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Today is the birthday of Margaret, Countess of Salisbury.   Born in 1473, the poor woman had a miserable sense of timing from the start.  By the time she was four, she had been declared a traitor by her uncle King Edward IV–who executed his own brother and stripped the ensuing orphans of their property.  Her nicer uncle was Richard III, who restored young Margaret’s and her brother’s legitimacy and estates.   Margaret’s luck lasted two years–the same length as Richard’s reign.  Being a Yorkist heiress and a legitimate Plantagenet did not improve her prospects with the new king  Henry VII–who was not a legitimate anything.  Her brother Edward would spend the rest of his short life in prison; although mentally-retarded, that was a minor handicap for royalty and his pedigree made him a threat to the Tudors.  Edward was executed in 1499 at the age of 24.  Margaret was kept under a more comfortable confinement until Henry decided her fate–specifically which of his lackeys deserved a rich, young wife.

The lucky–and unctuously loyal–groom was Henry’s cousin Richard Pole.  Pole married Margaret in 1494, and apparently he did not mind at all.  There were five children within ten years, and I would like to tell you that the Pole family lived happily ever after.  Well, Richard did; he had the prudence to die in 1505.  But Margaret and her children did not.  They  lived on into the reign of Henry VIII.

He was Margaret’s first cousin, once removed, and he took the removal quite seriously.  The Poles were staunch Catholics, and they would be providing executioners with steady work for the next two generations.  Margaret was never implicated in any plots, but her decapitation in 1541 was Henry’s way of congratulating her son Reginald for becoming a Cardinal.

In Tudor England beheading was considered a privilege. It was performed before a select audience in a upper class setting. In return, the victims were expected to behave with stoic dignity. Most did.  The Countess of Salisbury definitely was the exception. The frail 67 year-old woman did not want to be executed and would not cooperate. She had to be dragged to the scaffold and would not passively place her head on the block. The executioner required assistance to hold down the struggling lady. She writhed and wiggled so effectively that the axeman missed her neck, slashing instead her shoulder. In the confusion, the Countess tried to make a run for it. She only managed to dodge around the scaffold and she was just one wounded old lady against an armed killer and his staff. The outcome was inevitable but she gave an unprecedented resistance.

The Church beatified her in 1886.  Given her surprising dexterity, you’d think that a Catholic school would have named a gym for her.

On this day in 1833,  200 zany optimists started a settlement on land mocked by the Indians,  shunned by the French and jinxed by the U.S. government.  If you looked on the map, you’d see the geographic hub of the Midwest, where the Great Lakes and the great rivers converge.  But if you had actually looked at the land, you would have seen a swamp.   The  Potawatomi tribe certainly did not entice realtors by naming the miasma “Wild Onions”: Checagou. 

Even if the Indians were too fastidious for Checagou, you wouldn’t think that the French would be.  New Orleans was built on a sandbar.   Vicennes, Indiana was founded for its strategic control of the Wabash River.  But a Fleur-de-Lys where the Rive Des Plaines meets Lac de Michigan?  The French had their chance. In 1673, their explorers landed on those shores, and ignored them. 

Between us, I blame Pere Jacques Marquette.  The man was Jesuit, and the local Indians probably just did not meet his standards.  A Franciscan would have been eager for converts:  “Jesus and I love you, but the armed contingent with me probably doesn’t.  So a little baptism might be prudent.”  And a Dominican would have insisted on a settlement, if only for the fun of using the Indians as slave labor.  But a Jesuit would have presented the Potawatomi a 15-page questionnaire, with the essays to be answered in Latin, and concluding  “I’ll let you know if we are interested.”  (Of course, most tribes could not pass; but if the Priest infected them with small pox, they received a complimentary conversion.) 

So someplace else was named for St. Louis.  As of 1763, the Potawatomi swamp became part of the British Empire, and it remained just as desolate.   The British could not colonize Illinois when they were preoccupied trying to civilize Massachusetts.  So the strategic miasma would not be named for a British cabinet member or one of his racehorses.  Finally in 1803, someone finally realized the value of this real estate. So, on behalf of Thomas Jefferson, let me introduce you to Fort Dearborn, Illinois.  The renown of Henry Dearborn, the Secretary of War, has not lasted; neither did the fort.   The Potawatomi did not appreciate it, and the result is known as the Fort Dearborn massacre.  In the War of 1812, it was one of the few battles that actually occurred that year.

Yet, the settlers kept coming, undeterred by the swamp but with a healthy superstition about the name Dearborn. Having taken the land from the Potawatomi, they took the local name, too.  Within four years of the town’s founding, the community had grown to 4,000.  Checagou now qualified as a city, however tenuously built over a swamp.  In its corporate charter, the city assumed a more dignified spelling:  Chicago.  

How many major cities are named for a vegetable?

Donald Trump could have warned the College of Cardinals about cheap Hispanic labor. However, on this day in 1492, the College elected Roderigo Borja as Pope. Obviously, the Italian boys were not so eager to have the job. Their bribes were only half as much as Roderigo’s, and Roderigo was willing to assimilate. His mistresses were Italian, and he even adopted a more Italian pronunciation of his surname: Borgia. (But his green card would have identified him as Pope Alexander VI.)

But as Donald Trump could have warned them, you let one of them in….Yes, Roderigo had a big family; and with six children, a Pope can’t get by just from skimming the profits of bingo nights. His daughter Lucretia was attractive, so he had no trouble arranging three lucrative marriages for her–and he oversaw her becoming a widow in time for the next marriage. (Annulments took too long, even for a Pope’s daughter.) Then, there was the irrepressible Cesare. Dad made him a cardinal when Cesare was 17, but the boy showed secular interests: murder, pillage and conquering all of Italy. Well, Roderigo could hardly refuse his son (especially if the son might kill him), and the Pope actually liked the idea of Italy as a family heirloom.

Such a conquest was, however, a rather daunting goal. The Italian city states were always at war, but the wars barely amounted to misdemeanors. Ferrara would seize an acre from Rimini, and Rimini might retaliate by defacing a fresco. And the Papal States definitely were not supposed to attack anyone. But Roderigo was not much for etiquette. (For instance, he referred to his children as his children; every other pope pretended that his spawn were only nephews and nieces.) He invested Cesare with the full military resources of the Papal States (Stop laughing; you could buy a lot of mercenaries with purloined Church funds.) But, yes, that would not be enough to quickly conquer the peninsula.

Fortunately, the Pope was a man of faith: he fervently believed in his own craftiness and everyone else’s gullibility. So, Roderigo encouraged the King of France to invade Italy. Once the French invaded in 1494, the Pope then began encouraging Spain to defend its possessions in Southern Italy. Roderigo was even negotiating with the Ottoman Empire. Somehow, he expected to play everyone off against each other and end up with all of Italy. He might have even succeeded but for one miscalculation. Seventy-year-old men have a tendency to die, and in 1503 men usually died at 45. Roderigo had beaten the actuarial table but he couldn’t do it indefinitely. Without Dad, Cesare was without an empire and Lucretia was stuck in her third marriage.

Nonetheless, Roderigo definitely left an legacy. The name Borgia is still remembered. And Spain, allied with the Holy Roman Empire, would be fighting France over the control of Italy for another 30 years. In fact, the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire were so preoccupied with Italian politics that when a German theology professor complained about the Church’s corruption, no one paid any attention to Martin Luther (except the population of Northern Europe).

Julius Valerius Majorian was the last capable Roman emperor, at a time when it no longer mattered. By 457, Rome had already been sacked twice, and the Vandals had left nothing to steal (unless you work for the Getty Museum–and don’t mind some scuffed statues). The western half of the Empire was disintegrating; the patrician classes of Iberia and Gallia were now paying homage to whichever Germanic chieftain was in the neighborhood. If the Empire was not completely defenseless, it was hostage to the dubious loyalty of its army. The Roman army was no longer Roman; the Empire was reduced to hiring barbarians to fight barbarians. Even the generals were now barbarians, and one of them was the de facto ruler of the Remnant Empire. His name was Ricimer. It never occurred to him to seize the throne–he was a barbarian with etiquette–but he was content to select malleable Patricians to reign for him. From 456 to 472, Ricimer picked, deposed and replaced five Emperors.

In most cases, Ricimer had a discerning judgment in hapless mediocrities. Ironically, his first puppet proved to be anything but. Majorian was a conscientious administrator and an excellent general in his own right. Ricimer might have forgiven or ignored Majorian’s domestic reforms and but not an independent foreign policy or military initiatives. It was one thing for Majorian to defeat the Visigoths; Ricimer did not like them. However, Majorian now threatened the Vandals, and they had a good working relationship with Ricimer. Majorian’s expedition against the Vandals was sabotaged; for some reason, the Roman fleet was left unguarded and the Vandals somehow had been informed of that. Then, someone stirred up the troops to mutiny; and Majorian four-year reign ended brutally on this day in 461.

Majorian at least earned the highest regard of Edward Gibbon. The great curmudgeon generally disapproved of everyone, but he respected Majorian: “the welcome discovery of a great and heroic character, such as sometimes arise, in a degenerate age, to vindicate the honour of the human species.”

Ricimer died of natural causes in 472. None of Ricimer’s puppet emperors did.

Upon  occasion, I am required to be an accountant.  In a discussion of the first century Roman writer Quintilian, someone asked me how many descendants he might have today.  Quintilian lived in Iberia, where the patrician class was not decimated by either whimsical emperors or tempermental barbarians.  They could actually die of old age at 40.

Here is my calculation of the number of Quintilian’s descendants. 

Given a patrician’s use of lead drinking vessels and fondness for hot baths, there is not much likelihood of any descendants.  But somehow the aristocracy always managed to eke out a few scions. Let’s estimate that by the sixth century, Quintilian had two descendants.  Now, in the sixth century, there could have been a population boom because the aristocracy stopped bathing.  (The bright side of the Dark Ages was not necessarily the most fragrant.) 

Unfortunately, at the same time, half of the aristocratic offspring would be going into the Church.  In Medieval France and Italy, this would not have been a damper on the demographics, but Iberia took its clerical celibacy rather seriously. (The laity was literal.)

Now, let’s do a running total.  A typical unbathed aristocrat has 8 children–4 live to be adults (age 14 or so), but half go into the clergy–and mean it.  That’s leaves two to reproduce, multiply by 10 generations and then deduct anyone stupid enough to stand against the invading Moors.  So by the end of the 8th century, there might be four descendants left.

Restarting the calculation: multiply 40 generations but deduct for six centuries of civil war, the Black Death, and expelling most of the doctors in 1492.  So by the end of the 15th century, there might be two descendants left. 

However, the younger one goes to the New World where he rapes any female native who survived smallpox.  So, Quintilian now should have 73 million descendants in Latin America and maybe 64 in Iberia.

August 2, 216 B.C.:  What is Latin for Tactics?

Today is the anniversary of the battle of Cannae. I could describe Hannibal’s greatest victory over the Romans–or you could just wait to see the Vin Diesel movie. It is tentatively (and ever so subtly) titled “Hannibal the Conqueror.” With Mr. Diesel in the title role, Hannibal will be carrying the elephants across the Alps.

Cannae was indeed the worst military defeat of the Romans. The Roman army was twice the size of the Carthaginian army and had twice as many commanders. Rome had two consuls and each commanded the army on alternate days. Half the time, it was led by the prudent Paullus; half the time, it was under the reckless Varro. Guess who was in command on August 2, 216 B.C.?

With his numerical superiority, Varro felt he could afford to fight on terrain of Hannibal’s choosing. Indeed, with so many men to spare, Varro could not bother with troop deployment. The legions were just piled into an Italian lump whose sheer mass would presumably roll over the Carthaginians. However, with that sheer mass; the legions actually were immobilized by each other. The Romans units could do nothing but wait their turn to be slaughtered by the Carthaginian cavalry.

At the start of that day, the Roman army was twice the size of the Carthaginian. By the end of the day, it was half of the size. But Varro survived the battle, although Paullus did not.

The loss of 60,000 men in a single day would be significant by even the carefree standards of World War I. Could you imagine how the Media Department of the Roman Senate had to transmute the news….

“Light Trafffic on the Appian Way”

“Who Wants To Be a Millionaire” will be back on prime time in August, but the shows are being taped now.  And guess who once again is chained to the telephone, accepting the challenge of being a Phone-a-Friend?  I wish that I could tell you how much fun it is to watch cobwebs grow on your telephone. At least my first experience–way back in 2000– was not an exercise in futility. Published in the Chicago Tribune, here is that saga.

Regis Philbin finally called, and 30 million people were eavesdropping

After two days of an anxious vigil by the telephone, I now had the opportunity
to humiliate myself and bankrupt a friend.

Who wants to be a “Millionaire” lifeline? I had acquired some doubts.

How did I end up such a morbid, neurotic mess? A week earlier, I had felt
nothing worse than a mild case of envy. Stephanie Girardi, a close friend of my
wife Karen, was going to be a contestant on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.”

Possessing a Mensa mentality and the Episcopalian equivalent of chutzpah,
Stephanie had defied odds and obstacles to win a seat next to Regis.

Every day, 250,000 people somehow get through the show’s jammed phone lines and
take the qualifying quiz. Approximately 3 percent of these aspiring contestants
pass the three-question test. A number of these survivors are randomly selected
to take a second quiz, consisting of five questions. Of those who correctly
answer the five questions, the 10 fastest competitors are invited to be on
“Millionaire.” Stephanie was one of them.

For those of you pretending not to know the details, “Millionaire” permits its
contestants to have three lifelines for help with answers. Stephanie asked me
to be her “phone-a-friend,” the mystic sage who could answer any confounding
question within 30 seconds. A contestant can choose five people to be a
“phone-a-friend” but Stephanie needed only three to supplement her knowledge
(the other two were an astrophysicist and a librarian with a specialty in
sports). Why choose me? To be honest, I am an idiot savant. Although I can’t
remember my wife’s phone number at work, I possess an unnatural command of
historical and literary details.

Consider this example. A lady once mentioned to me that “This is St. Anthony’s
Day.” I asked if she were referring to St. Anthony of Thebes or St. Anthony of
Padua. How does a Jewish boy know that? My cognitive quirks have even earned me
fame and fortune. In 1987, I appeared on “Jeopardy!” and won $70,000, a vacuum
cleaner and 14 bags of chocolate chips.

In case you were wondering, Regis’ call is not a casual occurrence. I was given
instructions and indoctrination that made me feel as if I were paper-trained by
Pavlov. My first order was, on the day (a Wednesday) that Stephanie first
appeared for a taping, to wait by a telephone between the hours of noon and 3
p.m., and 4 and 7 p.m. Since I am a freelance writer and work from home, I
could accommodate that ridiculous schedule. At approximately 1 p.m., the phone
rang and I found myself being interrogated by a droning assistant from the
show.

No, I was not an employee of ABC or any affiliates. No, I was not an employee
or related to any employee of “Millionaire.” (If I were, wouldn’t she have
remembered me from the holiday party?) No, I had not been on another game show
within the last year. No, I had not been anyone else’s lifeline. (You can only
be a lifeline twice in a year’s time, so I can’t make a career of it.)

Having survived the initiation, I was now drilled in the protocol of the show.

1. I was to be by a telephone from 4 to 7 p.m. that day. I could not use a
cellular phone. (Why? They did not say.)

2. I was the only person allowed to answer that phone.

3. I had to answer the telephone on the third ring. (Again they did not say
why.)

4. I was “not to make small talk with Regis.”

There was nothing else to do but wait. At 4 p.m., the telephone rang and, with
heroic restraint, I picked it up on the third ring. It was only another
production assistant, telling me that the show now was being taped, and
reminding me to be available for the next three hours. I resumed the vigil.

At 10 minutes to 7, the phone rang. I picked up the telephone on the obligatory
third ring and heard the production assistant exclaim that Stephanie had made
it into “the hot seat.” The day’s taping was nearly over, however; so I was
asked if I would be available the following day from 4 to 7. Later that
evening, Stephanie called from New York to tell us all the details. She asked
if I was ready for the challenge. I lied and said, “Yes.”

In fact, I was imagining everything that could go wrong.

In an average week, no one rings our doorbell; but when Regis calls, it would
be the most sadistic time for a Jehovah’s Witness to drop by. What, if for some
inexplicable reason, our pugs awoke and started barking while I was trying to
hear Stephanie? At least, I had a solution for these potential crises: My wife
could handle them.

A few minutes before 4 p.m., I isolated myself in the bedroom. At 4:30 p.m.,
the telephone rang and I discovered one of the immutable laws of the universe.
In such circumstances, a relative or friend will telephone. “Have they called
yet?” I believe this was the first time my sister-in-law Barbara heard me
hyperventilate and stammer. A few minutes later, the doorbell rang. Karen coped
with it. I had become acutely aware of my heartbeat.

Then the phone rang.

“Hi, Eugene. This is Regis Philbin.”

I could barely hear him. “Our friends at AT&T” could improve the acoustics. I
greeted him and, since this wasn’t a private conversation, I added “Hi
America.” Stephanie was contending with a $125,000 question and she needed my
help. She began reading the question, and I could only discern a few words:
painting, California, swimming pools. Then, she began reciting the possible
answers: David Hockney. . . . I interrupted with an emphatic, “Yes.”

She continued with the other possible answers (Chuck Close, Jasper Johns, Andy
Warhol).

Then I repeated, “California swimming pools . . . David Hockney.”

“That’s what I thought,” she said.

“I’m obnoxiously certain,” I replied.

How could she doubt me? Stephanie answered “David Hockney” and won the
$125,000. She then went on to win $500,000. Stephanie knew that Mick Jagger
went to the London School of Economics and that the island of Rapa Nui is
better known as Easter Island.

Let’s deal with the ugly and obvious question: Everybody asks, what’s my cut? I
was motivated by vanity not venality. We never discussed what I could expect
for answering the question. Let’s just say: Stephanie is a gracious person.

As for me, my breathing has returned to normal and I remain the most successful
“Jeopardy!” player from Rogers Park. Now I find myself frequently asked a
question I can’t answer: When am I going to be on “Who Wants to Be a
Millionaire”? I guess I will have to find out.

 

 

p.s.  Let’s not forget the historic significance of this day (unless you are a Bulgarian optometrist): https://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2008/07/29/on-this-day-in-1014/

This was a great day for decapitations.

On this day in 1794, Maximilian Robespierre unwillingly ended the Reign of Terror.  For a homicidal fanatic, he was embarrassingly liberal.  What kind of tyrant would allow himself to be voted out of office–especially when he knew the nature of the retirement plan.  The fact that he rose to power is the actual mystery.  For a French leader, he couldn’t have been less French:  he was both virtuous and completely charmless.  (But he did dress well.)  Perhaps the other Revolutionary leaders were willing to delegate all the paperwork to the diligent, drab Robespierre; the man seemed to enjoy being on committees.  You know the type; starting as a recording secretary on the prom decorations committee and ending up the teen Stalin of the student council.

In September 1793, France was at war with Europe.  Beheading Louis XVI tended to upset the other monarchs.  Furthermore, the country was erupting with royalist insurrections.  Paris was for the Republic but the rest of France seemed less enthusiastic.  To ensure the security of France, the government organized the Committee of Public Safety, and guess who headed it?  Before the Revolution, Robespierre had served as a judge; he had resigned, however, because he did not like imposing capital punishment.  Either he had changed his attitude or was infatuated with Dr. Guillotin’s new machine.

The Reign of Terror lasted nine months.  The number of dead can only be estimated, anywhere from 16,000 to 40,000.  (The French lack the Germans’ precision.)  Many of the victims were Royalists; with a “de” in your name you were halfway to the guillotine.  However, others simply failed to live up to the Jacobins’ standards; so they didn’t live at all.  In the climate of the Terror, an accusation was tantamount to a death sentence.  

Even impeccable revolutionaries now went to the guillotine if they were so unpatriotic as to disagree with Robespierre.   If George Danton could be condemned, no one was safe.  Intent on surviving, the members of the French Assembly decided that Robespierre had to go.  Being virtuous and charmless, he had few allies and no popular following.  He proved easy to oust, and he received the same justice that he meted out. 

With him ended the Reign of Terror and his Republic of Virtue.  France would resume its normal style of politics:  five years of  corruption, followed by 15 years of charisma, followed by two centuries of corruption, cynicism–and good healthcare.    

Decapitation #2

On this day in 1540, Thomas Cromwell was beheaded.  It is gratifying when bad things happen to bad people.  Ironically, the ruthless politician was condemned for one of the few times when he was not thoroughly reprehensible.  Cromwell had connived the condemnation and death of Thomas More.  Technically, disagreeing with the King could be construed as treason; building a case based on rhetorical quibbles, Cromwell destroyed More.  Henry VIII was impressed with this peasant-stock lawyer and Cromwell rose in the bureaucratic firmament. 

Ever obliging to the King’s desires, Cromwell then arranged a quick end to Henry’s second marriage.  Anne Boleyn was an ambitious shrew but being obnoxious was not a capital crime.  Cheating on the King was, and Cromwell had five men–including the queen’s brother– seized and tortured until one of them confessed to orgies with Mrs. Tudor.  All five were condemned to death and so was Anne Boleyn.  For his crimes, Cromwell became the King’s chief minister. 

Unfortunately, in that capacity Cromwell started acting like a statesman instead of a hatchetman.  Envisioning an alliance of the Protestant princes of Europe, Cromwell encouraged the marriage of Henry to Anne of Cleves, a duchess of northern Germany.  Henry agreed–until he saw Anne.  Diplomacy made a marriage unavoidable, but Henry was furious and you know whom he blamed.  Cromwell was a dead man, but Henry–in his sociopathic way–had a code of honor.  He did not want to feel like an ingrate for Cromwell’s past services.  So he first elevated the minister to an earldom–and then had Cromwell condemned to death. 

But good toadies are hard to find, and Henry began to miss Cromwell.  As a hint of apology, King allowed the Cromwell family to have some estates and granted the title of baron to his late minister’s son.  The fourth Baron Cromwell (the great-great grandson of Thomas) would fight for Charles I and be elevated to the Earldom of Ardglass.  Of course, the war did not end well for King Charles,  and the Earl of Ardglass had to make peace with the Parliamentary forces.    He got off with a fine;  having the last name of Cromwell did no harm.  Apparently Cousin Oliver had some influence.

You know the adage about “the best laid plans of mice and men.”  On this day in 1214 the scheming rodent happened to be King John of England.  He had devised a brilliant plan to crush King Philip II of France, a monarch who showed the annoying promise of being the greatest king of France since Charlemagne.  Upon his succession to the throne in 1199, John ruled more territory in France than Philip did:  Normandy, Brittany, Gascony and Aquitaine.  In effect, John owned all of western France.  By 1206, John only had Gascony left.  Through conquest and diplomacy, Philip had acquired everything else.  Craven and inept on the battlefield, John also had the type of personality that made entire provinces defect to Philip.  If Eleanor of Aquitaine couldn’t stand her son, the rest of her duchy was not likely to be any more tolerant of John.

But John had a plan to get back his French lands.  He still had one relative who liked him, his nephew Otto.  Through the vagaries of German politics–plots, civil war, excommunications and a very opportune assassination–Otto had become the King of Germany and the Holy Roman Empire.  Phillip had backed Otto’s rival; furthermore,  the French king was encroaching on territories of the Empire.  Those were two good reasons as well as family loyalty for Otto to ally himself with Uncle John and crush Philip.

Here was the plan.  In the summer of 1214, the English army would invade Aquitaine and then push northeast to Paris.  At the same time (allowing for 13th century punctuality), Emperor Otto and the German army would attack France through the low countries.  (That would prove to be a very popular itinerary, but this time the Flemish were siding with the Germans.)  Philip would be trapped between his two armies and would be lucky to keep a pew at Notre Dame Cathedral.  So what could go wrong?  John was leading the English army.  His forces landed at La  Rochelle and at the first sign of French resistance, he retreated back to La Rochelle.

Philip predicted that John would do that, so he only dispersed a token force to intimidate the English.  Most of the French army moved north to confront the Germans.  Although Philip had the smaller army, he did have both the element of surprise and the better cavalry.  On this day in 1214 at Bouvines, a village in northern France, Philip won a resounding victory.  Otto managed to avoid capture; most of his commanders did not.  However, upon returning to Germany, he was stripped of power and title.  He didn’t even manage to keep his hereditary duchy of Saxony.

The English nobles weren’t much kinder to John.  Disgusted with his incompetence, the following year they revolted and forced John to sign some charter.  Yes, habeas corpus is very nice, but those nobles really would have preferred keeping their estates in France.

As for Otto, having lost his title, power and estates, he was ruined.  He was so depressed that he permitted himself to be beaten to death as penance.  (Why wait for purgatory?)  At least his family–the Welfs– did retain a few minor estates.  But after being the Duke of Saxony, having  just Hanover was a tremendous letdown.  Indeed, in 1714 a descendant of the family became a migrant worker in London.   Fortunately, the work proved steady.

Yes, the family’s real name was Welf.  Did you actually think that Hanover was a last name?

July 26, 811:  The Emperor Nicephorus Should Have Stuck to Accounting

Have you ever wondered why the Greeks don’t look like Colin Farrell, Val Kilmer or anyone else in the cast of “Alexander”?

Of course, you could say that Oliver Stone is a lunatic; and that would end the argument. However, if you further added that Macedonians are not Greeks, then I would venture this correction. In antiquity, Macedonians were the equivalent of redneck Greeks. They would have fewer teeth than Athenians, and would probably paste hardware decals on their chariots. Nonetheless, they would have been–barely (over Demosthenes’ battered body)–included in the Hellenic world.

Which brings us back to our original question: why do Greeks look like Armenians? (Come on: you can’t tell the difference, either.) The fact is that they are Armenian, the descendants of a massive relocation program undertaken by the Byzantine Emperor Nicephorus I.

By the ninth century, Greece was largely unpopulated. Five centuries of barbarian invasions were not great for demographics. Those Hellenes who had not been massacred or carried off into slavery huddled behind the walls of the few remaining cities. Yet across the Bosphorus, Anatolia was thriving. (Visigoths, Huns, Bulgars and Slavs evidently couldn’t swim.) Emperor Nicephorus (r. 802-811), who was a financier by training, decided to redistribute Anatolia’s surplus population to Greece. The Armenian provinces had people to spare, and the Imperial coercion was mitigated with the promise of free and rich lands.

Of course, there still was a problem with Bulgarian invasions, but the Emperor intended to take care of that. He certainly tried; today is the 1208th anniversary of Nicephorus’ death and defeat of his army. Mountain passes in Bulgaria can be tricky. Nicephorus was a much better accountant than general. He apparently also made an excellent goblet. The Bulgar Khan used Nicephorus’ skull as a drinking vessel.

Nonetheless, Nicephorus’ head had thought of a way to stabilize and revive Greece. It is just that Greeks no longer look like Greek Gods.