Book 3, Letter 6, part 2 of 2. To Herodotus: The Scythian Sun Devil

To Herodotus: The Scythian Sun Devil

(Part 2 of 2)

*

For ten years his name was whispered only in private, for our people considered him an exile and they felt betrayed by his sudden departure in the wake of their calamity. But the Scythian people are strong, we are survivors, and even without out our blessed Weather Maker, we continued to live, and found a way to thrive again in the land made new and strange by the rupturing of the earth.

When at last Soguda returned, he was not welcomed as he had been, despite the fair weather he brought with him. The wounded never forgot their wounds, and though everywhere Soguda rode, the rains ended droughts and the sunshine melted the snow, the people did not shower him with praise and gifts as they had done. Some began to suspect that Soguda had made sacrilegious pacts with foreign gods, and others began to ask where his mother had disappeared to, all those years ago.

Soguda went to see one of the Enarees, vexed as he was with his life which now seemed cursed with powerlessness. Where once he had brought happiness to all who saw him, now their faces were marred with suspicion and fear and the maidens who once sang love songs for him, stayed silent in their tents, or rode out hunting whenever he approached.

The Enaree shaman he went to see was named Gelon Dur, a northerner whose skin and hair and eyes were pale white. As Soguda approached, he saw that the weather did not change, but rather the snow fell exactly as it had upon his approach. He felt a magic at work equal to his own.

Where have you been Soguda? The shaman asked. Where have you been and what foreign sun now rises in your eyes? For the shaman looked deep and saw, within the glimmering green of Soguda's eyes, a pale white sun rising over a snow capped mountain.

I have been to the plateau of the sun. I worship no foreign gods, but rather, I have spoken with the origin, the God who made the gods of our land. Soguda spoke the truth, revealing part of a secret he had kept his entire life.

What did you learn, Weather Maker?

Soguda was reluctant to say more. He had kept his secret for decades, and feared that speaking it would somehow dissipate his power.

The Sun gave me the power to see into other people's dreams, and in doing so, to know how to give them exactly what they want. When I first returned from the Plateau of the Sun, I was welcomed and hailed as a blessing. But when the earthquakes came, all my insight was for nothing, for I could not bring the dead back, nor restore severed limbs or smooth burned flesh.

Soguda wept.

So I returned to the Plateau and lived another ten years in darkness and light, absorbing the power of the sun, but when I returned home, the people only dreamed of my destruction, and every night I have exhausted myself with the effort of confusing and confounding the dreams of assassins who would murder me. I bring spring flowers to end the winter, and I bring winter rains to end the drought, but the people will not forgive me for my failure to heal them when they needed healing the most.

Tell me Gelon Dur, what am I to do?

The Enaree shaman replied:

Tell me Soguda, what did you do to your mother?

Soguda hung his head in shame.

I showed her the truth of what she wanted. I stained her hands with my dream blood, I showed her the vengeance and justice she craved, and in the morning, when she saw that I had command over her dreams, she left, exiling herself. I have not seen her in thirty years.

The shaman, weaving and unravelling strands of grass around their fingers, instructed Soguda what he must do.

You must find her, Soguda. She gave you the gift of weather making. She gave you the gift of your life. You sought power from beyond the gods of our ancestors and you have insulted the laws of our people in doing so. In wishing for your death, she obeyed the laws of our people, and you punished her for wishing to see justice done. You deserve to die Soguda. Now leave me, and do not return until you have restored your mother to her place at the family hearth.

Soguda left the shaman named Gelon Dur and went into the wilderness where he made himself a mask of wood and bone, and covering his face for shame of his sins, he began to search for the mother he had exiled. For many years he journeyed, hiding his face and his name, but still bringing fair weather everywhere he went in his search. He grew old, wearied by his failure and when his beard grew long to cover the pommel of his saddle, and still he had not found her, he took his horse to the edge of our lands, and he kept riding.

He rode to the frozen north, where the land is a painting shaded white.

He climbed the furthest peaks of the ice mountains, where the land flattens into a tabletop of stone and snow.

He struggled through the wasteland where the sun shines ceaselessly half of the year, and, grows darker every night thereafter.

In the frozen north, in the furthest peaks, upon the Plateau of the Sun, in the wasteland of ice and stone, Soguda pitched his tent, and sought the wisdom of his ancient God.

Where is my mother? He cried to the wind.

The wind did not reply.

Where is my mother? He wept upon the frozen earth.

The frozen earth did not reply.

Where is my mother? He screamed to the sun, source of all power, maker of the gods of earth and sky.

The Sun spoke to him, as it always had, in an untranslatable poetry of sounds both animal and human, and Soguda submitted to the will of madness, all his intelligence subverted into a useless corruption of noise and disorder.

Soguda did not return from the plateau. Soguda did not ever again take off his mask. Soguda's howling cries joined forever with the Arctic winds. The Sun granted him the power to rule over the dreams of mortals, and to know their true desires, and to grant them what was good and what was of benefit and to always bring fair weather with him wherever he went.

A man cannot be always a servant to others, he must also be a servant to himself. The Sun, however, has no desire, has no self, seeks only to lay its power upon the earth and to drive all the forces of nature before it, as a herdsman drives his horses upon the steppe. A man, however, is not a god, and he must submit to the laws of his people. The sun is a law unto itself, and a man cannot serve two masters.

These truths are contrary to one another, and Soguda who sought to grasp the immortal power of his own name, ended his mortal journey in banishment, madness and shame.

Soguda never found his mother, for she had long departed from this life, and her bones lay rotting in foreign soil, her ghost wandering lost in foreign skies.

In the frozen north, where the land is a painting shaded white.

In the furthest peaks of the ice mountains, where the land flattens into a tabletop of stone and snow.

In the wasteland where the sun shines ceaselessly half of the year, and, grows darker every night thereafter.

In the frozen north, in the furthest peaks, upon the plateau of the sun, in the wasteland of ice and stone.

In that place dwells the Sun Devil.

*

So Herodotus, we must believe in the legends of the ancients, even if they are not true.

Thank you again, for all you have given me. I, and all who write and read and tell stories, owe you a debt which cannot be paid, though we might live a thousand, thousand generations.

Still, I try.

With admiration and respect,

Morgan.

Book 3, letter 6: To Herodotus - the Scythian Sun Devil

Book 3, Letter 6

Part 1 of 2

To Herodotus: The Scythian Sun Devil

*

Dear Herodotus, father of history, father of lies.

Father of Stories.

I write to you today to share the legend of the Sun Devil, a Scythian cautionary tale. I'm not sure what it cautions, but when I put on my shaman's mask and stared into the mirror asking myself, What is the story of the Sun Devil...

This is the story my mask told me.

*

In the frozen north, where the land is a painting shaded white.

In the furthest peaks of the ice mountains, where the land flattens into a tabletop of stone and snow.

In the wasteland where the sun shines ceaselessly half of the year, and, grows darker every night thereafter.

In the frozen north, in the furthest peaks, upon the plateau of the sun, in the wasteland of ice and stone.

In that place dwells the Sun Devil.

Though this story is the only proof, you must believe that what I say is true, for my father taught it to me, as his father had taught it to him, and I have told the story every day to myself to keep it fresh in my mind, and you must believe it, even if you do not want to.

Even if it is not true.

In the frozen north, where the land is a painting shaded white, the Sun Devil wanders, his shivering lamentations mingling with the howling Arctic winds. He has been seen at the borders of all parts of that place we call the Plateau of the Sun, and so it is that we call it his place. For a terrible price is paid by all who dare to walk in the endless day, or remain there through the endless night. For in that place the days last for many months, and the nights also.

It is known that any who stay too long in these endless places, are taken from themselves and pulled asunder by the frozen winds, their minds returning only after they have submitted to the will of the Sun Devil, and let all sanity be taken from them, all semblance of self replaced with an untranslatable poetry of sounds both animal and human, a useless corruption of all useful intelligence, subverted to utter madness.

There is a wanderer in the frozen north, in the furthest peaks, upon the plateau of the sun, in the wasteland of ice and stone, he is The Sun Devil. He was once a man. He was one of us, one of our people.

And this is his story.

*

Born during a terrible drought, he was named Soguda, because of the sun, and all through his youth, people called him Ende-nuono, the weather maker, for it seemed that wherever he went, the weather would change as he arrived at his destination. If the land was hot and dry, when Soguda arrived it would rain. If the snow piled thick upon the domes of tents buried in a long winter, when Soguda arrived the sun would come out and spring would follow in the hoof-prints of his horse.

As such, he was welcomed everywhere he travelled, and he lived a life of plenty, and of ease, as his life was of continuous benefit to everyone he saw. He was not however, an aimless wanderer, he made a careful study of maps, and of all that our people knew about the seasons and how the climate differs from one part of the land to the next, so as to plan his pilgrimage to bring the greatest benefit where it would be needed at each time of the year.

If some emergency pulled him from his intended path, we would let himself be diverted to address the greater need, but he always returned to his seasonal roads, living a life governed in every way, by the forces of nature, and the needs of his fellow men.

But a man cannot only be a servant to others, he must also be a servant to himself.

This is a truth our people have always known.

So it is that Soguda grew weary of happy faces and welcoming feasts. He grew weary of the greatness of his spirit, he grew tired of the gratitude he received, and he grew hungry for change.

For this is the irreconcilable spirit of man. We are creatures of creation, and destruction.

There is a saying among our people, first you must destroy yourself, before you might seek to destroy others, and so Soguda took his horse to the borders of our land, and kept riding.

For ten years Soguda's name was not spoken in the land of the Scythians, for we are a mistrustful people, and do not take kindly to those of our kind who take on the customs of foreigners. He was considered an exile, until the day that he returned and brought with him a summer of such abundance and fertility that his absence was forgotten and everyone hailed the return of the weather maker, Ende-nuono.

His mother Tisafrene did not welcome her son's return. She saw the way the people showered him with gifts, how young women threw themselves at him, how men clamoured to serve him, to guard him. She saw that he had come back changed, she was mistrustful and suspected that he had made sacrilegious pacts with foreign gods.

That night as Soguda slept, his head dizzy with wine, his belly heavy with meat and his bed crowded with maidens, Tisafrene snuck into her son's tent and slit his throat. Her crime was undetected, the knife was cleaned, her hands were washed, and she returned to her tent to sleep until morning.

In the morning when she woke, there was no sound of wailing and weeping. There were no shouts, no warriors at her door to tell her of her son's murder. It were as if any ordinary summer day were rising unobserved on the steppe. Tisafrene stepped from her tent and saw her son sitting at a campfire, a blanket wrapped round his shoulders and a smouldering pipe in his hand. She could not disguise her shock, and actually fell to the ground as she approached him. Soguda stood to help his mother up, and as they stood close he whispered in her ear.

Be careful what you dream, mother, the weather can change very quickly on the steppe.

Tisafrene looked her son in the eye and she saw, glimmering within his shining green irises, a pale sunrise cresting a white mountain.

The next night Tisafrene disappeared, and was never seen again.

Soguda however, grew in power and prestige, living as a nomad king might, forever received by grateful families and tribes. The boon of his magical nature paved for him a destiny wrought with gold and burdened by the lavish gifts of his people who grew more worshipful of him with each passing season.

Until the year of the Earthquakes.

How many villages were swallowed up by the sudden and savage gaping jaws of the earth, will never be known. People were drowned in rivers suddenly flooding like seas across the swampy lowlands, or were boiled to death as the fury of hell turned all the water to steam. Mountain men were thrown from their well trod paths, cattle herders were crushed in stampedes, and grass fires swept across the fawn hills, smudging the summer sky black with the smoke of pasture turning to ash.

Soguda now received the begging, wailing and sorrowful cries of his people and for a long time he travelled from valley to mountain and across the lowlands and plains, bringing rain to put out the fires, and calling sun to dry out the flooded marshes, but no matter what changes he brought to the weather, he could not heal the wounded, nor bring back the dead.

So once more, Soguda rode his horse to the borders of our land, and kept riding.

(...to be continued...)

Book 3, Letter 5, part 2 of 2, to Ovid, on Love

To Ovid, on the art of love

*

Ovid, I am living now in a very sexually free society, though my culture still struggles to unchain itself from the clutches of historical prudish repression. Reading the following passage, it becomes clear why you are still a popular poet, though I must admit surprise that your writing survived the centuries, being copied by monks who are as famous for their censorship, as much as for their literary preservation of ancient writing.

*

I tell you, you should approach the peak of pleasure

teasingly, lingeringly, at leisure.

Once you've discovered the right

places to touch, the ones which delight

women most, don't hold back through shame,

carry on with the game,

and you'll see her eyes light up, flash and quiver

like sunlight on the surface of a river.

Soon she'll be murmuring, moaning, gasping, saying

words in tune with the instrument you're playing.

But take care not to crowd in sail and race

ahead of her, don't fall behind her either; matching pace

arrive together at the winning-post

in a dead heat. Of all pleasures this is the most

exquisite, when a man and a woman, satisfied,

lie in mutual surrender, side by side.

That's the rhythm to aim at – no hurry

no furtiveness, no worry.

Ovid, the ancient past does not feel distant from me, your face hovers ghost-like over my shoulder as I read, and I can hear your voice reciting along with me. As I said earlier, your poetry is proof of the unchanging nature of human society, thought and feeling. I often refer to my era as 'the modern age', but that hardly seems true in light of your words. I too, am living in the ancient past, and with the luck of destiny, future readers may find my works and marvel at the unchanging nature of human society, thought and feeling.

Let others venerate the past, I say

thank goodness I'm alive today;

This age suits me – not because we mine

stubborn gold from the earth, or gather fine

shells from exotic shores, or dig

marble from shrinking mountains, or thrust big

villas into the bay's blue water, but because

we have culture, and the coarse way of life that was

natural to our grandfathers didn't last

to our day, is a thing of the past

So Ovid, I won't go on and on, quoting and commenting, praising and marvelling. I hope that you get enough of that from your many, many fans around the world. I will end my letter to you with this final segment, in praise of poets. Thank you Ovid, I will order the rest of your books soon.

A poet never double-deals:

his art, his calling, shape the way he feels.

We're innocent of ambition, don't care what we're paid,

despise the forum, turn our backs on trade;

we prefer the couch, we cultivate the shade.

But we're easily drawn, we're stickers, and we burn

with a staunch love – too staunch (we never learn!).

Indeed a poet's temperament and heart

reflect the gentle nature of his art.

So be kind, you girls, to poets – the darlings of the nine

Muses, there's a divine

spark in them all. We all conceal

a god within us, we all deal

with heaven direct, from whose high places we derive,

the inspiration by which we live.

*

With gratitude and respect

Morgan.

PS. I read recently that your exile has been repealed by the Government of Rome. Better late than never, I suppose.

News report on Ovid's repealed exile

PPS...I just found out that James Michie (the translator of your book), died in 2007, aged 80. He published his translation of The Art of Love in 1993. He seems to have been a fascinating individual. In the mid 1950s, he helped publish Sylvia Plath's first collection, The Colossus (1960) and, three years later, The Bell Jar. He also assisted with the first English editions of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. You keep good company, Ovid, even two thousand years after your death.

James Mitchie's obituary (the translator of Ovid)

Book 3, Letter 5: To Ovid, on Love

Book 3, letter 5, part 1 of 2

To Ovid, on love.

Dear Ovid, (Publius Ovidus Naso)

I finally decided to take a look

at your poem, though it really is a book,

of love advice for both women and men.

I sat down in a shady glen

to read and take note

as around me the beautiful song-birds float,

now words and rhymes through my mind run

your poem really is a lot of fun.

Ok...enough of that, You are the poet, Ovid, and while imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, I could only fall short of my intended goal in writing to you, which is, of course, to praise. Although, I suppose that I am also writing to your modern translator, James Michie. I will have to send this letter to him as well.

Ovid, more than anyone else I have read from ancient Rome (other than Cicero perhaps), you show that the nature of the human heart has not changed. Some social attitudes have developed, and for that I am grateful, but your poem, 'The Art of Love' reveals something essential about the tragic comedy that is the pursuit of romantic affairs. I suppose these days we just call it, 'the game'.

I've made notes all through my copy of your book, thinking as I read it of which sections I would like to quote in my letter to you. I read some sections to my partner in bed this morning, and I thought that you would be like to know that she was delighted to hear them. Poetry it seems, still serves us in love, as it did two thousand years ago.

*

"What about sending a love poem? Would that be nice?

Verses, I fear, don't cut much ice.

Poems are praised, but gifts are valued more;

provided he's rich, even a slob can score

with presents. This is the new Age of Gold

when love is bought, high office sold."

*

So while you bemoan the fact that love is too often bought with gold, rather that with sincere affection, you do not entirely denounce the value of poetry in the wooing of a lady.

"Write poems in praise of them, and then recite them,

rubbish or not, con amore. You'll delight them.

Lines dedicated to her, by a lover,

that he's sweated all night over,

blue-stocking or peasant

she'll treat them as a little token “present.”

It is easy, I think, for us in the modern world to consider the ancients as being true believers in the Gods, but it is a mistake to look back upon the religious expressions of the past and assume that there was no scepticism, no atheism, no intellectual questioning of the de-facto truth of the Priests' assertions. I have read of court cases in ancient Greece and Rome, over issues of religious doctrine, and people were sent into exile, or even executed for atheism.

"I won't pretend that I'm inspired by you, Apollo:

The hoot of an owl, the flight of a swallow,

have taught me nothing; awake or asleep,

I have never had a vision of the muses tending sheep

in pastoral valleys. This poem springs

from experience. Listen, your poet sings

of what he knows, he tells no lies.

Venus, mother of Love, assist my enterprise!"

*

Yet, further on in the book, you deliver this tongue-in-cheek tale of a visitation from the very God whom you professed to have never inspired you. I love feeling the sense of this whole poem being performed live, recited before an audience who laughed at your jokes or who sagely nodded at the allegories you include to illustrate a point, whether tragic or romantic.

"While I was writing this, I saw Apollo coming

towards me with his golden lyre, thumb strumming

the strings, bays in hand, bays on his head,

prophet and poet made manifest. “You,” he said,

“Professor of Love's Affairs,

lead your pupils to my temple – there's

a world famous inscription on it which goes,

Know yourself. Only the man who knows

himself can be intelligent in love

and use his gifts to best effect to further every move.

If you're good-looking, then dazzle all beholders;

if your skin's fine then lounge back with bare shoulders.

Let the man with a good voice sing, the clever talker break

awkward silences, the connoisseur take

pleasure in wine. But one caveat's vital:

no 'inspired' poet should give a recital,

no “brilliant” speaker deliver an oration

in the middle of dinner-table conversation.”

That was Apollo's advice. I'd heed it if I were you:

What comes from a god's mouth must be true."

Were you too bold, Ovid, with your book? You were exiled by Emperor Augustus, and as harsh a punishment as that was, it testifies to the power of poetry, and to your popularity and influence as a writer and public figure. Hakim Bey (a modern anarchist writer) said something along the lines of, 'In some countries, poets are imprisoned or exiled for their works, but here in America, poets are punished much more harshly, by being ignored.' On my shelf, Ovid, your book will sit beside Homer and Sophocles, although perhaps you would be better placed with the other modern poets, Mary Oliver, Charles Bukowski, Ivan Rehorek and Peach Klimkiewicz.

Book 3, Letter 4. To Plato: The Symposium of Gabriel Roccisano

Book 3, letter 4

To Plato: The Symposium of Gabriel

*

Dear Plato,

I wake early to a grey clouded dawn, my head throbs with the after-effects of the beer I drank the night before, and I linger in the soft luxury of my bed for two hours, waiting for the world outside to glow with the bright colours of daylight before I rise and make coffee. A drop of boiling water falls on my naked foot as I pour from the kettle and I swear softly, but the pain passes quickly and I carry my cup back to the bedroom where I open my copy of your collected works, Plato, and I begin to read your Symposium. Love in all its forms is the topic of this dialogue, and Socrates, whom I am fast becoming drawn to for his absolute desire to speak the truth above all other considerations, seems to dominate the conversation with his perfect blend of storytelling and critical thinking.

I think back to last night. The Philosopher, the Alchemist, the Artist, the Poet and the Bard are for the first time in many months, gathered at a symposium of our own at a busy and crowded tavern in the city. The Artist is preparing to leave town, to live in a city on the east coast for half a year or more, seeking work, seeking love. He is heartbroken and world weary and desperate to find better work than can be found in the little city where we currently live, so, he has packed his belongings and is embarking upon his journey to the east.

I find myself surrounded by friends, acquaintances and strangers, all of us talking about art, music, storytelling and philosophy. In a shifting circle we talk about archetypes; the trickster, the mystic, the diplomat, the storyteller and the warrior. These five ideas fit easily in one hand, but quickly we find that they do not hold all that the world has to offer. Someone asks: What about the architect, or the maker? Every pantheon has a god working the forge. Someone else suggests that the archetype of the villain is someone who has no doubt, whose confidence in their own ideals makes them despotic. I name drop Caesar and we talk about the shifting weight of public opinion in deciding whether he was a hero or a villain. So is the hero defined by his quest to overcome doubt? I ask, and we jaw about the characters we know from fiction and their relative traits.

The Alchemist (who is a trickster) describes his personal project to create more tricksters in the world, and of his successes in forming a circle of pranksters who learn the ticks of his merry trade playing games on one another. Another trickster describes her place as the force of stability and reason within her own social circles, as she is the one who can laugh at all their troubles and smooth over the burrs of hurt egos with her clever wit and kindly mirth.

This raises the peculiar suggestion of chaos actually being a force of stability, since all of reality is in fact in flux. All those who create order, do so in opposition to the fluid nature of the world, and their orderly efforts create the friction which must inevitably be managed and subtly manipulated by the clever weaving hands of chaos. I point to the the tall, castle-like walls of the tavern in whose courtyard we sit and we smilingly appreciate the stability of those who built such an edifice, now wreathed in ivy and moss and bursting with the lively energy of a hundred or more people all talking at once in the coloured lamplight of a perfect summer evening.

Circles break and form and break and form as people come and go according to their taste and tall beauty sweeps through the garden where we gather. I speak with a magician who learned his art tending bars. I speak with a lonesome young father whose toddler daughter is his best friend. I speak with storyteller after storyteller and in the throng I see the Artist, dressed in black and surrounded by the thick press of his many friends. He is smiling sadly and I remember a poem I wrote for him on the fifth day of February, in the year Two Thousand and Eighteen.

Oh how heartbreak seem the constant

companion of love

That we who love are cursed and

blessed by the pain of such

delicacies

as to abandon our mind at the first sight of

love and sink willingly into the heartbreak

that is being Known by the other

How we break, are broken, and are remade

all by the same force that seems to cause

the heavens to turn and the rains to fall

we are the earth that force falls upon

we are the space through which the heavens soar

oh heartbreak, oh love's most bounteous gift

Take heed! For this heartbreak is unlike

any other you will know,

or have known.

Stand ready as the night inside you is

pulled apart by the fingers of the sun who

will not be denied their pleasure in you.

At the Symposium of Gabriel the Artist, the clock strikes the half hour as midnight approaches on this, the first day of February in the year Two Thousand and Nineteen.

You, Plato, and Socrates and Alcibiades and all my friends both dead and alive speak of love, speak of love, speak of love, while the Artist is preparing to leave town, heartbroken, world weary, hopeful. We are young, we are old, we are timeless, swimming in the eddies of an ocean deep and dark, seeking always the same things.

We speak of love, we speak of love, we speak of love.

Thank you Plato, your Symposium dialogue is absolutely beautiful. I especially like the part where Alcibiades, drunk as a skunk, crashes the party and delivers the most heartfelt speech of all, intoxicated as he is on both wine, and on the charms of Socrates. I think now that I too, am in love with Socrates. Socrates the war hero, Socrates the deep thinker, the enduring symbol of truth and courage. You make him look super-human, or at least, the best kind of human, possessed of wisdom, fortitude and beauty. Socrates, lover of men and women, friend to all who are seekers after truth.

Now that I have read your 'Symposium' twice through, I will read it a third time, if only so that I might be in the company of such illustrious and honourable friends. You have so much to say, and I have so much to learn.

Thank you Plato.

With gratitude, and love

Morgan.

PS. How strange now, realising that while I reveled in that summer night, the Artist's brother, (Rafael Antonio Roccisano) lay dying in a hospital bed, another philosopher who poisoned himself. Unable to reconcile his heart to the tragedy of life, drowning in booze and cigarettes, his blood so filled with toxins that his liver was no longer able to process them.

We speak of love. We speak of love.

Rafael Antonio Roccisano

Book 3, Letter 3 : To Cicero, on stomach aches and Sumptuary laws

Dear Cicero,

I'm still reading your letters. Each night as I settle into bed, I look at the towering collection of books on my night stand and select something for the evening. It all seems very serious most of the time, but when I found your letter to M. Fadius Gallus, I laughed out loud and read it to my partner beside me.

TO M. FADIUS GALLUS (AT ROME)

Tusculum, 57 BCE, December

“Having been suffering for nine days past from a severe disorder of the bowels, and being unable to convince those who desired my services that I was ill because I had no fever, I fled to my Tusculan villa, after having, in fact, observed for two days so strict a fast as not even to drink a drop of water.”

“I had been really much afraid of dysentery. But either the change of residence, or the mere relaxation of anxiety, or perhaps the natural abatement of the complaint from lapse of time, seems to me to have done me good. However, to prevent your wondering how this came about, or in what manner I let myself in for it, I must tell you that the sumptuary law, supposed to have introduced plain living, was the origin of my misfortune. For whilst your epicures wish to bring into fashion the products of the earth, which are not forbidden by the law, they flavour mushrooms, petits choux, and every kind of pot-herb so as to make them the most tempting dishes possible. Having fallen a victim to these in the augural banquet at the house of Lentulus, I was seized with a violent diarrhœa, which, I think, has been checked to-day for the first time. And so I, who abstain from oysters and lampreys without any difficulty, have been beguiled by beet and mallows. Henceforth, therefore, I shall be more cautious.”

When people discuss ancient history and the lives of the great figures of antiquity, we rarely imagine them on the toilet. I am glad that Tiro kept a copy of this letter, it helps to bring to life the ordinary nature of humanity at all times. It doesn't matter that you were Consul. It doesn't matter that you were declared “Saviour of Rome”, when you had a stomach bug and spent days on the toilet, you were humble enough to write to your friend about it.

I am fascinated by two things, the Sumptuary Law, and your relationship to Epicurean philosophy. It seems plain from your philosophical books that you favour Stoic, over Epicurean ideas, and I am pleased to discover that you do not hold this position with ignorance, but that you studied with well known philosophers of both schools. I read that when you were eighteen and nineteen years old you studied with Phaedrus and Zeno, two Epicureans, and also with Philo and Antiochus from the Academic school, as well as Posidonius the Stoic. I will write something about this philosophical debate in another letter, I have a lot more to read before I begin anything on that topic.

I have been gradually making my way through your works On the nature of the Gods, and On the nature of Good and Evil, and I have been re-reading On Duties, as well as your letters to your brother Quintus which contain a sort of distillation of some of your philosophical ideals. I have also been reading (although very slowly), The Discourses of Epictetus, as recorded by Flavius Arrian, and I must say that I like it very much. I am amazed by the scepticism and incredible acuity of his thinking, particularly in relation to the existence of the Gods and the meta-language of philosophy. I will have to come back to that in another letter....today I wanted to talk about the Sumptuary laws.

The Lex Sumptuaria outlawed the flagrant public display of personal or institutional wealth in the form of clothing. Included among this designation is the wearing of custom capes or other apparel if the owner is not of the Imperial family or otherwise allowed by the Emperor. Also, wearing any item that contains the colour purple, unless of Plebeian Council rank, or above Senatorial rank, and wearing any item that contains silk.

Then there was the Lex Aemeliana Sumptuaria, enacted by M. Aemilius Scaurus, consul of 115 BCE. As with the Lex Licinius Sumptuaria, rather than limit the number of guests at a dinner party, or the cost one could spend on a feast, it sought to prohibit which foods and food preparations could be used. Thus the Lex Aemilia Sumptuaria prohibited meals that served mice, rats, stuffed (or force-fed) dormice, mussels, and those birds that came from foreign lands. Similar prohibitions were decreed by censors of an earlier date and the prohibitions applied also to what foods were not acceptable to serve to the Gods.

(Source: C. Plinius Secundus, Historia Naturalis 8.57 (223))

Some other articles I found made reference to the fact that these laws were generally unenforceable, and so were more symbolic than legal, and also that they were a way of favouring the local food industries, rather than the imported exotic goods trade. The restrictions on clothing are interesting too, since such laws can be found in many regions of world history, especially regarding the colour purple, which has always been rare and difficult to produce, coming as it does from an uncommon Sea Snail. I had to laugh at the ban on custom capes, since I own two such items, and the ban on wearing any kind of silk. I feel like the silk ban must have something to do with international trade. I wonder who was producing silk at that time, and how it was transported to Rome? I know that the Scythians were sometimes involved in the silk trade from China to Greece, but that was hundreds of years before you Cicero.

But, that aside, since you wrote to your friend Gallus about diarrhoea, I will write to you about a stomach ailment of my own, from many years ago, and which has a weird story attached regarding the way in which I cured myself.

I had a dream that I was at a circus, a large pavilion filled with tents and entertainments of every sort. I saw a large crowd gathering to hear a man speak. He wore a dramatic cape and top hat, had a sinister moustache, and spoke with a hypnotic voice, entrancing the crowd to believe that he possessed the mystical powers of foresight. I instinctively knew that he was a charlatan, and that he was actually an evil sorcerer who used his powers of persuasion and charm to steal from people. So, I snuck into his tent while he was speaking to the crowd and I stole his Tarot cards, throwing them in a nearby bin.

Dusting my hands off and congratulating myself on this little crime, I was suddenly attacked from behind and pinned to the ground by the very man whose cards I had just stolen. I was flat on my back as he he reached into me and stole my stomach, laughing cruelly as he did so.

He then handed me a small piece of paper with an arcane symbol drawn on it, telling me that my stolen stomach would only be returned to me on one condition; that I deliver this cursed paper to a lady in a distant city, a hat maker who had crossed him. If I failed to do this, he would destroy my stomach entirely, and I would die.

I agreed to do as he said, and he let me go, but inwardly I knew that I would never do his dirty work, but that I would find some other way to break his evil magic curse.

I woke up from the dream with a dreadful stomach ache, unlike any stomach complaint I had ever felt before. The feeling persisted all day, getting gradually worse. I forced myself to leave the house to buy some food for dinner that night, as I was having guests over, and I found myself drawn to the local fish market, where I suddenly had the urge to buy myself a whole smoked eel, knowing instinctively that this would be the cure for my stomach ache. I got home, sliced the eel, fried it lightly and ate the whole thing (none of my friends were interested in eating it), and my stomach ache immediately disappeared – the curse had been broken.

Now, I've never eaten a lamprey, though I do love to eat oysters. I've never eaten rat, or force-fed dormice, and while I have eaten a wide variety of bird meat, I don't think any of them were from foreign lands. Last night I ate seaweed and Chinese green vegetables and chicken served with buckwheat noodles and this morning I feel fabulous.

I'm not trying to make a point, I'm just telling you a story.

Thank you Cicero, you life story is of continuous interest, and always a springboard for further learning.

With gratitude and respect.

Morgan.

Book 3, Letter 2: to Tacitus, on peace

Book 3, Letter 2

To Tacitus, on peace

Dear Tacitus,

From Book IV, Section 32, of the Annals

“Much of what I have related and shall have to relate, may perhaps, I am aware, seem petty trifles to record. But no one must compare my annals with the writings of those who have described Rome in the old days. They told of great wars, of the storming of cities, of the defeat and capture of kings, or whenever they turned by preference to home affairs, they related, with a free scope for digression, the strife of consuls with tribunes, land and corn laws, and the struggle between the commons and the aristocracy.

My labours are circumscribed and inglorious; peace wholly unbroken or but slightly disturbed, dismal misery in the capital, an emperor careless about the enlargement of the empire, such is my theme. Still it will not be useless to study those at first sight trifling events out of which the movements of vast changes often take their rise.”

Tacitus, I write to you this letter in the first week of the year 2019 CE, living as I do in such unbroken peace as you mention. I worked in the morning from dawn until midday, I came home, ate my lunch, and played games with my children who, relaxing at home during the school holidays, spent their hours playing games alone or with each other, or drawing, or reading books. I got a lot of music practice done, I began writing two new songs, I read more of Cicero's letters, I read more of your Annals.

Is this the sort of inglorious peace you decry? Yamamoto Tsunetomo certainly had little love for peacetime society, and you, Tacitus, seem equally fond of military culture and the glory of the expanding empire. Yet, the more I read of the wars and strife of mankind, both now and in the past, the more I appreciate the shallow materialism and petty complaints of my peaceful nation. Christmas has come and gone and having had nothing more pressing to concern me than which toys to buy for my children, and where I would be having lunch on Christmas day, I loll about in bed all morning, writing letters, reading books, enjoying the bright beaming sunlight of this Australian summer. Politics in the Capital is surely miserable, but that is far away from my life.

Still, the dull peace you describe is fascinating to me. Your book is crammed with delicious details of Roman life and the consequences of legal issues and I have been surprised by my level of interest in these minutia of your era. I never thought that such details would hold my attention. Is it voyeurism? Is it taking sadistic, vicarious pleasure in the tribulations of others? I'm not sure, but I had to laugh (although I know that I shouldn't have), when I read the following:

Book IV Section 22, The Annals

“...Plautius Silvanus, the praetor, for unknown reasons, threw his wife Apronia out of a window. When summoned before the emperor by Lucius Apronius, his father-in-law, he replied incoherently, representing that he was in a sound sleep and consequently knew nothing, and that his wife had chosen to destroy herself. Without a moments delay Tiberius (the Emperor) went to the house and inspected the chamber, where were seen the marks of her struggling and forcible ejection. He reported this to the Senate, and as soon as judges had been appointed, Urgulania, the grandmother of Silvanus, send her grandson a dagger. This was thought equivalent to a hint from the emperor, because of the known intimacy between Augusta and Urgulania. The accused tried the steel in vain, and then allowed his veins to be opened. Shortly afterwards, Numantina, his former wife, was charged with having caused her husband's insanity by magical incantations and potions, but she was acquitted.”

There are a lot of accusations (usually levelled at women) of poisoning and sorcery in your writing, but my favourite account comes from the story of the fatal sickness and eventual death of Germanicus. The atmosphere of dark horror in the shadowy forests of Germany is tantalising, worthy of comparison with H.P Lovecraft.

Book II, Section 69

“The terrible intensity of the malady was increased by the belief that he (Germanicus) had been poisoned by Piso. And certainly there were found hidden in the floor and in the walls disinterred remains of human bodies, incantations and spells, and the name of Germanicus inscribed on leaden tablets, half-burnt cinders smeared with blood, and other horrors by which in popular belief souls are devoted to the infernal deities. Piso too was accused of sending emissaries to note curiously every unfavourable symptom of the illness.”

Tacitus, though you certainly know how to tell a good story, you do not stoop to take sides in this issue, but attempt to offer multiple perspectives, to tell the history of the events with as much objectivity as possible. You are interested in the truth, even though it is so often impossible to discern. You show this in your description of Germanicus' funeral, in section 73.

                                       Germanicus

“As to the body which, before it was burnt, lay bare in the forum at Antioch, its destined place of burial, it is doubtful whether it exhibited the marks of poisoning. For men according as they pitied Germanicus and were prepossessed with suspicion or were biased with partiality towards Piso, gave conflicting accounts.”

So, with tales of poisoning, black magic, murder, rebellious border tribes, espionage, corruption and now that I am reading about Sejanus, a story of an evil advisor to the Emperor Tiberius, this conflict filled inglorious peace you describe is absolutely fascinating and exciting to read. I take great pleasure not only in the accounts which you give of the important events of your time, but also in those moments of self reflection you allow yourself, and which give me a wonderful insight into your personality, which is a detail so often missing from the writings of other historians.

Book IV, Section 33

“So now, after a revolution, when Rome is nothing but the realm of a single despot, there must be good in carefully noting and recording this period, for it is but few who have the foresight to distinguish right from wrong or what is sound from what is hurtful, while most men have learned wisdom from the fortunes of others. Still, though this is instructive, it gives very little pleasure. Descriptions of countries, the various incidents of battles, glorious deaths of great generals, enchain and refresh a reader's mind. I have to present in succession the merciless biddings of a tyrant, incessant prosecutions, faithless friendships, the ruin of innocence, the same causes issuing in the same results and I am everywhere confronted by a wearisome monotony in my subject matter.”

I understand that for you, Tacitus, this era you describe is wearisome and monotonous, but for me your account of it is a thrilling and complex tale of politics and humanity, interspersed with culture and history and convoluted family sagas. From the luxuriant peace and beauty of my home, I can read your Annals and give thanks every day for the dullness of my own life, unhindered by despots, poisonings, black magic or rebellious tribes. I sit in bed writing letters, the summer sun beaming through the open windows, a cool breeze billowing the leaves of exotic ferns crowded on my front verandah.

This afternoon I will go to the Robin Hood Hotel in Strathalbyn, to see Jay Hoad play multicultural blues/rock music. I will drink Australian beer and stand in the company of local men and women who gather at the tavern to eat and drink and appreciate the glories of a Sunday afternoon in a country town in Australia.

Thank you Tacitus. Your book is a source of great pleasure and education, and while I do not think that anyone at the tavern today will have heard of your name, or know anything of the history you describe, they do know enough of life to value music, and friendships and good food and community. Simple pleasures, but really, the most important parts of a life well lived.

With Gratitude and Respect.

Morgan.

*

PS. I will give you a glimpse of the peaceful life I lead. Here is my description of the musician, Jay Hoad and the concert he gave.

The tavern courtyard, bright Sunday sunshine is warm on my skin, and the cold beer in my glass is dark as the shade of Peppercorn trees, of Eucalypts. In a cleared out hay shed the musician sits amidst a mad cluster of technology – some high power new magic with glowing lights, other musical instruments handmade from scrap...a three string cricket bat, a three string shovel, a four string cigar box. A burning sound, a searing rock and roll, a jump beat go-get-em kinda blues with roots in the living earth. People cluster in the shade, drinking, laughing, listening, listening talking talking. A man of many moons, a veteran by the look of his hat pins, dances with the kind of freedom we all want, yet I feel that we are all moved by the music to our communal purpose.

We are there, with the music, because of the music. We share it.

We cannot see it, cannot touch it, but it comes up through our feet and it comes in through our ears and sometimes for me it's like my bones are a xylophone, each note makes a part of me sing in harmony. Jay Hoad sings like he means it, like his life stories are worth telling, like the trade winds that steer the ship of his life are some kind of eternal spirit. A spirit that everyone in this sunlit courtyard responds to, connects with, and as the sun steers westward, and the blood in our veins begins to hum along, people come to dance in the shade. Their feet lift dust from the earth floor and my nostrils are filled with the dry red scent. People come to join the man who dances with the kind of freedom we all want to feel.

I speak with a Bulgarian father, and his two teenage sons, all three are avid fans of Jay's music, they point out Jay's father is in the crowd, a tall, slender septuagenarian whom they dub, the oldest keyboard player on earth, with good humour and affection. We talk about family, and music and we talk about history, about Australia, about the world.

The tavern courtyard, bright Sunday sunshine is warm on my skin, and the cold beer in my glass is dark as the shade of Peppercorn trees, Eucalypts and a cleaned out hay shed where a musician plays for us.