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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.

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”

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.

On this day in 1536, the Spanish founded the town of Santiago de Cali.  Only the more formal Colombian drug lords use the the full name of their pharmaceutical capital.

On this day in 1538, the Spanish founded the town of Muy Noble y Muy Ciudad de Santiago de Guayaquil.  Yes, it was mercifully shortened to Guayaquil.  Given the altitude of Ecuador, pronouncing the city’s full name would be the country’s leading cause of asthma.

On this day in 1567, the Spanish founded the town of Santiago de Leon de Caracas.  For some reason, the Venezuelans do not call their capital Leon.

And perhaps out of pure whimsy, Santiago, Chile was not founded on this day.

So who was Santiago, the apparent patron of realtors?  Well, his mother and Jesus called him Jake.  The New Testament refers to him as James the Greater–to distinguish him from James the Lesser and James the Just (who may have been the same person).  Spain calls him Iago and claims him as its patron saint.  Although he lived and died in Judea, legend has it that James found time to preach among the Iberians.  The distance between Spain and Judea is just a brisk walk across the Mediterranean Sea.  

But what especially endeared him to the Spanish was his enthusiasm for killing Moors.  Decapitated around A.D. 44, James apparently developed a posthumous interest in swords.  After 8 centuries in the afterlife practicing fencing, James was ready to demonstrate his skill.  According to medieval chronicles, St. James materialized at the battle of Clavijo and started slaughtering the Moors.  Perhaps the saint was simply trying to protect his tomb, which had just been discovered in northwestern Spain–the only area of the peninsula that the Moors had yet to overrun.  (What a miraculous coincidence!)  St. James was given the credit for the victory and henceforth was known as “matamoros”–the Moor Slayer.

He proved just as invincible helping the Conquistadors win the Americas, although much of the victory could be shared with St. Smallpox.  Subsequently, James was presumed to apply his martial skills against the humanist French, and atheist Spanish Republicans.  (For some reason, he was not particularly effective against Protestant Englishmen.)

Happy Saint Day, Jake!

Now that we have a new Cold War, let’s reminisce about the old one…

On July 24, 1959, the Cold War was fought over a dishwasher at the U.S. trade fair in Moscow.  Dueling in a model kitchen over the respective merits of their ideologies were Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and Vice President Richard Nixon.  Each man was the champion and personification of his system.  Khrushchev was a vulgar, cunning peasant who through ruthlessness and guile rose to the apex of power.  Nixon had more hair.

Although there are transcripts of the “Kitchen Debate” here is what they really meant.

Nixon:  We call this a dishwasher.  In America people have more than one dish.

Khrushchev:  Communist people are proud to wash their dishes.  We gather around the basin and sing folk songs.  Lenin took special pride in cleaning samovars.

Nixon:  This is a refrigerator.  It keeps food cold and from spoiling.

Khrushchev:  We have something similar called a climate.  It is great for food and bad for invading armies.

Nixon:  Yes, I’ve heard “The 1812 Overture”.  You must be proud of Tchaikovsky.  Our fairies only write show tunes.  And most of them are Jews.

Khrushchev:  Russian ones I believe.

Nixon:  They didn’t mind leaving.  Now this is an electric range.  It is an oven and a stove combined.  You can simultaneously bake and boil beets.  Finally there will be some variety to your diet.

Khrushchev:  Actually these days, we are getting lots of Hungarian goulash, German potato salad and Bulgarian yogurt.  The same way you get Latin American bananas, sugar and coffee.  I really don’t see the value of all these decadent gadgets.

Nixon:  So you can bug them!  It is so easy to plant microphones in all these appliances.  Really, Nick, I thought you’d understand.  The kitchen is the perfect place to eavesdrop on your citizens.  Families gathered over a meal and forced to talk to each other.  Their guard is down.  Find out what they really think.  Let them incriminate themselves.

Khrushchev:  We bug bedrooms.

Nixon:  J. Edgar Hoover would be a problem.  He thinks that sex is a criminal activity.  We want to arrest people for treason, not the missionary position.

Khrushchev:  Beria could be the same way.  So we shot him.

Nixon:  You know, in some ways, your system is superior.

On this day in 1929, Fascist Italy made a stand for linguistic purity and banned the use of foreign words.

However, if Il Duce wanted to be consistent he would have had to change his name to Guido Mussolini.  Benito is embarrassingly Spanish.  Worse, he could not have his rebaptism at St. Peter’s Church–at least until the Church changed its name.  Peter is a Greek word, you know.  In fact, so are Catholic, Jesus and Christ.  (Fortunately, the word Pope would be acceptably kosher in Italian.)  The Church might have agreed to being Mondo instead of Cattolico, but it likely would have objected to renaming the focus of its worship.  Divo Carpentiere? 

There also would need be new nomenclature throughout Italy.  Sicily and Naples are Greek names.  Tuscany is Etruscan.  Lombardy is named for the long beards on the German barbarians who seized the region.  In fact, even the name Italia might not have passed the purity test.  Those big mouth Greeks were the first to use that term, applying it to the southern part of the peninsula which they colonized.  If Italy were named after the legendary Sicilian ruler  Italos, then the derivation would have been unpatriotically Greek.  However, some etymologists believe that the Greeks took (and mispronounced) the indigenous people’s word for their major occupation–raising cattle.

So, going back to the word’s pure roots, Mussolini should have changed the country’s name to Vitalia–land of veal.

Gino (I wouldn’t want to upset Mussolini)

A number of German officers presented Adolf Hitler with a retirement package…actually it was a briefcase. Of course, Prussian subtlety is an oxymoron, so it never occurred to those Junkers that Adolf might have preferred being coaxed rather than assassinated.

Let’s face it, tyrants are not that easy to fire. (Okay, Mussolini was. The Fascist Board of Directors could have ousted him by simply hiding his Gucci boots.) Hitler would have needed positive reenforcement, pro-active proactivities, and all the other HR gibberish. A Fuhrer wants his perks.

First, to cope with the shock of retirement, Adolf might need counseling. Carl Jung would have been available. (The rest of the psychiatric community seemed to be ethnically incompatible.)

Then, Hitler should have been enticed to take a vacation. Destroying civilization can be exhausting. He might have enjoyed a world cruise in a U-Boat. Charles Lindbergh could have flown him to Argentina, where Juan and Evita were awaiting with open and heiling arms. Joseph Kennedy had a guest cottage at Hyannisport (but he probably would have tried hitting on Eva Braun). Pius XII would have enjoyed the sound of yodeling in the Vatican. There were many places where Adolf could get away from it all.

Finally, a relatively young man like Adolf might want a second career. The man certainly was eminently qualified for any number of positions: celebrity spokesman for Mercedes-Benz, host of the Bayreuth Opera broadcasts, or Dean of Students at Dartmouth.

These offers should have been in Hitler’s retirement package rather than just an insufficient amount of explosives. No wonder he felt snubbed and refused to take a hint. If only the Wehrmacht had been run by MBAs, they would have known the German for “golden parachute.”

Of course, a MBA-run army would have avoided this entire situation by losing the war to Poland in 1939.