hot lips

 There is the bloom of a flowering shrub in South America called the Psychotria elata, which bears an uncanny likeness to a pair of human lips. It has the vulgar name of hookers' lips but that does not detract from its popularity—the rare plant poached for Valentine's greetings. Maybe it is a case of partial pareidolia, since the effect only lasts a short time and the mature flower begins to look rather like a pair of diseased lips that no one would want to kiss—and possibly hence the name—but the effect seems too convincing to be just accidental. I wonder what evolutionary forces could have pedigreed the appearance. There is no lore to the plant that I could locate, other than Amazonian tribes using it for medicinal purposes (earaches, etc.) and no mythology of some forlorn lover transformed out of pity by a sympathetic god or cursed out of spite, humbled spirit of the forest or even vegetable intrigues—the other flowers casting this one out to be forever a curiosity to humans or a sly deal with those man-eaters to lure people deeper into the jungle.
I suppose it probably appears as something else entirely and more straightforward in the eyes of pollinators and predators. Still, I appreciate how well our houseplants have us trained to cater to their needs and wonder if there's not some higher dimension to this selected trait—an evolutionary goal to be cultivated in a hot-house and tended by environmentalists, exchanged as a symbol of affection or blogged about. Naricissus would have liked like the last two especially.

it happened on the way to the fourm: römerkastell saalburg

Though from the perspective where we last left our Romans—growing somewhat more jaded and less idealistic buffeted by power and wealth from all sides—we are jumping ahead, as it would be another two centuries before, but it was interesting to take a detour through the foothills of the Taunus and visit this restored Roman garrison on the Limes after having indulged a series of history lessons. Rome had just had their first encounter with a tribe of the Teutons on the frontier of the Rhôn river during the latter years of the Republic but it would be some time still before they had constructed a fortified border to hold the barbarians at bay. Before launching campaigns in Tunisia, Greece and Turkey (and these lands called Germania seem even more distant), it really strikes me how those consequential but small and nearly petty skirmishes with other Latin tribes were in such close proximity—that Rome was no regional power but a local stronghold like a dozen others, which may have never merited more than a footnote of history.

After victories abroad when Rome was denying social unrest the attention it demanded, a civil war erupted over the stinting of full citizenship for the neighbouring tribes that had been aligned with Rome since its inceptions. Although they fought side-by-side, the Latins were still essentially foreigners and had no means to influence the Senate and policy. Opposition in the Senate feared that rebellious factions could pose a threat to their power with a new constituency of supporters—though the truth was that the Latins were not keen on any Roman politician but wanted their own representation.
Before people from places up and down the peninsula were granted citizenship, there was an awkward civil war—called the Social War, where the Latins formed their own government, based off the Roman model, and begrudging Rome the assistance it needed and called themselves the Italic Republic. Archeologists discovered the ruins and artefacts in this spot, just outside of Frankfurt, in the mid-1800s and under the commission of Emperor Wilhelm II rebuilt the installation from 1900 to 1914 to educate the public to this known yet undiscovered heritage of this area. I was impressed with the stalls and rustic kitchens, which really were rustic kitchens, in the modern sense—with the archeological finds to back it up.

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.

stranger in paradise

I visited the city museum and was treated to a very interesting guided-tour of a special exhibit on the birds of paradise of New Guinea, their environs and the cult of reverence which native humans and colonialists formed around these spectacular birds—nearly as elaborate as the mating-rituals that the males perform to court females. Immature males incidentally do not develop their fancy and impossibly impractical plumage until they reach about five years of age and often hang out in the audience of females to learn the dance moves and how to be suave and sometimes get in on the action by proximity and having the drabber colours of the females. Many of the taxidermic exemplars came from the collection of Austrian orientalist and mountaineer Heinrich Harrer’s (whose autobiography Seven Years in Tibet was adapted for film) expeditions to New Guinea, a former German colony, which were undertaken as a mission of goodwill after the war to reintroduce Europe to these exotic lands.
The exhibit also featured a lot of footage from David Attenborough’s documentary on natural curiosities and the birds’ dances of passion—which includes a lot of housekeeping and pruning to make sure there’s no distraction on stage for the birds’ performance. The worshipful behaviour of humans towards the birds of paradise is also something pretty extravagant—the plumage decorating native headdresses and the fashion-plates of nineteenth-century Europe, sadly endangering the more flamboyant breeds along with encroachment of their habitat, usually restricted to specific climes. Aside from feathers in hats, another totem of the animal existed in pelt-form and was an avian vehicle of wealth and dowry. These skins were the entire bodies of the bird preserved, except for the feet—dispatched with as unaesthetic, and Western explorers and settlers believed for several centuries (until the Enlightenment) that the skies above New Guinea was home to purely celestial beings—writing embellished treatises on how the heavenly birds lived off of oxygen and dew and were even configured to fly in tandem to form a flying nest with their bodies. Before Charles Darwin described his finches of the Galápagos, biologist Alfred Russel Wallace, studying these birds of paradise and noticing specialisation, conceived of natural selection—independently, inspiring Darwin to publish his works. I wonder if such conclusions—all things considered, would be intuitive or take a special genius to recognise.
The case of these birds especially with their extreme plumage and instinctual vanity is special take on survival of the fittest—as they are not the most agile or robust creatures of the forest and sport ornamental features that seem more of a liability (like huge antlers that are a heavy burden to carry and could get hooked on something) than a natural advantage, but such decorations and displays are what the lady birds like, maybe because the males have managed to survive despite these handicaps.