8. Didius Julianus

If you're like me, four out of five things you know about ancient Rome you learned from the film Gladiator. Therefore, after the crazy, "Am I not merciful?!" shouting emperor Joaquin Phoenix is slayed by Marximus Aurelius Russellium Croweius Awesomus, Rome was destined to return to its Republican roots. No more evil Caligulas, Neros, and Commoduses to mess up Rome's glory. That was all to be in the godforsaken past. Yep. All done. Dead Awesomus Maximus mandated it.

I guess the movie ended where it ended because Rome's post Emperor Commodus life (heretofore, to avoid confusion, we'll call Commodus the easier to remember, "Phoenixus") was not bound for  beautiful rainbowy dreams. It's "republic" would never return... Well, maybe it kinda would... but Didius Julianus is here to tell us how well it went!

Here we go. 

Emperor Phoenixus was crazy. No one was more aware of it then his elite military security unit, known as the Praetorian Guard. So, as the story goes, several high ranking officials, in collusion with this Praetorian Guard, had incestually-leaningly Phoenixus murdered in the middle of the night. Sorry to ruin all our vested beliefs, but in fact, Russell the Maximus Crowe did not actually kill Pheonixus in the Coliseum. It just didn't happen that way.

too cool to be true.

The powers that be weren't stupid, however, and they sincerely thought they could learn from history. After the equally insanely evil Emperor Nero offed himself a hundred years prior, there was a horrible power vacuum in Rome that resulted in horrendous civil wars, as well as four emperors in one year. So, the Praetorian Guard mandated that the Emperor be replaced before dawn. They needed someone who could wear the ring of power immediately and stabilize the kingdom, lest every general gather up his roots from Londonium to Timbuktu in expectation of sporting royal purple. The Praetorians evidently chose a dude named Pertinax for the throne, apparently because he offered to pay the Guard handsomely. 

So, Phoenixus is killed in the middle of the night. 

By dawn, Pertinax the successor is crowned. 

He would last three months in office. 

The problem with old Pertinax is that he was old school. He wanted to govern with calm, calculated decisions. Scribbling the Praetorians a "thank you for making me Emperor" check was not a calm, calculated decision... so Pertinax refused to pay up.

The Praetorian Guard is like a big bully that just so happens to cry a lot when he doesn't get his way. They cried and cried and cried. For three months Pertinax could barely hear himself think over the deafening sobbing of his childish Praetorians. But he was a resolute man.

As the old saying goes, "...try try again," the Praetorian Guard wiped away their tears and figured, "Heck, we did it once, why not twice?" Thus ended Pertinax. Three hundred members of the Guard bum-rushed old, stubborn Perty. The King is dead.

Long live the King. Once again the Romans desperately tried to learn from history. The Praetorian Guard wanted to make sure this time they put a man on the throne that paid them what their sweet tears were worth. So they did the most entrepreneurial thing to do: they put the Emperorship up for auction. Whoever promised to pay the Guard the most money would get the crown. It's so simple! -- why hadn't anyone tried it before???

One bored senator (who I can only assume led a boring life) heard about this, ran to every family member he knew, deciding to buy the office for his son. After a lively auction, the senator promised to give the Guard what amounts to about two-thirds of all the money that Rome had to the few hundred men that made up the Praetorians. Things were working out splendidly. Obscure Didius Julianus received the most powerful position in the world that day... because his Pa was a betting man.

A recap:

Pheonixus killed by Praetorians.

Praetorians replace Phoenixus with Pertinax.

Praetorians become Crybabies.

Pertinax ignores Crybabies.

Crybabies kill Pertinax.

Crybabies auction off the throne.

Julianus is crowned Emperor. 

2 months and 4 days later, Crybabies kill Julianus. 

Oops... getting ahead of ourselves...

NOW TO MY FAVORITE PART

The day that Julianus became Emperor, the news infected all four corners of the kingdom. Every General fighting every German, Persian or whatever people group, felt his blood spurt green with envy. Soon, a whole gaggle of Roman generals alongside Roman armies found themselves marching on Rome itself with eyes set on the awful prize of power.

By all accounts Didius Julianus was a cool guy; that is, a cool guy that never had a chance. I'm sure once upon a time he sat on his Father's lap, looked into his Dad's clear eyes and said boldly, "When I grow up I'm going to be the best Emperor Rome has ever seen." Surely that conversation happened. And surely, Didius never lost his naive posture and hopeless romanticness. His Father clearly saw to that.

Of all those green blooded generals, General Severus was the greeniest. And severest. And Generalest. He had to beat up a few other punk armies on his way to Rome, but he marched straight for the crown, only to knock on Rome's door in less than two months time. The Praetorian Guard took one look at the mountainous Severus, soiled themselves, and plunged swords into the small of Didius' back. They did this in the hopes that Severus would forgive them for selling Rome to the highest bidder.

Severus, being smart AND severe, forever disbanded the Crybabies and successfully ruled Rome for another two decades.

But let's back-peddle. According to Roman historian Cassius Dio, when the Crybabies killed Julianus, his dying words were:

But what evil have I done?
Whom have I killed?

What amazes me about the quote is its worldview narrative. It would seem that this senator king believed in his very bones that the world is just. Who in this world lives their whole life while still believing that all (in this life) come to a just end? Surely no king! Surely no man who knows politics! Surely no person who's experienced persecution! Surely no man who knows of the blood of Abel screaming up to God! Surely no man who's stubbed his toe and suffered for no good reason! Right?

My first thought is to believe that Julianus was an idealistic idiot. How could he believe his life would be saved, merely because he wasn't evil? Had he not noticed what happened to his predecessor to the throne? Had he not lived through all the years of tyranny from Commodus' reign? Had he not witnessed the lions devouring the pacifist Christians? Had he not seen innocent blood shed?

I ask all those questions to the lifeless memory of Emperor Didius Julianus. I ask these questions... and shudder. Would I do the same on the day of my death? Would I suddenly demand justice for my blood? Would I reject what experience has taught me to be truth in place of a karmic fantasy?

Perhaps Julianus knew the truth, knew the depths of the darkness of the Earth, but still hoped for something better for himself. Maybe, in the deepest places of his heart, he held a conviction that he was different. He was the auctioned King, a man destined, despite his birth, to the throne room over all the known world. He was special.

Didius Julianus believed he was different.
He wasn't.

7. Richard Owen & Gideon Mantell

Here, to you, faithful reader, I must confess that I have a certain mystical holding when it comes to the realm of ideas. I tend to believe that ideas are something more concrete than mere electronic impulses zipping through brain synapses. This conviction is less philosophical (say, in the Platonic sense) and much more emotional. When humans take on a specific idea, it more frequently occurs to me that it is the human that is transforming themselves into the image of the idea, rather than the person choosing a new flavor of value. Ideas are pod people: alien beings that have the power to transform us into something else entire.

With this viewpoint then, look keenly: JEALOUSY. 

The most substantial example of jealousy's image first appeared to me in the form of the brilliant film, Amadeus. Though we've not the time to give Amadeus its due, the plot of the film revolves around Antonio Salieri's autobiography. Salieri happens to be a composer, and unfortunately for the scorned soul, a contemporary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Poor Salieri is gifted enough to fully recognize Mozart's musical genius, but has not the ability himself to compose such beauty. The divide Salieri sees between himself and the boy wonder drives him to madness… but first, to Maiden Jealousy.

However poetic Amadeus is as a story, it remains only this; a fairy tale. There was no Salieri salivating over Mozart's ink stains. This is myth, and nothing more. And for that reason we turn our attention to a historical account of intrigue and moral squalor. The tale of Richard Owen and Gideon Mantell is a pathetic one when viewed from the end backwards -- but so is every dead pod person…

It starts with revelation. A bang. A wonderment of wonderments! The earth, the very soil below our feet, hides monstrous secrets. We are in the late 18th/early 19th century, and the discovery of dinosaurs is at hand.

Let's pause here for just a moment. Man has always known of monsters. Our imaginations did not suddenly begin in the twentieth century. But I cannot imagine that feeling that those intrepid geologists felt when they first found that our dreams have all been realized. Monsters did live. Please recall that besides your Saint George and the Dragonesque stories, no one in the last few millennia had awareness of dinosaurs. It was news to everyone.

A young doctor named Gideon Mantell, after hearing about the monstrous crocodile bones Mary Anning had found (another person who deserves her own post), became intrigued by the stuff he could potentially unearth in his own backyard near Sussex, England. Mantell, over the course of many years, began stocking his house with various pieces of bone and debris salvaged out of time by the young doctor. One would imagine that all this cruddy dust and rock stuff would irritate Mantell's wife (and surely it did, as we'll soon find out), but in fact it was his wife that made the first historic find of their lives. She found several teeth, the likes of which had never been seen before.

Now, the culture the Mantell's were born into was one of English gentlemanliness. Geology was a sport for gentlemen. Mantell, being a doctor, needed to use his firm societal footing to gain entrance into the geology club for top-hatted men. The problem was that Mantell didn't just want to be a geologist on the side, as a hobby. He wanted to settle down and start a meager geology family of love and companionship. This wasn't a part-time obsession. As the years went by, Mantell's digging expeditions were growing too expensive, so he searched for a way to open up his income stream. He thought he could open up his house of bones and rocks to tourists… only to be reminded that that was not the type of thing gentlemen did. Subsequently, he gave the tours for free.

So, these new bones were now being connected to an assortment of skeletons that were looking to form a monstrous creature of length and girth. Mantell noticed that the teeth seemed similar to that of an iguana, so he came up with the name Iguanasaurus for his newly discovered creature. Unfortunately, this is when our villain enters into the game.

Young Richard

Young Gideon

 None of my reading led my to answer the question of what it was exactly about Gideon Mantell that irked Richard Owen so, but whatever it was, it never let go (I suspect it was Mantell's proportionally good looks -- I'm guessing that Owen liked his fellow geologists to be bug-eyed and bald as he was). For many a-year, Owen stood between Mantell and history by assuring onlookers that the teeth he found was nothing more than that of some random rhinoceros.

Eventually, the Iguanasaurus was recognized as a new species, and would come down in history to be known as the Iguanodon. But Owen would not stop he harassment. Every time Mantell released a paper or announced a new discovery, there was Owen, swooping in to discredit him and his discover. Often, his harassments would serve the purpose of merely postponing Mantell so that Owen could plagiarize him and get the international credit for Mantell's findings.

Old Mantell

Old Owen

 Financial destitution afflicted the Mantell family… but Gideon's obsession had taken over his life, and he refused to let go of his rocks. His wife left him. At every turn Owen mocked and denigrated Mantell's name. He had no family. He had no geological friends. He had no money. Desperate, Mantell offered to sell his collection of specimen to the Natural History Museum in London. The only problem was that Richard Owen was head curator. Knowing Mantell was struggling, Owen darn near robbed the man. 

Soon after, while riding a horse, Mantell slipped and was dragged several miles. His spine was bent crooked for the rest of his life. Owen took great pride in haranguing the senile old hunchback.

Pure geology his only friend, Mantell continued to work until the day he died, publishing many papers despite his enemy's power and cunning. But the physical pain and emotional bullying got the best of Doctor Gideon Mantell. He overdosed on opium in 1844.

Any reasonable rivalry would end there. Owen was no normal parasite. He took Mantell's spine, had it pickled and put on display at the Royal College of Surgeons of England. Mantell's bones stayed on display until it was obliterated in 1969 to make room for more interesting specimens.

As for Owen himself, he had a statue of himself put on display on the main staircase at the Natural History Museum in London. His statue stands robustly above lesser names, such as Charles Darwin and Sir Isaac Newton.  Owen's greatest legacy remains as perhaps the highest honor any 19th century geologist could hope for; he coined the term "Dinosaur".

Long live the king. Jealousy has won her prize.

X1: Danny Pennington

X = FICTIONAL CHARACTER

I turned 4 the Summer the Turtles invaded. I can remember every commercial that played before the feature on my VHS copy; particularly this one:

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were great. Funny. Strong. Colorful. Witty. And they each were named after renaissance artists… so we all got a little art history to boot!

Beyond the sheer childhood glee of seeing giant Japanese inspired turtles fight evil in New York City's underground, 1990's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is just good filmmaking. The crowning achievement (beyond the blessing of existing in a pre-CGI age) of the film, of course, is its cast of characters. Everyone's not only uniquely colored, but empathetic and individualized. Everyone from cricket-bat wielding Casey Jones to yellow trench-coated April O'Neill to wise, old Splinter the master rat… everyone is lovable.

That is, everyone except teenage jerk-wad Danny Pennington. What a dork.

At the crucial age of 4, I needed to start making personal decisions. Foremost among these cataclysmic decisions was, "What's my name?" -- Now, perhaps this seems simple enough, but not so for my wizened elbow wrinkles. I was born Daniel Todd Stack, and the time had come to insist on the name the world would refer to me as. I could be Daniel, Dan, Danny, Danny T., Todd, DanToddy… this was monumental. Once you get saddled with a shortened name, you're stuck. There's no social mobility there. You are who they say you are.

After countless views, I knew one thing for certain; I was not going to be another Danny, like that snot bag Danny Pennington.

And thus, my name fell to Dan… which I never was too keen on. Over time, of course, I found a blip in the social matrix and was successfully able to implement a rouge"te" to the end of my name, and thusly, appear to you as I am today.

But back to the brat, Danny Pennington…

Danny is the son of Charles Pennington, the news chief over at Channel 3. Early in the film, we learn that Charles has to drive Danny to school every morning, "Just to make sure he actually goes." Soon thereafter we realize that the young Danny daily ditches school to join up with a new teen club financed bountifully by a mysterious organization known as the foot clan.

Okay, let's quit the hazing and knuckle down to the point.
Now that I know I'm not Danny, I can see the many ways that I am.

Much like Pinocchio, Danny, unsure of himself in the world, follows demons into a modern day Pleasure Island. The character arc for Danny is the moral center of TMNT. We all judge Danny because he's pimply and off-putting to his loving Father. But Danny doesn't know any better.

By film's end, Danny learns who's good and who's evil. Moreover, he learns what good and evil both look like. He sees their true colors. And, knowing all that, he chooses good over evil. He helps Splinter, the Turtles, and returns to his Father's loving embrace. It's a prodigal son story.

I've never wanted to be a prodigal son -- because that's such a weak position to be in. I've always wanted to be the rich King, who, with grace aplomb, deals out mercy in place of wrath. I've wanted to be the Turtles rather than the victim needing saving.

My current lot in life establishes a new horizon of empathy for young Danny Pennington. He didn't choose evil in knowledge. He chose it in ignorance. His path of raging hormones and motherlessness blinded his vision and plugged his years. His heart and mind couldn't be reached, either by the left or the right. Lost in the fog, Danny chose the path of least resistance: immediate inclusion and acceptance.

I like to be included. I like to be accepted.

I think the great majority of us are willing to fight and die for what we know to be true and good. But how often can we visualize our choices as that fog-less, that succinctly right and wrong?

Danny makes the right choice in the end. I think it's about time we rename him… give him a name that shines.

6. Basil Valentine

The problem with monarchy is rarely the monarch himself. Rather, the problem is his successor. Succession appears to be not much more than a craps shoot. The greatest of Roman emperors, Augustus, Marcus Aurelius, Valentinian, Constantine -- are their legacies not besmirched by their sons and successors? What good is a great King if his son is a monster?

We shall count the fruit, in this regard, of Basil Valentine as doubled, for the muchness of his successor surpasses his own muchity.

Mr. Valentine, whoever he was, was born in interesting days… and he nursed his era for every bit of weirdness it held.

During the final year of the 16th century, a short little book started to populate itself amongst a sea of European men of intrigue.


Not much later, in 1602, the book became accompanied by 12 woodcuts. The book, entitled, "Of the Great Stone of the Ancients" was broken into two halves. The first dealt with the mystical Philosopher's Stone…



A moment's pause to familiarize with the Philosopher's Stone:

• It's pretty much the Alchemist's El Dorado
• Generally, the Stone is the miracle substance that can be used to turn stuff into gold
• The Stone is often also supposed to have mystic powers, most commonly that of giving inordinately long life to those who consume bits of it.
• During the High Church era of Europe, the Stone also took on religious significance, with some speculation coming down that it was a secret that God gave to Adam, which he shared with many-a patriarch. This would explain the long lives mentioned in Genesis.

The 2nd half of Basil Valentine's book delves into his obtuse "12 Steps". The steps, as included in the wood reliefs, appear as though they must have some sort of deep allegorical significance. One can presuppose that the visuals in each step represent some chemical or physiochemical process. For example, a crowned king is thought to represent gold. 

But it's the sheer impenetrableness of the keys that makes them so alluring. No one knows for sure what they really represent. Are the keys a process to refine the Philosopher's Stone out of basic elements? Because of their weirdness (and inclusion of many languages, including German, Latin, Greek and Hebrew), it remains a question whether or not the keys are more akin to witchcraft than chemistry. 

As for Basil Valentine himself, we know almost nothing of the historical man. Some suggest that his publisher, a man named Tholde, was actually Basil, writing under a pseudonym. Whether or not that's true doesn't really change anything. 

The lingering question of Basil Valentine remains: 

Did he find what he was looking for?

Alchemy's heyday had long past into darkness when Basil Valentine's successor entered into the light of history. He is known to us simply as Fulcanelli. 

Fulcanelli lived in the 20th century, and had an artful power over the biological world whose grasp was so great that the Nazis scavenged the world in search of him and his secrets. We know with relative certainty is that Fulcanelli was a writer of esoteric books, emphasizing the reality of the strange in his writings. The connection with Basil Valentine, likewise, is bizarre. Supposedly, Mr. Valentine came to Fulcanelli's wife in a dream, and henceforth (somehow) declared that he, Basil Valentine, as a dream, was to undertake Fulcanelli as his very own apprentice. 

The result of all this, supposedly in 1920, was the successful transmuting of lead into gold. This was seen and partially performed by Fulcanelli's own apprentice, a one Mister Eugene Canseliet. Note: many suppose that Fulcanelli and Canseliet are indeed the same person, in which case, the successor emperor to Fulcanelli then has yet to disturb the course of history.

Sometime during the 1930s, Fulcanelli communicated with French atomist Professor Helbronner that unleashing nuclear power was not so tricky, and that in fact it had been used by and against humanity before… knowing the bomb's horror, Fulcanelli warned against its usage. Before Helbronner could decipher the truth behind Fulcanelli's sentiment, Helbronner was assassinated by the Gestapo. With the advent of this murder and many like it, Fulcanelli went underground.

By many, Fulcanelli was presumed dead after years of hearing nothing from the eccentric alchemist. If he were alive, there seemed no reason for him to remain in hiding after the Nazi monster was subdued. Finally, in 1954, Canseliet supposedly met up with the not-so-old man in Spain. According to Canseliet, Fulcanelli was pulling a Benjamin Button, becoming younger and younger with every passing year.  

And that was the last the world was to know of Fulcanelli. 

Perhaps now, 

his stomach full of 

Philosopher Stone, 

the young man 

wanders about the Earth, 

spewing 

indecipherable 

allegory 

from his lips,

spending his leisure time 

in dreams 

with the

ghost of his master. 

A Note on Wikipedia

I'm standing in the shower. Water falls on my face, over my closed eyelids. I can see the shadows of the  water through my lids. It's February, and the hot water is soothing. I've finished shampooing and soaping up. For all technical purposes, my shower is over. I remain simply for the pleasure of the experience. I turn the handle warmer. Warmer. And then, just for an instant, the water hits that divine degree wherein the rushing current is hot enough to perfectly scintillate my body. A step beyond and the ecstasy would sharply turn to pain. I've hit the sweet spot. Oh, for that moment to stretch on...

But it doesn't. Our apartment never maintains its hot water. Just as soon as the moment arrives, I find my inner being saying, "Wait!" as the water cools and my momentary bless is replaced with the terseness of lukewarm water on a cool night.

C.S. Lewis seems to be hinting at this idea of joy and longing whenever he talks of experiences of pure "northernness". These are moments that appear to me to be satisfied by something other than the stuff of life. They are filled by the weighty presence of a dark matter, wholly undefinable, but nonetheless immensely present.

Wikipedia (and I more or less am using wikipedia here as an analog for the entire information-at-your-fingertips way of life) is a tremendous resource. It makes me fill powerful -- I can know about just about anything I want by pressing a couple buttons.

But Wikipedia de-northernizes information as well. It takes the dark matter out of the equation.

I've started this blog to remind myself and put into writing little savorings of stories. I am focusing in on people, because I'm confident that human souls will forever remain to complex and too "northern" to ever be satisfactorily captured by a plain text rundown.

Finding answers on wikipedia is (and will forever remain, I reckon) tempting, but despite its awesomeness, lacks any sense of awe towards the characters and stories it depicts.

That's all.