Category: History

Sic semper tyrannis!

Yes, I know those words were originally said by (or attributed to) Brutus concerning the murder of Julius Caesar, but the Romans apparently took them seriously, for 1,964 years ago today (Jan. 24) they offed another one of their tyrants (whose middle names were also "Julius Caesar"): The Emperor Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus.

What? You never heard of him?

But that’s his picture on the left!

Well, okay, it’s understandable that you wouldn’t know him by his proper name because he is far better known by his nickname.

Y’see, when he was a little boy, his father, the wildly popular Germanicus (who was in line for the throne but died under mysterious circumstances), took his family with him when he was out on military campaigns.

His little son Gaius had a little soldier suit, and it tickled the troops to see him wear it. As a result, they nicknamed him after one of the items of his soldier suit: his little boots.

"Little Boot" in Latin is the name he is better known by today: Caligula. (They also sometimes called him the plural form Caligulae or "Little Boots.")

After the death of the much-resented Emperor Tiberius (who was on the throne when Jesus was crucified), Caligula became emperor, and at first he was very popular as people thought it was a fresh start after Tiberius’s interminable reign of cruelty and depravity. Caligula even publicly burned the secret dossiers that Tiberius had kept on prominent citizens (though rumors were that he held back a secret copy of them).

Caligula’s popularity came to a screeching halt when he had a sudden illness that gave him terrible headaches and seemed to alter his personality. Afterwards, he was incredibly cruel, spiteful, and in the view of many, insane.

He even at times appears to have demanded to be a worshipped as a god, and became a forerunner of the Beast of Revelation by demaning to have a statue of himself placed in Jerusalem for the veneration of the Jewish people, an act that would have certainly sparked civil war. (Notable Jewish figures such as Philo the Jewish philosopher and King Herod Agrippa were able to dissuade him from this plan.)

Eventually, the Romans got so fed up with Caligula that–three years, ten months, and eight days into his reigh–they murdered him. Members of his own guard killed him (as well as his wife and his infant daughter).

It was in the wake of his death that his uncle, the lame, stammering scholar Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus was dragged by the Praetorian Guard from where he was hiding behind a curtain (lest he also be killed, as the whole royal family seemed under attack) and proclaimed emperor (so that the guard could stay gainfully employed). Despite his typically prodigious Roman name, he is known to us as the Emperor Claudius.

It was a Roman holiday.

LEARN MORE.

Professor Bainbridge teaches:

In the latest Economist ($) we learn that John Cornwell has recanted the charges he made against Pope Pius XII’s conduct during the Holocaust:

As he admits, Hitler’s Pope

(1999), his biography of Pope Pius XII, lacked balance. “I would now

argue,” he says, “in the light of the debates and evidence following Hitler’s Pope,

that Pius XII had so little scope of action that it is impossible to

judge the motives for his silence during the war, while Rome was under

the heel of Mussolini and later occupied by the Germans.”

It would be nice if Amazon’s editorial content for the book had some acknowledgement of Cornwell’s retraction of the very serious charges the book makes.

This is good news. Cornwell finally got a clue. Of course, it’s not much of a clue in view of his current book savaging John Paul II, but it’s something.

(Cowboy hat tip: Gleeful Extremist.)

Professor Bainbridge teaches:

In the latest Economist ($) we learn that John Cornwell has recanted the charges he made against Pope Pius XII’s conduct during the Holocaust:

As he admits, Hitler’s Pope
(1999), his biography of Pope Pius XII, lacked balance. “I would now
argue,” he says, “in the light of the debates and evidence following Hitler’s Pope,
that Pius XII had so little scope of action that it is impossible to
judge the motives for his silence during the war, while Rome was under
the heel of Mussolini and later occupied by the Germans.”

It would be nice if Amazon’s editorial content for the book had some acknowledgement of Cornwell’s retraction of the very serious charges the book makes.

This is good news. Cornwell finally got a clue. Of course, it’s not much of a clue in view of his current book savaging John Paul II, but it’s something.

(Cowboy hat tip: Gleeful Extremist.)

Today is the 41st anniversary of the JFK assassination, and I thought I’d post some photos from a trip I took last summer. I had an extended layover in Ft. Worth, and so I took a cab to Dealey Plaza, where the following photos were taken. (Sorry for the low quality; I only had my camera phone).

The one shown here is a picture of me standing next to the spot where the fatal headshot struck. Later, when leaving the plaza, the cab took me over this exact spot, which totally creeped me out.

One of the things that strikes one upon visiting Dealey Plaza is how small it is. Everything–the school book despository, the concrete pergola, the grassy knoll–is jammed right together in a very small space. When you see images of these on TV, it isn’t clear how close they are to each other, but I tried to show it in the pictures I took.

VIEW THE PICTURES.

(Click on them to enlarge and read captions.)

Regarding this morning’s post, What Bill Clinton Hath Wrought?, a reader writes:

In all fairness to Clinton and Gore, Gore wasn’t the first presidential candidate to put self-interest before the good of the nation. Aaron Burr had that dubious distinction in the presidential election of 1800. But it is notable that it was exactly two hundred years before another man decided to plunge the country into a constitutional crisis rather than graciously concede defeat for the greater good of his country.

Small correction: Burr was the candidate for vice president, not president; so I guess it is fair to say that Gore was the first legitimate presidential candidate to plunge the country into constitutional crisis. Although, come to think of it, wasn’t there some controversy surrounding Hayes’ election in the nineteenth century? Maybe every hundred years, give or take, we’re simply burdened with public figures who cannot put the good of their country before the temptations of power.

She also provides two very helpful links:

ONE TO A DISCUSSION OF THE ELECTION OF 1800

AND ONE TO A DISCUSSION OF RUTHERFORD B. HAYES

Read ’em! They’re good!

I should perhaps explain the nature of the thesis I was proposing, though. It wasn’t that Al Gore was the first presidential candidate to plunge the nation into a constitutional crisis or that Bill Clinton was the first such candidate to put self-interest ahead of the good of the nation.

Unfortunately, American history is tumultuous enough and populated with enough rogues that neither of these men were first of their kinds.

Previous presidential (and, as the reader points out, even vice-presidential) candidates, including some very famous ones, have put naked ambition and self-interest ahead of the country, both in ways that led to previous constitutional crises and other grave disasters for the country.

My thesis is therefore rather more restricted. It is that, (1) after a period in which several presidents and presidential candidates displayed the statesmanship to put the good of the party and the country ahead of personal ambition, we now have entered a period in which once again the nation is being harmed by naked ambition and self-interest being put ahead of the common good, and (2) Bill Clinton may have played a key role in the historical genesis of this era.

In other words, we’ve regressed.

Big surprise.

After all, they had a cat goddess (Bast) and all.

I think I also read somewhere that the built the world’s biggest tombs or something like that.

GET THE STORY.

To most folks, rice is something that you eat in Asian restaurants.

To me, rice is something that I’m not allowed to eat on my diet. But it’s also something else.

Being from Texas, Rice to me is also a university located in Houston (one of my four hometowns). I’d known about Rice for years, but what I hadn’t know was how it got started.

It’s AMAZING.

I doubt that any other university in the world has been founded in quite this way.

Read The Frightful Tale Of The Founding Of Rice University!

(They should make a movie about this or something.)

Wikipedia is such a great resource. I’m consistently impressed with how well the open-source encyclopedia is written and how accurate its content is. It’s not perfect, but it’s still truly impressive.

Each day they have a featured article. I’m not quite sure how they pick ’em, but if you want an interesting education, check out the featured article. (Maybe they can get an RSS feed for those. I’ll see about suggesting that to them.)

Yesterday’s featured article was on Fr. Damien.

For those who may not know, he went to Hawaii as a missionary. This was when Hawaii was an independent kingdom, before it was conquered and annexed as a U.S. territory. Upon arriving in the kingdom, Fr. Damian became concerned about the leper colony on the island of Molokai. He sought and obtained permission to go to Molokai and serve as priest for the lepers. He did menial work–caring for the living, caring for the dying, building homes, building coffins, digging graves–and his presence revolutionized the community. In the end, he contracted leprosy and died among the lepers he served.

Though the man is yet only a beatus, in truth he was a saint. (Also a pipe smoker, though the article doesn’t mention that.)

I hope his canonization will be soon.

. . . something you’ll never guess.

According to this early Greek poet, girls didn’t just want to have fun.

Proof this is what he said (see line 370).

A German scientist named Dr. Rainer Kuehne believes satellite images have located the fabled sunken city of Atlantis–ironically, above ground in Spain.

An American researcher named Robert Sarmast believes maps of underwater geography have revealed the location of Atlantis–underwater off the coast of Cyprus.

Meanwhile, representatives of Stargate Command downplayed rumors that another American scientist–Dr. Daniel Jackson–had found an ancient, extraterrestrial tablet that located the lost city of Atlantis–in the distant Pegasus Galaxy.