An Emperor in the making?

Could there ever have been any doubt that I was a Roman Emperor?

Given that as an adult I have been fatefully unsure of my career path in life, it was reassuring to recently rediscover the photo below. It reminded me that even from a young age (8), I knew where my calling lay.

[That's me on the right - the good looking one.]

Seeing me and my old best mate - Robbie Bauld - really did make me smile. We were so interested in our Junior-School project on the Romans, that we were allowed to dress up as Roman soldiers on the last day of term. We were so proud!

Of course, the histories tell us that I am not the first Emperor to have dressed up as a Roman soldier in childhood:

"... Gaius, born in the camp and brought up with the regular troops as his comrades. In their army fashion they had nicknamed him 'little boots' (Caligula), because as a popular gesture he was often dressed in miniature army boots. "

[Tacitus, Annals. I.41. See also: I.69]

"He got his surname Caligula, derived from Caliga, a kind of boot, by reason of a merry word passed around the camp because he was brought up there in the dress of a common soldier." [Suetonius, Caligula, 9]

Indeed, rather worryingly for me, Gaius Caligula did not go on to be one of Rome's best loved emperors [slight understatement] and has indeed been recorded as one of history's most evil psychopaths.

It wasn't just the dodgy film he made (the infamous one starring the young Dame Helen Mirren). See: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080491/

Anyway, I'd like to say - just for the record - that the comparison between Caligula and me ends there at the dressing up part. Even when work gets me stressed sometimes, I have never yet had men torn limb from limb just for my pleasure.

"Would God that the Roman People had but one neck!"

[Suetonius, Caligula, 30]

Oh yes, I've fantasised, but modern employment law just does not allow for that kind of thing.

A Special Place

Pliny c. AD61 - 113

We all have a special place that we would like to esacpe to - even if its just a vision in our minds. Pliny's description of his friend's villa, presents a most attractive idyll that is perhaps universally enduring:

"I wonder how our darling Comum is looking, and your lovely house outside the town, with its colonnade where it is always springtime, and the shady plane trees, the stream with its sparkling greenish water flowing into the lake below, and the drive over the smooth firm turf. Your baths which are full of sunshine all day, the dining rooms large and small, the bedrooms for night or the day's siesta - are you there enjoying them all in turn, or are you as usual for ever being called away to look after your affairs? If you are there, you are a lucky man to be so happy; if not, you do no better than the rest of us."

[Pliny The Younger: Letter to Caninius Rufus]

Where is it that you dream of escaping to?

[Castle Campbell, Dollar, Scotland]

The Hay's of Edinburgh - A Lesser known branch of my Imperial family

Everyone knows that I stand at the end of a long and illustrious blood-line, tracing my imperial pedigree back to the early Caesars of Rome.

However recently, I have gained a new appreciation of my Scotio-Roman ancestry and a unique insight into a rather less patrician, though no less fascinating, branch of my family heritage.

A couple of years ago now, Granny G gifted me a decrepit leather picture album from her side of the family. It looked rather less than remarkable at the time, yet within the album were a fascinating and extensive collection of turn-of-the-century photographs.

Form what I can gather, the pictures relate to the Hay family who were Granny G's relatives on her Mother's side. They were an Edinburgh family consisting of two older sisters -Annie & Jenny - life long spinsters, who's only remembered utterance to Granny was:

"... all oor boys died in the War." [The Great War]

There were also two brothers - James and Harry - who were both military men. The family owned a substantial terraced house at Parkside Terrace, right on Edinburgh's central Hollyrood park. The kind of place that's worth a small fortune now!

Most of the album pictures are not marked and its almost impossible to identify and trace the countless faces contained within, although I believe they mostly relate to later Victorian Edinburgh. Unfortunately, Granny G now suffers from serious memory problems and does not seem to know too much about the many people in the pictures.

However, one face that has been firmly identified and that regularly turns up in the album, is that of James Hay. It certainly looks like it should be possible to research into his interesting and most obviously military life. I believe from the pictures that James saw service in Africa [Boer War] and India in the Victorian/Edwardian era. There are certainly a number of pictures from the album that depict this era of service life.

This picture [below] of James Hay was taken at the Tower Well at the foot of Edinburgh Castle. The location has changed little even to this day. It shows James (without a moustache) as a young and proud kilted Scottish soldier (c. 1898), almost certainly before he saw action in the Boer War and later service in India.

In future postings, I very much intend to have a closer look at James Hay and the military service career that would see him play a part in such famous historical events as the Siege of Ladysmith.

.... more to follow ....

As if to prove my point ...

It is perhaps a universal truth that once you notice something for the very first time - no matter how revelationary - you thereafter start to see evidence of that very thing all around you in everyday life.

It is this slightly mocking phenomenon that can lead one into asking the question: "... just how did I not notice that before?"

Indeed, barely one week after posting my piece on 'Jigsaws from Charity Shops - Sheesh!' [12/04/09], I was confronted with the following distressing scene outside my local high street thrift-shop.

Could I really not have known that my beloved jigsaw might not have been fully complete? Oh, how I am mocked!


If there is any consolation to be had at all, then it is at least that the next person who will get this [pictured] jigsaw, will at least have a set that is even less complete than the one I got - poor soul! I'll keep an eye out for their blog ...

History Repeating

This week saw the 20th anniversary [15/04/09] of the tragic Hillsbourough disaster, in which 96 football spectators needlessly died in a man-made sporting catastrophe that could most surely have been avoided. There is still - understandably - much shock and anger in relation to this event, as well as an enduring disbelief that it could have been allowed to happen at all in such a relatively modern age.

The anniversary media coverage reminded me strongly of an ancient Roman disaster which befell the Italian town of Fidenae in the year [27AD] and in which many sporting spectators also died:

"A sudden disaster now occurred that was as destructive as a major war. It began and ended in a moment. An ex-slave called Atilius started building an amphitheatre at Fidenae for a gladiatorial show. But he neither rested its foundations on solid ground nor fastened the wooden superstructure securely. He had undertaken the project not because of great wealth or municipal ambition but for sordid profits. Lovers of such displays, starved of amusements under Tiberius, flocked in - men and women of all ages. Their numbers, swollen by the town's proximity, intensified the tragedy. The packed structure collapsed, subsiding both inwards and outwards and precipitating or overwhelming a huge crowd of spectators and bystanders."

[Tacitus, Annals, IV.61]

The historian Tacitus records that many thousands were killed or seriously injured in the disaster. Indeed, the Emperor Tiberius himself - who at the time lived in almost total reclusion on his beloved island of Capri - had to make himself available to the people in reflection of the deep national shock resulting from such an event.

-------------

Suetonius also tells us of the Fidenae disaster: Suetonius, Tiberius, 40

For details of the Hillsborough disaster see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsborough_disaster

Jigsaws from Charity Shops - Sheesh!

Alright, so I know that many people will already have worked this out; but I only just learned that you're on to a real loser when you buy a second-hand jigsaw from a charity shop!

I was so excited - sad but true - when I found the 1000 piece picture by David of Napoleon Bonaparte's imperial coronation. It totally connected with the deep histo-geek in me.

Any cautionary feelings that I may have felt about the completeness of the set were skillfully nullified by the assurance of the sweet-old-lady volunteer who noted that it was "guaranteed complete". I think I may have made a vague mental presumption that the 1000 pieces had been hand-counted by a crack team of sweet-old-lady volunteers. However, I now realise with the benefit of hindsight that this was a grossly naive misconception on my part.

It’s not the 2 quid spent that I resent - that went to charity. No, it’s the three obsessive days that it took me and several others to realise that we were only two miserable pieces short of achieving our master piece! Arghhh!

They say that on his death bed, the emperor Augustus vainly cried out for the return of the imperial eagles that had been shamefully lost to Roman arms at the massacre of the Tuetenberg Forest. If that be true, I believe that on my death bed I may well cry out for those lost pieces of jigsaw that were so cruelly and fatefully denied to me.

On the other hand, I may just have to let the pain go and chalk this one down to experience ...