oh, inverted world

With everything seeming so unreal and draining—including the stages of disbelief that we or they as the cognizetti had to confront as assumptions collapsed—I was hoping to awake from this bad dream and find ourselves in a place where all the progress towards social justice as imperfect as it is and as far as we have to go was not refudiated and undone by the victory of chauvinism and exceptionalism.
America’s relevance that so many are clutching after is diminished both domestically and abroad, and as tragic as it is to valid the insecurities of groups whose support comes at the disenfran- chisement of others—no protection for the minority, the greater threats come in the form of contagion in this nativism, emboldening tyrants and charismatics globally, and in laxer attitudes—verging towards ignorance—regarding climate change and responsible stewardship for the environment. Not that we’re custodians of the Earth, but rather having the passion and curiosity to make the pursuits of the sciences accountable and transform our world safely. It’s bad enough that those holding power are loath indulge that sometimes uncomfortable and inconvenient self-critique that one’s presumptions may be wrong and sustain the intellectual and emotional wherewithal to wonder why others might see the same things differently, but it’s not just as if we’ve given some mustachioed caricature of a villain enough rope to hang himself but also an arsenal of nuclear weapons and a surveillance system without parallel at his disposal. With such toys, why aspire to anything higher?

sentimental journey

Once Protestantism took hold in large swathes of northern Europe, particularly in England, the pilgrimage undertaken to exotic lands fell out of fashion, people of means needed to articulate another rite of passage that would fulfil this lost outlet. Almost immediately, the notion of the Grand Tour was invented as an authoritative substitute, since one could claim instant superiority in matters of taste and worldliness over one’s neighbours for having seen the masterpieces of the continent first-hand and having even brought back some art as souvenirs.

Though such deportment would have been non- permissible beforehand on the Camino de Santiago, such gap year trips were also seen as not only edifying but also the chance to discretely work whatever hot-blooded passions (associated already with Mediterranean climes) that might need to be exorcised to avoid any scenes at home. The odd and singular aspect of these sojourns was that the itinerary was squarely planted in Catholic lands, which were considered the subversive enemy for the reformed countries of the north—almost as if the most popular tourist-destination for Americans during the Cold War was Stalingrad, immersed in the culture of an ideological nemesis. Many Britons and others felt it was unpatriotic to indulge the sights of the south, but a domestic tourism industry was not developed until the French Revolution made travel impossible, and the Low Countries as well as Scotland and the fjords of Norway were discovered by people who had not previous ventured outside the capitals. After matters had settled down a bit and travel to Southern Europe was again possible, people complained of the changed character of tourism—there were just too many of them and one could hardly be enraptured by art and architecture in a pulsing, pushing crowd of sight-seers. The elite among the holiday-makers began turning away from these cultural enlightening itineraries in response and began to focus on natural destinations, like the beaches and mountains, leaving the cities and museums for the masses.

press-gang or 1812 overture

While the deportment of history—when one scratches the surface—shows affairs to be far otherwise, international largess, hegemony seems reserved as a soft-power to just a select few or active belligerents, an encouraging word to play along. Learning a little bit, however, about the long-lived British practise of impressment. Comparable to the phenomena that goes by the name of crimping or shanghaiing, so called press-gangs of the Admiralty, in lieu of a standing order for conscription or compulsory service, the privileged purchase of impressment was enjoyed from the times of George I until the early nineteenth century by English navies.
This practise of policing the idle and the incorrigible into service at sea was widespread and took place at sailors’ haunts by hook or by crook, with the poor having no recourse other than to oblige themselves to a fixed term aboard that was subject to multiple extensions with pay offset by half a year and no defined career track for non-officers. Any by-stander might fall prey to this scheme—especially merchant seamen that betray some degree of acumen. As tensions in European waters increased in post-revolutionary France, Britain believed it had a moral right to impressment, and revisiting one of the many issues left unresolved in the American War for Independence—once Canadian had had its limit with poaching—Britain refused to recognise the concept of naturalisation—that is, renouncing one’s subjecthood in order to gain citizenship and enter the employ of the more profitably import-export business. The acquisition of this labour-force (and of course the pay for commercial shipping was far better than service for king and country), in the pall of the Napoleonic wars, ignited the conflicts of 1812. The northern US states attested that such conscription was routine, sealed by a shilling sunk in a drink, while the South was vocally against this kind of slavery and the federalist prerogative. Never an attempt to reclaim the North American colonies but rather with the aim of destabilising revolutionary forces, this bone of contention and forced repatriation makes me think of the uniquely American habit (Uganda is also party, to the denunciation of the US) of universal taxation and burgeoning desire to leave it all. It strike me as if there is a bit of no quarter to be found here either, no matter what civil society has previously conceded to—like living off the grid or shedding one’s birth-rite. What do you think? Are we all still so impressed to allegiance to one system or other and left with little choice?

bagful of wits or the fox and the hedgehog

Greek poet Archilochus, reflecting on the perils of being too clever, said of the fabled fox that he knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.
I wonder which character society finds more palatable, to be peripatetic and know a hundred means of escape, evasion, succeeding that we can adapt—or try to in the moment—to a given situation or be content, hunkered down with one sure and reliable idea. Reflecting on the ongoing centennial of the Great War and the horrors that followed, ideologies that took root in the scorched pastures of Europe where God and King were beforehand disbanded by terror and revolt and brief revanchment by Napoleon and the brittle empire of the Hapsburgs that couldn’t hold the centre led us down terrible paths that put us off outwitting ourselves—for a generation at least. Maybe ideologues do admit of one core idea driving their agenda but in practise and execution, it’s only maybe a fox disguised as a hedgehog. Presently, I fear we’ve again acquired a taste to be clever and forgotten about the dangers of nationalism and rank hypocrisy in wealth and technologies. We don’t need to dart down those manifold paths—a hundred routes to utopia—another time and hopefully we’ve learned enough from history to restrain and humble ourselves.

siss boom ba

Just in time for US Independence Day (and probably equally valid for Bastille Day), Mental Floss presents an animated field guide for identifying the various standard effects used in pyrotechnic displays. I never knew that they had specific names, other than “ohh” and “ahh.” The image used of a frozen firework in bloom is a long-exposure image captured deftly by the brilliant photographer David Johnson at a show in Australia with more examples at the link.

intellectual heirs or non-aggression axiom

At the risk of courting controversy and inviting trollish commentary (I think that those risks are acceptable), I’d like very much like to recommend Dangerous Minds’ toppling treatment of Ayn Rand. The essay, including three “trash-compactor” digests of the film adaptation (conveniently plucked out of forty plus years of “development Hell”) of Atlas Shrugged meant to placate the new generation of Tea-Partiers really resonated with me because I too, as a teenager, was an avid fan of this sort of pseudo-intellectual fervor and it took quite some doing to disabuse me of this allure and get out of that phase.

I am really mortified to own up to that much, but even today I still carry around an onerous reminder of that period in the form of a passkey that’s an obscure reference to Anthem (a plagiarized novella, oh nos, about the assault against science—ostensibly, but really a critique of collectivism and supporting the luddites in the end anyway) that I am made to plug into my (work) computer every time I turn around—lest I forget. I guess that this was a fairly common rite of passage, growing pain, though not defensible like a bad sense of style that takes some time to mature. Screenwriter and comedian John Rogers observed once, “There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.” On balance, we all tend to gravitate towards creative, selfless fantasies, I think, but when the impressionable aren’t given to being particularly well-read or well-informed and have a limited library, this sort of sophistry becomes a masterpiece. The idea that prompted Rand to writing Atlas Shrugged, a great lump of a tome, was toying with the idea of declaring herself on strike from her publishers for their difficult demands—I wish she had, rather than creating a dystopian world where all the supposedly talented and ingenious and indispensable people picketed in order to make her ideas and agenda seem legitimate.

cowboys and indians: sophomoric or dress right dress

Between what has become attested by history as the First and Second Crusade, there were several abortive waves of recruitment, which poor conditions in Europe—including poor harvests, civil unrest and the usual skirmishes between the kingdoms of the realm. Outside of the chief cities of Jerusalem, Haifa, Acre, Jaffa, Tripoli, Antioch and Edessa, control of the Crusader States territory was tenuous at best and quite treacherous for pilgrims or relief- and resupply-convoys. The advent of a novel military, monastic order, the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, the Templars in short-form and followed by the Knights Hospitaller, who could provide armed escourt was a help but their numbers were too disperse to launch coordinated campaigns and besides answered to God and the Church and were not a mercenary shock-force beholden to a local lord, as was the norm for Europe and the Middle East during this time. No ruler, however rich, for the most part had the luxury of maintaining a standing-army in times of (relative) peace and had to raise forces with a call to arms. The Templars and the other orders, in contrast, were constantly training in the art of battle and comprised, along with their Islamic counterpart, the Assassins, the Occident’s first professional fighting-forces. After around five decades of occupation, the County of Edessa was retaken by Islamic forces, under the leadership of Emir Zengi of Mosul, making the Holy Land all but inaccessible overland to Latin Christendom.
Antioch and other strategic lands looked poised to follow handily. Though the climate may not have been organically ripe for such a mobilisation, with a little assistance by another, charismatic papal legate who appealed to the noble sacrifices made by this Greatest Generation of fifty years hence and the mopey guilt of a young king of France for his immortal soul, eager to do penance and only a Crusade might cleanse his conscious. The adolescent king, Louis VII, in a whirlwind of events, had just months before found himself married to the wealthiest and most powerful heiress in the world, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and then with the death of his father, found himself elevated to the throne.
Being the king in Paris was a titular affair, as unruly landowners, his teenage wife included who controlled the whole of southwestern France, held much more legitimate power than him, and it was on an early mission to quash a rebellion in the Marne, Louis VII discovered that his men had corralled the entire population of an upstart village, Vitry-en-Perthois, into the church and then proceeded to burn it to the ground. This event haunted Louis for his entire life and sought to make amends and was willing to do anything to save his soul from eternal damnation. Having received the urgent pleas for assistance from the Crusader State, a relatively freshly-elected pope, Eugene III, approached his mentor, the monk Bernard of Clairvaux, as Bishop Adémar had done for the First Crusade, to rouse the people of France to action. Regarding his pupil as somewhat of a rustic, a hayseed, Bernard took the matter into his own hands, and just as with the first crusade, there was some mission-creep.
Bernard not only made quite an impression on the people of France, he also traveled to Germany, leaving quite a chain of miracles in his wake and sent missives even further afield.

Denmark and England also answered the call, and being apparently blown off course, landed in Portugal and began the Reconquista of Moorish-held lands there and throughout Spain. Saxon elements of the armies of Conrad III, emperor of the Germans and accompanied by his nephew Barbarossa, took it upon themselves to overrun their Slavic neighbours, who had up until now adhered to the pagan religion and converted them—to death. What was meant to be the sole thrust, the French, was on the march, but the plan to have the crusade under the leadership of the regent—as opposed to the princes, a bunch of poor-relations, usually without holdings of their own and ambitious, was not really playing out as expected. Eleanor of Aquitaine insisted she be allow to come along as well, and her eagerness inspired many other queens and princesses to join up too. Eleanor and her retainers even sported fancy battle-dress, agee white steeds with white cloaks and red leather boots. Had one been available, I am sure Eleanor would have had a unicorn as her mount. The same problems of petty intrigues and alliances that sacrificed larger goals, however, plagued this mission as much and more at times than the first, and an almost complete reversal transpired, causing most of the commanders to retreat to their respective homelands.
Eleanor of Aquitaine survived her ordeal but the royal union did not, enchanted first by the opulence of Constantinople, which must have made her staid court in Paris seem like an absolute sty, and then entertained by her uncle, Raymond of Poitiers, in Antioch—where Eleanor found herself among compatriots whom spoke her native Langue d’Oc, both of which Louis found infuriating and there was talk that Eleanor’s close relationship with her host and uncle had become too familiar. All of a sudden, Eleanor expressed her wish to renounce the title of Queen of France, and she sued for annulment of her marriage, based on consanguinity, that she and her husband were fourth cousins and consequently had only had female issue. Louis had Eleanor kidnapped and dragged along to Jerusalem. It was a hard slog over treacherous mountains and sea, with the Turkish forces ambushing the Crusaders at every turn.
All the Crusader forces eventually massed in Jerusalem, but as Edessa—the original object of the Kings’ Crusade, although Jerusalem and absolution was Louis’ own goal—bereft of its Christian population, and places of worship was not really worth the effort any longer. Louis was also probably not overly disposed to helping Antioch by securing the principality’s perimeter, what with his wife having been romanced by its ruler.   The armies convened at Acre to try to figure out what to do with all this pent up aggression, concluding disastrously to try to take the city of Damascus, the only Muslim city to have negotiated a peace treaty with the Kingdom of Jerusalem and whose failure was obvious from the outset. Like the bickering Louis and Eleanor magnified and reduplicated thousands of times, the coalition under national commands felt betrayed and had even managed to alienate themselves from former allies, split up and departed by sea back to the mainland. Eleanor and Louis took separate ships. Once back on the mainland, Eleanor was granted a divorce and regained her vast land holdings in Aquitaine and Poitiers—and left her daughters in Louis’ custody.
Shortly afterward, Eleanor began to fancy another relation—Duke Henry of Normandy and Count of Anjou, and following a short courtship, Eleanor and the heir to the British throne married. Upon the death of Henry I and Henry’s older brother Stephen, the young couple became king and queen of England. As happened with Louis’ sin of omission that led to an entire village perishing while locked in a burning church, Henry II allowed his henchmen to get out of control and murder his former chancellor become archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas à Beckett. Henry was devastated, both personally over the death of his friend that he did not prevent and because his popularity plummeted—forever pinning Henry II with the badge of the king who killed an archbishop (the cathedral becoming a pilgrimage destination to rival the popularity of Way of Saint James, Santiago de Compostela), rather than the reformer who helped to rebuild England after successive civil wars and crises of succession.

I wonder if Eleanor had that effect on men. The couple had eight children, whom, honestly unruly, Eleanor and ex-husband Louis VII in sort of a cold war with the English king played against Henry II, who in response kept his wife under house-arrest for a the last decade of his life. Eleanor, reaching an advanced age but active until the end, maintained a key role as regent, ruling in her sons’ names while they were away on campaigns, including the wicked and lazy King John (of Robin Hood lore but who really was made to sign the Magna Carta and limit his own power) and Richard Lionheart, who will play a key role in the next Crusade.

toponym or afternoon map

In celebration of the centennial since the establishment of its own, independent bureau of cartography, National Geographic is presenting a small retrospective of the estimated three thousand meticulously detailed maps of land, sea and space they produced for the magazine and other outlets. One arduous update that struck me as particularly poignant and telling of the politics and impermanence of the trade was the task of rebranding once the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991—when many place names, not just in Ukraine, reverted to their older forms. This past century has seen a lot of those changes but possibly no more than average.

interbellum or altı ok

In a new, provocative work, author Stefan Ihrig examines the role the perception that Nazi leadership in post WWI Germany had of Turkey as successor to the Ottoman Empire contributed to the prosecution of WWII.
To some of the defeated and downtrodden Germans, Turkey’s refusal to be passively divided up by the Allies, preoccupation with matters of heritage, and large-scale social reforms must have seemed to burgeoning party like hyper-nationalist “pornography.” Guided by the philosophy of the Six Arrows (Altı Ok) the Young Turks under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk created the modern and progressive country and were unrelenting in their efforts. Through the press and propaganda, these heroics and hero-worship that grew around that cult-of-personality created a role-model and for the attempted coup, the Beer Hall Putsch, organisers resolved to adopt so-called “Turkish Methods.” Only after this failure did Nazi leaders ally themselves more towards Benito Mussolini’s form of fascism but still held this figment of Turkey in high regard. This admiration certainly became something unwelcomed and misplaced and a book such as this one ought to spark dialogue and cultivate a more informed readership—through their own research.

it happened on the way to the forum: rump state or asterix & obelix

The Western Empire did indeed hold out long enough to suffer the wrath of the Huns, but just barely so. The Empire had devolved into a collection of loosely aligned barbarian kingdoms, which were politically and culturally independent and could hardly be called upon for mutual defense unless their own interests were immediately under threat.
Rome had abandoned Britain and the lands of North Africa that were the conquests of a young Republic during the Punic Wars, including Carthage, were now seized by Vandal pirates. Rome, had been ransacked by the Goths and had not been the Empire's capital for centuries, inconveniently located midway down the Italian peninsula and considered too far away for political or military expediency, and was given over to Milan, which was more strategically placed in the north with quicker access to the Alps and the provinces of Gaul and Germania. At this point in history, however, even Milan had been abandoned in favour of Ravenna, considered more easily defended in the marshlands boarding the Adriatic, and the imperial court ruled over the lands, nominally, from this hideout in the swamps.
Although the Huns had already plagued the Empire indirectly for some time, displacing other tribes that caused chaos and instability in the European provinces, a direct confrontation was yet years in the making. The Huns had a good public-relations machine in the reputation that preceded them that was talked up by fleeing refugees, and when Rome, nervous over this looming threat, offered to pay a tribute of a sizable amount of gold to the Huns in exchange for peace, they gladly accepted.  Despite their attested prowess in battle and their later depictions, the Huns under the leadership of Attila were not mindless brutes intent on destroying civilisation but were rather content to keep to the periphery and collect their annual allowance. Like the Gothic, Vandals, Alans and the Franks, whom were soon to rebrand Gaul as France after their tribe, many Huns rose to prominence in the Roman ranks and fought for the Empire as mercenaries.

In fact, it was not really until Rome reneged on the conditions of the treaty that Attila turned towards plunder and hoped to cow the obstinate Romans into submission. On the far eastern shores of the Danube in the Balkans, the Hun armies first made incursions into Roman territory after having attacks on the Persian frontier summarily rebuffed. The Huns ravaged the countryside of Illyria and advanced on Constantinople. Unlike the Goths of a generation before, the Huns were able to penetrate walled cities and were plying a path of destruction on their way to New Rome. Due to the immense fortifications encircling the city, the Huns met their match at this terminius in the east. Attila was reportedly so disheartened by this set-back that he contemplated suicide, but the Hun ruler could take solace in the fact that it took nearly another fourteen hundred years, the discovery of gunpowder in the West and the construction of the biggest cannon in the world to breach the walls, completed during the reign of Eastern Emperor Theodosius II. Perhaps Attila needed to be cheered up and perhaps this elevation came in the form of a missive from a certain damsel in distress.

Meanwhile, back in the swamp, the sister of the Western Emperor Valentinian III, Justa Grata Honoria, was being strongly coerced into giving up her bon-vivant lifestyle and settle down and marry in a manner more becoming to an Augusta. Faced with the prospect of being wed to a perfectly boring, unambitious senator and remaining in Ravenna, Honoria penned a letter to Attila the Hun asking him to save her from this fate and enclosed a ring—at least, that is how the story goes. Whether it really happened, whether it was meant as a proposal or whether the ring was just a token of authenticity, is debatable and though some belief that this was Attila's impetus to invade the West, the Huns first skirted Italy, despite pledges of half the Empire as dowry, and invaded Gaul and never overran Ravenna. As Honoria gets no further mention, it looks like she received her lot with a boring, domestic existence as punishment for her act of treason. Perhaps realising that Rome was weak and the obvious choice for expanding his tribe's holdings, Attila led his armies through Germania and crossed the Rhine into Gaul.

Conveniently, there was a crisis of succession happening at the time for the Salian Franks. The Merovingian king had passed away and Rome and the Huns championed the younger and elder sons, Childeric at the court in Orléans (Aurelianum) and Chlodio having teamed up with the Huns on their march through Thurginen, respectively—the Huns again plying their P-R apparatus by forging alliances and sowing discord and confusion among the status quo. Repulsed by a coalition of fighters under the leadership of Roman general Flavius Aëtius at Châlons on the stoop of Orléans, the Huns retreated, bidding a destructive exit back east by way of the northern Italian plain, and Chlodio—usurper or rightful heir was killed in the battle. Maybe the lore behind this proxy-coup is a little like the pseudo-history of one spoiled Roman princess' overture to the Hunnic chieftain, but I think the outcome of this intrigue bares mentioning:

Childeric, the homebody, inherited the Merovingian throne and founded a dynasty that ruled the expanding, united Kingdom of the Franks that filled the power vacuum after Rome fell for three centuries until the papacy anointed the Carolingian branch, leading to the crowning of Charlemagne as Emperor of the Holy and Roman Empire of the Germans, depriving the Merovingians of the right to rule. I am not the scholar to investigate all the reasons and motivations and the far easier course of action is to rehash the ancient patriarchal conspiracies that have some popular currency and persuasion: the Merovingian line was descended directly from the offspring of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, and rightful heirs to Church and State—whereas the Carolingians and other royal houses were descendants of Jesus' marginalised brothers and sisters or just plain self-made aristocrats that could claim no divine lineage. The Church feared the legitimacy of the Merovingians and wanted to install a more pliable set as heads of state.

conciliabulum

In his closing remarks to the bishops assembled for the Extraordinary Papal Synod (as opposed to Ordinary, regularly-scheduled ones, convened to address a particular topic), the Pope expressed that “God is not afraid of change,” which is a pretty remarkable thing to think about and probably a most original thought never before formulated out loud.
Though conservative elements in the Church expressed reservations for reconciliation and outreach to the gay and divorced members of the congregation, but it is no cause for despair as the Pope invited dialogue and a willingness came through—possibly to be readdressed in a conference to follow, and not only the willfulness that the Pope also eloquently warned about as the “temptations of inflexibility” and those with the insufferable wish to be do-gooders, which is another kind of danger.  The Pope, I think, is not trying to undo doctrine or expecting teachings and values to come unknotted in accord to the fashion of the day, but rather remove those barriers that we’ve imposed ourselves that stand in way of sympathy and respect.

mauerfall or all and all, we're just another brick in the wand

After the metaphorical parting of the Iron Curtain, the very literal Wall was torn down, slabs were distributed to all corners of the world as monuments to this overcoming. It is a scary proposition to think that these pieces, in Berlin and here transplated to Wiesbaden, New York City and beyond could be recalled, cued to re-assemble like some polarising Voltron on some auspicious date.
Provided that nothing's, no sacrifice, forgot, however, I do not worry that there is a great deal to fear in looking forward.

ausreise oder hiobsbotschaft

As Germany and Europe prepare for a series of summits to address the current refugee crisis, this day, twenty-five years ago, saw the resolution of another asylum-campaign, which seems to have a vastly different character from contemporary migration but there may be more similarities than first meet the eye. The Embassy of West German in Prague (das Prager Botschaft), housed in the Baroque Palace Lobkowicz, was the refuge of thousands of East Germans in flight from the oppressive regime—who managed to travel to Czechoslovakia and scale the walls to camp in the compound’s garden.
Overcrowding was becoming problematic as embassy staff tried to care for hundreds seeking sanctuary and climbing the barriers on a daily basis, and the West German government covertly (so as not to appear as a bad host) negotiated with the governments of East Germany and the Soviet Union to work out a deal that eventually granted the refugees safe passage to West Germany, announced by BDR Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher from the balcony of the palace on the evening of 30 September to the encampment below. This first chink in the Iron Curtain was followed and overshadowed by other momentous events in the later in the Autumn, but this stand against the DDR regime is commemorated with a metal sculpture of an East German Trabant by local artist David Černý on the embassy grounds.

grenzübergangsstelle

H and I had the chance to revisit a preserved border control installation in between Thuringian Meiningen and Bavarian Mellrichstadt that we had last stopped at on one icy day almost seven years ago.
It was interesting to inspect the quiet grounds and reflect on how a highly militarised boundary had separated East and West Germany for forty-five years until just twenty-five years ago, and we are throttling towards that anniversary without an abundance of circumspection.
It seems so radically different but not in the escaping and forgotten past, either. Just beyond the patrol bunkers and the vehicle battering-ram and the layers of obstacles and hindrances, in the open plain there was a sculpture park dedicated to a message of unity and sacrifice and the insistent promise to never allow such a wedge to divide the country again.
The entire display, with aggrieved cast iron giants and stained-glass gates and figures amid a field of steel flags and banners was quite moving and powerful under the dramatic skies of a passing afternoon storm, which provided a vibrant backdrop. I am glad that we took the time to come back and explore this memorial that is really just around the corner and yet something distant.

it happened on the way to the forum: rebel alliance

Of course, there was no broad historical force opposing Rome but it make a pretty cool assembly of action figures of underdogs. Most saw their resistance ultimately crushed after being provoked into battle but a few did define the furthest reaches of the Empire and remained unconquered. One could collect the heroines—like Cleopatra who was the first Ptolemy to show more than passing regard for the Egyptians and tried to preserve the Republic in her own way, and Boudica, the warrior queen of the Britons, whose only transgression was in believing that the treaty with the Romans would remain in effect after her husband the king died and she assumed the throne—however, as the chauvinistic Romans did not recognise female inheritance, they merely annexed her kingdom. One could collect the Germans, like Arminius of Cherusci tribe (Hermann der Cherusker), who was held as a hostage during his youth and even received a Roman military education, and graduating with hounors never succumbed to the Stockholm Syndrome and returned to led his people against their occupiers and after orchestrating several demorialising defeat, the Romans never tried to advance beyond the Rhein again.

Decebalus, the last king of independent Dacia led three campaigns against the Romans as they tried to stabilise their borderlands to the north of Greece and on towards the banks of the Danube, no longer content to let some non-assimilated client kingdom to guard the frontier. There were those pesky Christians, led by the missionary Paul, Apostle to the Roman. Mithridates IV was a fearsome prince and general of Armenia and Anatolia who very nearly succeeded in keeping Rome out of Asia Minor altogether.

There is of course the old nemesis Hannibal, the Carthaginian military commander that seemed virtually unbeatable, and who in defeat cursed Rome with its visions of manifest destiny. And there is, among my favourites but certainly not an exhaustive list of personalities or portrayals, since the majority of source material—even for patriotic artists, come from victorious Roman accounts—the Welsh king Togodumnus who refused to pay tribute to Rome and had successfully driven them out until ambushed by his own men. Who else ought to be included? It could be a whole universe of players.

anni di piombo or cloak and dagger

Prompted by the events and outcome of the Korea War, the US Central Intelligence Agency operating under the aegis of NATO and the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) coordinated with Western European intelligence agencies to raise a secret “stay-behind” paramilitary force, whose sleeper cells were to be activated in the event of a Soviet invasion to bolster a resistance movement.
The existence and scope of these units remained unknown until October of 1990, just weeks after the reunification of Germany and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, with the revelation of the prime minister of Italy and admission of a project under the codename Operation Gladio (from the Latin gladius, a short double-edged sword and standard issue for Legionnaires). Although involvement in the political turmoil and terrorism that characterized Italy’s civic landscape from the 1960s through the mid-1980s (called the Years of Lead for the bombings) was quickly downplayed and then ruled-out completely, as the international reach and collusion of the organizations became known—it went by different handles in each country where it was based but the Italian guise, Operation Gladio, became convenient short-hand for similarly vetted groups, and particularly because the social unrest and left-wing violence was especially tumultuous in Italy—attention turned back to the potential for governmental manipulation and intimidation. Other alleged undertakings seemed only for engendering chaos, a pact of panic to justify those security measures, suspicions and misgivings long since become a habit. Never deployed in response to an invasion nor ever the subject of deep political scrutiny even after the disclosure, there was of course the incentive to turn a defensive stance into an offensive posture and keep certain elements, socialist or left-leaning, out of European politics. Such Machiavellian mission drift is a common occurrence, and the US has remained evasive on the clandestine ventures that went on for decades. The fact that the tactics that the operatives reputedly employed comes from a playbook, a field manual, that was a supposed hoax leaked by the Soviets to members of the press willing to bite that outlines the strategic tensors of propaganda and terror is a just a rehashing of previous disinformation campaigns, the US maintains, does not mean that there is not something beneath this recursiveness and divestment. The legacy of Operation Gladio is poorly defined and often forgotten—indeed most referenced as an analogy—but does appear in reporting from time to time.

nova scotia

Depending on the outcome of the coming referendum, how will Scotland address our friend? Oh don't mind her—that's just Elizabeth, the queening-lady.

superfecta or theatre-in-the-round

NATO representatives have gathered in Wales in order to reassert the relevance of their club and address a depressing array of threats to broader peace. Such short workshops rarely result in any lasting resiliency or reflection, and instead in greater polarisation for fear of admitting to motivations that lie beneath hidden by the beards of éminence gris—but that's the trident of institutional problems. Nationally endemic problems can happily be ignored in such an ideological environment, and provocation buffets attention from all corners: Western powers are making a calculated (even unto failure) to punish Russia's stance in the Crimea with economic sanctions that are curiously—if not backfiring—only punishing to the sanction-givers, as Russia has independent means and no shortage of other buyers—and oddly chosen rhetoric, like attributing the false hubris that it might take Russia as much as two weeks to take Ukraine, when in fact it would be much quicker.

What version of history will bear the laurels of authority is a mystery in this complicated situation, but I am sure that no one comes out innocent, since after apparently winning the the imperium of non-interference in the Middle East, the organisation was directed to pick a fight with a tried and true paradigm and eagerly take up some Cold War housekeeping. And while patriotic aims fall away in this framework, the American general who has two roles that shuttle him between Stuttgart, Germany and Mons, Belgium as the European Commander and Supreme NATO Commander respectively, is prudently or brazenly arranging war-games in Russia's front yard and threatening to violate a gentlemans' agreement between Reagan and Gorbachev to not advance the bounds of NATO. Meanwhile, this posturing is being matched by more provocative sabre-rattling that is even harder to say whether it was factored in from the Caliphate. It has made overtures for overturning not only the United States, but also the royal house of Saud, and lately Russia with aims of expansion into Chechnya and the Balkans and reprisal for support of the Syrian government. Seemingly beyond the good and evil of media portrayals already (and seeing alibis as superfluous), I would wager Russia has few qualms in countering any attack by any means needed. The growing arsenal of the Caliphate and indelicate threats, however, are a source of concern not to be dismissed, what with some eleven commercial jet-liners procured from the captured airport in Tripoli ready to be deployed. All parties have a vision of the world better than the present state of things, but said aims are seen to wither in the face of real suffering and reckoning.

it happened on the way to the forum: oh weal, oh woe or sacer esto

 The matter of wealth disparity was the gravest threat to a Rome who had managed to quell all external threats, but the need for reform went virtually unnoticed by the Senate, who were each preoccupied with enlarging their estate own for fear that their colleague across the aisle might be able to eventually absorb the others holdings.

After another casting off of traditional laws regarding the sacrosanctity of the person of the tribune (the office made the holder untouchable—sacer esto, let him be accursed, for interfering with the business of the State) during the perennial gridlock over social legislation, the dissenting party, vetoing ever law brought before him, was merely instead removed by an angry mob loyal to the status quo for the sake of political expediency, rather than observing checks and balances that had been in place for centuries, patient but now having become too trying.  Laws were codified that made ostentation and extravagant displays of wealth a crime as well as new restrictions on how much land one man was allowed to accumulate.

There were ways, however, to skirt these new regulations with shifting fashion and the limitless expanses of the frontier colonies. These problems did not pass unrecognised by all, though, with many moralising figures arising in politics, like Cato the Elder, who warned of this new decadence—and even in the far-away kingdom of Pergamon in Asia-Minor. Nominally under the rule of first the Persians, then the Greeks and now the Romans, the last in a dynasty of philosopher-kings, without an heir of his own, decided to bequeath the lands and wealth of Pergamon to the people of Rome, in order to avoid further civil-strife there. The Senate interrupted the king's last testament differently and were not about to throw open the doors of the treasury (for fear of run-away inflation for price- and power-parity) to the rabble. This under-appreciated magnanimous act did not sit well with the people of Pergamon either.

it happened on the way to the forum: the late republican period or overseas contingency operations

When last we left our seemingly indefatigable and inexhaustible Romans, they were engaged in a war with Carthage under Hannibal's leadership that spanned a generation and spilled into grandsons as well. The careful and prudent strategy of that Fabius had first instituted kept the armies shadowing each other with a sort of sense of roving reciprocity and balance—though Hannibal, having sworn to ever be an enemy of Rome would never give up. With the nemesis threatening to cut off supply-lines at any moment and with the once apparently unlimited manpower for the legions dwindling, for the first time, the Romans began courting mercenaries to supplement its regular forces, through both foreign alliances in kingdoms neighbouring Carthage and actively recruiting fighters disillusioned with the Carthaginians for not being timely with their payments or progress on Rome. The second break with tradition was in the Senate, with a paucity of options, electing to put the legions under the control of one young and charismatic general, called Scipio Africanus, who rejected the cautious former rules of engagement and attacked Hannibal directly. These exceptions seem minor—and even positive shifts for the Republic's fortune as Carthage met a decisive defeat at the Battle of Zama in present-day Tunisia, giving Rome total control of the Western Mediterranean and allowed for expansion—though without a satisfactory explanation—eastward, beyond the Adriatic. Old rivalries and suddenly finding oneself without an enemy to fight notwithstanding, Rome had always respected Greece as its elder, the preeminent naval power that ruled the Orient and had no designs on the Occident. Whatever the reason—possibly a break unspoken with the convention of only fighting a just war even though that standard had been stretched greatly on several occasions in the past, Rome baited a scuffles enough to declare war on Macedon, the kingdom portrayed as a direct threat to Greece's liberty and security. Once the regional power had been subdued and eviscerated, as it had done with Carthage, Rome declared Greece a sovereign mandate, finally free from the spectre of foreign rule (Macedon) and pledged to protect these lands from invaders. Like the Carthaginians, the Greeks did not feel abundantly free, what with Roman patrols and incursions to break-up any possible unsanctioned allegiances or trade deals.  Formal declaration of Greece, Carthage and the Iberian peninsula as Roman provinces did not happen until many years later, after the destruction of several of the great cities of antiquity in order to staunch any future thought of rebellion. This offensive was not about preservation—though all empires make such forays and create enemies if one is not conveniently available—and I think that compromise came all too easily and quickly for Rome after cosmopolitan success.
There likely never was a golden age of equality in the young Republic, but the ideals it was founded on erode at an avalanche's pace with the infusion of outrageous wealth that's too lightly concentrated. Spoils came of these conquests in the form of treasure, land and slave-labour, which although always a part of the Roman economy, was now supplanting the Plebeian class' chance to earn a livelihood. Large estate-holders were the beneficiaries of the years of war and accrued ever greater wealth, as the squadrons and companies they provisioned returned their plunder to their patrons. Before slaves were brought in from conquered lands—more than Rome had the ability to employee meaningfully—Plebeians without means could at least to expect to eke-out a modest and unglamourous living by tilling the fields of the great plantations. Now, however, their services became redundant and more and more families came into crushing debt and those that did own small parcels of their own were forced to sell to a few rich families. Another break with tradition followed in order to find a solution to this resulting vagrancy and general loitering that took hold of the underclass, which was probably responsible for the collapse of the republican government and any pretensions of nobility and democracy: the relaxing of the standards for legionnaires. Since the raising of Rome's first militia, there was the requirement that a soldier must be able to equip himself. Considering the new economic realities, however, only a handful of the sons of the wealthy landowners could serve, so the prerequisite to outfit oneself was dropped altogether. There was no stipend, per se, for service as patrons—landowners who now were surfeited with cheap-labour, had in the past acted as paymasters and addressed pensions and survivor-benefits, etc. Now earning anything for one's tour was contingent on what war trophies each soldier could secure for his commander. This system caused matters to escalate rather quickly on campaigns, not complimenting Rome's image as a righteous overlord nor benefiting unit-cohesion, and eventual led to revolt and civil-war on the domestic front.