20 of the Sickest Historical Burns
![20 of the Sickest Historical Burns](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/3/3/4/1114334_320x180.jpg)
The public documentation of beef seems like a uniquely modern phenomenon. After all, what kind of self-respecting citizen of the past would care to archive their own insults, much less the insults of others? There were plagues happening. A dirty well could wipe out entire genetic lines. They had more important stuff on their minds.
Except they didn’t, really. Pride isn’t a new emotion, so when the leaders of the past’s names were besmirched, they were perfectly willing to Get Into It. We may not have federally preserved tweets or the tracks on Spotify to remember them by, but if you were in the vicinity when someone famous clapped back, you wrote it down. If you were lucky enough to receive it by letter, your legacy, if dubious, was assured.
As a result, there was no shortage of material when user HManMoney asked r/AskReddit, “What was the biggest roast in history?”
![jinncanfly 8y ago Don't make me say it. Say it I don't care that you broke your elbow.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/1/5/1112215.jpg)
![idelta777 8y ago That's why you use auto-tune and I don't](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/1/4/1112214.jpg)
![throwmeawaaey 8y ago Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/1/3/1112213.jpg)
![herpaderp_kv2 . 8y ago Still remember when Snoop Dogg roasted Donald Trump: Donald Trump wants to be president, sure, it wouldn't be the first time he pushed a black family out of their house legend](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/1/2/1112212.jpg)
![EpeeHS 8y ago How has tupacs hit em up not been mentioned yet? It literally starts with so i fucked your bitch you fat mother fucker and then continued with roasting biggie for the entire song.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/1/0/1112210.jpg)
![Poops2819 . 8y ago Catullus was pretty nasty. Poem number 16 has: I will sodomize and face-fuck you, bottom Aurelius and catamite Furius... and being a latin poem, it ends with I will sodomize and face-fuck you. Because fuck you.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/1/1/1112211.jpg)
![Pandemonium123 8y ago Forgot the names but in the show The marvelous adventures of flapjack 2 people are having a competition with puns and one guy starts to say So let me tell you a story And the other guy says How about you make it 10 stories and jump!](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/0/9/1112209.jpg)
![Xanderab 8y ago Alexander the Great found the philosopher (Diogenes) looking attentively at a pile of human bones. Diogenes explained, I am searching for the bones of your father but cannot distinguish them from those of a slave.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/0/8/1112208.jpg)
![8y ago I don't know if it can be considered a roast, but I always enjoyed the story of President Coolidge at a dinner party. Coolidge was known to be a man of few words and so the woman next to him informed him that she had bet someone she could get more than two words out of him, to which he replied You lose.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/0/7/1112207.jpg)
![I-Do-Doodles 8y ago During the elections of 1800, Thomas Jefferson hired a newspaper editor named James Calendar to write and publish the mist vile things about his opponent, John Adams, including Adams had a hideous, hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/0/3/1112203.jpg)
![marzblaqk 8y ago Edited 8y ago Prince of Wales: I've spent enough on you to build a battleship! Lillie Langtry: And you've spent enough in me to float one. savage](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/0/5/1112205.jpg)
![alphanumericsprawl 8y ago Benjamin Disraeli and a lord of sandwich, not sure which one: I do not know whether you shall die on the gallows or of the pox. That depends whether I embrace your morals or your mistress](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/0/4/1112204.jpg)
![-Crux- 8y ago Edited 8y ago When a couple of Frenchmen turned away from the Duke of Wellington at a diplomatic event, a woman apologized to him for their behavior. Не responded by saying I have seen their backs before, madam.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/0/6/1112206.jpg)
![echisholm 8y ago Shortly before World War I, the German Kaiser was the guest of the Swiss government to observe military maneuvers. The Kaiser asked a Swiss militiaman: 'You are 500,000 and you shoot well, but if we attack with 1,000,000 men what will you do?' The soldier replied: 'We will shoot twice and go home.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/0/1/1112201.jpg)
![PhazonZim 8y ago https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reply_of_the_Zaporozhian_Cossacks a roast so epic it got its own painting and a wiki page Zaporozhian Cossacks to the Turkish Sultan! o sultan, Turkish devil and damned devil's kith and kin, secretary to Lucifer himself. What the devil kind of knight are you, that can't slay a hedgehog with your naked arse? The devil excretes, and your army eats. You will not, you son of a bitch, make subjects of Christian sons; we've no fear of your army, by land and by sea we will battle with thee, fuck your mother. You Babylonian scullion, Macedonian wheelwright, brewer of](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/0/2/1112202.jpg)
![chowder138 8y ago Edited 8y ago In Plato's Republic, Socrates, Thrasymachus, and a few other people are discussing what justice is. After everyone answers, Socrates argues against them and explains why their definition of justice is flawed. But he doesn't put forth his own definition at first (he actually spends the majority of the rest of the book defining it through a system of government, but that's not important). Eventually Thrasymachus notices this and gets pissed. So (paraphrasing here) he says something like: Socrates is playing his usual trick: not answering the question himself, but instead waiting for someone else](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/1/9/8/1112198.jpg)
![LifeWin 8y ago After invading southern Greece and receiving the submission of other key city-states, Philip II of Macedon sent a message to Sparta: If I invade Laconia you will be destroyed, never to rise again. The Spartan ephors replied with a single word: If. Subsequently, neither Philip nor his son Alexander the Great attempted to capture the city. Philip is also recorded as approaching Sparta on another occasion and asking whether he should come as friend or foe; the reply was Neither.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/1/9/9/1112199.jpg)
![exhibit_Z 8y ago This one comes from a really unlikely source. A reporter once asked Mahatma Gandhi, What do you think of western civilization? Не replies, I think it would be a good idea.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/0/0/1112200.jpg)
![modern-prometheus 8y ago Winston Churchill, in his younger years, liked to drink. One time, when he was drunk at a party, a woman was very disapproving of his behavior. She said to him, If I were your wife, I'd poison your coffee. Churchill replied, If I were your husband, I'd drink it.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/1/9/7/1112197.jpg)
![sd51223 8y ago Edited 8y ago Stalin was angry at Tito, the ruler of Yugoslavia, because Tito refused to join the Warsaw pact. In retaliation, Stalin sent a number of Soviet assassins to try to kill Tito, all of which were unsuccessful. In a letter to Stalin, Tito wrote this: Stop sending people to kill me. We've already captured five of them...If you don't stop sending killers, I'll send a very fast working one to Moscow. And I certainly won't have to send another. Josip Broz Tito? More like Josip Brass Balls Tito.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/1/9/6/1112196.jpg)