Barack Obama's Nobel prize; Emperor Nero and the Olympics

By now, all of you are aware that President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace prize. And all of you are aware that the prize is a joke. I found a writing of historian Will Durant, in which he described a similar "honor" bestowed upon Emperor Nero:

. . . Nero left in 66 [A.D.] to compete in the Olympic games and make a concert tour of Greece . . . . At Olympia he drove a quadriga in the races; he was thrown from the car and was nearly crushed to death; restored to his chariot he continued the contest for a while, but gave up before the end of the course. The judges, however, knew an emperor from an athlete and awarded him the crown of victory. Overcome with happiness when the crowd applauded him, he announced that thereafter not only Athens and Sparta but all Greece should be free - i.e., exempt from any tribute to Rome. The Greek cities accommodated him by running the Olympian, Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian games in one year; he responded by taking part in all of them as singer, harpist, actor, or athlete. He obeyed the rules of the various competitions carefully, was all courtesy to his opponents, and gave them Roman citizenship as consolation for his invariable victories. . . . . When he sang in a theater, says Suetonius, "no one was allowed to leave, even for the most urgent reasons. And so it was that some women gave birth there, while some feigned death to be carried out." . . . . Alarmed by further reports of uprisings and plots, Nero returned to Italy (67 [A.D.]), entered Rome in a formal triumph, and showed, as trophies, the 1,808 prizes he had won in Greece.

Will Durant, Caesar and Christ, 1944, pp. 282-283 (emphasis added)

Just as the Greek Olympic judges knew an emperor from an athlete, the Nobel committee knows an emperor wannabe from a truly deserving recipient.
Mark Steyn points out:

Barack Obama will have history’s most crowded trophy room, but his presidency is shaping up as a tragedy — for America and the world.

Obama has a ways to go before he equals Nero's 1,808 prizes, but give him time. Obama may yet achieve true "tragedy" faster than Nero did. We should be mindful of the lasting consequences from this administration even as we laugh at the seeming idiocy. As Durant wrote of the period immediately following Nero's accumulation of the 1,808 prizes:

Tragedy was rapidly catching up with his comedy.

p. 283

Rome would spend the next several years in alternating periods of revolt and bloody civil war, during which time Nero was deposed and assisted in suicide [Durant, p. 284]:

Many of the populace rejoiced at his death and ran about Rome with liberty caps on their heads. But many more mourned him, for he had been as generous to the poor as he had been recklessly cruel to the great. They lent eager hearing to the rumor that he was not really dead but was fighting his way back to Rome; and when they had reconciled themselves to his passing they came for many months to strew flowers before his tomb.

Durant, p. 284

Every bloated windbag of a tyrant has his sycophants and leaves a bloody legacy.

Nero

What will Obama's coin look like?

Edward Gibbon; Rome/U.S. parallels

" . . . he valued nothing in sovereign power, except the unbounded licence of indulging his sensual appetites."

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon, volume 1, p. 81. (Modern Library edition).

Gibbon; Rome / U.S. parallels

"A law was thought necessary to discriminate the dress of comedians from that of Senators." Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol II, p. 495.

Rathergate; Edward Gibbon; Rome/ U.S. parallels

Today is the fifth anniversary of Rathergate. Click here for the four year anniversary post.

I celebrate this year with a quote from Edward Gibbon:

"Every channel of communication was stopped or corrupted."











The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbon, Vol II, p. 226.

Edward Gibbon; Roman Empire/US parallels; Yankee Stadium; Giant Stadium

"The Senators . . . . were obliged to provide daily entertainments at an immense expense. . . . "

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon, volume 1, p. 118. (Modern Library edition).

Praetorian Guard; Augustus; Obama

Augustus








Ever since Obama's proposal to create a civilian national defense force and his creation of the shadowy tax free foundation, the term "praetorian guard" (and worse) has been used to describe what is really going on. Here is one historian's discussion of the Praetorian Guard in ancient Rome.

Caesar Augustus was Rome's first permament emporer, succeeding Julius Caesar who was assassinated after a brief reign. Julius Caesar did not institutionalize the empire. But Augustus (taking total power circa 30 B.C.) undertook many steps to make the empire permanent. One of these steps was the insertion of the military in a permament way in Roman politics:

Further to assure order of the desired kind, and support his own power, Augustus, seriously violating precedent, kept six cohorts of a thousand soldiers each near Rome and three cohorts within it. These nine cohorts became the Praetorian Guard - i.e., guard of the praetorium, or headquarters of the commander in chief. It was this body that in A.D. 41 made Claudius emporer and began the subjection of the government to the army.

Durant, Caesar and Christ, p. 216

While Obama's proposals are a far cry from military dictatorship, all such transitions begin slowly. Neither Obama nor any of his successors will someday announce that they are imposing a dictatorship. It will happen gradually. The Roman transition was much more obvious and identifiable.

For Obama to institutionalize his election year supporters into a permanent force, using taxpayer and tax-free dollars, that will work to keep Obama or his successors in power is a subtle, yet distinctive move in the direction of empire and away from constitutional government.

Paul Newman RIP; Silver Chalice; Pier Angeli

Paul Newman passed away yesterday. Check My Way for a detailed bio and film history.

Rather than focus on his "activism" or his awards, I will mention only one film, "The Silver Chalice." Silver Chalice was unique even in its own day (1954) and especially today. Chalice was a Christian based film, set in ancient Rome (Nero's reign) and telling the story of the chalice that had been used by Christ at the Last Supper.

Paul Newman in Silver Chalice


It has been years since I saw the movie, but I recall the plot as a fictionalized account of how the chalice was lost. Another theme of the movie involved power and how those who obtain power can become consumed by their own importance and lose perspective.

Silver Chalice - 1954










The movie also starred Jack Palance, Lorne Greene, E.G. Marshall, Natalie Wood (in a small role) and other notables (including Pier Angeli whose bio is itself a fascinating story).

Pier Angeli with then husband Vic Damone


My Way described the role briefly in its obituary:

Newman started in movies the year before [1954], in "The Silver Chalice," a costume film he so despised that he took out an ad in Variety to apologize.

Newman may have despised the movie, but we can celebrate it as we mourn the passing not only of Newman, but of an era in which movies with a Christian theme could exist.

Quote of the day - Joe Sobran [Nero, gay marriage]

PIONEER: The self-contradictory concept of same-sex
marriage has caught on in the decadent West with amazing
rapidity. About the only precedent I can find for it is
inauspicious: hostile chroniclers report that the Roman
emperor Nero "married" a boy (who, however, had been
surgically, er, altered for the purpose) and in later
marriage took the role of bride himself (though without
alteration). Usually dismissed as demented, it appears
that Nero was merely ahead of his time.

Joe Sobran - January 2004

Quote of the day - Thomas Sowell - decline of the west

Only after the Roman Empire began to lose its own internal cohesion, patriotism and fighting spirit over the centuries did it begin to succumb to its external enemies and finally collapse.

That seems to be where western civilization is heading today.

Internal cohesion? Not only does much of today's generation in western societies have a "do your own thing" attitude, defying rules and flouting authority are glorified and Balkanization through "multiculturalism" has become dogma.

Patriotism? Not only is patriotism disdained, the very basis for pride in one's country and culture is systematically undermined in our educational institutions at all levels.

The achievements of western civilization are buried in histories that portray every human sin found here as if they were peculiarities of the west.

Thomas Sowell - 11-9-2006

Columbia University; Minutemen; Will Durant; ancient Rome, Jim Gilchrist, mob rule

The violence at Columbia University that prevented a Minuteman/Jim Gilchrist speech calls to mind numerous issues, including mob rule, immigration and the nation's pending constitutional crisis. Michelle Malkin summarizes the disgraceful events.

But the issues run deeper than simply one speech or one university. As I noted almost two years ago to the day, the growing mob rule in this country imperils our very future and is analogous to the period in ancient Rome where elected government was replaced by dictatorship. As Will Durant noted when writing about the events of 53 B.C.:

Any man who would vote as paid was admitted to the rolls, whether citizen or not; sometimes only a minority of those who cast ballots were entitled to vote. The privilege of addressing the assembly had on several occasions to be won by storming the rostrum and holding it by main force. Legislation came to be determined by the fluctuating superiority of rival gangs; those who voted the wrong way were, now and then, beaten to within an inch of their lives, after which their houses were set on fire.

emphasis added

The above quote is from Caesar and Christ, 1944. Within 5 years of the events depicted in that passage, Rome was a dictatorship and centuries of republican, elected government had come to an end forever.

The left must silence the Minutemen in order to continue the influx of illegal aliens. The left views the illegal aliens as invading allies in the left's war against America. If the left seizes Congress and the executive branch, it will be through a combination of mob action and electoral fraud, using foreign money and foreign muscle to overwhelm the already beleagured electoral system of this country.

We dodged a bullet in the 2004 elections. But we have failed to take steps to avert the crisis. We have not prosecuted most of the electoral fraud and violence cases from the 2004 election. The left intends to be more violent and more fraudulent in future elections until their rule is unchallenged.