile blacksmith, and to a Jew he would simply say: It is enough for you that you see your enemy in so much pain. He did this for thirty days and it was effective until then. From that point forward, since the gnat became accustomed to the hammering, it became accustomed to it, and once again it began to pick away at Titus’s brain.

It is taught in a baraita that Rabbi Pineḥas ben Arova said: I was at that time among the noblemen of Rome, and when Titus died they split open his head and found that the gnat had grown to the size of a sparrow weighing two sela. It was taught in another baraita: It was like a one-year-old pigeon weighing two litra. Abaye said: We have a tradition that its mouth was made of copper and its claws were fashioned of iron.

 

Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 56b

Wow. Apparently someone had quite a vivid, if bizarre, imagination!

[robinjojo]

I guess you could say that now Hadrian has more than one bee in his bonnet!

[Phil Anthos]

A 30 year old gnat. 'nuf said.

~ Peter Hope