Dunraven Beach

The strange rock formations and heavily stratified cliffs of Dunraven beach - South Glamorgan, formed the backdrop to the Emperor's latest adventure.

Something about the bizare rock formations lend this place a sense of another world.

Honouring the Dead

Last month saw a prince of the British realm re-visit a battlefield to honour fallen soldiers of the Empire; men who had given their lives a full 94 years ago in the Great War.

At a newly dedicated cemetery near the French town of Fromelles, The Prince of Wales and other dignitaries, laid to rest the remains of scores of WWI servicemen, only recently discovered in an unmarked grave.

See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10679715

This very current event reminded me of a similar homage undertaken by a prince of Rome to a foreign battlefield. A Roman prince that also sought to honour the fallen soldiers of his great empire.

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That prince was Germanicus, grandnephew to the imperial progenitor Augustus and a celebrated soldier of his age. The year was A.D 15, and his expedition into the wild Germanic forests was of huge significance to the Roman national and military psyche.

[Germanicus Julius Caesar, 16 BC - 19 AD]

Only 6 years prior to that journey, Roman arms had suffered total annihilation (A.D. 9) at the hands of a pan-Germanic coalition in the enemy lands of the Tutonberg Forrest.

The utter destruction of three Roman legions, represented nothing short of a national trauma for the Roman state and left a lasting scar on an otherwise flourishing period of Augustan imperial consolidation. Some measure of that defeats significance can be perceived from the dramatic attention that the historian Tacitus devoted to Germanicus' re-visit of the battlefield:

"[He] conceived a desire to pay his last respects to these men and their general. Every soldier with him was struck with pity when he thought of his relations and friends and when he reflected on the hazards of war and of human life. ... a half-ruined breastwork and shallow ditch showed where the last pathetic remnant had gathered. On the open ground were whitening bones, scattered where men had fled, heaped up where they had stood and fought back. So, six years after the slaughter, a living Roman army had come to bury the dead men's bones of three whole legions. No one knew if the remains he was burying belonged to a stranger or a comrade. But in their bitter distress, and rising fury against the enemy, they looked on them all as friends and blood brothers. Germanicus shared in the general grief, and laid the first turf of the funeral-mound as a heart felt tribute to the dead."

Empires have always honoured their war-dead and their princes are perhaps destined to always re-visit past battlefields in their efforts to pay homage to the fallen.

House Prices Crash in Edinburgh

Dunnottar Castle

The spectacular Dunnottar Castle, perched on its own cliff-top promontory on the North East, Angus coast: a favourite site of this Emperor.

In sunshine or rain, the dramatic location of Dunnottar, makes for an invocotacive and atmosoheric experience.

For Dunnottar Castle and its history, See: http://www.dunnottarcastle.co.uk/

Augustus on Risk

"He [Augustus] was wont to say that:"

'a battle or a war ought never to be undertaken unless the hope of gain was greater than the fear of damage; for men who pursue small commodities with no small risk resemble those who fish with a golden hook, for the loss of which, if the line should break, no draught of fish whatsoever could make amends.'

 

[Suetonius, Augustus, 25]

World Cup Mutinies & The Restoration of Order

THE GREAT FOOTBALLING GAMES

This month the Imperial court has followed the great footballing games with interest!

Many nations - great and small - have gathered from around the world to do battle in the magnificent arenas of the exotic African Cape.

Having chosen not to field an imperial team from our own modest domains, the Emperor has found it strangely liberating to observe the games from a truly non-partisan perspective.




UPSETS & SURPRISES

Despite our neutral stance, it has been observed that these games are already producing some surprises to the perceived natural order of the soccer world.

Great footballing empires have seemed to teeter on the brink of sporting, if not even moral, collapse. While so-called weaker nations have emerged successful and have even flourished in the heat and altitude of South Africa.



MUTINY AND THE COLLAPSE OF DISCIPLINE
One clear feature of such upsets - perhaps their cause or their effect - has manifested itself in the ill-discipline and motivational disintegration of supposedly mighty teams such as France and England.

Squads that are rumoured to have turned on themselves: have been reported as arguing with one another; rejecting the authority of their commanders; and approaching something akin to professional mutiny.

THE ROMAN STYLE OF TEAM MANAGEMENT
With this in mind, I have recently addressed myself to the question as to just how my Roman ancestors would react to such ill-discipline and the rejection of authority:

"If it ever happens that a large body of men break and run in this way and whole maniples desert their posts under extreme pressure, the officers reject the idea of beating to death or executing all who are guilty, but the solution that they adopt is as effective as it is terrifying. The tribune calls the legion on parade and brings to the front those who are guilty of having left the ranks. He then reprimands them sharply, and finally chooses by lot some five or eight or twenty of the offenders, the number being calculated so that it represents about a tenth of those that have shown themselves guilty of cowardice. Those on whom the lot has fallen are mercilessly clubbed to death ... [by their comrades in arms]. The danger and the fear of drawing the fatal lot threatens every man equally, and since there is no certainty on whom it may fall ... the Romans have adopted the best possible practice both to inspire terror and to repair the harm done by the weakening of their warlike spirit." *

[Polybius, The Rise of the Roman Empire, VI.38]


Now all men know that I am a liberal Emperor and I am certainly no national team manager.

However, I do run an empire and I cannot help but wonder if - by utilising the wisdom of the ancients - I might not be able to assist such blighted teams with the restoration of discipline and the imposed promotion of stability within their troubled ranks?
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* This well known account of the Greek historian Polybius relates the infamous Roman practice of decimation. A punishment reserved for the most extreme cases of collective military cowardice, desertion and ill-discipline.

For the rumoured squad troubles that have blighted the French and English national sides, See:
http://af.reuters.com/article/sportsNews/idAFJOE65K0QL20100621

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iuuC8Grn649B6IMY2xLyFxNGxbKA
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/jun/21/world-cup-2010-england-john-terry-revolt

The Exuberance of Imperial Youth

The Emperor's younger brother recently went for a constitutional walk on the Lomond hills.

Something in the air encouraged the young prince into a state of reckless abandon.

Its no way to run an empire ..... let me tell you.

Luckily my own subjects can count on a higher degree of imperial dignity and gravitas. :-)

[Just for the record: I had nothing to do with this picture, it was taken by my brother's consort!]