Writerhof

Posca! No, we're not talking about the character of the same name from Puccini's opera "Tosca", but Posca: this is what the Romans used to call a drink made from tipped wine or vinegar and water. They used it to disinfect the often not so clean water that was often available to them. They often spiced it up with honey and spices. You can definitely smell the tarragon from the fragrance pyramid and possibly also some dill in Oxygène Homme. The Romans will have used the two spices for their Posca but probably for reasons of taste rather not.

The ancient Romans stretched their water for disinfection so vinegar. The idea to sell that as a fragrance, they had not - unlike Lanvin, which dye the blue and market as "Oxygène Homme". Besides that, you can still smell some aquatic notes and the non-stated ambroxan. Cool Water meets Hengstenberg quasi.

I do not have to say more about the fragrance. I'm glad that I could trade it this week and wish the subsequent owner more fun with it than I had him!

This would be now but no review of me if I would not still drop a few loosely fitting historical facts; almost in time for the just past Easter: Who was raised Christian, probably still remembers the story of when Jesus on the cross of a Roman soldier (he is called Stephaton) was handed a sponge soaked with vinegar. At least three of the four evangelists report this; how John came up with a sprig of hyssop instead of the sponge remains to be seen. What sounds like a cruelty - I think on the cross you have enough problems, you don't need vinegar on your face - was probably an act of mercy: Jesus' penultimate words are said to have been - according to John again - "I thirst!" So the soldier rather handed him some Posca from his canteen, the vinegar being a mistranslation.

Or was it a fragrance strip with Oxygène Homme after all?

This saying - O times! O manners! - was coined by Cicero in his speeches against Catilina, recorded by his freedman Marcus Tullius Tiro in an early form of what we now know as shorthand. After being defeated in the consul election for the year 63 BC, a certain Lucius Sergius Catilina plotted a coup d'état. The whole thing was uncovered and indicted in some of his most famous speeches by Marcus Tullius Cicero, who had won the election against Catilina.

Cicero was awarded the title of pater patriae for this, and he is still known today as a famous orator, lawyer, and politician of the late Roman Republic. Catilina, on the other hand, was first banished and later, when he opposed Rome with an army, was killed in a battle.

The time of upheaval, but also of Rome's greatness, is found in Unguentum. Unguentarii were called ointment or fragrance makers in ancient Rome. In ancient Rome, fragrances were presented in the form of ointments or oils and not diluted with alcohol and water as they are today. It is quite possible, therefore, that Cicero, the homo novus, who had attained all the offices of state at the minimum age, regularly supplied himself with new perfumes at the Unguentarius, which he applied after visiting the thermae.

Unguentum of Onyrico reminds here of a successful Roman politician and general like Cicero was. He comes along masculine, has a sharp aftershave note, as one might have used it when shaving in the field. At the same time, the scent comes across as smoky, further evoking the army camp. If the successful army commander returns to Rome, he may cover his head with a laurel wreath as a triumphant - from a slave who whispered to him, always reminded of his own mortality.

As he passes through Rome on his chariot, his own smell mingles with the scents drifting from the small streets of the city. Honey from the parlors of the sweet makers who set up their stalls during the triumphal procession to supply the people with their creations. But there are also other exotic spices mixed in, such as vanilla, which at that time was still separated from the Roman Empire by a large ocean (I always find it difficult to include vanilla notes in the descriptions of such historically inspired fragrances) - or saffron, cinnamon and tea, which must have already seemed very exotic in ancient Rome.

By the time he arrives at the end of the triumphal procession at the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitol, the exhalations of the massive wooden arches erected for the triumphal procession mingle with this melange of scents. Only some of the triumphal arches remain today, as some of them were permanently built of stone or marble. Of that stone, the travertine of Tivoli, is also made the attachment on the cap of Onyrico's Unguentum.

Unguentum was one of the first scents that got me curious about and excited about niche fragrances, even if it's not at the top of my list of niche favorites. It took me a few tries with it before I could do something with it. But it's quite good for a spicy-balsamic scent and in my opinion, although I don't think much of the fixed classification of gender scents, it's a very masculine scent. But that one can also see or smell quite differently than I, you can see from the previous distribution of fragrance owners here. The milliliter price is already not without and scrapes on middle Roman decadence. In this sense: O tempora, o mores!

Friday eight o'clock in the morning, political science exercise. On the grey autumn morning I have thrown on my old leather jacket, leave the house unmotivated and make my way by tram to an old prefabricated university building that will soon be demolished anyway. The room isn't too crowded, Friday mornings aren't exactly the most popular time to schedule your university events.

For the first time, I read from Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan. It won't be the last. The English philosopher of the state had made few friends in his day. In the state of nature, he saw man as a "wolf" to his fellow species, caught in a war of all against all. The only way out, therefore, was to transfer his natural rights to a sovereign who had a monopoly on the use of force and put an end to this state of war. Even though Hobbes may be considered one of the main theorists of absolutism, he stepped on the toes of monarchists and liberals alike. The latter quite obviously because they wanted defensive rights against a too omnipotent state. The former precisely because Hobbes left it open who should hold the monopoly on the use of force - it could be a king just as much as any other autocrat.

Back from the 17th century to 21st century East Germany, the smell of black, sweetened coffee wafts through the room. You need something to keep you awake at such an un(i)time, or to eradicate the next day's beer too much. Slowly the coffee grows colder, but still everyone clings to their mugs - filled with coffee that has grown cold, growing ever more bitter and smoky.

One only slightly notices the exhalations of the wooden furniture in the seminar room. Too long does the old GDR furniture now its service and is sat down, but nevertheless with it unexpectedly cosy.

Now absolutist systems are not the "hot shit" in either practical politics or political science these days. Nevertheless, Hobbes has not lost his relevance. His description of the war of all against all is still one of the dominant descriptions of the state of affairs between states, between which, after all, there is no central power that could effectively exercise a monopoly of power. Influenced by this is the thoroughly pessimistic theory of neorealism, which describes relations between states primarily in categories of power and military force.

"Power," however, is what most of the participants probably thought towards the end of the seminar on Friday morning: "Finally, let's call it a day!" By ten, everyone is free to be released outside, into the war of all against all. Snarling (or may it be yawning), everyone moves towards the tram stop and then back home to get ready for the weekend. It's only there, at home, that the musky notes of "Leviathan" are likely to come through. But most of the people in the club will probably not have put on this scent, as I remember the scent preferences of the late noughties. However, in the dim, alternative study pub where an unknown band is playing way too loudly, this heavy scent could definitely work its charm. The melange of overflowing spicy coffee, with some leather and some woody notes, exudes a certain warmth that you could find in such a packed pub. It definitely makes an interesting counterpoint to the patchouli you'll smell there more often - not in the sense of a contrast, but rather as a complement to it.

...this is how I imagine the "scent" of an average man in the fertile crescent in the early Bronze Age. To this may be added a brackish water accord from the marshes of the watery rivers of the Euphrates and Tigris. Akkad bears none of this mixture, which is more of a stench than a fragrance, but perhaps rather describes the opposite of the reality of life for the arable farmers and cattle breeders in Mesopotamia. The fragrance, created by Delphine Thierry together with Lubin's Gilles Thévenin, is dedicated to the legendary King Sargon of Akkad. He was the son of a gardener, cupbearer to King Kiš and later the goddess Ištar loved him and made him the ruler of Akkad. Such a divine ruler also seems appropriate to the fragrance creation of Lubin.

En-hedu-Ana, Sargon's daughter, became a priestess and invoked the goddess Ištar as follows: " My lady, beloved of An, of all your fury I will proclaim! // The coals I have heaped up, the purification rites to them I have prepared." Incense and other noble resins were slowly burned in the temple as part of the purification ceremony, and their fragrance must have spread far beyond the temple boundaries as well. Like his daughter, Sargon must have smelled of incense. His scent of frankincense, elemi, styrax, and patchouli, however, unlike his daughter's, is not a sacred one: instead, the cold, resinous scent hangs within the cooling stone walls of his palace, which he had built in his newly chosen royal city of Akkad. The smoke is very present, but always remains mild and never pungent, as befits a king. Sargon probably also mixed a little of the spices into his sweet wine - a technique he had learned as cupbearer - and thus also sweetly overlays the incense aroma, as it were.

The ambergris (and the vanillic and tonka notes he might not have known at the time apart from ambergris) that cuddles the fragrance towards the end could easily have been procured by him, who had an empire situated between both seas - the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf - on the northern and southern borders of his empire.

For me, one of the most refined and interesting fragrances I have. That's why it dufte for my second comment. A ruler can certainly wear it while portraying himself in monumental architecture. Today I see it more on the type of "intellectual" who wears a lot of black or a jacket with a turtleneck underneath, if I may be allowed such clichéd simplifications. Really an inspiring fragrance that doesn't bring across a brute masculinity as you might expect from an early bronze age king. It brings a subtle, intelligent kind of masculinity to its wearer, but is as unisex to wear due to its sweetness as it is marketed and apparently (if you believe the statistics here) worn. My introduction to niche fragrances and I have not regretted my purchase to date!

...was perhaps the last of the great Roman emperors before the dawn of Late Antiquity and the imperial crisis of the 3rd century. He was reviled by his contemporaries and (only partly) untrue legends from senatorial historiography were to shape our negative image of him. Nevertheless, for many years he remained the only resounding name on the Roman imperial throne until Diocletian ascended the latter at Nicomedia. At least he seems to be well-known enough to grace the bottle of this MDCI bottle - at least that's the majority finding of a survey among people who are well-versed in ancient art history. I do find the bust chic, but that's a matter of taste. However, whether the almost double price for the flacon with resin bust or even a four-digit amount for the flacon version with Limoges porcelain are really justified, you may decide for yourself.

Even without Caracalla on top, the fragrance is in any case no Cheapie, but for me worth the money. So much I may already anticipate. Here follows my first detailed commentary and I hope to be allowed to inspire some with it perhaps even of the fragrance.

Caracalla's foreign policy was characterized more by his expansion policy in the east of the empire than by the defense against barbarian invasions. So why does this emperor, of all people, grace the bottle of Invasion Barbarian? Perhaps we will never know.

Herb would certainly be an understatement for the emperor, who probably had a five-figure number of people murdered out of sheer paranoia. For the start of IB, though, it's a pretty good description. It's fresh at the same time, and I think I heard a few, small aquatic notes - though maybe that's just the waters of the Tiber drifting over to the imperial palace. The wind seems to turn, however, because I had the note only very briefly in the nose

The namesake heavy hooded cloak that the emperor had tailored for himself from a pattern of his own design is deeply drenched in the scent of lavender from Caracalla's Gallic homeland. The lavender is absolutely present in this fragrance and I'm amazed at how much I like it anyway. As a self-confessed lavender skeptic, IB still manages to excite me. Because the lavender is here very well embedded in the overall composition and comes out for me as a stand-alone fragrance part at the very most towards the end of the drydown.

From the Germanic campaign (should that be the barbarians, to which Invasion Barbare alludes?) at the beginning of his reign Caracalla then brings hints of moss, as well as juniper and various other herbs. At this point, the fragrance also becomes very masculine - which it already is all along, but at this point, this accent comes out again particularly clearly.

In terms of foreign policy, however, his expansionist policy in the east of the empire was to be more influential thereafter. Smell-intensive woods from the eastern Mediterranean area one smells here just as out as a pepper note. By the then already flourishing India trade should have found the emperor here in Asia Minor certainly a good source.

When time comes to an end, a certain old age should always set in. With Caracalla this was hardly the case: With just 29 he fell victim to an assassination attempt, which was only made possible by his own paranoia and reign of terror. The scent, on the other hand, gets creamier towards the end. Vanilla and tonka I can smell out well. Caracalla should have known the two fragrances just as little as his barbarian contemporaries, because both plants are native to North and South America, respectively, and have started from there only a few centuries later their journey across the world.

Lavender, oak moss, tonka - actually everything you need for a classic barbershop fragrance. And perhaps here is then but also the connection to Caracalla: For he had, to bring the Roman people on his side, a huge, admission-free thermal complex built in the city.

Despite all the inconsistencies in naming and bust selection: The complex scent is definitely worthy of an emperor - whether Caracalla, with his highly questionable methods of making politics that didn't even stop at his own nuclear family, is exactly the right emperor for it? I don't know. Contrary to what ancient and modern historians say about Caracalla's qualities as an emperor, this fragrance is a great one. For me, IB is a great fragrance with one of the most complex and interesting scents I've had the pleasure of having in - or on - my hand. The various components can be smelled out well on the Tel, but above all they blend into an overall scent that can simply be described as interesting, stimulating and pleasant. Maybe nothing for the central Italian high summer; but occasion-related I can imagine him both on the campaign, after the visit to the thermal baths or even at the celebrations in the context of the great games!