The Democrats spent the last 4 years chasing the Great Orange Whale

I've been a bit startled by the unhinged reaction by so many Democrats to Trump's rather resounding victory.  Probably I shouldn't be - after all the lesson of Facebook (and most social media) proves the old adage that it's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than it is to open it and remove all doubt.

Sure, I've been wrong all the time in the past (click on the tag for polls - often wrong but at least I showed my work).  But when things didn't go my way it was a shrug and get on to what's next.  That's not what we see at all.

Sure, the Democrats never really talked much about issues that most people care about - are you better off than you were four years ago, that sort of thing.  Instead, for the last four years it's been OrangeManBad, and nothing but OrangeManBad.  Now they are standing amidst the destruction of their hopes as the Great Orange Whale swims off to the White House.

And it clicked about why they are losing their minds.  Herman Melville wrote about this 175 years ago, and Ricardo Montalban immortalized the greatest lines from the book.

Maybe it's time to reread that novel, and an exercise in understanding the broken political philosophy of the Democrats.  But then again, I don't think that *I* need to reread it.

They do.

Absurdum est ut alios regat, qui seipsum regere nescit.

It is absurd that a man should rule over others, who cannot rule himself.

- Latin proverb

Music from St. Catherine's Monastery

St. Catherine's Monastery at the foot of Mt. Sinai is said to be the oldest continually inhabited monastery, founded by Emperor Justinian the Great around 550AD.  It has a library that has survived the ages, perhaps because they have a document said to be signed by Mohammad himself saying that the Monastery was under his protection.  Even if it was a forgery, it seems to have been an effective forgery.

It has perhaps the most impressive collection of icons in the world.  For example, the oldest known icon of Kristos Pantokrator, dating from the 6th century:

St. Catherine's has just offered full size (or reduced size) museum quality reproductions of many of its icons:

For the first time in its 1,500-year history, Saint Catherine’s Monastery is offering certified replicas of its most famous Byzantine icons. These replicas, available in actual size and true-to-life color, allow people worldwide to own a piece of this sacred art.

This groundbreaking project is the result of a three-year collaboration between the Monastery, the Friends of Mount Sinai Monastery, and Legacy Icons. Dr. Peter Chang, President of the Friends of Mount Sinai Monastery, called the partnership a “significant milestone in our ongoing mission to support Saint Catherine’s Monastery and its invaluable contributions to Christian spirituality and global civilization.”

The first set of replicas includes some of the Monastery’s most treasured works:

• Christ Pantocrator (6th century)
• Moses and the Burning Bush (c. 13th century)
• Saint Catherine with Scenes of her Life (18th century)

You can view (and purchase, if you'd like) the reproductions here.  They look to be very high quality (to me, at least).  As the original linked article says:

These replicas are created using high-resolution scans, capturing even the tiniest details. “To be able to look into the depths of the cracks and original paint strokes with this clarity is breathtaking and we look forward to shipping these for all to appreciate,” said David DeJonge, founder of Legacy Icons. The replicas are printed on high-quality Hahnemühle Photo Rag paper and mounted on solid hardwoods, ensuring they are as authentic as possible.

A portion of the purchase goes to support the Monastery's preservation activities.  Remember, this Monastery has been working and collecting manuscripts continually for 1500 years.

Here is a recording of traditional music from the Monastery.

Oldest bottle of wine unearthed

Long time readers will recall that awhile back I posted about a bottle of Roman wine from around 325 AD.  Well, that discovery has just been pushed back by three centuries:

In 2019, a glass cinerary urn containing a reddish liquid was discovered in a 1st century Roman mausoleum in Carmona, southern Spain.

...

Researchers from the University of Córdoba analyzed samples of the liquid to determine its composition. They found that it had a PH 7.5, close to neutral, and contained biomarkers that are exclusive to wine. High-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS) identified seven wine polyphenols all of which matched those in modern wines produced in this area of Andalucía, including dessert wines from Montilla-Moriles, sherry-type wines from Jerez, and manzanilla from Sanlúcar. 

Cool.

A Roman bath that has been in continual use since the 1st Century

The narrator kind of drones on a bit, but this is pretty amazing - a Roman bath that has been used continually for almost 2000 years.

Rubicon

The Democratic Party has crossed the Rubicon.  What's strange is that they're in a fairly weak position, which implies that we will see a ratcheting up of more of their actions to protect "our Democracy".  I don't see any possibility that they will ratchet any of this down; on the contrary, Trump's chances of being Epsteined in jail are getting a lot of discussion these days.

But Rubicon isn't quite the proper analogy.  I posted what I thought was the right analogy back on January 6, 2020.  It's sad to see that it reads every bit as true today as it did then, including an ancient Roman Epsteining.

Dura lex, sed lex.

As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see "the River Tiber foaming with much blood."

- Enoch Powell MP, quoting Virgil in "The Rivers of Blood" speech

Enoch Powell was one of the first politicians to be de-platformed.  As with most of these sorts of innovations, this happened in the Old World in the 1960s.  I posted about this seven years ago, although Google can no longer find this; DuckDuckGo can, though (and that tells you everything you need to know about search engines):

45 years ago last month, British MP Enoch Powell gave a stunning speech.  In it, he looked on the immigration of foreign peoples into the Kingdom and the way that this was changing the UK's culture.  It was widely criticized by all Right Thinking People® but at the same time was wildly popular with working class Britons.  Indeed, a thousand dockworkers marched on Parliament in protest when Powell was sacked from his positions of leadership.

Dockworkers marching in support of a Tory politician.

The most famous line in his speech is where he quoted Virgil:

As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see 'the River Tiber foaming with much blood'.

He was roundly damned for his "inflammatory" and "racist" remarks.  And so the British Political Class went back to sleep - indeed, the last Labour government intentionally accelerated immigration to make the UK "less British".

Today we saw the occupation of the Capitol building by people "annoyed" by what they (and many others) see as the theft of a Presidential election.  The protesters chased off first the Capitol Hill police and then the Congress itself.  It looks like one women lost her life, shot by a cop.  We'll have to see - early news is notoriously unreliable.

But looking at this, I thought of Virgil.  He of course, did not make up the Aeneid out of whole cloth; Virgil wrote propaganda for the first Roman Emperor, Augustus.  The Aeneid was propaganda, but what propaganda.  It made Caesar Augustus' family history into legend.  Because it was propaganda, it was exaggeration, but it was useful exaggeration to Augustus who while not related to the Great Leaders of the previous century was able to deftly exploit those leaders' exploits to his own advantage.

The most important leader at the beginning of the end of the Roman Republic was Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus,  He was the guy who noticed that while the Roman Republic had swept all foreign enemies before it, the working class had suffered despite the great riches of empire.  Tiberius Gracchus decided to run for public office despite his great family wealth, and to put forth his formidable political skills to benefit the Roman Working Joe.  He failed, because the Roman political establishment buried their traditional political differences in the face of Gracchus' challenge, and in fact had him killed.    

In short, the Roman Deep State closed ranks to block needed reform.  It was the beginning of the end of the Roman Republic as long cherished political norms (Mos Maiorum) were cast aside.  And so two generations of the Roman political elite were exterminated in a civil war so profound that what was left of the exhausted Republican Elite welcomed the first Imperator with open arms because he ended the civil wars.

Throughout this whole period in Roman History, the Law was supreme.  Of course, the Law bent to the prevailing political winds.  As the Roman said, "The Law is harsh, but it is the Law".  Dura Lex, sed Lex.

Donald Trump is the Tiberius Gracchus of our day.  He is the guy who noticed that while the American Republic had swept all foreign enemies before it, the working class had suffered despite the great riches of empire.  Donald Trump decided to run for public office despite his great family wealth, and to put forth his formidable political skills to benefit the American Working Joe.  He failed, because the American political establishment buried their traditional political differences in the face of Trump's challenge, and in fact had him [well, we'll have to see if they let him live free, or jail him, or kill him].

But Tiberius Gracchus had many supporters, who didn't let the Roman political elite rest easy.  Likewise with Donald Trump, as we saw today:

Some of Gracchus' supporters were killed, as we saw today.  Looking forward, I am filled with foreboding.  Like the Roman, I seem to see the river Potomac foaming with much blood.  We're already started, it seems.  The only questions really remaining is who is to play the part of Augustus Caesar, and how many of the elite families (and, it must be said, other families) must die before a grateful Republic reaches for their savior Emperor?

But the Founding Fathers knew about the failings of the Roman Republic.  They strived to avoid them in their Republic.  As a student of history I must say that they avoided the Roman pitfalls for 200 years.  Not bad at all.

Never mind that the Romans avoided these for almost 500 years.  God Save this Honorable Republic.

Dad Joke CCCXXII

When the Roman Empire was split into Eastern and Western halves, do you know how they did this?

With a pair of Caesars.

(Actually, this is literally true)

First Herculaneum scroll decoded

Now this is cool:

Newly deciphered passages from a papyrus scroll that was buried beneath layers of volcanic ash after the AD79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius may have shed light on the final hours of Plato, a key figure in the history of western philosophy.

In a groundbreaking discovery, the ancient scroll was found to contain a previously unknown narrative detailing how the Greek philosopher spent his last evening, describing how he listened to music played on a flute by a Thracian slave girl.

What's even cooler is that this is one of the carbonized scrolls that people tried to unroll decades ago, causing enormous damage to the scroll.  They were still able to scan it and put it back in order.

 

Dad Joke CCCXII

Tuna writes in with yet another Dad Joke.  The Queen Of The World rolled her eyes and pinched her nose at this one.  High praise, indeed.

My wife was eating a store bought salad but I noticed that it was past the "sell by" date and so I took it away from her.

I guess you could say I had to Caesar salad.

Recommended reading (and listening)

Isegoria (he is a daily read, right posts a review of an article about the science fiction classic Dune.  The excerpt is pretty interesting but also includes a link to an episode of historian Tom Holland's podcast The Rest Is History, in which Holland talks about just how much of both science fiction and Hollywood is about Rome.

Star Wars, The Hunger Games, Dune, and all sorts of less likely films explicitly (or sneakily) include all sorts of Roman motifs.  It's a fascinating listen.  Highly recommended.

The preserved wooden artifacts from Herculaneum

It's not just carbonized scrolls, there is a whole set of wooden items that have been uncovered at Herculaneum, the Roman city which, with Pompeii, was buried by an eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD.  It's incredibly rare to have wooden items preserved for 2000 years, but there are a bunch.

When you consider that only a quarter of Herculaneum has been excavated, you have to wonder what else is waiting discovery.

Excuse me, I'm off to sack Rome

OldAFSarge finds a fun site.  It clearly has an AI back end because there's no way I'm this good looking.

Oh, and how do we get to the bottom of who sacked Rome?  Better get a 1930s Gumshoe:

Yeah, I did The Queen Of The World as the Queen of the World.  And as a mermaid.  It's awesome.

Highly recommended.

More on the Herculaneum Scrolls

This is an excellent layman's introduction to what the big deal is about the Herculaneum Scrolls.  Short answer: it's a very big deal indeed.

This video gives background on why Herculaneum is such a unique site, and why the scrolls discovered there could only have been found there.  Highly, highly recommended.

A very literary Christmas

The Queen Of The World got me a Barnes & Noble gift card, so we went out to an actual bricks-and-mortar bookstore (do they really have those?  As it turns out, yes they do).

It was a blast, and a bit of a blast from the past.  The whole Borepatch clan would go out Christmas shopping Back In The Day, and we'd spend an inordinate amount of time in bookstores.  TQOTW and I were in the bookstore for a couple of hours.  I'd forgotten just how much better book shopping at a bookstore is, as opposed to online.

Sure, online lets you get that book you already know about instantly, no fus and no muss.  But there's no good way to browse.  Basically, online handles the known knowns, but in the store is unbeatable for unknown unknowns.

For example, I didn't know that I wanted this until I was browsing: Wingmen: The Unlikely, Unusual, Unbreakable Friendship Between John Glenn and Ted Williams. (Williams was Glenn's wingman in the Korean War, flying combat sorties)

I also didn't know that I needed Barry Strauss' Ten Caesars: Roman Emperors From Augustus To Constantine.  I had listened to Robin Pearson interview Prof. Strauss on The History Of Byzantium podcast (you can listen at the link; recommended), and lo and behold here was the book.  Done and done.

Likewise with Tom Holland's new book Pax: War And Peace In Rome's Golden Age.  Like with Strauss, I had heard Robin interview Tom Holland on the same podcast.

I had wanted Max Miller's new cookbook, Tasting History.  We've seen Miller's videos here before (for example, Trader Vic's original Mai Tai).  Miller recreates recipes from the past, going all the way back to ancient Babylon (!).  I think the first of his videos I posted was about feeding the Roman Army.  He is entertaining and the recipes looked really interesting and now that there is a cookbook of the recipes I thought I'd get it.  We'll see if TQOTW lets me make any of these in her kitchen.

All in all, podcasters were well represented at the bookstore.  Both of Mike Duncan's books were there.  Already had both, but was happy to see that he's currently in stock.

So it was a great afternoon with The Queen Of The World (who also scored some history books - she's not just a pretty face, she's also wicked smart).  Bricks and mortar bookstores for the win.

Halloween in ancient Rome

As I like to say we only think of the Romans as rational and scientific because of the great architecture that has come down to us.  There was the other side of their psyche, superstitious to the extreme.  Nothing illustrates this better than the festival of Lemuria.

The Romans believed that particular rites had to be performed for the dead or the deceased's spirit would be trapped between their old body, unable to enter the afterlife.  Lemuria was designed to get rid of the year's accumulated ghosts.

Ovid provides a detailed description of the rites.  The head of the household (Pater Familius) would walk backwards through the house tossing black beans and reciting this nine times: I send these; with these beans I redeem me and mine (Haec ego mitto; his redimo meque meosque fabis). The rest of the household members would clang pots and pans and repeat Ghosts of my fathers and ancestors, be gone!  

That's not exactly in keeping with our view of them as rational and scientific.  More like "world domination with a side of Ouija Board".  Interestingly, you can buy you Lemuria swag here:

Reading old scrolls

A couple months ago I posted about efforts to read the carbonized scrolls excavated from Herculaneum.  This is an update on that - progress is being made shockingly fast.  First up, a video that gives an easily digestible introduction to the efforts being made.

Groundbreaking efforts by the University of Kentucky team, but there are a lot of teams working toward solving the Vesuvius Challenge Prize.  This article highlights some of those efforts but essentially what has happened is that teams started with what was a brick of charcoal and found this:

There very well may be ancient lost texts that can be recovered here.

Jimmy Buffett - Who Gets to Live Like This

This is from his last album (#30!) which came out 3 years ago.  It (the album) debuted at #2 on the Billboard 200, making this his twelfth top 10 album.  The Queen Of The World loves the simple gratitude and humility that he expresses in the lyrics; I like that as well as how he uses steel drums in what would be his last of his trademark Caribbean-themed fun songs.

Who Gets To Live Like This (Songwriters: Jimmy Buffett, Mac McAnally, Lukas Nelson):

There are waves outside my window
There are airplanes in the sky
There are ships on the horizon
And a beach always nearby
Fish tacos on the table, no surfer can resist
How did I get this lucky?
Tell me who gets to live like this?

I left my inhibitions
Receding with the tide
Talking with the turtles
Lying side by side
Seeking wiser counsel on a girl I can't resist
Pass the seaweed salad
Tell me who gets to live like this?

Singin' for money, playin' for fun
How did I wind up in this band on the run?
Wake it up, make it up, shake it up, take it up
There's more ways than one
Jack of all trades, master of none

With fortune or without it
For paydays or for free
More latitudes than attitudes
More everyone and less me

Just knowing what is possible
Is the ring you don't want to miss
I'm happy to inform you
That we get to live like this
That we all get to live this
Live like this
Get to live like this

Get to live like this
Get to live like this
Get to live like this
Get to live like this

This isn't philosophy.  This isn't Deep Thinking.  But somehow I think that Marcus Aurelius looks down from Heaven and smiles.  While tapping his toes.

The Top Five gladiators (and Roman gatorade)

This is just fun.  And yes, Commodus is on the list but it's way more interesting than you think.

Decoding ancient scrolls from Pompeii

This sums up the problem:

The reason is that there were no printing presses in ancient and medieval times, so books had to be copied by hand.  If they weren't copied, the material would decay and the book would be lost.  Books were very expensive, which is why so few survived.

However, the volcanic eruption that buried Pompeii buried an ancient library.  The scrolls blackened from the heat but are intact.  People have been using cat scanning technology to image the insides, and are now trying to apply machine learning to decode what is ink and what is not.  While we can't yet read the scrolls, it seems that some real advancement in technique is being made:

This character is harder to make out, until the reader realizes that it is curved. It is first visible when looking for the dark narrow cracks in the “cracked mud” texture. It is a handwritten lunate sigma, which looks like a ‘c’.  The field of view is 3.35 mm high. The character is aligned directly to the right of the iota and pi characters, consistent in size, orthography, line width, alignment, ink texture, ink position relative to the papyrus, etc. Like the Pi, slight stroke width variations are recognizably derived from the motion of hand writing. 

With three characters (pi, iota, sigma) we can check if this is part of a word – of course it could be two words since ancient writing generally did not include spaces between words. Using this handy list (https://kyle-p-johnson.com/assets/most-common-greek-words.txt) we find 69 instances of πισ, and none of πγσ or πτσ.

This is a long and technical post but it is a really interesting approach to unlocking actual ancient mysteries. 

 

Ray Charles - America The Beautiful

Alternate title: how The United States accidentally committed suicide.

Co-blogger and Brother-From-Another-Mother ASM826 and I have had a number of conversations lately about how when we both started blogging 15 years ago, we still had hope.  Yes, I cribbed the alternate title from histories of Rome, but there's a fateful dynamic at play today that mirrors what played out back then.

In 400 AD, Rome stood tall.  Sure, there were problems, but Rome was the only super power. 76 years later, it no longer existed.*  It was simply unable to respond effectively to the barbarian invasions - the problem wasn't a military one, it was structural.  The Legions were still strong, but the ruling elite could not use them effectively to keep the barbarians out.  You see, they didn't want to keep them out.

Barbarian hordes were an opportunity to various members of the elite.  The rewards of power and wealth to those at the top of the Roman Empire were so unbelievably vast that, well, a wandering barbarian horde might be able to be used to put somebody new on the throne.  And so the elites played 27 Dimensional Chess against each other until the Empire was overwhelmed.  What temporarily helped local Senators and Provincial Governors quite frankly led to the downfall of them all.  I'm looking at you, Constantine III.

And so to today.  The Ruling Class in this Republic is institutionally incapable of dealing with the problems facing the Republic because they don't want to.  Indeed, there is a dynamic at work: never let a crisis go to waste.  This has come about in a shockingly short time - twenty years or so.

But this happened to Rome as well.  Between 410 and 430 AD, the Eternal City itself was sacked and Spain and Africa were lost to the Empire - and with them went the tax revenue that had supported the Legions.  Today we have a President who is a feeble-minded puppet; the Emperor Honorious was (at the time) compared to a jellyfish.

The grandeur that was America was very great indeed, but so was Roman grandeur.  Sic transit Gloria Mundi, and all that.

Entering this Independence Day weekend I wish I could be more optimistic.  I  leave you with a song from the dark days after 9/11, a reflection of a time when the grandeur of this Republic was great, even though the dynamic that has led us here was already formed.

America The Beautiful (Katharine Lee Bates, Samuel A. Ward):

Oh beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife
Who more than self, their country loved
And mercy more than life

America, America may God thy gold refine
'Til all success be nobleness
And every gain divined

Oh beautiful, for spacious skies
For amber waves of grain
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain

America, sweet America
God shed his grace on thee
He crowned thy good, with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea

O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern impassioned stress,
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!

America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years,
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!

America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

Oh beautiful for halcyon skies
For amber waves of grain
For purple mountain majesties
Above the enameled plain!

America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
Till souls wax fair as earth and air
And music hearted sea!

May God save this honorable Republic.

* Well, in the west, at least.

Cleopatra's handwriting discovered?

Now this is interesting: 

A single Greek word, ginesthoi, or "make it so," written at the bottom of a Ptolemaic papyrus may have been written by the Egyptian queen Cleopatra VII herself, says Dutch papyrologist Peter van Minnen of the University of Groningen. ... the papyrus text, recycled for use in the construction of a cartonnage mummy case found by a German expedition at Abusir in 1904, appears to be a royal ordinance granting tax exemption to one Publius Canidius, an associate of Mark Antony's who would command his land army during the Battle of Actium in 31 B.C. The text reads as follows:

We have granted to Publius Canidius and his heirs the annual exportation of 10,000 artabas [300 tons] of wheat and the annual importation of 5,000 Coan amphoras [ca. 34,500 gallons] of wine without anyone exacting anything in taxes from him or any other expense whatsoever. ... Let it be written to those to whom it may concern, so that knowing it they can act accordingly.
Make it so!

"Written in an upright hand by a court scribe, the document was meant to be an internal note from Cleopatra to a high official charged with notifying other high officials in Alexandria," says van Minnen. "The personal nature of the communication is evident in the lack of any formal introduction of Cleopatra herself (she is not even mentioned by name) and the absence of a title after the name of the official to whom it was addressed (the name cannot be read)." The manuscript is not one of the copies received by the other officials, as there is no forwarding note attached to it and because it was executed in multiple hands. The text of the ordinance was written first, Cleopatra's written approval second, and the date of the document's receipt in Alexandria third.

If this was actually signed by her, this may be the first royal ancient handwriting ever discovered.