Sex and the City (of Rome). 2

Lovers. Herculaneum Fresco. Public Domain

Italian version

As we have said in the first post regarding Sex and the city of Rome the ancient Greco-Romans had a totally different attitude towards sex and enjoyed a sensuality open to possibilities whose variety can confuse contemporary people (in spite of what we Westerners think of our sexual liberation) to the extent that what we are about to narrate could offend people’s feelings. We therefore ask for pardon but we also make known to minors and prudish people to please not read any further.

God Priapus ‘weighing himself’. Fresco from the House of the Vettii, Pompeii. Click for credits and to enlarge

Open sensuality? Yes, since for example the sacred poet Virgil probably sighed for Alexis, a beautiful boy; Horace celebrated incest, adultery and sex with female slaves; Ovid, Petronius and Catullus went a lot further (we might see later); not to mention the Roman phallic festivals like the Liberalia, held on the 17th of March …

“… where a monstrous phallus was carried in procession in a car… and the most respectable of the matrons ceremoniously crowned the head of the phallus with a garland”, or festivals like the Bacchanalia where similarly a huge phallus was carried and “as in the Liberalia, the festivities being carried on into the night, as the celebrators became heated with wine, they degenerated into the extreme of licentiousness, in which people indulged without a blush in the most infamous vices.”

This is Victorian Thomas Wright‘s opinion (1810-1877, English antiquarian and writer), not Man of Roma’s (see the Wright’s original text where our two quotes are from.)

Auguste (Maurice François Giuslain) Léveque (1864-1921). Bacchanalia. Public Domain

Before trying to understand what is left today of these distant habits (the post title actually refers to survivals of ancient behaviours in today’s world, we’ll see why), we are going to provide a few detailed illustrations of this freer (or different, in any case) attitude .

So we’ll start by mentioning a Roman goddess, Dea Bona (‘Good Goddess’) and a scandal occurred at the time of great Julius Caesar.

Roman Dea Bona

Roman Bona Dea (Good Goddess)

In Roman religion Dea Bona (Latin for ‘Good Goddess’) was a “deity of fruitfulness, both in the earth and in women … The dedication day of her temple on the Aventine was celebrated May 1. Her temple was cared for and attended by women only, and the same was the case at a second celebration, at the beginning of December, in the house of the Pontifex Maximus [the chief Roman Priest, today’s Pope being still the Pontifex Maximus of Rome], where the Pontifex’s wife and the Vestal Virgins ran the ceremony.” (Bona Dea. 2007. In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved December 9, 2007, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online.)

I wonder if the online Britannica is exact here, since the December celebration was conducted “by the wife of the senior magistrate present in Rome in his home” (any senior magistrate then: Pontifex, consul etc.). In fact, according to Plutarch (2nd cent. A.D., Life of Cicero 19.3, 20.1-2) when Cicero was consul, the day he made the famous speech which is known as his third Catiline oration, he was escorted in the night “to the house of a friend and neighbour; his own being occupied by women who were celebrating the secret rites of the goddess whom the Romans call Bona.”

Roman Bona Dea

The December festival was more interesting than the May one since “it was not held in the goddess’ temple … it was an invitation-only affair and pretty exclusive”. The wife of the magistrate managed the whole thing during the night, all was secret and occurred in a context of classy luxury (quote from here.)

What was happening during these secret-sacred rites from which men were strictly excluded? Surely it was something like a mystery cult, hence little we know about it (maybe you can find something in Macrobius’ Saturnalia). According to the Latin poet Juvenal, who wrote his satires many generations later (but who was also probably a bit of a misogynist), the Bona rites included drunken orgies among women (Juvenalis Sat. vi, l. 314):

“Well known to all are the mysteries
of the Good Goddess,
when the flute stirs the loins
and the Maenads of Priapus sweep along,
frenzied alike by the horn-blowing and the wine,
whirling their locks and howling.
What foul longings burn within their breasts!
What cries they utter as the passion palpitates within!
How drenched their limbs in torrents of old wine!
Saufeia challenges the slave-girls to a contest….”

(See a complete version in English prose of Juvenal Satire 6, plus the same passage in Latin verses).

Well, what happened in the house of Julius Caesar according to Plutarch seems to confirm Juvenal’s opinion. Let’s see why.

Sacrilege in Julius Caesar’s house

Dramatis personae

• Julius Caesar.
• Aurelia, J. Caesar’s mother.
• Pompeia, J. Caesar’s very beautiful wife.
• Publius Clodius Pulcher, a scoundrel and troublemaking politician, trying to seduce J. Caesar’s wife Pompeia.
• Abra, Pompeia’s slave, who tries to help her mistress to meet Clodius.
• Marcus Tullius Cicero, lawyer, writer and politician, one of Rome’s greatest orators.

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The scandal broke during the Dea Bona December ceremonies in 62 BC, when Julius Caesar was Pontifex Maximus. This is why the celebration took place in his house. Caesar of course was absent, being a man. The way it all developed seems to confirm Juvenal’s view, as we have said.

As Plutarch writes, our great source of the Ancient world (Life of Caesar 9-10):

“(9.1) Publius Clodius was a man of noble birth and notable for his wealth and reputation, but not even the most notorious scoundrels came close to him in insolence and audacity. Clodius was in love with Caesar’s wife Pompeia, and she was not unwilling. But a close watch was kept on the women’s apartment, and Caesar’s mother Aurelia followed the young wife around and made it difficult and dangerous for the lovers to meet.”

“(9.3) The Romans have a goddess whom they call Good… It is unlawful for a man to approach or to be in the house when the rites are celebrated. The women, alone by themselves, are said to perform rites that conform to Orphic ritual during the sacred ceremony.”

“(10.1) At the time [when the incident occurred] Pompeia was celebrating this ritual; Clodius did not yet have a beard and for this reason thought that he would escape detection if he were dressed up as [woman] lyre-player, and went into the house looking like a young woman. He found the doors open and was led in without difficulty by a slave-woman who was in on the plot; this woman went to Pompeia and told her, and some time passed, but Clodius could not bear to wait, and as he was wandering around the large house and trying to avoid the lights, one of Aurelia’s [female] attendants got hold of him, and asked him to play with her, as one woman might with another, and when he refused, she dragged him before the others and asked who he was and where he came from.”

“(10.3) Clodius said that he was waiting for Pompeia’s slave Abra (which happened to be the woman’s name), and gave himself away by his voice. The [woman] attendant dashed away from him towards the lights and the crowd, shouting that she had caught a man. The women were terrified, and Aurelia called a halt to the rites of the goddess and hid the sacred objects; she ordered the doors to be shut and went around the house with torches, looking for Clodius. He was found in the room that belonged to the girl where he had gone in an attempt to escape. When he was discovered, he was taken through the doors by the women and thrown out of the house. That night the women went right off and told their husbands about the affair, and during the day the story spread through the city that Clodius had been involved in sacrilege and had committed injustice against not only those he had insulted, but the city and the gods.”

“(10.5) Clodius was indicted for sacrilege by one of the tribunes, and the most influential senators joined forces against him and testified about other dreadful outrages he had committed and his incest with his sister.”

[Her name was Clodia – prob. the slutty Lesbia loved by Catullus – a perpetual scandal like her brother Clodius. We’ll probably talk about her again, it is important in our view of Roman sex. In the painting below you can see Catullus visiting aristocratic Lesbia’s mansion, a nice work by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836 – 1912,) an interesting painter of late nineteenth century Britain]

[Online Britannica: “In December 62, when the winter ceremony of the Bona Dea (from which men were excluded) was celebrated in the house of Julius Caesar, a man believed to be Clodius was discovered disguised as a female harpist among the participants. Charged with incestum he was tried before the Senate…Caesar divorced his wife in suspicion that she had admitted Clodius to the ceremony….Clodius maintained he had been at Interamna, 90 miles (145 km) from Rome, on the day in question, but Cicero, who abused the defendant intemperately, presented evidence to the contrary. Clodius was acquitted, perhaps because the jury had been bribed, but immediately began to devise ways to revenge himself on Cicero.” (Clodius Pulcher, Publius. Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 9 Dec. 2007) ]

Plutarch (10.6): “Caesar immediately divorced Pompeia, but when he was summoned as a witness in the trial said that he knew nothing about the accusations against Clodius. The prosecutor asked him about the apparent contradiction: ‘why then did you divorce your wife?’ He answered, ‘because I thought my wife should be above suspicion’….Clodius was acquitted because most of the jurors handed in their opinions in illegible writing, so that they would not endanger themselves with the common people by voting against him, or disgrace themselves with the nobility by letting him off.”

ψ

I think the reason Caesar supported Clodius was because they belonged to the same common people (democratic) party. Clodius was popular and influential therefore deemed useful by Caesar for his own political career.

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Related posts:

Sex and the city (of Rome) 1
Sex and the city (of Rome) 3
Sex and the city (of Rome) 4
Sex and the city (of Rome). A Conclusion.

Caesar, Great Man (and Don Juan)

New Subura

Roman Subura, New and Old

Suburra (Italian name for Latin Subura) refers to the slums district of ancient Rome, full of “disreputable locals and brothels” (sort of a red-light district, if you prefer) and inhabited by low-class Romans together with people, mainly poor immigrants, from all over the Empire (quoted from here where you get infos on location of Subura in modern Rome). Modern rione Monti corresponds to a part of it.

Julius Caesar “grew up in a home in the Subura district (Wikipedia) even though he came of the most aristocratic origins.” I won’t talk of ancient Subura though. I will instead bring up what seems to me the New Subura, namely the area around Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, not far from Termini Railway Station (see picture below from Google Maps).

While cutting across the rione almost every morning in order to catch the subway line-A train I feel this intoxicating aura of exoticism pervading the area and reminding me of some corners of Bombay, the city of wonders and my favourite Indian city. Indians, Chinese, Pakistanis, Africans, Eastern-Europeans etc. crowd these orthogonal streets making them tremendously vibrant.

Mafias, prostitution and illegal activities flourish here of course (thence the analogy with ancient Subura) but on the whole the place and Rome are starting to profit from all this, especially now that the big money is arriving.

So Piazza Vittorio Emanuele is right at the centre of new multi-ethnic Rome.

Piazza Vittorio is actually the New Subura.

New found Pride

One month ago, while I was desperately trying to catch my train to my office, I saw some Chinese youngsters possibly doing their Tai Chi Chuan gymnastics on the grass in Piazza Vittorio Emanuele Gardens, a magnificent park that occupies the greatest part of this huge rectangular porticoed piazza, the biggest in Rome, built after the unification of Italy by architect Gaetano Koch between 1882 and 1887. These Chinese faces looked very self-assured, I couldn’t but notice. They were very focused on their activity, with curious passers-by gathering around them.

To the history-addicted the place is somewhat ghostly because it used to be the place of witches, assassins and slaves’ executions during ancient Roman Republican times. The piazza is in fact located at the top of the Esquiline Hill, the highest of the Seven Hills, a no man’s land at the edge of Subura until emperor Augustus redeemed it and which revealed its horrors more than 2000 years later during the public works conducted by architect Gaetano Koch who found vast carnage pits dating back to the Republican Roman era.

The park also contains the famous Porta Alchemica or alchemic door (XVII century AD) which, according to some alchemists, could reveal the secret of the philosopher’s stone in its engraved symbols (so, Harry Potter‘s fans, open well your eyes: you might discover the secret of secrets. See the alchemic door picture below – Wikimedia Commons. Same image at a higher resolution here).

Totally unaware of all this spooky past these young Chinese faces seemed to me a totally new generation. Many Romans in their uncaring attitude have not noticed the difference, useless to say. Chinese people are all over the place in New Subura, attending customers in shops and stores, working energetically in restaurants and at bar tables or having some relax at open-air cafes.

Trendy-clothed teenagers – pretty high-heeled girls with weird-coloured hair and macho-looking T-shirted boys – meet in the evening at the renowned Fassi’s Palace of Ice(cream) close-by (Palazzo del Freddo), one of the most ancient ice-cream shops in Italy, located in 65, Via Principe Eugenio.

How all is changing so fast. Customers at Fassi are now much more mixed up and how terribly hard-working these Far-Eastern people seem compared to us and even to some Honk-Kong Chinese friends who are westernised and really admire the incredible hardiness of the unspoiled mainland Chinese.

They do not seem keen to show their feelings though (both the mainland and the HK Chinese). It is the reason why they look so enigmatic to Romans, or marble-faced (this is how I tease my HK friends, not deprived of some nice UK sense of humour). The simple truth, I think, is that they are just shy.

It is now three-four years that the Roman Chinese and Indians have sort of come out of this psychological ghetto every immigrant initially finds into (Italians know too well, having being, as immigrants, scattered all over the world), their eyes less elusive and their facial expressions franker (and prouder). Indian faces are more expressive, being more similar to us in their non-verbal communication (we have blood in common, after all). Chinese are marble-faced instead lol, whatever HK guys may say 🙂

Is Rome Adapting to the Future?

Caught out by a swiftly growing immigration phenomenon the Romans are starting to overreact every now and then, although on the whole they preserve this good-natured, I-couldn’t-care-less type of behaviour (called menefreghismo bonario) which indeed characterizes them and which is typical of a folk who really saw everything in the course of their history. Is such menefreghismo (or chissenefrega attitude) anachronistic today, not providing a sufficiently powerful barrier against Roman possible mounting decline (and Italian & European)?

I don’t remember who said: “I wish we will not live in an interesting age”.

What has to be understood is that this multicultural / multiracial situation is rather recent here compared to places like London or Paris (not to mention America). Rome, we believe, is nevertheless trying to adapt to the future, her somewhat economic success providing evidence of this reaction capability (local economic figures are growing faster than the Italian annual GDP increase).

To this success residing foreigners are contributing, it is hard to deny.

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Related posts:

Rome. Stepmother or Alma Mater?

Ups and Downs

London is such a bright, electric place today, so different from the London of the Sixties, gloomy and depressing (apart from the pop & rock music scene, absolutely fantastic at that time: the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, The Shadows, The Animals, The Who, The Kinks, Donovan, Pink Floyd etc.)

I remember a melancholy evening at Piccadilly Circus, August 1967, I think. It had been such a rainy day I was wondering why the hell I had decided to spend my much-awaited vacation in such a miserable climate.

Suddenly this guy came up to me asking cautiously if I wanted any blue movie. His face was so unusual since he was weirdly blonde but his skin was dark, this dirty offer making him look even more fishy (the colour combination struck me: I had seen only black Africans so far but surely no blonde guys like that.)

Well, that suspicious person’s episode in Piccadilly Circus became in my young mind like the symbol of a society I found decadent, static, conservative: everything looked old, demodé (cars, doors and windows handles, and those incredibly small houses with two floors and wooden creaky stairs.)

Italian society was instead very fast-moving at that time (see pictures above and below.) It had recently experienced its post-war boom together with Germany and Japan: the three big losers of WW2 had economies weirdly thriving, while the winners (in Europe) were stagnating.

Italy for instance was Europe’s China in some ways (although on a smaller scale) and produced very good (and cheap) products which swept the European and World markets. Italian cars, it is an example, were both inexpensive and excellent and were sold everywhere, from Europe to Russia and India.

London now, quite reversely, is not any more annihilated by the loss of her empire and is so future-oriented. Such a great capital again, London.

Italy, instead, struggling desperately to be once more dynamic is ending up in just stagnation.

The ups and downs of life.

Religion, Fear, Power

I told you a few times I do not want to talk about religion though I have to contradict myself because I’ll ponder religion a bit today together with a few concepts dancing around it.

“Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear” argues Sir Bertrand Russell in Why I Am Not A Christian, a lecture delivered on March 1927 and published on that same year.

“It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear is the basis of the whole thing — fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death […].”

“In this world we can now begin a little to understand things, and a little to master them by help of science, which has forced its way step by step against the Christian religion, against the churches, and against the opposition of all the old precepts. Science can help us to get over this craven fear in which mankind has lived for so many generations. Science can teach us, and I think our own hearts can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginary supports, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make this world a better place to live in, instead of the sort of place that the churches in all these centuries have made it”.

“The real reason why people accept religion has anything to do with argumentation. They accept religion on emotional grounds.”

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Interesting what Russell says about fear, a crucial factor, probably, in the birth of religion.

There are other aspects though. If it is because of fear that we create and accept a great almighty father that protects us, an ally, as Russell says, fear is also fear of hell, fear of divine punishment.

This is why we obey to catechism and to the clergy. We are not focusing here so much on the reasons why religion was born. We are rather focusing on power.

I don’t believe it is by chance that the fear of God is one of the fundamental concepts the Old Testament reshapes in thousands and thousands of different ways. The fear of God is the true guide of every virtuous man, argues the Bible tirelessly.

An idea that wouldn’t be conceivable today, if it weren’t for the suspicion, a strong suspicion, that fear is still used nowadays in exactly the same way as it was in the past: to make us weak and obedient.

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An American friend meant something similar when talking not of religion but of mass media.

“You look at newspapers and almost every headline is scary. Here, there, scary, scary ….”.

A tragic example is the way George W. Bush and the neocons have implacably exploited the horror produced by the atrocious attack to the Twin Towers.

Italian version

Force & Anger. Ghosts in the Mind

Do you have a problem?

Sometimes when people have a problem – any problem: love, career, friends, family, deep shyness, health etc. – they get depressed, they remain passive and do nothing. Other times people, trying also desperately to get out of their bad situation, find some strength and react, in a way or another.

Of course the result of this re-action can either solve their problem or, as a possible alternative, get to a problem that is worse, not to mention total failure or disaster (this not being the point though.)

Ok, I am making it simple but, from what I have just said, strength seems such an important ingredient in one’s life success – Country philosopher would say:”No doubt about it, really no doubt about it.” I think you’ll soon meet him, oh you’ll have to readers.

Back to the point now.

Strength of Mind, plus Action

Strength is in fact crucial, I can tell you by experience. No matter your intelligence or big qualities, if you are not provided with enough strength of mind to face things with firmness, if you do not possess some sort of personal bravery, even powerful intellectual processing capabilities might not help much. Quite the contrary, they might be an extra handicap making you a flop.

Here’s one theoretical example.

Even a perfect intellect though spending its time thinking thinking thinking only (and not acting with bravery of mind) it’s almost sure to reach its exact opposite, namely total imperfection in life, which can have many names: frustration, implosion, deep sorrow, depression, overthrow, stalemate etc.

Failure, in short.

The world is full of gifted people that are total flops because they’re cowards and forceless, I know too well, many of my failures (apart from a few successes) being due to flaws where lack of courage was not seldom part of the bunch. And of course, one being a flop means being partially or totally impeded to fulfill one’s dreams as for family, career, love and so forth.

I would add (since we are all bloggers) that even writing & thinking too much can sort of devour itself and make the writer stop writing altogether. This for example happened to me with musical composition: too much loved, too much adored, thus devouring itself, hence failing (or flopping, if you prefer.)

Finding Courage Inside. Magister

Given strength is such a good quality how can one attain it in case we are deprived of it? Hard question. I can tell what Magister used to say, probably referring to an idea by the Italian thinker Antonio Gramsci:

“Anyone of us can find all the force he needs, a tremendous force, if only he really tries, no matter his gender, nation, age, instruction, religion (or non religion), no Gods helping, no religion helping, only our human nature helping (or genes, if you prefer.)”

Of course I am making Magister’s words exuberant a bit since he lectured us with his crystal-clear ideas that imprinted on us vigorously, day by day.

“Sometimes one needs to really be cornered to discover this tremendous bravery we all can have – he kept saying.

“Sometimes one actually needs to feel in danger.”

Magister now sounded implacable, his voice rising.

“Yes! Only in real danger one is sometimes able to stand up with one’s balls firm, in order to face things, and FIGHT!”

Gosh, we were STUNNED. We couldn’t but keep staring at him, totally wide-eyed.

I will also add the sublime example of Victorian Kipling’s Rikki-tikki-tavi baby mongoose, fighting and winning even over the dreadful adult female King cobra. Yes, baby mangusta won because cornered (and out of love for the British humans she/he lived with, though mangustas’ behaviour I have no idea about.)

So let us make use of this potential inner courage we all have in order to face things and act. In other words, let us fight for a better life – personal or collective, it is the same.

Of course, dear readers, this post is also pretty personal since I am living a hard moment, so once more I’m trying to follow Magister’s example to find such inner force and make use of all the personal bravery I am capable of.

Destructive Solution: aggressive Anger

The thing is, being very stressed these days, I am starting to make mistakes.

1) Excess. One mistake is letting excess prevail a bit. No big deal, since once I’m all right I’ll take care of it and tame it (hopefully.)

2) Anger. The worst thing – and a possible by-product of Magister’s teaching on strength? – which I consider due only to age (or bad temper?). I mean, I feel such a great anger inside, together with this constantly re-lost & re-found energy at my disposal now, without a doubt.

Why the hell am I angered? For personal reasons I won’t say and because I see my country (and Europe) not reacting well to challenges. I see people here in Italy full of intelligence and of resources my generation didn’t even dream of (same old song at each generation, I know) looking unprepared, narrow-minded and provincial, not to mention Italians’ almost total ignorance of the whole world picture.

I see the UK and France fantasizing they still have great empires (or great world influence of their own), thus halting in a way or another the European political unification.

Oh this really drives me mad, especially the Brits’ behaviour, really so mad indeed – tending to condone the French out of sentimental weakness: I consider them at present the best fruit of Latin civilization.

Bulls on the streets of Pamplona, Spain. Click for credits and to enlarge

This anger thing reminds me of an old man, long white hair, bald, dirty clothes though full of tremendous dignity I met 25 years ago in Pamplona, Spain – see the picture above. He told us two words in Italian in a bar, so I asked him:

“How is government here in Spain?”
His facial expression changed and, looking at me with boiling rage, he roared:
“LATRONES! LATRONES!” (Thieves! Thieves!)

Oh was I startled, plus I got worried for the poor old fellow’s health.

2.1) Made my Indians angry. First totally moronic consequence of my destructive anger (plus lack of concentration): I’ve recently flooded my sweet Indian bloggers (Amith, Poonam, Ashish, Ishmeet etc.) with hard (not against them tho) and/or fussy comments which gave them the impression I wanted their blog space A-L-L for myself.

GOD DAMN! They might ban me from now on, being all connected to one-another, one whisper sufficing to be excluded by the only readers I have (or the core of them.)

It would though be right, it would though be RIGHT, this punishment, because of this verbal abuse of mine that has no excuses, really no excuses at all, going against what I call humanitas, which is basically sympathy & respect for others.

One Big (Tiny) Missile Against The Ex-Victorians

2.2) Stupid attack on Great Britain, i.e.second moronic mistake.

Some time ago I found a high-brow English blog on politics, Westminster Wisdom (subtitle: “mind trained by academia into almost fractal subtlety”).

(Fractal subtlety!)

It was highly ranked in Technorati plus this guy’s (or guys’) nick was Gracchi, which in Ancient-Roman history is the name of two brave brothers who decided to carry out a revolutionary state-land property reform (land to be given to small peasants) since the ancient Roman Res Publica was not so Publica after all, 200 clans (or gentes) basically having ALL the riches (and lands) for themselves. These two brothers were in fact butchered by landowners gorillas. Same old story almost everywhere in the ancient and non ancient world.

Wow, I said. I love this man. He loves the Romans & the common people like I do. Therefore I started reading his blog with a pleasure that diminished the more I was realising how his high-brow British English (which I probably envied) was hard to understand. My anger, while reading, kept surging surging.

Such fruitless sophistication (I thought,) I had to read sentences 3 times to figure out their content (was I just tired?)

You’ll say it’s because I am no mother-tongue. I’m not, and I toil for every sentence I write.

But let’s face it. I read the Economist, Financial Times etc. quite a lot. I used to read over and over the Canterbury Tales (modern English verse, tho,) Pope, Shakespeare, Byron & Milton, bits of Joyce etc. (and, American-English stuff, even more than British stuff, except for English poetry, of course, which I totally adore. I’ll add several historical & political British – and American – books.)

Additionally, my anger was surging surging also because this guy dared to call himself Gracchi.

This Briton I mean dared to use a Roman name that since more than 2000 years always meant: with the common people! For the common people! Caesar himself, though from the noblest breed, wrote works that even a baby could read and belonged to that Gracchian youth and all that democratic bunch which helped him to gain power.

In ten minutes I was like the man in Pamplona: all rage, my pent-up grudge against the Brits exploding – the only real Trojan horse of Europe (forget the French.)

Well, it didn’t explode, to say the truth. It imploded, probably making my life 2-3 years shorter.

I didn’t (and don’t) nonetheless care a f*** about my health, being a citizen of Rome with all his couldn’t-care-less attitude, non ce ne frega riccamente un cazzo a noi romani.

Although, I did care, and got so angry about this after-all-innocent-Brit-guy’s blog. Hence, rage being rage:

Vendetta is a dish
You have to eat so cold,
Oh yes, my fellow countryman,
so cold, cruel, perfidious.
Perfidious-Albion-like ah ah
perfidious-Albion-like ah ah ah ah
ah ah ah aaahhhh ….

Such a silly poem actually – I love my silly English poems – though this one (among the silliest) may somewhat describe my feelings while so perfidiously I was about to prepare my missile against the UK.

Once my comment was completed – and well equipped after two hours of toil – BANG! I shot my legions forwards, feeling like Maximus Decimus Meridius in the moments preceding the German Marcomanni’s annihilation (in the Gladiator’s initial movie battle, btw.)

Here’s my battle text:

“Your blog seems great to me, although a bit too sophisticated. Is this sophistication the essence of what you call academic? (I know this is not your thought). Trying not to be provocative I’m only disappointed.

I thought only the French and Italian Academias (or their respective literatures) suffered from this illusion that sophistication of style immediately translated into quality of content, or from this aristocratic (id est corporative) disease that makes intellectuals more concerned about other intellectuals than about talking to a public. The natural consequence of this undemocratic attitude being of course that the world does not read our works any more.

Britain was such a happy exception. You did so much not only for the ‘public understanding of science’ but also for the ‘public understanding of humanities (and politics)’.

Where is Europe going if even the shepherds are getting lost….?

A man of the street of Rome

[downgraded to middle-brow status
(though proud of it),
whose ancestors were noble citizens of Rome
since at least 10 centuries]

Saturday, October 20, 2007 3:49:00 PM

The arrow was cruel, no doubt, and painted with subtle venom, especially if you consider his nick, Gracchi, and the fact that only 40 years earlier sublime (and high-brow) Bertrand Russel, together with hundreds of other high-brow British intellectuals, had the rare quality of being understood even by porters (or street cleaners, if you prefer.)

This dirty shot to the Gracchi guy was in fact such a blow in my view that, thinking of it now while I’m writing, I am not so proud of it, I’m not so proud of it at all.

In any case my legions of words having been too quick for him – and too well organized, I’ll confess my silly pride – this poor, decent Briton thus finally replied:

“Thanks TD [TD?]
Manofroma cheers for the praise. I’m sorry about the sophistication- I do write some simpler articles- but basically I write this for fun, so though I’ll try and be more concise in the future I suspect the subjects won’t change! I do think that there is a point in there- and I think TD [??] has found it for example- anyway thanks for visiting and sorry your visit disappointed you in some ways.”

Saturday, October 20, 2007 4:12:00 PM

Nice reply, after all, and his blog highly cultivated and interesting indeed, of a higher quality than mine, no doubts about it.

But then, total victory of Roma over the UK? Oh no no no, of course not. Great Britain always backfires.They never give up, never, even during Alexandrian-style decadence.

After 1 day an anonymous comment in fact came out:

“No no no don’t listen to Manofroma’s incomprehensible post. There is absolutely nothing ‘too sophisticated’ about your writing – it is most lucid and precise. Stick exactly to what you are doing, it works beautifully! One of the few blogs out there that is consistently a joy to read.

Sunday, October 21, 2007 1:08:00 AM

Probably true, although, what if HE HIMSELF had written the anonymous comment? There must be reasons why they are called Perfidious-Albion. Well, in truth, difficult to say whether the Romans were instead more honest, in their total brutality that spared nobody if they deemed it necessary. So hard to say. In any case, as for Gracchi, I’ll never know if it was him to backfire or someone else.

Truth painted with Sorrow. Ghosts

The thing is, what the hell do I care, my dear readers. I was an aggressive bastard, whatever the result of this microscopic war between Roma and the UK – who probably didn’t even notice the battle, and Rome in any case couldn’t care less, ah ah ah.

Things, you know, are much more complicated. And they are not painted with venom, they are painted with sorrow …

Truth being I cannot but love Britain of course. I wouldn’t have toiled so much to learn its language; I wouldn’t have listened to Sir Edward Elgar‘s Victorian music so much, a bit too romantic to Roman ears, though providing that feel of imperial greatness I needed to write my most Roman posts, this introductory post, for example.

And the thing is I do not only love the Britons. I most of all love so much the people and the place I am departing from.

Is it guilt that is making me aggressive, my departure though being not deprived of reasons and fairness?

And, out of guilt, is it a ‘hating-myself <–> hating-my-beloved-ones’ type of thing? Or is it just fear?

ψ

“Ok man, this is personal stuff – one might say. Let’s get more practical. We just learned you are leaving: where the hell are you going?”

Well, I’m going somewhere to the south – only 30 minutes by train will take me back to my beloved city.

I’m going where I can watch our Mediterranean sunset reflecting on the salty sea water, every day that is left to me, every single day, away from all the smog, away from the big city chaotic pace, although, unfortunately, also away from all that I love unconditionally.

And one danger is approaching, ruthless. Ghosts from my mind are about to attack. I can feel them.

They’re approaching and even if it was foreseen that doesn’t mean I am not scared, being totally alone, nobody waiting for me, now and in the future, I believe.

This might be the final reason why I got so armoured, aggressive. Mind ghosts, theonly real ones in my view (see the post Ghosts from Asia,) will make my life a lot harder, for a length of time whose duration I cannot predict.

They are the ones to be really fought, not the Brits, certainly, whom how can I judge they being superior to Italians in many respects (not in all respects though, oohh really no doubt about it.) I will not judge them, though pls allow me to strongly disagree with their stubborn, anachronistic (plus self-destructive) Trojanism.

I really do hope that love, harmony and joy will soon circle back in the life of everyone, me being though a natural born loner, as it always was and as it always will probably be.

I might lose my battle with ghosts (and with fear). Even though in the end, in the very end:

When the unwanted Guest arrives …
I might be afraid
Or I might smile and say:
My day was good, let night fall.

(quote from Coelho’s The Zahir)

Keep Violence in the Mind

“Keep violence in the mind where it belongs.” (Brian Aldiss, English Science fiction writer). And it is good that this and other things be left in the mind only. There is nothing wrong about having non ordinary fantasies, psychologists keep on telling us. But where does the line between imagination and action reside?

I look with some suspicion at violent TV serials like CSI (Crime Scene Investigation), especially because so many teenagers are crazy about them, not to mention films like Silence of the Lambs (1991) and Hannibal (2001). Adapted from Thomas Harris’ novels and played by the great British actor Anthony Hopkins (as Hannibal Lecter: picture above taken from here), these two movies are excellent, which makes it all even worse, I believe.

ψ

Years ago a serial killer was captured. When asked how he had been capable of committing such horrendous atrocities on such a large number of people, he replied:

“It all started with violent movies and violent cassettes…”

Italian version