Pliny on Man

1. " The nature of living creatures in the world is as important as the study of almost any other, even though the human mind is not able to pursue all aspects of the subject. Pride of place will rightly be given to one for whose benefit Nature apears to have created everything else. Her very many gifts, however, are bestowed as a cruel price, so that we cannot confidently say whether she is a good parent to mankind or a harsh stepmother." 

2. "Man is the only living creature whome nature covers with materials derived from others. To the remainder she gives different kinds of coverings - shell, bark, spines, hides, fur, bristles, hair, down, feathers, scales and fleeces. Even tree-trunks she protects from cold and heat by bark, sometimes in a double layer. But only man is cast forth on the day of his birth naked on the bare earth, to the accompanyment of crying and whimpering. No other creature is more given to tears - and that right at the begining of life. The well-known first smile occurs, at the earliest, only after forty days in any child."

4. "The early promise of strength and the first gift of time make him like a four-footed animal. When does man walk? When does he speak? When is his mouth firm enough for solid food? How long does his fontanelle pulsate - a sign that man is weakest amongst all living creatures? Then there are the diseases to which he is subject,  and the cures devised against these ills that are overcome by new maladies. All other animals know their own natures: some use speed, others swift flight, and yet others swimming. Man, however, knows nothing unless by learning - neither how to speak nor how to walk nor how to eat; in a word, the only thing he knows instinctivley is how to weep. ..."

5."Man alone of living creatures has been given grief, on him alone has luxury been bestowed in countless forms and through every single limb - and likewise ambition, greed and a boundless desire for living, superstitions, anxiety about burial ands even about what there will be after his life ends. No creature's life is more fragile; none has a greater lust for everything; none a more confused sense of fear or a fiercer anger. To sum up, other creatures gather and take thier stand against other species; ... But man, I swear, experiences most ills at the hands of his fellow men."

[Pliny The Elder, Natural History, VII.1-5]

Loch Leven Castle, Kinross-shire

Ok, so this emperor has an obsession for visiting castles .... and I've never denied it.



Our most recent foray, took the imperial court to my home of Kinross-shire on the beautiful banks of Loch Leven. The small ferry boat carried us to the historical Castle Island; site of the famous stronghold that once served as a prison to the unhappy figure, Mary Queen of Scots .

Queen Mary's imprisonment (for a period of 288 days) was only broken by a dramatic night-time escape on 2nd May 1568. She was spirited away by boat, with the surreptitious help of the youth William Douglas, who stole the castle keys and locked her captors inside before discarding them into the loch.*

Its fair to say that Mary's stay at Lochleven Castle was an unhappy one and her later web posting on Trip-Advisor was less than complementary of its amenieties; a fact that must surley have led to the castle's current decline as a recreational retreat.

This Emperor's visit was lucky to catch a sunny day - one of those 'Last Days of Summer' gems that only September in Scotland can offer.

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*On the issue of the stolen castle keys: the 'Annals of Kinross-shire' make an interesting note that a rusted set of ancient and mighty keys were discovered by a local boy - William Honeyman - in the Autumn of 1805, during a period of particularly low water level for the Loch.

Seneca on Stoicism & Restraint

"... indulge the body just so far as suffices for good health. It needs to be treated somewhat strictly to prevent it from being disobedient to the spirit. Your food should appease your hunger, your drink quench your thirst, your clothing keep out the cold, your house be a protection against inclement weather. It makes no difference whether it is built of turf or variegated marble imported from another country: what you have to understand is that thatch makes a person just as good a roof as gold does. Spurn everything that is added on by way of decoration and display by unnecessary labour. Reflect that nothing merits admiration except the spirit, the impressiveness of which prevents it from being impressed by anything."

[Seneca, Letters VIII.2]

Image of An Emperor: Domitian

"He was tall in stature, his countenance modest, and inclined to rudeness, with large eyes, though his sight was dim. His presence was graceful and comely, especially in his youth, excepting only that his toes were bent slightly inward. In course of time, he became disfigured by baldness, corpulence and the slenderness of his legs which were reduced by a long illness."

[Suetonius, Domitian, 18]

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.

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