it happened on the way to the forum: semper fideles or republican guard

Just as they say, Rome was not built in a day, neither was its downfall something sudden and decisive: a long, steady decline that lasted centuries characterised the collapse of the Western Empire after a turbulent succession of emperors. No single factor precipitated this erosion become avalanche, though there were certainly pivotal moments, but before indulging, to the point of obsessing over the next episode’s surprises, the History of Rome series from Mike Duncan, I had not considered military-coup as a cause.

It is not that the brilliant arc of story, with over a hundred installments, was in defense of some thesis to lay blame on the Roman soldier—quite otherwise though there is a coherent element of foreshadowing, through the lens of retrospection and to a degree allegory, but I suppose I believed that Rome imploded under the weight of bad leadership, religious uprisings, popular revolts, invasion or by some sort of divine disfavour, and had not considered that first surfeiting and then placating greed was among the chief the constituents. The turmoil began to well with the political and practical disdain that Domitian held for senatorial authority—rather, protocol already at this point, replaced and redoubled by the fawning and appeasement of the military—a calculus that all this emperor’s, no matter how long or short their tenure, successors would follow. First, the elite Prætorian Guard, the body-guards of the imperial family, sort of like the US secret-service, realised that they could demand a high price for their loyalty and protection, which rapidly spread to the ordinary ranks of Legionnaires, both on the frontiers and closer to home. There are several instances of regicide by the Prætorians, whose membership and influence grew after overturning the safeguards that were instituted by Tiberius, realising the potential dangers of maintaining a standing-army in times of peace and involved regular rotation in place of duty that separated the troops in order to deter the fomenting of separate allegiances. The first shoe fell during what is known infamously as the Year of the Three Emperors—to be bested later—not for poor governance but by the army openly prostituting its fidelity: in the end, the Guard auctioned off imperator to the highest bidder (Didius Julianus, who reigned for all of nine weeks) who could pay them the largest donative, a pledge of personal wealth that was not always delivered, in exchange for their support. During this time, the relevance of the Senate occasionally returned with some measure of deference but the army remained the object of pandering, with their wages being increased exponentially, and there was no abating this expectation once precedence had been established. Of course, this custom put the economy in quite a pinch—especially with a paucity of new conquests and plunder. Seeking a solution, after citizens of the city of Rome were subject to taxation after centuries of being exempt and relying on outside revenue, Emperor Caracalla decided to naturalise every person (though not the female- or the slave-types) of the provinces, in order to increase tax-revenue. The tax-man was also deployed in full force—supplementing the personal collection that the emperors undertook with purging potential subversives and confiscating their estates so as to pay for this support-bubble. Once coveted by all, Roman citizenship was looking more and more like a liability. Caracalla was an absolutely horrid person and leader but did not live long enough to place him within the pantheon of truly vile emperors.
Caracalla took his legacy in another direction by commissioning monumental baths to be built to the south of Rome, luxurious even by spa-crazed Roman estimations, which stand as one the eternal city’s last great construction projects, as later emperors even abandoned Rome for Naples and Milan as unsullied capitals before ultimately transporting it eastward. What do you think? It isn’t as if the politicians and polity at the time caught wind of these events and right away recognised social upheaval beyond. There are contemporary analogues, of course, but do you think the that the Romans were aware of poisoning their own wells or understood the consequences of the way their Empire was defended?

oasis or möbius-farm

Via the brilliant Nag-on-the-Lake, a company by the name of OAXIS is pitching the concept of a long train of modular green-house cars to help alleviate the monetary and environmental costs of exporting produce to arid countries. Relying on solar power to both grow the food and to transport it—the system running on a continuous loop, a conveyer belt—sort of like those sushi diners where entrees are constantly being replenished—the green-house units are slowly rolled out into the desert for cultivation within a closed-system to better capture water and nutrients for reuse and then returned to the city for harvest and local distribution. The idea is certainly visually stunning and presents an elegant solution, opposed to the fields of plastic sheeting or water-intensive putting greens of more traditional methods.

rotary-club oder speedy-delivery

The Local (Germany’s English language daily digest) reports that a public-private shipping-consortium will be using automated drones to make deliveries to a relatively isolated island in the North Sea to help keep the community pharmacy stocked with supplies. This prototype and trial fights will help lead to logistical-support missions further afield and perhaps to more remote and dire locations.  I wonder how quickly such services, swarms first envisioned by inventor and futurist Nicola Tesla, will catch on—though it’s yet a far-cry, a little disappointingly so (pretty keen but no substitute) from teleporters and being able to beam someone or something somewhere.

crystal habit and structure or read this next

H shared with me an interesting vignette on the German cache for using cash, which is bucking the trend of much of the rest of the world as coin and paper money is exchanged for virtual currency. The article delved into historical and psychological reasons that cash is still king—including bouts of hyperinflation, abrupt transitions to new monetary vehicles, etc., and proved a fascinating primer for the comparative and insightful round-up topical items that Quartz features in really lucid language. You ought to check it out for yourself.

windrose or indian summer

There is nothing quite like the liminal sensation of having stumbled through and ruined the handiwork of an industrious and overly ambitious spider—both for the way it must make one look to others and for the temporary touch of these threads. Over the weekend, H and I were having a drink at an outdoor café.

A old woman sat at a table directly behind me, and she did not linger as long as we did in the sunny and breezy afternoon, and shortly before her departing, I started to feel the fleeting glance of impossibly thin filaments. In the moment, I became convinced that when my back was turned, this witch had slyly cast a webby spell on me.  I felt a bit unnerved that the feeling was not going away, and H told me, on the contrary, that this sort of weather—a burst of an Indian Summer as we would say in English, was called Altweibersommer in German. This name, however, did not refer to the age of woman and any cobwebs that she most assuredly was not dusting off, but rather to the errant filaments of spider-silk, which can appear like long grey hairs and are born in the wind at this time of year. The stray threads are the parachutes—hopefully the discarded lifelines—of the recently hatched young of the tiny bowl-and-doily spiders that carry the broods to all corners. I like the poetic Altweibersommer much better than the other term, which seems a bit morose and disappointed, alarmist and not with a hint of rebirth.

¡refrescante! or double-blind trial

While the usual battle-fields for the Cola Wars are found in public institutions, school cafeterias and workplace cantinas, the competition can involve sometimes much more than just syrup and air-canisters with a whole franchised realm, a vertical monopoly of loyal patrons behind the brand who would never dare sell the competing product.

There, however, is precious little more serious than one’s immortal soul—which are the stakes for tribe in Mexico, who’ve incorporated either one or the other big cola brands into their religious traditions. Convinced that belching helps to release evil spirits, members of the community are willing to pay 50¢ for a bottle of soda—which does not sound bad until one realises that that’s a day’s wage, to augment their purification rituals. Aside from the faithful forgoing food to support the marketing and distribution rivalry between billion-dollar multi-national corporations, there are also the matters of health, fair-labour and responsible water-usage at stake. Realising that they are the momentary playthings of globalism, some communities in Chiapas have boycotted the soft-drinks altogether—though both companies are pretty ruthless about re-establishing market-control.