Special Opinion to the CC Mirror by C. Cornweller
Anachronistic, now there’s a word you don’t see thrown around very often. But for those of us in the sunset years of our lives, perhaps a more apt word you will not see. Except for maybe the word outmoded. But, I refuse to accept it as my label. When most of these high strung and idealistic Millennials and generation X, Y’s and Z’s were just being born and not even a gleam in their birth mother’s eyes, I was busy living life. I was already computer savvy when Bill Gates made his first billion. (WISH I knew then, what I know now!) I had read Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception and Brave New World, Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock, Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot and George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal World. Most of these book I had read before I had left high school in the seventies. So, to say I was mentally prepared for today’s world, would be somewhat of understatement. A shining few saw the future and believe me, it wasn’t so shiny. Today’s all-knowing generation would do well to immerse themselves in some hardy reading and not just on social media or on the outer fringes, as I once did. Dig deep and revel in the history of these past one hundred years. These dead bones of a free society would intrigue you almost as much as the murder itself. But, then again, there I go….Saying too much. After all, it’s freedom of speech, as long as you don’t say too much.
Which brings me to my point of this silly little rant. Our future was spelled out a long time ago. And our today, yesterday, was once our future. When I was a child, microwaves and transonic passenger jets were just something on the drawing boards. Jetpacks and Helicopter-Automobiles were promised to every American family. We’d all be living twenty/thirty feet off the ground in homes that revolved to catch or avoid the sun’s rays, depending on the seasons. Prosperity abounded and war would either be abandoned or would be so terrible as to be avoided at all costs. How naïve we were! Of course I had an excuse. I was child. I cannot imagine what went through my father’s mind as he watched this propaganda. Needless to say, many of these things did not pan out for the average American worker. But other things, not promised, did.
As I mentioned above, Future Shock written by Alvin Toffler in the early sixties, was one of the books I read in high school, either as required reading or for an assignment…I forget. But, I never forgot the book and what it contained. I have never forgotten the fact that as I was leaving the security of my youth and my home, society was literally changing before me. I had learned through this reading, that I’d better find a sense of who I was and what it was I needed to do and do it quickly, so as not to be left behind. Fortunately, I chose a career that enabled me to grow within that hothouse of progress experienced in the business world where computers were at the forefront and I choose to be one of their operators. Fast forward thirty odd years and here I am typing this out on an IBM processor Dell made computer in the year 2016. I have happily acclimated to the trends predicted in the book Future Shock. I am also the proud owner of an LG 4 smartphone. (I know! I refuse to follow trends and go for the latest upgrade-I’ll leave that to the Millennials; they can be the bug bait) A device, had it been shown to me even ten years ago in its present state, would have blown my mind! I really don’t think the youth of today can comprehend the speed in which technology now multiplies, much less has taken over. A comparison to our grandparents witnessing their first airplane flight and then watching men walking on the moon would be appropriate. Imagine their thoughts at that progress!
But, is it really progress we are achieving or is it something else? In this vast information age, what are we realizing? I was once told, by a fellow co-worker, that the beauty of the internet is that everything on it will be accessible and free! (Seriously!) That information was given to me in 1989, two years before it became readily accessible to the public and seemed plausible at the time. So, how did that work out for everybody? Ask someone in China about democracy. Ask someone CatFished how their love life is turning out. Ask someone whose personal identity has been hacked, stolen and sold, how that internet thing worked out. I see articles, today, on social media that are absolute drivel, downright lies. Everything, everywhere, is not what it appears to be. And the internet, so promising of intellectual access and information, is the equivalent of a bad neighborhood at night in some instances, if you are not careful. It is crawling with scam artist, pop up ads, spyware, credit card and identity theft; not to mention site after site after site of misinformation, malice and of course the occasional Trojan horse bearing malware. Welcome to the Brave New World of information. Where the Real Truth is not readily available while falsehoods are exalted and spread around the world. My favorite meme…err, sorry, Mark Twain quote is: Today the lie has traveled half-way around the world before the truth can get its boots on. Or as I researched, (on the internet!)the actual saying is Falsehood flies and the Truth comes limping after; so that when Men come to be deciev’d, it is too late; the Jest is over and the Tale has had its Effect. Attributed to Jonathan Swift. Don’t know who he is? Google it. Just be wary of that popup when you do. Mark Twain just dumbed it down for the rest of us. He gets it.
So, it has come to this. Here we are at furthest reaches of technology (so far) and basically what have we achieved? A faster and easier method of ripping each other off and reaching into one another’s pocket for the ultimate grab bag? Methinks it is so. The latest I-Phone is nothing more than a slight variation of upgrade on the last I-phone which was a slight variation upgrade on the one before it and so on and so on. Each being obsolete and disposable the moment it left the shelf. Anyone remember the Zippo lighter? Of course not! The Zippo has morphed into the BIC lighter which (if not stolen by your chain smoking friend) usually is either lost or thrown away before it is actually used up. Zippos were made to last a lifetime! They were given for gifts as heirlooms. They came back from wars, battered; but with a lifetime of wonderful memories! But of course those were the days when the Army gave away not packs, but cartons of Chesterfields and Lucky Strikes to nervous young soldiers. So, guaranteeing that if not maimed or killed in battle, dear old Grand Tobacco and his lifetime partner Death would eventually get around to you. Of course, aided in the process, by their shiny young nephew, your zippo heirloom lighter. Have things changed much? I don’t think so. Studies show that holding a device mere centimeters from your brain that receives electromagnetic waves at the speed of light can possibly cause brain damage. Why do I say possibly? Because studies are inconclusive. Inconclusive like the studies on Climate Change being exacerbated by man or that trickledown economics causes prosperity for the working class or Monsanto is not killing bees. Why are they inconclusive…? You really have to ask that as you go out to stand in line again to buy the latest smart phone upgrade?
Want truthful information? Go to the internet and look it up. The truth is wandering all over the boards and back again. And, again, that is my point. The future was foretold in many books long before this century began. Long before lies and dis-information became fashionable and accepted. Back when truth was in vogue. (Remember our pal Mr. Twain. He LOVED the truth!) Long before I began to sit here in front of this black electronic box with its ionized plastic screen and happy little electrons pounding my frontal lobe while watching black font appear on a white background and my fingers gaily dance away their day. Now, if I could just find that new Helicopter Car somewhere on the Web or down at the local dealership! (Insert laughing Emoticon here)
Lastly, I refuse to go gently into that good night. And I refuse to stop learning and thinking and seeking truth. I rage against the machine every day and in any way I can. I rage against ignorance and acceptance of the status quo. I rage against the forces that scream but it’s your freedom of choice to our faces, yet make it their priority to take our choices from us at each turn with every divisive law written. I rage against that which is represented as leadership, progress and goodwill, when it truly presents itself as madness, lies and death. I rage because I will not go gently into that good night. All Good souls, the last wave by, crying how bright their frail deeds might have danced on that green bay. Wild souls who caught and sang the sun in flight, and learned, too late, they grieved it on its way. Grave souls, near death, who see with blinding sight. Blind eyes can blaze like meteors and be bright. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. With all apologies to Dylan Thomas… and youth.
As eloquent a commentary on the times as I have I have ever read!!!!!! I can only conjecture that Mr. Cornweller is of the same generation as I am, or nearly so…..(I’m an octogenarian….).
Thank you Mr. Paschall. I apologize for taking so long to respond to your kind words of appreciation. And to answer that conjecture, no…I am not an octogenarian. Though I have been known to listen to one whenever they speak. I am of the belief of that old African proverb that goes…When an elderly person dies, a library burns down. I just wish I had been paying closer attention in my youth!
I appreciate your comment on the eloquence of my writing, I don’t hear that very often. I know that Wayne Creed works very hard to keep this online newspaper going and from past correspondence both The Wave and The Mirror have received, it seems with not much gratitude. Freedom to say and write what is in your heart is paramount in my world view. So, on that note, I will continue to support and contribute to this fine online newspaper. Those that know me, know I have a deep and lasting love for my home place, the Eastern Shore. Some of the finest people I have ever known and will ever know, hail from there. The times, they are a changing, but to remain faithful to your roots is something, no one can ever remove. The wisdom is in the guidance of that change and the profit is in the health of that inheritance passed on from generation to generation. I hope I never lose sight of that. Thank you again for your compliment.
If he left high school in the 70s, as he says, he would more likely be in his sixties, as with all he has read, he doesn’t sound like a slow learner who stayed behind a bunch of extra years.
As to anachronism, if it something or someone that is not in its correct historical or chronological time, especially a thing or person that belongs to an earlier time, then in many aspects, I would likely be considered to be one, by myself, or, others who know me.
But then, is it really me that is not in its correct historical or chronological time?
Do I really belong to an earlier time so as to be an anachronism?
Or is it that my values belong to an earlier time, which makes me appear to the modern person as an anachronism?
Which begs the question of where did the modern person get his or her values from, if they are so different from mine as they are?
Why has the world changed so much, and I so little, as to make me appear so far out of step with these times as I am?
Ah, yes, the great mystery confronts us, C. Cornweller.
Will we ever find the answers to it?
If we find the right combination of search words to ask GOOGLE, will the answer be revealed?
Or do we have to wait for the Iphone 8, and the app that has not yet been developed?
The questions that stagger us in our times.
Is there, C. Cornweller, in reality, a time long before lies and dis-information became fashionable and accepted?
When could that have been?
And how about back when truth was in vogue?
Has truth ever really been in vogue?
Or has it always been an inconvenience?
Consider the Romans: Error fucatus nuda veritate in multis, est probabilior; et saepenumero rationibus vincit veriiatem error, or in our language, “Error artfully disguised is, in many instances, more probable than naked truth; and frequently error overwhelms truth by argumentation.”
Isn’t that what we witness on a daily basis today in our politics in this country?
And wasn’t that a key provision in Orwell’s 1984 that made the propaganda machine work so well, just as it makes our propaganda machine work?
Or this: Veritas, quae minime defensatur opprimitur; et qui non improbat, approbat, or “Truth which is not sufficiently defended is overpowered; and he who does not disapprove, approves.”
Do we see truth ever being defended today, C. Cornweller?
How would we even know?
And just as I would suspect, Mr. Plante. You zone in on that one aspect of the piece I was trying to convey. Truth. Such a slippery eel. My favorite quote on truth comes John 18:17-18 when Pontius Pilate retorts “What is truth?” to Jesus when Jesus said “In fact, the reason I was born and came into this world is to ‘testify’ to the truth. (emphases on testify) Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” It is telling that Pilate didn’t wait around for an answer. And it is even more telling that the Bible doesn’t follow this statement with an answer to Pilate either directly from the Nazarene’s mouth or any other source. Truth…such an illusion.
Put in someone else’s context, “Tell a lie once, it is just a lie. But tell a lie a thousand fold, it becomes the truth.” And another from this genius of the illusion…”If you tell the same lie enough times, people will believe it; and the bigger the lie, the better.” Both attributed to Joseph Goebbels. I still shudder whenever I read his quotes. How Orwellian, how profane. How utterly illusive.
And finally, you asked if I see truth ever being defended today. I will try and be brief and answer that question. Yes, ‘from my perspective’ (and this is key) I try to be as truthful in my dealings, speech and engagements with everyone I meet on a daily basics. To me, truth is my moral compass. It either can harm someone or it can set someone free. Lies, built upon deception, only lead to a destruction so great, only truth will prevail. But at a very, very high cost. These errors so artfully disguised are that great bulwark of deception we are buying into today, to reap the cost of our tomorrows. In less than twelve short years, Germany rose and fell under the weight of lies fed to the starving commons flavored with hope, prosperity and greatness, but laced with war, destruction and death. How many nations must go through this horrendous cycle before truth wills out?
What is TRUE?
Conformable to fact; correct; exact; actual; genuine; honest
“In one sense, that only is true which is conformable to the actual state of things.”
“In that sense, a statement is untrue which does not express things exactly as they are.”
“But in another and broader sense, the word ‘true’ is often used as a synonym of ‘honest,’ ‘sincere,’ ‘not fraudulent.’ ”
Moulor v. American L. Ins. Co.. Ill U. S. 345, 4 Sup. Ct. 400, 28 L. Ed. 447.
– Black’s Law Dictionary
TRUTH: There are three conceptions as to what constitutes “truth”: agreement with thought and reality; eventual verification; and consistency of thought with itself.
– Black’s Law Dictionary
Chas Cornweller, now that we have the internet and all these modern gizmos and gadgets (being an anachronism, I have no kind of mobile device of any kind and don’t want one, although I am not a Luddite), is there more truth available to us today than was the case with the Romans in the time of Cicero, is there less truth, or is it really the same, as truth is such an elusive quantity?
And how could that ever be measured?
And by the way, the Germans actually thought that our propaganda was much better than theirs.
In primisque hominis est propria veri inquisitio atque investigation, Chas Cornweller.
The distinguishing property of man is to search for and to follow after truth.
That is Cicero, Chas Cornweller.
Have you come across him in your travels through time and space, I wonder – Marcus Tullius Cicero (3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC), the Roman philosopher, politician, lawyer, orator, political theorist, consul and constitutionalist?
Do you think that that is true – that the distinguishing property of man is to search for and to follow after truth?
If so, how can one rationally explain these times we find ourselves in, where our federal government has become such a consummate liar that I no longer believe a single word it says?
Does that derive in any way from Cicero’s statement that “Indeed rhetoricians are permitted to lie about historical matters so they can speak more subtly?”
Is that what Hillary Clinton was talking about in her leaked e-mails about the need to have “both a public and private position” on certain issues when dealing in “back room discussions?”
“Politics is like sausage being made.”
“It is unsavory and it always has been that way, but we usually end up where we need to be,” the document purported to be an April 2013 Clinton transcript reads.
end quotes
Actually, those words could have been spoken by a politician any time in the last 2,000 years or more, and they would be as true then as they are today, for in the affairs of mankind, and especially in politics, nothing really does change, and anyway, time is a loop, so what was keeps on coming back, again and again, for the force of hubris is as strong today as it ever has been.
So where really is the truth, Chas Cornweller?
Is it no more than a figment of our imaginations?
Do people hear what they want to hear and disregard the rest?
Or is that merely the words to some song I heard when I was young?
I am just a poor boy, though my story’s seldom told. I have squandered my resistance, for a pocketful of mumbles. Such are promises. All lies and jest, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest….la la la… Yeah, a song of my youth as well.
But to answer your question directly, no, I am not familiar with Cicero. But I did a quick search and what I found intrigued me enough to want to venture to the local library and take out a book or two on him. I will get back to you with my opinions on him in a few weeks. I am afraid my sense of history is one of breadth of scope and not so focused on any one particular time or civilization such as Rome. I took several courses of Ancient Civilizations during my “schooling” years. I also pursued the studies of religion and philosophy. Interestingly though, the understanding of these two is that they are completely separate from one another, but yet again, have intertwined seductively throughout history. An interesting read for you, Mr. Plante is “The Battle for God, Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam” Published in 2000 and written by Karen Armstrong. A world view of the history of the three major religions and an interesting point of view of how we got here and this mess we call religious terrorism.
Lastly, I’d like to address your question regarding Cicero’s statement “The distinguishing property of man is to search for and to follow after truth”. Before I began a word search; (see how easy this internet thing works! How seductive it can be when chasing down a thought or wanting to know more on a subject! Wow! What an era!)-my gut told me that this statement is the most natural inclination I have…to search for truth. I have doing that all my life! But, it is also those small insidious moments you have to guard against. The captive moment when it would be so easy to cut that corner, tell that little white lie to reinforce your argument. Cheat on a tax return, renege on a favor, take that lunch from the company fridge. Truth is the essence of inner honesty and living life on the up and up. Then there is the bigger chase! That being, looking at the world around me and trying to find my place in it and the reality that surrounds me. Reading that which leads me back to myself time and time again. Listening to everyone, respecting everyone, examining the intent of my brother and their place in my life, and mine in theirs.
I have learned, as I grow older, that life is precious. When I was twenty, I was invincible, immortal and I did stupid, reckless stuff. When I reached fifty and my children had grown, I began to see the horizon of the beginning of the end of my life. I am now in my sixties (there’s your answer, Mr. Paschall!) and I am now standing before the horizon and looking in. Life at this age is a thin veneer of existence. But, such much more needs to be done before I feel I am finished. I’ve gotten answers, sure, but so much more remains unknown.
Truth…ah…but isn’t that the whole point? Each truth different from each other’s point of view. But, as I learned in philosophy, there are certain truths known as universal truths. Those are the postulates, which having been mulled over by the greatest of minds, ring true, time after time. Love, is a universal truth. Death is a universal truth. Logic and reason are universal truths. That we know what we know and what we do not know, we do not know…is a universal truth. Many, many math equations (such as the Pythagorean Theorem) are universal truths.
And finally, what is absolutely true is always correct, everywhere, all the time, under any condition. “An individual’s ability to discern that truth is irrelevant to that state of truth.” Steven Robiner. And because I am an honest man, I continue to search. Such is my nature. Such is my life. Such is existence. Thanks for your response.
As a consul of Rome, Chas Cornweller, Cicero, regardless of what one might think of him, held a political position that was as powerful, if not more powerful, than that of an American president of today.
As consul, to protect Rome from terrorism, Cicero became infamous for having the Catiline conspirators executed without a trial, notwithstanding that they were Roman citizens entitled to due process of law.
Extra-judicial murder, for which in 58 BC, Publius Clodius Pulcher, the tribune of the plebs, introduced a law (the Leges Clodiae) threatening exile to anyone who executed a Roman citizen without a trial, which law caused Cicero himself to become an exile from Rome, despite his high station.
It was only after the intervention of the recently elected tribune Titus Annius Milo that the Roman senate voted in favor of recalling Cicero from exile, so that he was able to return to Rome, for all the good it did him, as these were the days of Julius Caesar having cast the die and crossed the Rubicon to install himself as dictator of Rome, setting in motion his own death, and the death of the Roman Republican, and ultimately, the death of Cicero, as well.
Did Cicero seek truth, Chas Cornweller?
It is hard to say.
Ultimately, Cicero’s mouth ended up giving his *** something it couldn’t handle when in his Philippics, the series of 14 speeches Cicero gave condemning Mark Antony in 44 BC and 43 BC, Cicero praised Octavian, Caesar’s adopted son and heir, labelling him a “god-sent child” who desired only honour, while his attacks on Antony, whom he called a “sheep”, rallied the Senate in firm opposition to Antony.
In the 4th Philippic, 20 December 44, Cicero called Mark Antony a public enemy and argued that peace with Antony was inconceivable.
As the history books tell us, Chas Cornweller, Cicero’s plan to drive out Antony failed, and after the successive battles of Forum Gallorum and Mutina, Antony and Octavian reconciled and allied with Lepidus to form the Second Triumvirate of Rome.
Immediately after legislating their alliance into official existence for a five-year term with consular imperium, the Triumvirate began proscribing their enemies and potential rivals.
Cicero and his younger brother Quintus Tullius Cicero, formerly one of Caesar’s legati, and all of their contacts and supporters were numbered among the enemies of the state.
Among the proscribed, Cicero was one of the most viciously and doggedly hunted.
He was eventually caught leaving his villa in Formiae in a litter going to the seaside from where he hoped to embark on a ship to Macedonia.
He submitted to a soldier with less than professional skills, baring his neck to him, and suffering death and a grotesque beheading.
Thereafter, Mark Antony requested that the hands that wrote the Philippics also be removed so that Cicero’s head and hands were publicly displayed in the Roman Forum to discourage any who would oppose the new Triumvirate of Octavian, Mark Antony and Lepidus.
So much for a search for the truth, Chas Cornweller, if one wishes to have one’s head remain in contact with one’s own body.
As to my own search for truth, or refusal to bend it, on 11 October 1988, writing as the Associate Public Health Engineer for the Rensselaer County Health District in Rensselaer County in the corrupt state of New York, I wrote a memorandum to then-Rensselaer County Executive John L. “Smiling Jack” Buono, wherein was stated as follows:
SUBJECT: Integrity of Environmental Health Programs
As the Director of the Environmental Health Division, it is my responsibility to certify on behalf of Rensselaer County the integrity of the Code Enforcement Programs to the State of New York for the purpose of payment of our State operating funds.
I have reached a juncture where such certification by myself is no longer feasible.
My certification of our operations is as a licensed professional.
My conduct is governed in large part by Part 29 of the Codes of the Education Department which sets forth the actions deemed to constitute unprofessional conduct on the part of licensed individuals.
Section 29.1(b)(6) defines unprofessional conduct as “willfully making or filing a false report, or failing to file a report required by law or by the Education Department, or willfully impeding or obstructing such filing, or inducing another person to do so.”
I can no longer vouch for the integrity of our programs and will not place my professional standing in jeopardy.
It is my professional opinion stated in writing to yourself that the programs I am responsible for have been very seriously undermined and compromised.
As my internal investigation proceeds, the probability of actions for damages against the Department increases, due to errors of omission and commission of former engineers and the Public Health Director.
As the Public Health Law requires me to conduct investigations into incidents involving public health nuisance or hazard, I find myself in the course of such investigation returning to our own files with consistent violation of code on the part of County staff.
end quote
Because of that refusal to lie, to be compliant, to honor “pay-to-play,” to take bribes, to falsify reports and data. like Cicero, I found myself proscribed and declared an “enemy of the state,” and I never worked as an engineer again after that.
Was it worth it?
Of course.
“Experience is the oracle of truth; and where its responses are unequivocal, they ought to be conclusive and sacred.”
That was Jemmy Madison and Alexander Hamilton writing as PUBLIUS to the People of the State of New York in FEDERALIST No. 20, on “The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union,” from the New York Packet, Tuesday, December 11, 1787.
Because they said it, should it be considered true?
Is experience really the oracle of truth; and where its responses are unequivocal, should they be conclusive and sacred?
Or is that a question that can only be answered at the end of one’s earthly life?
More recently, at p.37 of “Dereliction of Duty – Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, AND THE LIES THAT LED TO VIET NAM” by H.R. McMaster, we were told as follows:
Although U.S. advisors were fighting with South Vietnamese units and U.S. pilots were flying combat missions in South Vietnam, Kennedy denied that Americans were involved in combat, and Vietnam attracted little public or congressional attention.
Vietnam was far from front-page news and Americans still believed that their government told them the truth.
end quote
That is my generation, Chas Cornweller.
Those are the times in the life of the people of the United States of America that you were born into.
Did you know that people like us existed, Chas Cornweller, at one time here in the United States of America, Americans who still believed that their government told them the truth?
It is true.
I was one of them.
I’m not, no more.
The Establishment of the Empire:
Rome, at the beginning, was ruled by kings.
Freedom, and the consulship, was established by Lucius Brutus.
end quote
FREEDOM!
And the consulship – can one exist without the other, Chas Cornweller?
That, of course, is Tacitus speaking there, not myself, with Tacitus being Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus (c. AD 56 – and AD 120), a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire, who was considered to be one of the greatest Roman historians, known for the brevity and compactness of his Latin prose, as well as for his penetrating insights into the psychology of power politics.
The psychology of power politics, Chas Cornweller.
I am told by young people who say they are in the know today about such things that when it comes to the psychology of power politics and the way the political game is played today, especially with respect to our presidential elections, which would correspond with their consular elections, that Tacitus doesn’t know ****, and it is a complete waste of their time pretending that he is at all relevant to life in the United States of America in the year 2016.
“Do you think a canny dude like Robby Mook wastes his time reading Tacitus?” they mockingly and jeeringly ask me, at which I shrug my shoulders, since I haven’t a clue that Robby Mook can even read, let alone what it might be that he would set his eyes to if he were to read something other than a TWEET, and that is the end of that conversation.
As for Lucius Brutus, who, in the words of Tacitus, gave the Roman people freedom, and the consulship, that is Lucius Junius Brutus, known as the founder of the Roman Republic and traditionally one of the first consuls in 509 BC.
He was claimed as an ancestor of the Roman gens Junia, including Decimus Junius Brutus and Marcus Junius Brutus, the most famous of Julius Caesar’s assassins.
Caesar died because he tried to become another king.
Getting back to Lucius Brutus, he was the son of Tarquinia, daughter of Rome’s fifth king Lucius Tarquinius Priscus and sister to Rome’s seventh king Tarquinius Superbus.
According to Livy, another Roman historian, Lucius Brutus had a number of grievances against his uncle the king, amongst them being the fact that Tarquin had put to death a number of the chief men of Rome, including Brutus’ brother.
As the story goes, Brutus, along with Spurius Lucretius Tricipitinus, Publius Valerius Publicola, and Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, were summoned by Lucretia to Collatia after she had been raped by Sextus Tarquinius, the son of the king Tarquinius Superbus.
Lucretia, believing that the rape dishonored her and her family, committed suicide by stabbing herself with a dagger after telling of what had befallen her.
According to legend, Brutus grabbed the dagger from Lucretia’s breast after her death and immediately shouted for the overthrow of the Tarquins.
The four men gathered the youth of Collatia, then went to Rome where Brutus, being at that time Tribunus Celerum, summoned the people to the forum and exhorted them to rise up against the king.
The people voted for the deposition of the king, and the banishment of the royal family.
Brutus, leaving Lucretius in command of the city, proceeded with armed men to the Roman army then camped at Ardea.
The king, who had been with the army, heard of developments at Rome, and left the camp for the city before Brutus’ arrival.
The army received Brutus as a hero, and the king’s sons were expelled from the camp.
Tarquinius Superbus, meanwhile, was refused entry at Rome, and fled with his family into exile.
Of some possible relevance to this discussion of Anachronism Rising in our modern times today is “The Oath of Brutus.”
According to Livy, Brutus’ first act after the expulsion of Lucius Tarquinius Superbus was to bring the people to swear an oath never to allow any man again to be king in Rome:
By this guiltless blood before the kingly injustice I swear – you and the gods as my witnesses – I make myself the one who will prosecute, by what force I am able, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus along with his wicked wife and the whole house of his freeborn children by sword, by fire, by any means hence, so that neither they nor any one else be suffered to rule Rome.
end quote
It is said, Chas Cornweller, that by swearing an oath, that thereafter, the Roman people would suffer no man to rule Rome, it forced the Roman people, desirous of a new liberty, not to be thereafter swayed by the entreaties or bribes of kings.
Would the American people of today ever take such an oath, do you think?
And as we listen to all the promises of rewards like free college tuition or no regulations being made by the two presidential candidates in the United States today, are there any possible lessons for us that could possibly be found in Tacitus?
How about this:
When after the destruction of Brutus and Cassius there was no longer any army of the Commonwealth, when Pompeius was crushed in Sicily, and when, with Lepidus pushed aside and Antonius slain, even the Julian faction had only Caesar left to lead it, then, dropping the title of Triumver, and giving out that he was a consul, and was satisfied with a tribune’s authority for the protection of the people, Augustus won over the soldiers with gifts, the populace with cheap corn, and all men with the sweets of repose, and so grew greater by degrees, while he concentrated in himself the functions of the Senate, the magistrates, and the laws.
end quote
Could Rome’s past be our future?