The Battles at Antietam

So imagine it is early morning in September, 1862, and you are a young soldier whose company has found a small bit of relief under a command to halt near the banks of a flowing stream called Antietam. There are rolling acres of farmland surrounding you, fields of corn whispering in the breeze, gleaming like liquid gold under the sun’s orange warmth. You can see a white-washed church, and there are stone-stacked bridges, in the distance, spanning the length of the stream where already you have stopped to unpack. Thousands of men are doing the same, and amidst the blurring of tan and wool-gray uniforms there is nervous chatter. There is the clanking of muskets and bayonets. Several small fires are being made and you begin to smell cornmeal. There are excited murmers when it becomes known that a light breakfast of johnnie cakes and coffee will be allowed. Major General Thomas Jackson is also nearby, and he is gazing steadily across the sloping fields. You catch a glimpse of the man who will try, desperately, to hold back the flood of blue-uniformed soldiers pouring in from a thickened patch of woods. “Stonewall” is a hero and you place your trust in his decisions; in an hour’s time you finish a hurried meal, begin to once more pack your gear, and you move toward the center of a cornfield where Jackson has ordered his regiments. The yellow-gold corn is taller than you, but the bayonet on the end of your musket just reaches the top of the papery stalks. The deadly weapon glints brightly in the sunshine. It is September 17, 1862, and you wait, in the morning’s hot sunshine, for an attack to begin.

And this Battle of Antietam will prove to be the bloodiest single day battle in American History. In just under 12 hours the North will lose 13,000 men, and the South will lose 10,000. The counts are not exaggerated – they include those men killed, wounded, taken prisoner, or “lost.” And the battle in the cornfield will become the scene of some of the most intense carnage of the day; here it is a blur of blue and gray, of guns and bayonets, of blood and sweat, of misery and death. The battle comes quickly. Men are screaming and howling and beating and stabbing each other in a murderous rage. So many are killed so quickly that it begins to seem the corn has been sheared by the fallen. Blood seeps the ground and the field becomes a tacky bog. The sky is alive with grapeshot (a small, lead canon-ball that looks like a grape) and the cries of men whose bones have been shattered. The casualties are horrifying and the yelling of soldiers is deafening as “control” of the cornfield sways back and forth – the Union generals will command a new rush of attacks as many as fifteen times.

Stonewall Jackson is on horseback, trying to rally your company. The Union objective is the white-washed church (Dunker’s Church) in the distance; to get there they must first secure this cornfield. The Union commander, Joseph Hooker, knows this. And he will sacrifice 2500 men in two hours to do it. The field becomes steeped in rows and rows of dead or wounded soldiers. Hooker is himself shot in the foot, and in another two hours he will be unable to command his men to move any further. There is a strange stall in the fighting, and a wild look in men’s eyes as they step away from each other. This battle in the cornfield has become a bloody stalemate… even when new fighting begin to form around its edges.

Now imagine that you are one of those young Confederate soldiers, and that you have been lucky enough to survive. You’ve taken a coat and a pair of shoes from a dead Union man, you’ve lost your knapsack, and you are being forced to retreat even as the gun in your hands is on fire from constant shooting. There is blood in your hair, on your clothes, on your hands… it is everywhere. And there is no time to gather the wounded who are crying for bandages and water. There is no time to think. Already there is a roar in the distance where Union soldiers are trying to take one of the bridges spanning this creek. There is also fighting from the woods, where another stalemate is underway in a place that will later be nicknamed “Bloody Lane.”

The Battle of Antietam is a series of smaller skirmishes known as the “Cornfield,” then “Bloody Lane,” and finally “Burnside’s Bridge.” It does not matter to you that this is a part of General Robert E. Lee’s overall strategy to take the War to the North; you are weary, tired, and aching in every bone in your body. You are watching the continued advances of Union soldiers against the position held by General A.P. Hill… and worrying, too, that soon you will be called to stiffen the defenses on the sloping hills. There is a hard-packed roadway that is not used anymore, and it forms a sort of indented “lane” where the blue-clad soldiers are being shot down, relentlessly. They keep coming, though, and they pour over the rocks and bolders like rushing water. You understand that Lee is being forced to retreat. At Bloody Lane the Union commanders will sacrifice 1800 of 5000 men in two hours to ensure it.

Your eyes sweep over the hills and you can see another fight, this one over a single bridge. The sun is hot in the afternoon and you wonder why the Union troops don’t just wade through the creek’s waters in their efforts to get to Longstreet’s men. There is shouting and you glimpse the figure of Robert E. Lee and you can see what he is seeing – the Union soldiers can do nothing but advance on the bridge as the creek underneath is protected by two-foot sloping hills. To wade through the water and then attempt to move up the slippery hill would be suicide… although there are soldiers who are trying to do it, as the bridge has become bottle-necked. The Union soldiers keep coming, even as the Confederate guns cut them down. They just keep coming. The Union commander, aptly named “Burnside,” keeps sending them. You fear your own company will soon be marched toward the fray, but you are still positioned near the cornfield, and by supper-time the fighting has ceased and you understand that it is the Union soldiers who are pulling back. The Union commander Burnside is appalled by the casualties and he is moving quickly away from the bridge… and, indeed, entirely away from the battle, itself. He has lost his nerve. It is understandable. And you can see the dust kicking up from the horse’s retreat. It is an army of men, so many men, moving in frayed columns away from you. The blurring of their blue coats begins to blend with the dusky horizon.

You have survived the Battle of Antietam, and though you do not yet know it, the single most bloody day in the History of America. You are one of the lucky ones. Even as your feet are blistered and your body is aching, you are asked to help in the recovery of the Confederate wounded – and the stacking of the Union and Confederate dead. Small fires are being made and the orange light bobs here and there in the falling sunset. There is the smell of coffee, but your stomach churns. There is also a stronger stench of blood and death. General Robert E. Lee is making plans with Longstreet and Stonewall Jackson, but you begin to reallize that the Union army has made a full retreat, and they will not be returning the next day. It is a bitter victory, if it can be called one, and there are murmurs of excitement that the Union has been whipped. Such murmurs are mixed with the groans and cries of the wounded and dying. And Lee, whose “invasion of the North” has faltered, can provide little comfort. You understand that there will be time for a bit of sleep, and then a full day of moving backward, toward Virginia. You do not yet know it, but by December you will be engaged in another battle atFredericksburg.

Prester John

Wow! The summer has come and gone and I haven’t posted anything on the Blog!
I’m ashamed of myself. But never fear – History is always alive and well in my world.

Here’s a quick snippet about the legendary kingdom of “Prester John” way back from the late 12TH century. I’ll make it quick, because I know Lawrence is busy working on his football picks for the upcoming season already. So here goes. We’ll work from front to back.

During the last decades of the 15TH century you had the emerging states of Portugal and Spain taking (ahem) the helm of a ship and sailing across the choppy waters of the open sea. These voyages would quickly transport Europeans to every nook and cranny of the world – including the “Old World” continents of Asia and Africa, and the “New World” regions in the Americas and the Pacific. They used things like the invention of the “fly-compass” and the “astrolabe” to mark off degrees and chart the position of the sun and stars to determine latitude. Help me… I think latitude is the short-ways one? Anyway, with newer maps, newer sailing devices, and newer ships, sailors were propelling themselves outward into strong head-winds to see what lay beyond their own world.

Now, imagination played a big part in these journeys. And if we’re working backward, the European imagination had been steeped in a tradition of stories and tales and mythical fascinations dating back to the early 1100’s. There were rumors of distant, fantastical lands just on the outskirts of Christendom, where strange creatures and even stranger people dwelt. European sailors were sort of “rediscovering” the great geographer, Ptolemy, who wrote that he knew, perhaps, only a quarter of the globe’s actual volume. These sailors, adventurers, and early voyagers were also reading tales from Sir Mandeville and works from the travels of Marco Polo. I think Marco is a story for another time, so we’ll let him be for now. I think you can find him in a pool, somewhere, anyway.

Instead, let’s go back to the year 1165 and take a look at a letter from Prester John. This letter is interesting for two reasons – the first is the fact that it was circulated to the Byzantine Emperor and the Christian Pope; the second is the fact that Prester John was never a real person. But in 1165 he was *believed* to be real, and rumors swirled and grew into wondrous stories detailing Prester John’s “kingdom” inside the steppes of Asia. In Mongol country. Yeah!

Prester John was, as the story went, a Christian king who ruled in a fantastical realm where there were things like goat-headed men, one-eyed giants, children born from wolves, and blue-skinned women who used the stars to divine the future. Seriously. There were stories of snakes that could suckle milk from cows. Europeans believed that there was a tremendous amount of wealth to be found – they counted on gold-laden trees, silver waters, and the open-air markets where spices flowed like honey. It was also believed that a pathway toward Prester John’s kingdom might lead the way to the very gates of the Biblical garden, Eden.

To make the story richer, it was embellished with rumors that a Christian sect lived in Prester John’s kingdom. Indeed, it was believed that Prester John, himself, was one of the Three Magi who had personally tended the baby Christ. I am hazy on the history surrounding the Christian sect, but it is at least possible that a group of Christians had come to settle in the region as early as the 1ST century AD. These were perhaps the followers of St. Thomas, one of Jesus’ disciples, but it is also suggested that they were a break-away group from Rome.

Dreams of a new world and the wonders and riches to be found there would fuel the passion for those men who were the voyagers leaving from Portugal and Spain in the 1400’s. Europeans would light out for the hills (ahem, the waters) in their brand new shiny “Caravel” ships and begin to see places like the Azores, the Madeira Islands, and eventually they would make their way around the tip of Africa and trek into the waters of the Indian Ocean. They were looking for Prester John – okay, only partly (!); they were also following Marco Polo’s trails – but it was still believed that Asia held the wonders and riches detailed in the Prester John stories. How cool would it be to find the birds that could speak, the tamed lions and tigers, the women who bore mystical children, and perhaps Prester John, himself? Throw in those one-eyed giants who chucked rocks at the sky to make rain… and you’ve got yourself one heck of a journey. Even Christopher Columbus was enthralled with these early stories, and when he later “discovered” the Indians… he was looking for things like gold, silver, and spices they surely kept in their kingdoms.

So if you find yourself with a nice ship, and perhaps a nice astrolabe, I’m hoping you’ll set off for the waters. Who knows? You might get lucky and run into Prester John. Make sure you take your snippet of history with you. And your imagination. The goat-headed men and gold trees are waiting.

Jefferson's Vision for America

It’s kind of interesting when you look at the “business” of the United States today, in our own time, and you see the President and his Congress making conference calls and luncheons and “bizz” dates with the leaders of other countries in the world. You understand that manufacturing has made a radical shift, and you see that parts and components and jobs and livelihoods are being moved away from the base of what was once a solid foundation here in America. Now – I’m just going to give you a peek at our third president, Mr. Thomas Jefferson, and I’ll keep it short and also opinion free. You see, if you knew how far to the right I’ve veered you might not ever talk to me again. (And we don’t want that!)

So, back when the Constitution was still glistening with a fresh morning’s dew, you had the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, ready to take the helm. Politics following the farewell of George Washington are similar to what we have today – you had a very real party rift and there was squabbling on all sides in Congress. In 1800 it was the “Republicans” and “Federalists” who were fighting about things like the French Revolution, a National Bank, and the upcoming presidency. Party-lines were split, and if you lined these guys up in a firing squad, they would have argued over who pulled the trigger first.

The “Republicans” believed that the “Federalist” John Adams was a “monarchist” (king) and wanted to expand the powers of the federal government to the point where it might rob citizens of their freedoms.
Not unlike a current political figure, hmm? (Oops. Sorry)

The “Federalists,” meanwhile, believed that the “Republican” Thomas Jefferson was a dangerous radical who acted impulsively. Not unlike a current political figure, hmm? (Oops. Sorry. I did it again)

I will just keep to the facts. Even if the sticky politics of the 1800 election are wildly interesting. Even if you had men like John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and Aaron Burr shooting (!!) at each other.

Jefferson, the “man of the people” had strong support from the farmers in the Southern and Western regions. (During this time, Ohio-Kentucky represented the “West” in America). John Adams, meanwhile, had strong support from the manufacturers and merchants in the northeast. Both had very different agendas for the country, but a split in the Federalist pary doomed their chances. Jefferson would actually end up in a TIE for the presidency with Aaron Burr (you remember him, he shot Hamilton) and for DAYS voting and re-voting and then more re-voting would go on. Militas in Pennsylvania and Virginia were organized, too. But after the 36TH ballot, Jefferson emerged as the President. And Burr went off to become a fugitive. And John Adams lamented that he hadn’t yet finished painting his bedroom walls.

Thomas Jefferson’s “Vision For America” is interesting because it is so different from what we see our country doing today. The new president feared the “City” and it’s accumulated wealth and population. He was also fearful of the creation of a National Bank – get this, he worried about putting too much power in the hands of the government !! You see, his plan was much simpler. Jefferson envisioned America as a nation of FARMERS, where free men could manage their own plots of land, produce their own food, and count on themselves (and not the government) to take care of their fortunes. No universal health care here, nope. And no shipping parts or jobs to other countries, either. Jefferson believed that an American nation of farmers might supply its own needs and also act as a breadbasket for Europe. France was still war-torn and England was experiencing terrible crop failures. Jefferson also supported an open, free-market economy where Americans would send food to Europe (and eventually other countries) and receive, in exchange, clothing and manufactured items.

The plan seems simple enough, right? Jefferson took the responsibility of making America SOLVENT, which means free from its debts and debtors. His administration was actually able to make budget cuts (!!) and by 1802 a working Congress (!!) was starting to repeal internal taxes. A lot of responsibility was given back to state (!!) governments. And through 1812 his efforts appeared to be working. Remember the Louisiana Purchase? Jefferson wasn’t running a critical national debt when he picked up that piece of territory. Nope. Huh uh. Indeed, I might say Jefferson’s vision was a success… but I wouldn’t want to overlook the very real problems with the American Indians, or the terrible War of 1812. Those are important factors in Jefferson’s America, also. And taken with the possible withdrawal of New York and Massachussets from the Union (“Essex Junto”) they represent stress fractures that may have prevented his “Farmer’s America” from happening.

We have the benefit of hindsight when we look to the past, and while Jefferson’s plan may seem overly simple, or a product of the time, it still gives me a moment to pause and consider. I see the state of (ahem) business in our own time, in our much different America, and I wonder how it might be if things were less complex. An Ohio that produces only corn and soybean? Wow. I’d be out on my own farm right now. And not worrying about how I’m going to get this shipment of printer parts into South America or China.

Zeno's Paradoxes

Time for a bit of mind-bending today, care of my old friend Zeno (491bc – 430bc), a philosopher who lived just at the edges of the “Classical Age” in Greece. He was known as a “Pre-Socratic” thinker, even though he was a contemporary with Socrates (you know, the dude from Bill & Ted wearing the white Toga). The divide between “Pre-Socratic” and “Socratic” philosophy has more to do with the methods and teachings of men like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle than with the actual structure of the philosophy. We usually take it to mean the Pre-Socratics came BEFORE Socrates, and Zeno was probably the last in a line of men who emphasized abstract, speculative thinking. This sort of philosophy marks a turning point from “divine” explanations of the universe and looks more toward the primacy of human reason – meaning that man should be able to figure out things, based on nature and science, for himself. Socratic philosophers were influenced by Socrates; Zeno was influenced by men like Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Pythagoras, and Paramenides.

To make it short – Zeno was following in a line of philosophers who were searching for the “primary substance” (or ARCHE) from which all nature was created. Thales believed the Arche was water, Anaximenes believed it was air, Heraclitus believed it was fire. Anaximander proposed that the Arche was unlimited… the primary substance was undefined. Paramenides sort of went off the deep end and said that there was no real Arche, or primary substance… the world of the senses and that of reality could not be defined. (Plato would later pick this up in his “Theory of Forms” where you’ve got a chalkboard that is there but really isn’t)

Really I should explain more of this… but it’s complicated. Let’s get to Zeno.
His paradoxes should be enough for today.

Zeno’s first paradox involves the flight of an arrow. Like Paramenides before him, Zeno was actually experimenting with the concept of “reality” and what could be defined and what could not. Here you’ve got Zeno arguing that there was no such thing as “MOTION” and he claimed that if you shot an arrow from a bow… the arrow would actually not move at all. You see, for the arrow to *move* it has to move somewhere where it is not. If you are shooting an arrow at a tree you would expect the arrow to hit the tree. Zeno is making a paradox, saying that the arrow cannot be anywhere other than where it *is*… and as the arrow cannot move to anywhere other than where it *is* it can never move to a place where it is *not*. You bend this around in your mind and you start to see how Zeno argues against the real existence of anything. (Aristotle had fun with this one. He very much enjoyed Zeno’s games)

The second paradox involves the step – Zeno says for us to imagine we’re moving toward a stream. We’re going to walk toward a cool, clear, glistening stream of water over there in the distance. Right? Well, before you can get to the stream you must first travel *half* the distance to the stream. And to travel *half* the distance you must first travel a *quarter* of the distance, which is a *half-half* of the distance. As you begin to move you are stymied because you cannot really move at all… you are taking an infinite number of smaller steps to a point where it becomes impossible to move. Your motion is only illusory.

I can still remember sitting in a mid-level Philosophy class, way back when, and I had to put my pen down, fold up my notebook, and just sit back in wonder at this. When you’re a student you have to love that, right? It helps that the professor was patient and he explained it this way – imagine you are walking from one side of a room to the other. You take a step in order to get there. Now you imagine taking half that step, then a half of that half-step… and so on. Or you can imagine a solid black line. You are cutting half of that line, then a half-half, and so on. This is sometimes called Zeno’s “backward” argument. It is also known as “infinite regression.”

Zeno also used a racing paradox, and I’ve sometimes heard of this with the turtle and the hare, but it was originally used with the mythical figure Achilles and a tortoise. In his “forward argument” Zeno says that you can imagine a race track that is oval-shaped. You’ve got Achilles, our legendary fast-as-the-wind runner, and the tortoise. Now Achilles will run a lap and eventually pass the tortoise, who is moving very slowly. But the tortoise has travelled at least *some* distance, so Achilles must travel that *some* distance to gain on the tortoise… and as the tortoise keeps moving the very *real* space in which he travels is something that Achilles can never reach. I’m not real keen on this one, because Achilles can continue to run laps around the tortoise, but Zeno’s argument is as always – there is no such thing as “motion” and there is, perhaps, no “reality” in which we might measure it.

Now I am entirely other-brained when it comes to Science and Math. I do enjoy philosophy and speculative reasoning, and I did have to take a couple of classes on inductive and deductive logic in college. What is meaningful for History is the fact that these philosophies were taking shape at a time when Greece was moving past the Persian invasions, the Pelopponesian Wars, into a more modern society where we can first see the “Polis” and the beginning of the “Classical Age.” Socrates tends to get a lot of credit because he was so public (and maybe because of Bill & Ted and their Excellent Adventure)… but the Pre-Socratics came first, and they were the first to look beyond a mystical or divine explanation for things. They were some of the first thinkers to move outside of the box. And it is interesting that Plato, Socrates’ own student, would take up Zeno’s thoughts in his later works. Plato (and his student, Aristotle) are what we consider to be the founders of modern thought in the Western World.

Indeed, Zeno’s paradoxes on motion and reality are still being worked out by Physics today. And he does still bend the mind, doesn’t he? I mean, I’d like to go to Panera for some lunch right now. I’m just not sure I’d make it there.

Tragic Richard II

Okay, so I know Shakespeare wrote about this guy, and I know he also wrote about Richard’s successors, Henry IV and Henry V – but I’m going to bypass him (forgive me) with my own quick rendering of this History. It is a sad tale about a boy who becomes king, and it is a tragedy of sorrow and betrayal by a young man’s male lovers. It is a tale about family, and the betrayal of a cousin who had Richard put in chains and later starved to death in the Tower of London. It is the story of murder, and how Richard outlived, perhaps, those who had sought to take his life.

I’ll try to keep it short, how’s that?

In 1367 Richard was born; he was the son of Edward, “The Black Prince,” who was himself the oldest surviving son of King Edward III. Without getting too much into the upcoming *Wars of the Roses* (the lineage there is very hard to follow) I will say that Edward III had five sons – they were Edward (The Black Prince), and then Lionel, John of Gaunt, Edmund, and Thomas. Desendants from four of these five would later make claims to the throne, and England would be thrown into a very complicated civil war.

For this story, we can concentrate on Richard II and his cousin, Henry of Bolingbroke who was the son of John of Gaunt.

In 1377 Richard’s father died, and young Richard assumed England’s throne. He was first in line for the job, but he was only ten, and so he was surrounded by a group of “advisors” who tried to rule England, themselves. This didn’t sit well with many of the nobles in England, and neither did Richard’s very flamboyant and gaudy escapades with his two male lovers. A marriage to Anne of Bohemia proved (ahem) fruitless, and after her death Richard II fell under the whim of his first lover, Richard. I suppose we could call them “Dick” and “Dick,” but I’m not sure that would be appropriate. In any case, both Dicks (sorry, I mean both Richards) lived a life of luxury and spent a king’s wealth with lavish abandon. The king was not popular with the people, he was not respected at all, and the nobility tended to snicker at him behind his back.

The proposed “marriage” to six year old Isabella of France (Richard II was nearly 30) signaled the King’s downfall – he was not unaware of his cousin Henry’s desires for the throne, but he seemed powerless to stop him. By 1397 Richard II suffered the death of his male lover (can you believe it? he was mauled by a wild pig?) and he slid into massive bouts of depression and madness. Oh, yeah. Madness. Poor Richard was a mess. He gathered people around the throne and then sat in silence for hours at a time. He dismissed Parliament. He tried to kill his uncle Thomas. And then he exiled anyone who tried to reason with him.

Hmm, yeah. That doesn’t look good when you’ve got Henry amassing a small army outside of Ireland, now does it? And when Richard took another lover, this time a courtier named “Rutland,” he would find himself fatefully betrayed. Rutland would switch sides in the upcoming battle between Richard and Henry, and this desertion, along with the troops Rutland (the courtier) had under his thumb, would prove disastrous to the King. (Why would you give Rutland any trooops at all? Seriously? Think about it, man.)

As Henry was moving south toward London, Richard was moving north to meet him. Along the way Henry was gaining a swell of support while Richard was seeing even his closest friends abandon him. Richard was not popular, he was in some ways despised, and his policies and peculiar personality worked to alienate his counrty at large. In fact, most people inside London would welcome Henry as he swept into the city. Richard, in the meanwhile, had been forced to disguise himself in monk’s clothing and he tried to hide himself inside the walls of an abandoned castle during. He hunkered down during the middle of a summer storm. Once found, he tried to escape by throwing himself from a stone wall – unfortunately the fall did not kill him. I almost feel bad for him. Poor Richard. It would have been an easier death.

Back in London – oh, wait. I forgot. Henry’s army captured Richard and the King was marched, in chains, back to his throne. Once there, Henry had his cousin imprisoned in the Tower of London. Now, during this time the “Tower” was actually more of a fortification and not yet a dark dungeon of imagination and for a time Richard was treated fairly well. Henry was making moves to become King (it is interesting that he tried to make “legal” his usurping of the throne) and it was in his interest to keep, for display, the humbled, weakling man who was Richard. I wonder if Rutland came to see him – but you know what? I think he did not.

I’ll interject my own opinion for a moment and say that I’m not particularly fond of Henry IV. (Apologies to the Bard) Henry was actually THIRD in line for the throne behind Richard II and then Edmund Mortimer. He took the throne from Richard (and later kept it from Edmund) and this set a very dangerous precedent that would later lead to English civil war. And you know what else? Henry IV had smelly feet. That is a fact.

It is a sure thing that Henry did not go to see his cousin. The two had actually been very close when they were youngsters. They were first cousins, after all. Regardless, Henry soon realized that it was a weakness to have Richard remain alive. Henry had all the support of England (well, most of it, anyway) and he was a strong, charismatic figure. Richard, meanwhile, was struggling with his own madness. And soon he would be struggling with hunger. At the moment Henry of Bolingbroke became Henry IV, Richard’s death note was signed. He was left to starve to death – and you can say that, and picture it, but just imagine how horrible a fate that really is – and was not seen in England again.

I say not seen in “England” because the tale gets dicey after Richard’s death. And that’s because many people did not really believe him to be dead. Richard II still had many supporters, and there were whispers that the “real” King had been spared, or had escaped, and such rumors persisted long after the coronation of the “less-real” King Henry IV. There were reported sightings of Richard II in Ireland and Scotland, and people went so far as to actually impersonate him in the hopes of restoring a fallen king to his throne. Richard II was more popular in death than he had ever been during his life. I'm telling you, he was like Jim Morrison, you know?

So there you have it, and I mean the SHORT version of it – the sad, tragic tale of a young boy placed on the throne way too early; the sad story of the death of one lover and the betrayal by another; the drama of a conflict for the throne and the betrayal by a King’s own kin; the terrible death by starvation; and the long-lived appearances of a dead man for years after his throne was taken. You like it? It is interesting, right? If you want more check out Shake’s version. He’s written a couple of plays, I think.

Russell Crowe and the Romans

I had a chance to watch the movie “Gladiator” this past weekend; I saw the movie in the cinema when it first came out in 2000, but having been snowed under, and resting comfortably in my flannel jammies, I settled in this past Saturday with the Hollywood epic on the little screen.

Of course you know I’m going to tell you the actual history swirling behind the events in the movie. There really was a Roman ruler named Marcus Aeurelius, and his son really was Commodus (and Commodus really was one of Rome’s most violent and terrifying figures). And there was also a gladiator slave who would kill Commodus… though, in history, the man named Narcissus replaces the movie’s Maximus, and instead of being stabbed to death, Narcissus would strangle the Roman Emperor.

Marcus Aurelius (121AD – 180AD) was the last of what were known as the “Five Good Emperors” of Rome. They included Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian (who attempted one of the first holocausts against the Jews), Antonius Pius, and finally Marcus Aurelius. Like the movie, Aurelius did campaign in Germania, and through the 160’s AD he was actively warring with the German tribes in Rome’s northernmost border regions. He didn’t have the wonderful Maximus to help him lead his troops (but my god, doesn’t Russell Crowe look good??) – and he would not lose his life to a son who sought to smother him with a pillow. That is actually attributed to Caligula, who smothered Tiberuis in 37AD. Marcus Aurelius, instead, would die from a great plague that swept through Rome in 180 AD. (I kind of like Caligula, too, but whew (!!)… Russell Crowe’s got a sword, now… check him out, he's really manuevering with it!)

Commodus (161AD – 192AD) would become Rome’s new ruler in 180AD, and like the movie, he was a young man possessed by very strange and bizarre behavior. I think the portrayal of Commodus by Joaquin Phoenix is dead-on, and next time you see the movie you might think of the historical figure and realize that you are seeing what was truly a disturbed and terrifying personality. Like the character in the movie, Commodus had an older sister who tried to poison him. Failing that, she attempted to hatch plots with the Senate to murder her brother. The two were never lovers (as was hinted in the movie) and it is perhaps because Commodus loved the gladiator-slave Narcissus… the man who would one day murder him.

Like the movie-Commodus, the historical-Commodus was heavy-handed and tended to be rabid toward the Senate. Many Roman Senators were threatened and executed during Commodus’ reign – and in the meanwhile, the Emperor worked to rouse the support of the people of Rome by giving them the spectacle of the gladiator games. He believed he was himself a “gladiator” and he meant to demonstrate it. The movie-Commodus complains about the people “loving him”… the historical-Commodus was tactful in giving them blood.
(Did you see Russell Crowe? My god, he looks very good in a leather skirt, doesn’t he??)

In the movie, Commodus was an avid fan of the games; the historical Commodus was much more savage. He took part in the battles, and it was a regular occurrence for the naked Emperor to slay unarmed men or wounded beasts in a display of his prowess. When the movie-Commodus steps out into the dust of the colosseum he is approaching the gladiator slave Maximus; in reality it was a slave named Narcissus who killed Commodus by strangling the Emperor in his bath. Narcissus was known to Commodus, and it is suggested there was a sexual relationship between them.
(That kills the mood for Russell Crowe and Maximus, doesn’t it?)
(No, no, it does not! Here is the Gladiator, and he is restoring Rome to a vision of glory… and my god, he looks so GOOD doing that, now doesn’t he?)

In the movie, you would believe (spoiler alert!) the death of Maximus did indeed signal a return to Senate power and a restoration of Rome. I mean, they carry his body away, there is sweeping music, there are rose petals, and poor Maximus is reunited with his family in the after-world. In reality, after the death of Commodus, Rome plunged into an era of chaos and instability. Septimus Severus replaced the fallen Emperor, and the “Severan Dynasty” had control of Rome from 186AD through 235AD. There was a transition of power from the Senate to an army-backed Emperor, and the Empire would be gravely weakened.

But that is all way, way after Gladiator, now isn’t it? The movie is over and I’ve spent the day flipping back through my history books and notes because that’s just the kind of flannel jammie Saturday person I am. And don’t you agree – Marcus Aurelius and Commodus, they were some interesting guys, now weren’t they? But I don’t think they hold a sword to Russell Crowe as Maximus… wow. I mean, he REALLY looks good, doesn’t he? Even if he exists only on my TV screen.

Apartment Living in Ancient Rome

When you consider Ancient Rome (as I’m sure you often do) it is a wondrous thing to see their system of architecture and bulding dating back to the age of the “Early Empire” from ca. 27 BC to 192 AD. I choose this time when talking about “apartment living” inside Rome because this was the era of perhaps the thickest concentration of people within the city, itself – and I think anyone who has lived in an apartment will appreciate the Roman take on urban dwellings.

In Rome, during the age of the Early Empire, you would have seen things like the the “arch” and the “vault” and the “basilicas” being used in architecture. Actually you would have seen this much earlier in Rome, but let’s stick with the Empire… knowledge of these structures allowed the Romans to construct massive works that would connect the people of the city with each other. The sheer workings of the “aquaducts” during this time was impressive – nearly fifty miles of clean water ran beneath the city of Rome and millions of gallons of water ran through the city every day. Amazing, too, were the public baths – these were the spas of the day, let me tell you, and hot, steaming water was coupled in the same square with cool, sparkling water for leisure and refreshment, and (ahem) bathing.

The temples during this time were astounding, too, and the Augustus’ “Pantheon” was gorgeous with its columns, the arch, and a towering dome that stretched into the sky. This was rebuilt many times due to the constant fires inside Rome. You also had the “Colosseum” (of course!) which was perhaps one of the greatest structures in the ancient world. This was the arena for the gladiators and it also served as a vast stage for things like battles, plays, and mass executions of war prisoners.

The apartments, then, were just as massive as these public constructs… if not as adequately built. Because of the sheer number of people crowding the city the apartment buildings tended to be built upward, with many floors, and they became tottering structures against the Roman skyline. Unlike today’s world, where you might aspire to live on an upper floor, in Rome you were facing the possibility of several hundred steps to reach your abode, and if fire broke out below (as it often did) you had little chance of escape. The bottom floors, too, had the only running water. Roman tenants were forced to carry water up long, fragile flights of stairs, and this meant little bathing and perhaps no real removal of waste. Indeed, the “dumpings” were often dumped out a window and left to collect on the streets below. No glass as yet covered the windows; instead, the Romans would use cloth or leather or even wooden shutters. This tended to close out natural light and locked in the smoke (and fire) from cooking… which was done on an open stove. An apartment might have a bed, and this is where people would sit, sleep, and eat. Chairs were more like stools, and blankets or pillows made up the rest of the furnishings. A family of four or five was usual for a small apartment room.

If you couldn’t be found at the baths or the colosseum (or working) you were usually found inside your apartment – it was not safe to walk the streets during the night, as they were not lit, and many Romans would retire to bed as soon as the sun went down. The massive city would come to a very quiet halt during the wee hours, and people would live by the dim fire of lamps inside their homes. They slept in the bed or on the wooden floor, and it was not unusual to have a small gathering of animals inside the apartment, either. So much for the TV, the Playstation, the gas range, the fridge, the laundry or the shower, right ??

The threat of fire was constant in Rome. In 64 AD perhaps the most famous fire engulfed the city; it is not true that Nero played the fiddle while Rome burned – in fact, he was responsible for organizing mass relief efforts with royal money as he ordered shelters and food and supplies for the Roman people. Rome burned uncontrollably for almost six days and merchant and living districts were razed to the ground.

It is interesting that a response to such danger was to simply build the apartment buildings higher and higher… I don’t think this is surprising, really, given the constant reconstruction of the Pantheon and other great buildings in the Empire. The Romans were expert builders, of course, and there were always more and more people eager to fill the apartments. Just like in modern times, yes? (SMILE)

A Gentleman's Duel

You see this guy on the $10 Bill and you might wonder (asI’m sure you do) just who he was and what made him tick and what happened in 1804 to cause him to become engaged in a late afternoon gunman’s duel that would cause his death… yes? Shot through the liver by a gun in the hands of Aaron Burr… right? You’re telling me you don’t have a lot of $10 bills these days? I understand. Believe me, I do. But let’s take a look at an interesting duel, anyway.

In 1800 the US of A was having a rather heated Election. History sometimes views this as a sort of minor “revolution” in American politics, and I think this is probably true. It was a time of division and splintering as Americans decided on what the country might become – Republicans appealed to the “farmers” in the South and West while the Federalists won over the “merchants” and “manufacturers” in the North. One group wanted the country to remain agricultural and supply Europe with food, the other wanted a broad industrial base. This is over-simplistic, but to see the broader background you have to see these two factions and understand that they were bitter, bitter opponents.

The Election of 1800 came down to Thomas Jefferson (Republican) and Aaron Burr (Federalist). The two men would tie for votes in the Electoral College and the election was thrown into the House of Represntatives. It would seem they decided (perhaps) on the lesser of two evils and support was given to Jefferson to become the president. It is interesting that Alexander Hamilton was a key figure in this process: he believed Jefferson to be a “gentleman” whereas Burr was a dangerous, uninhibited, and even vile opponent. Hamilton campaigned hard against him. And
Aaron Burr would not forget or forgive this… nope, not at all.

Burr was a schemer, that is certain. He was Jefferson’s vice-president (a practice of the time) but in 1804 was dropped from Jefferson’s second presidential ticket. I say Burr was a schemer only because I really don’t like him; you will see why in a moment. For now, Burr was trying to get elected governor of New York. This was an important state in the Northeast, particularly when this region (New England) was talking about actually seceding from the Union. (It’s interesting that this is a common theme in American History – people believed in their right to secede).

Anyway, Hamilton launched an impressive smear-campaign against the vile and dangerous Aaron Burr. It ended up costing Burr the governership. At a public dinner Hamilton went further and actually chastised the “uneducated” and “base” politician. He called him all sort of unpolite names, lashed into him, and embarrassed him in front of everyone. Poor Aaron. He didn’t like this, not one bit. Furious, and perhaps with spittle on his lips, he challenged Hamilton to a duel. And how cool is that? A real gentleman’s gunfight, with black longcoats and manners and everything!

The two met, late afternoon, on July 11, 1804. They took several paces across a dusty street, backs to each other, and upon turning, Hamilton’s first shot missed his opponent. Aaron Burr’s shot was not a miss, nope, not at all. It was a direct hit to Hamilton’s side and the bullet would slice through the man’s liver, causing massive bleeding and internal damage. It would take Hamilton a horrible thirty six hours to die from the wound.

Burr, meanwhile, fled from the Northeast; he was charged with murder and the authorities were after him. It gets kind of dicey here, with Burr retreating to the South, and stirring up ideas of a secession there, where it is rumored he was trying to seize territory in Louisiana. But he WAS busy, certainly, for three years; it is possible he was trying to forment rebellion in the South and West. He was arrested in Spanish Florida in 1807 and returned to Jefferson’s custody. On trial for murder (and now, treason), Aaron Burr was acquitted, in what was akin to a political circus on the scale of our own modern-day O.J. trial. Jefferson (and his Republicans) wanted Burr to hang; the Federalists wanted him set free. Poor Alexander Hamilton, resigned to his future fate on $10 bills, wanted to take another shot at his foe. In the end, Burr was set free and it was “suggested” he leave the country. He retired to England, and then France, and in 1836 would die from a bullet-wound to the heart. Oh! Not really. He had a massive stroke and died from complications.

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