The Russian Legion - How the Russians saved Messina

One of the very few existing images that show the work of the Russian sailors engaged in rescuing the survivors after the disastrous earthquake that struck the Italian town of Messina in 1908

The earthquake of Messina, in 1908, was an exceptional event for many reasons. One was it size; with some 150.000 casualties, it was one of the largest recorded in history up to then. One curious facet of this story was the role that the Russian Navy played in it. 

Yet, the Russian rescue expedition created an exceptional feeling of gratitude in Italy. There was something in the way the Russian sailors acted that left a deep impact. 

So much that Italian poets engaged in praising Russia and the Russian sailors that went on for a few years after the earthquake. Below, a poem by Tommaso Cannizzaro (1838 – 1921). As poetry, it must be said it is not so great, but it seems sincere. It shows that there is some kind of natural mutual sympathy between Italians and Russians which still exists today (unless propaganda convinces them to hate each other)

The Russian Legion

They were young, handsome and they had
On their face the ray of the stars of the Great Bear
And they jumped into the flames 
As lions into a thick forest.

And they took out of the fire the wailing people
While at their feet were falling
Walls, beams and a shiver took hold
Of the trembling crowd overlooking

Leaning down on the rubble to hear
If a rattle were coming from the bottom
Of living people to help and save,

They were there, and their efforts were blessed
By the merciful sky - Century old history
Wrote their names in its great book.

By Tommaso Cannizzaro, February 19, 1909

La legione russa

Eran giovani e belli e il raggio in volto
a lor della polare Orsa splendea
e si slanciâr dove l’incendio ardea
come leoni dentro il bosco folto.

E i gemebondi da le fiamme han tolto
mentre in frantumi ai loro piè cadea
la trave e il muro e un brivido correa
nel popol trepidante ivi raccolto.

Chini sulle macerie ad origliare
se dal lor fondo un rantolo salisse
di vivi da soccorrere e salvare,

stavano e i loro sforzi benedisse
pietoso il ciel – La storia secolare
il nome lor nel suo volume scrisse.

Di Tommaso Cannizzaro, 19 febbraio 1909

The commissioner and I. A Debate on Nuclear Energy

This is a post that I had put together in 2011, just after the events it describes. At that time, I didn't publish it in Cassandra's Legacy because it seemed to me that it could have been seen as some kind of bragging on my part. After some years, I found it in the mass of unpublished posts and I thought that I could as well publish it on "Chimeras" in a novelized form, with some modifications that include the concept of "framing" that's becoming popular nowadays. So, if you think that I am praising myself too much, please accept my apologies. But it is the way things went. 

Italy, 2011

The debate on nuclear energy has been raging for months and it has been looking more and more pointless to me. The line that the government has been hammering down has always been the same: it is all decided; the choice has been made, Italy will return to nuclear energy. Yes, they keep saying, you can have all the debates you want and also this silly referendum called by this band of Greens, Communists, and assorted Subversives as if the opinion of the people mattered. But make no mistake: the government is not going to take a step back: Italy is going to have nuclear plants.

So, why did I accept to intervene in a debate on nuclear energy? Well, a friend asked me to come and I hadn't been able to find an excuse to avoid it. Some kind of a call of duty, but what's done is done and now I find myself playing the role of the "anti-nuclear" guy, a definition that I hate.

The debate takes place in a small Italian town where they seem to have a tradition of holding public debates. I am first introduced to the moderator. I know him, he is a physicist, a university professor. I know that that he is one of those physicists who seem to be still living during the "atomic age" of the 1950s and who see nuclear energy as an absolute need for humankind to keep moving along the road of progress. But, if he is the moderator, he should take a neutral position. Or so I can hope.

Then, I am introduced to my opponent; the "pro-nuclear" guy. He tells me he is the "commissioner" of an important government agency. He is in his early forties; an imposing man, wearing a double-breasted suit. His body language tells me that he is very sure of himself; he is not even wearing a tie. Evidently, he thinks he doesn't even need to look too official to win the debate. I note that and I take off my tie as a friendly gesture. He seems to appreciate that. We chat a bit; he tells me that he is a lawyer and he has been engaged in several of these debates. Apparently, he finds that he can make short shrift of the assorted ragtag band of commies and greenies opposing him. Fine, we'll see.

The auditorium is large and it slowly fills up with some 200 people coming from the nearby towns: young and old; several seem to be university students. We start, and I immediately see that it is a trap. The moderator speaks first and is not neutral at all; he is fully and totally pro-nuclear. They are playing on me the game called "the sandwich." I am supposed to speak in between my opponents and one of them will speak last. And, in this kind of games, he who speaks last is the one who wins.

But nobody can determine who will win a battle before it is fought and this one is still to be fought. As the moderator speaks, I can see that he is not doing well. He is lyrical, he speaks about Prometheus, about the nuclear fire, about the manifest destiny of humankind. Not that he is a bad speaker, but he doesn't frame his position: what is he arguing for, exactly? He is out of tune with the audience: they wanted facts and they are perplexed. He doesn't realize that as he keeps going. When he finishes, he receives some weak applause.

It is my turn. I have been looking at the audience and I think I can size them well enough. They don't seem to be politicized or already oriented on the nuclear issue. They seem to be, mostly, ordinary people, just curious about what they will hear.

I start with saying that I am not there to scare anyone, that nuclear energy should not be demonized. Of course, there are risks involved but, overall, nuclear energy has done us much less damage to people than coal and hydrocarbons. And that I think that the attempt of the Greens to scare people with threats of two-headed babies or of cancer epidemics is just plain idiocy. This seems surprise everyone, both in the audience and on the podium. It is completely different than the usual stance of the people arguing against nuclear energy. I take a quick look at the face of the commissioner. He is clearly pleased.

I continue by moving into another subject: my main field, mineral resources. So, I tell them about resource depletion, about the finite amount of uranium in the earth's crust, about the increasing costs of extraction, about the need for increasing amounts of uranium if nuclear energy production were to be expanded. I introduce the concept of EROI, energy return on energy investment and they seem to understand it. I tell them that there are many different evaluations of the EROI of nuclear energy but that, on the whole, it is not better than that of renewable energy and that it might be much worse. I also tell them that the more uranium we mine, the more expensive it is to mine, and that will necessary reduce the overall EROI or nuclear energy. I tell them that the Italian nuclear plants would have to run on 100% imported uranium that should come from countries which are not necessarily friendly to us. I ask them if they think it is wise to engage the country in such a risky adventure: if uranium becomes scarce, where are we going to find the uranium needed to fuel the new plants?

Over the years, I have developed a certain skill in understanding what the audience thinks. And, this time, I can see that the message has passed - the people in the audience understand what I am saying and they are interested. And I also developed a certain skill in passing the message: communicating is mostly about "framing."  That involves not just telling the message in ways that the audience can understand, but also taking a role that the audience can understand. In communication, the messenger is often more important than the message and, in this case, I consistently take he role of the teacher; a role that the audience is familiar with. They know that a teacher is not selling them anything nor he is trying to convince them to vote for some specific party. And so they tend to trust a teacher. It is not role-playing for me, teaching is my job. I just have to be what I am. And it works.

I finish my presentation. Now it is the turn of the commissioner to speak and he is clearly in difficulty. He keeps repeating the line that the government has taken a decision that cannot be changed.  eulogizes nuclear energy, saying that it is cheap and safe. But that's not what the audience wants from him: he should answer to the points I made, but he doesn't know how. It seems that he had never encountered this kind of objections to nuclear, he knows nothing about mineral resources, depletion, energy return, and the like. He seems to have been framing himself as a figure of authority; something like the stern father. But authority, just like respect, has to be gained. It is not enough to be a physically imposing figure. He has to demonstrate that he knows what he is talking about, and he can't. His speech is flat. The audience, clearly, is not satisfied; he finishes his speech and he receives unconvinced applause.

There follows the debate, and people have lots of questions. Their main curiosity seems to be, "if there is really a problem of availability of uranium, how come that nobody told us anything about that?" And, on this, the commissioner totally at loss. At some point, someone asks him about using thorium as fuel, isn't it true that it is more abundant than uranium? He can only answer, "I have technicians who take care of these issues". There is a perceptible gasp in the audience; their faces reveal what they are thinking, "this guy really doesn't know anything about nuclear energy". From then on, it is all downhill for me. The "sandwich" strategy has not worked, the people in the audience are asking questions mainly to me.

It is over. In the evening, we get together for dinner. The organizers are very pleased: the meeting has been lively and clearly appreciated by the public. Much less pleased is the commissioner; actually, he is still shocked. I can understand him: a lawyer to debate a scientist on nuclear energy against? Whose idea was that? But, apparently, in all the previous discussions he only had to debate people who knew nothing better than trying to win the debate by scaring the audience with the perspective of cancer and deformed children. But so it goes, we all live to learn.

As we chat amiably over a glass of wine, the commissioner stops for a moment to think of something. Then he says, "you know, the people who are against nuclear energy, they should be shot". I look at him, he looks at me. "Not you, of course," he says. I just smile. At least, I was right in thinking that these debates are useless.


In March 2011, the Fukushima Dai-Ichi disaster shook the world. The Italian referendum on nuclear energy was held on June 11, 2011 and 94.05% of the voters voted against the construction of new nuclear reactors.

Literature as Archaeology of the Mind: A New State of Un-Consciousness?

"My Antonia" by Willa Cather was published in 1918 and acclaimed as a great novel. Today, nearly a century after, it looks as distant and remote as Egyptian or Sumerian literature

The ancient world is, by definition, past and gone and the voices of those who inhabited the past are forever lost, except in the written form that we call literature. True, some have tried to hear the voices of the ancient in the objects that arrived to us from pre-literate ages; one was Marija Gimbutas who thought she could say that the people of those remote ages practiced a gentle form of matriarchy. Maybe, but that's debatable to say the least.

So, we can explore the minds of our ancestors only from what they left to us in writing. That limits our horizon to some 5000 years in the past; with the 3rd millennium BC being the earliest age from which we written texts of some length that we can decipher. It is literature, in a sense, but also something that's hard for us to recognize as such. The solemn hymns to Inanna that were left to us by the first named author in history, the Sumerian Enheduanna, look baffling to us, even though, occasionally, Enheduanna's voice emerges strong and clear, as if she were here, in front of us.

Just as baffling for the modern reader are the epic songs of the West. Poems such as the Iliad and the Odyssey are still read today, but mainly because they are inflicted to generations of high-school students who couldn't care less. But, if you go in depth into them, you discover their true alienness. Julian Jaynes did just that with his "The Origin of Consciousness" where he maintains that the minds of the ancient were just different from our minds. They were not really conscious the way we are or, at least, we think to be.

I tried my own experience by reading two one-century old books: one was "My Antonia" by Willa Cather (published in 1918), the other "Remembrance of Things Past", by Marcel Proust (published in 1909). It was not an easy task. I succeeded, but it was not only hard but also not especially pleasant. I kept going, page after page, expecting something to happen, but finding only lengthy descriptions of details and more details about the environment in which the characters clumsily move.

Maybe this experience of mine would have pleased Julian Jaynes. My mind is by now focused on the Web experience; to that rapid clicking and changing that makes you wary of any text exceeding the 500 words (and, for some of us, 140 words are enough). The mind of the people writing, and reading, a hundred years ago was different. They had better concentration power, or maybe they simply had less distractions available, so that they would enjoy following the pointless adventures of Charles Swann in Proust, as well as those of Jim Burden in Cather.

A hundred years, apparently, is sufficient to make a piece of literature as remote as a Sumerian hymn. And, as for the case of a Sumerian hymn, perhaps the main virtue of those old novels is their archaeological interest. By reading them, you can have a vicarious experience of what life could be in a world without phones, without radio, without TV, to say nothing of the Internet. A completely different world, a completely different life. People would get their news only from the press and their entertainment mainly from visiting other people's homes.

And yet, it was the kind of life that our ancestors have been living for tens of thousands of years. What kind of life are we living today? Hard to say. What kind of mind is that of people who keep texting all over the day and do little more than sending each other pictures of cute cats? Perhaps, we have reached a new state of un-consciousness that, one day, a future Julian Jaynes will study and wonder about.

The story of Tanetnot, the Egyptian dancing girl

Dancing Egyptian girls from the Nebamun tomb (source)


Some years ago, I stumbled into an Italian translation of the tale of Wenamon, written around the 11th century BCE. The story of the epic of this Egyptian priest made a strong impression on me; so much that I wrote the piece that I reproduce below. Reviewing what I wrote at that time, I think that my interpretation of the story was correct, but it is also true that, today, the Epic of Wenamon (or Wenamun) tends to be seen as a fantasy tale rather than the chronicle of a real travel. That might be, but this little known document remains a milestone of literature. It is, simply, a world apart from anything that was written before (at least for what has arrived to us). Wenamon's story is primarily the story of a human being who - even though a priest - is not a toy for Gods's battles, as, for instance, the protagonists of the near contemporary Iliad are. Wenamon is one of us. And here is what I wrote, trying to retell the story from the viewpoint of the Egyptian dancer whom I call "Tanetnot" here, even though the correct term would be Tentno (tjnt-nw.t). You can find a readable version of the whole story on reshafim.  


The story of Tanetnot, the dancing girl
by Ugo Bardi

Of the men of the past, we remember kings, warriors, conquerors, builders, prophets, saints. People of great power, or of great wisdom, or of great riches, or of sanctity. Of those who were not powerful, not wise, not rich and not saints not much is left. Their memory has faded away as their bones crumbled away in some forgotten tomb. But, sometimes, the vagaries of the world and the weirdness of fortune bring to us traces of some were not kings or queens, not warriors, not builders, not prophets. One of them is an Egyptian dancing girl whose name survived the years and was brought to us as "Tanetnot".

She lived long ago, in an age when Pharaohs still ruled the land. We don’t know in which town she was born, nor how she became a dancer. We know nothing about her aspect, and we can only imagine her as one of those figures painted in the walls of ancient tombs. Girls with black hair, large eyes, and sometimes fancy hairdo and makeup. But maybe her blood was not wholly Egyptian, as it is said that at that time in Egypt, as everywhere and in every age, people fancied exotic beauties from far away.

For whom Tanetnot performed, we cannot say. Perhaps it was for the travelers of the barges that went along the Nile; or perhaps for the rich men of Memphis, or perhaps for the foreign seamen of the port of Tanis. At her time, Egypt was no more as great as it had been once. Past were the proud builders of the pyramids and past was the glory of the Pharaohs who had routed the armies of the shepherd kings from the East and of those who had crushed the invasion of the peoples of the sea. Of all this, Tanetnot probably knew nothing, or if she did likely she did not care. But she was perhaps curious to see new things and people, and we know that she traveled. Perhaps she liked to travel, and she must have used a boat, maybe a swift galley, or more likely a slow merchant ship, to leave Egypt. We know that she went to a town that at that time people called Byblos, in Lebanon.

Byblos was a merchant town, a crossroad of trade. At that time it was a rich town, and it may have attracted dancers and performers of all sort. We know that Tanetnot danced for the local ruler, someone whose name has been passed to us as Zakar-Baal. We do not know whether she was a concubine, a slave, or a passing performer for this man who was maybe a king, or maybe just a small warlord. We know, however, that in Byblos Tanetnot met a man coming from Egypt, Wenamon his name, the envoy from the Hall of the House of Amon in far away Thebes.

Now, this Wenamon was a very important man, or at least he thought himself as such. He was there to buy something that was impossible to find in Egypt: lumber for building a ceremonial barge for his temple. His task had not been easy: times were hard and seas not anymore so peaceful and safe as they had been when the great Pharaohs ruled. So, Wenamon had been delayed by storms, robbed by pirates, had to turn pirate himself, and finally had to plea and bargain for months to get the load of wood he needed. Wenamon himself had found all that quite unseemly for an important man as he thought he was. And, as the wood was finally loaded and the ship ready to go, there had come the news that pirate galleys had been seen at the horizon, most likely waiting to pounce on that fat merchant ship as she would leave the harbor. That evening, perhaps as part of the deal that had been worked out, or perhaps to cheer up the worried Egyptian envoy, the ruler of Byblos, Zakar-Baal, sent to him the gift of a ram, some jars of wine, and a dancing girl, Tanetnot.

We do not know how much Wenamon could enjoy his dinner, his wine, and his dancing girl that evening, for he may very well have been worried about the return trip. Nor we know how Tanetnot enjoyed dancing for this priest of Amon, so worried and so self-important. But if she danced, how should we imagine her? In an Egyptian scroll of long ago we can see dancing women. Sometimes, they are dressed in rich attires: transparent linen dresses with ostrich feathers, blue agate bracelets, and golden jewels around their arms and necks. But, sometimes, the dancers are nearly naked, wearing only belts and headbands. How was Tanetnot dressed that night? And what tune did she dance at? Perhaps the envoy watched the dance, or perhaps he paced nervously along the piers instead. We do not know what happened the day after, nor how the Egyptian merchant ship managed to avoid those sleek galleys. But we know that eventually Wenamon made it back to Thebes; otherwise we wouldn't be able to read his report. Most likely, we can imagine, he came back feeling much more self important than before.

And Tanetnot? We do not know whether the gift was intended as a one night lease or more than that. Perhaps she sailed with Wenamon for that uncertain trip back to Egypt. Or perhaps the morning after she just bid farewell to the Egyptian envoy, sure that she would not see him ever again. But when Wenamon was back to Egypt he wrote down a report of his trip to Lebanon. So self important and meticulous he was that he included such details as the ram, the jar of wine, and the name of that girl who had danced for him on the last evening of his stay in Byblos. Later on, he may have remembered Tanetnot once in a while, but quite possibly not very often. As for Tanetnot she, too, may have remembered at times the Egyptian envoy she had spent a night with. Maybe it had been her only chance to get back to Egypt, and she had missed it. But we may be sure that her career during the later years of her life was far from being as brilliant as that of Wenamon. Life is not gentle with fading courtesans.

So, Tanetnot became old and died. She was buried somewhere, her memory forgotten, her tomb lost in the sand, and her bones scattered away. Byblos itself was buried forever in the sand and forgotten, too. And Wenamon, too, important as he was, died. He was buried in some important tomb, but even that tomb was lost in the sand, and with it the memory of that important priest buried in it. But there was that report, a papyrus roll that remained in the temple of Amon in Thebes for many years, perhaps centuries. Then the temple crumbled down, its priests died and disappeared, and the papyrus was thrown away, somewhere in the desert, where it stayed buried for a long time. There, some three millennia afterwards, someone found it. Someone else translated it and published the text it in a book that ended on my desk.

I forget so many names and things that I read. By all means I should have forgotten the story of Tanetnot as well. And indeed I did forget it after a few days. But, this time, something strange happened. One night, while I was traveling in a night train, the name of Tanetnot came to my mind. Maybe it was because the compartment was hot, or because of the noise of the train, or because of something else, but that name lingered in my mind until day came and I found that I had not slept a minute. I had spent the whole night awake thinking of what Tanetnot was like and how she might have danced. It is hard to say how it happened that Tanetnot's ghost came to haunt a compartment of a train of the Swiss railroads going through the Alps three thousands of years after she had died in Lebanon. But maybe, as I said, it was because she liked to travel.

Mata Hari: a Victim of Fake News

Mata Hari was executed by a firing squad on Oct 15, 1917. It is still a little early for remembering her a century after her death. But it is not too early to remember that the news of her arrest were leaked to the press in June 1917 and her trial started on July 24th.

Today, we know enough of this story to be sure that the fame of Mata Hari as spy for the Germans was completely unjustified. She was framed, she was just a convenient scapegoat to blame for the troubles and the defeats of the French army in 1917, during the Great War.

It was a kangaroo court that condemned Mata Hari and, in more than one way, she was the victim of fake news. At that time, propaganda was still a relatively new technology that would see much more development in our times. We haven't seen anything yet!

The True Story of The Fall of Troy

According to my personal fantasy universe, Cassandra was not born in Troy. She was a Babylonian priestess who ended up in Troy after a series of weird circumstances related to the battle of Kadesh. But she was adopted by King Priam and became known as his daughter. If you want to read the details, they are here, but the story that follows doesn't mention Cassandra's real birthplace  and so it is compatible with the standard version.  (image from Marvel Comics)

Over time, I had learned the science of how to summon ghosts from Hell. That required some weird spells and rare materials, but it seemed to work and one of my first attempts resulted in the summoning of Cassandra, the Trojan prophetess, who told me the story of her life. Some time later, I was surprised to see her appearing all of a sudden in front of me without having done anything. 


Oh...Lady Cassandra, it is you! You scared me. 

I am sorry, you see, ghosts normally come unannounced; really, there is no way...

Well, yes, I understand. See, you are all bluish and transparent...

That's the way ghosts are.

Yes, I suppose that's true. But don't worry, it is a pleasure to see you again. 

Oh, well, it is nice to be here again. See, the Goddess seems to like you enough that she sent me here one more time. And she makes me speak this funny language.... you call it Ingliss, right?

Something like that, lady. It is a language I can understand.

But why don't you call me just Cassandra? Do you have to be so formal?

Well, after all you are the daughter of King Priam. You are a princess. 

Hmmm..... there are many stories about me. But when we move to the other side, I mean, to Hades, there are no more princes or princesses.

I think I understand. 

Hades is not a nice place. It is boring, too. So, I am happy to be here. And if you like to call me Lady Cassandra, it is fine with me. But how have you been doing?

Not so well, Lady. 

Still the same problem you were telling me last time, right?

Yes, you remember what we said last time. We call it climate change.

You told me about that. It is really a big problem. And you say it is getting worse?

Much worse.

And your kings are doing nothing, right?

I would say so, Lady. Our, well, let's call them 'kings', are doing nothing. They don't even recognize that the problem exists. 

But you told me that already. Did something change?

Yes, two years ago, something happened. The envoys of many of these, as you said, kings, got together in a city called Paris.....

Paris? Like one of King Priam's sons?

No, Lady Cassandra, not that Paris. It is the name of a beautiful city North of here. And these envoys agreed on doing something against this curse that befell us. To change things; to stop the curse of climate change. And the kings who had sent them agreed on that and they signed a pact that bound together almost all the people in the world.  

That seems to have been something very good, indeed.

Yes, it was good. And also, one of our religious leaders, we call him the Pope, he wrote something about this big problem of climate change we have. 

Maybe the Goddess spoke to him?

I am not sure about that, Lady.

Well, the Goddess speaks to everybody, even to a male priest, although she prefers female ones.

Again, Lady, I am not sure about that. But what the Pope said was very wise. And he also said that people should get together and do something about climate change. That was before the pact of Paris, and some said that it was one of the reasons why the kings agreed on the pact. 

That was good, too. But you said that something bad happened afterward?

Yes, one of our leaders.... let me call him a king. The most powerful king of all. He has carrot-colored hair, and he is burly, arrogant, and obnoxious.

That's the way kings are.

Yes, maybe you know kings better than me. Anyway, this king went to see the Pope and the Pope told him about what  - well - about what maybe the Goddess had told him. But this king said he didn't care about the Pope, he said he didn't care about the pact of Paris. He said that climate change is not a problem and that he will do as he pleases. And that he will make the country he rules great.

You should know that this is the way kings behave.

Shouldn't a good king care for his people?

Should all kings be good?

I guess you are right, Lady Cassandra. Still, I am disappointed. Many people are disappointed. Can it be that this man doesn't understand the danger of climate change? Can he really be so stupid?

I understand you, don't think I don't. See, I have had my share of meeting kings. And they are as you say. Burly, obnoxious, and arrogant. They are stupid, in a certain way, but not so stupid in another.

Lady Cassandra, you are a prophetess. Can you tell me more about this? Why do kings do these things?

Well, yes, but I have to tell you a little story.

I would love to hear it.  

So, let me see.... I already told you something of the story of Troy when the city was besieged by the Achaeans. And I told you of how the Acheans had built that big wooden thing that they had placed in front of the walls. And that the Trojans didn't know what it was and they thought it was a statue of a horse.

This is the story that everyone knows. It says that the Trojans demolished parts of the walls of the city to let the horse inside. 

Well, this is what the story says. Do you believe it?

It is a nice story, of course, but I figure there was more to it than what the story tells. 

A lot more. Let me ask you a question: do you think the Trojans were stupid?

I wouldn't say that. But I guess you know this better than me. 

Yep. And I can tell you that they were not stupid. Oh, well, depends on what you mean. For people who would spend their time all clad in iron or bronze armor and exchange blows with battle axes; well, you don't expect them to be very smart. But not stupid; I mean, how could it be that they demolished the walls to let this thing get in without worrying about what there was inside?

I had always wondered about that.

Well, the answer to the question has to do with what you were telling me.

About climate change?

Yes, about climate change. You were telling me about this stupid king of yours, the one with carrot-colored hair. You said he doesn't understand what the problem is. But I think it is not true. He does - at least his advisers know.

You think so? Why?

I am a prophetess, you know? Seriously, people do a lot of things that look stupid, but if you look carefully they are not so stupid. Let me go back to Troy. So, they say that the Trojans did something that doomed them - letting inside the Achaean horse. Stupid, right? Of course, if you think of "the Trojans" it is stupid. But if you think "some Trojans" then it may not be. But I have to explain this to you.

So, it all started when Hector was killed. He was Troy's best warrior and he was supposed to become the new king, to succeed his father, king Priam. Hector was a good man, overall, but not so smart, either. He was all up to fighting and upholding the honor of the Trojans. So, he went up to fight and he got killed by that big man of the Achaeans, Achilles.

That was bad for the Trojans; very bad, but the war went on. Achilles was killed by another son of Priam, that Paris I was telling you about, the one who had been so idiot to steal the wife of one of the Achaean Kings, this Helen, and so starting the whole mess. And then someone killed Paris, too. So, at this point, the oldest son of Priam took over; I mean the oldest still alive: Deiphobus, another idiot. He had this idea of marrying Helen after that Paris had died. Great idea, sure; and it did him quite some good! But let me go on.

So, after the death of Hector, the Trojans were still fighting; but some of them understood that the war wasn't going so well. But Deiphobus and the other big bosses said that those who were thinking that were defeatists and that Troy was winning. You know, it was not so easy for ordinary Trojans to understand what was going on outside the walls of the city. They only knew what the warriors were telling them. And they kept telling them, 'we are winning, there is nothing to be worried about, just keep on'.

It was the same for me. I was staying in the temple of the Goddess and I was supposed to spend my time making sacrifices and praying for the city of Troy. Boring, indeed. But I was a prophetess, you know, and I suspected that the war was not going so well.

At that time, I had befriended a priest of the temple of Apollo, his name was Laocoon. Nice man and if you ask me if I had been playing a little with him - you known what I mean - I would ask you what can a girl do when she is supposed to be a virgin priestess and there is nothing for her to do the whole day? So, we became good friends, indeed. One day, Laocoon came and he told me that Aeneas wanted to see me. This Aeneas was one of the big men of Troy. He was a warrior, but also a rich man with plenty of gold and slaves. So, I went to see him and we talked a lot. He was smart, I can tell you that.

Aeneas told me about how the war was going and I understood right away that the game was over for Troy. So, he asked me, 'Cassandra, you are a prophetess, can you tell me what we should do?' I told him, 'You don't need to ask a prophetess. We need to parley with the Achaeans before it is too late.' And he said, 'You are right, Cassandra. You will be the one doing that.' I looked at him, bewildered, and he laughed and he told me, 'aren't you a prophetess, Cassandra? You should have known what I was going to tell you.' These big men really have a twisted sense of humor. Anyway, he asked me to contact Odysseus, one of the Achaean kings, said to be the smartest of the lot.

Aeneas was no fool: he could see that I was a good envoy for Troy; a woman, a priestess, I could be seen as sort of neutral. And parleying was not going to be an easy task. The Achaeans were winning, they knew that and they wouldn't be appeased by giving back to them that silly woman, Helen, that Paris had stolen from her husband. No, that wasn't going to work, no matter how beautiful Helen was said to be (and she was much overrated, this I can tell you). And the Achaeans knew that if they kept fighting, they could have had everything: the gold of the city and its inhabitants as slaves. Still there was some space for a negotiation and that was my task. What would the Achaeans want to leave Troy standing and the Trojans alive? If we were willing to pay them a lot, maybe they would have accepted.

So, we freed an Achaean prisoner, officially he escaped, to tell Odysseus that a priestess of the Moon Goddess wanted to speak to him. And there came back a Trojan prisoner - again, officially he had escaped - and he said that Odysseus was waiting for the priestess in a certain place at night, at the rise of the moon. Which I took as a honor, because I was a moon priestess, as you know.

That was how I met Odysseus. I was accompanied by a bunch of Trojan warriors from Aeneas' retinue. It had been a mistake, as I understood later on, but Aeneas had insisted on that. Odysseus was there with some of his warriors, too. On both sides, we had these burly fellows armed to the teeth, looking at each other askance. But never mind that, as I said, Odysseus was a smart person and he wasn't there to fight and we had a nice chat. He understood what I wanted and he said that it was still possible to find an agreement if the Trojans were willing to pay. And that he wanted to discuss the price with Aeneas in person. So, I went back to Troy and I told the story to Aeneas. And he said that he would see Odysseus and that I should have kept my mouth shut about this story.

This is what I did. I told nothing to anybody about having met Odysseus, nor that Aeneas was seeing him at night. Days went by and I expected something to happen. I would have imagined to see Aeneas coming up in the central square of the city, standing on a pedestal, and telling people something like, 'Fellow Trojan citizens, we found an agreement with the Achaeans. If every Trojan is willing to sacrifice some of his wealth, then the city can be saved.'

But nothing like that happened. Quite the opposite: Prince Deiphobus came up in the central square of Troy and gave a speech to the Trojans saying that the honor of the city of Troy was not negotiable, that the Gods were with Troy, that the walls were solid, and that those stupid Achaeans were all but demoralized. Victory was all but certain for Troy, it was just a question of not listening to the defeatists among us. And he said that he was going to make Troy great again. I remember that Aeneas was with him, nodding and smiling as if he agreed on every word that Deiphobus was saying.  It was weird, but what could I say?

It was at about this time that the big wooden thing appeared in the field in front of the city, the 'horse'. So, there was a lot of head scratching with the Trojans and what the hell was that? But I knew what it was: not for nothing I was a prophetess and I had studied the ways of the world. So, I went up to the walls, I looked at the supposed 'horse', and I said, 'look, that thing is a siege engine! We have to burn it down before it is too late." And there came up my friend, Laocoon, and he also said, 'look, you have to listen to Cassandra. She knows a lot of things, and she is wise. We must destroy that thing.' And some people understood what we were saying, because they knew that I was a priestess and I knew many things. And also Laocoon was known to be a smart person and people respected him a lot.

Then, disaster struck. I should have known what was going to happen, am I not a prophetess? But even prophetesses sometimes ignore things they wouldn't like to happen. So, we were in the middle of a public debate on how best to burn the wooden horse when, suddenly, some people came up and accused me of betraying the Trojans: they said that I had secretly met the Achaean king Odysseus at night. Then, they called up some of Aeneas' bodyguards and they testified that, yes, it was true. They had accompanied me to meet Odysseus at night. Laocoon tried to defend me, but people started saying that he was my lover and that we had defiled the temple of the Goddess. We had committed sacrilege and we couldn't be trusted in anything we said.

At this point, Hell broke loose, as you may imagine. I tried to say that it had been Aeneas who had sent me to meet Odysseus, but they took that as a confession of guilt. Things went kinetic, as you say in Ingliss, Laocoon was killed and I was lucky to be able to escape with my life. I took refuge in the temple of the Goddess and  King Priam protected me; he was a good man, even though he was too old to understand what was really going on.

So, I stayed put inside the temple and I can't tell you exactly what happened afterward. Maybe the Achaeans used the siege engine to smash open the walls of the city, or maybe it is true that the Trojans were so stupid to demolish the walls and let the 'horse' in. Whatever the case, when the Trojans understood the danger, it was too late. Troy went up in flames, lots of people were killed, those who survived were taken as slaves, including me; I became the slave of the big boss of the Achaeans, King Agamemnon. Deiphobus, too was killed. In a sense, he got what he deserved: killed by King Menelaus, Helen first husband. You know the story? Helen told Menelaus where Deiphobus was hiding and Menelaus went in and hacked Deiphobus to pieces. And then, Helen undressed in front of Menelaus and she gave herself to him in that same room, with the floor still wet of Deiphobus' blood. At least this is what they told me - but I think it is true. I knew that woman. She was, well, in Ingliss you use this term, 'female dog', right?

It is right, we use this term, Lady Cassandra. We say 'bitch'. 

But those are details. The point of the story is about Aeneas. You know the story, don't you?

They say that Aeneas escaped from Troy when the city fell, yes. 

Not just him. Several Trojan notables; with their families, their gold, their slaves, their weapons. And not a single Achaean would raise a finger against them. Come on, they even had boats waiting for them to take them away from the mess; all the way to Italy. You see? It had been all prepared. It was all planned from the first time when Aeneas met Odysseus, and I came to think that it had been even before I had spoken with Odysseus. It was a trap, a perfect trap. And the people of Troy fell in it so perfectly. They were completely fooled!

You say that Aeneas betrayed the Trojans? How could that be? He was said to be so pious.

Pious, yeah, sure. I think there is a world in your language, in Ingliss... you say 'propaganda', right?

Well, yes. we use that term, propaganda. I didn't know that it could be such an old idea.
  
Yes, people are always the same, they are easy to sway. I suppose they haven't changed much in your times.

No, Lady, propaganda is still very much used with us. 

Yes, the poor people of Troy were fooled. It was all propaganda, it was all agreed. Even that I was to become the mistress of King Agamemnon. I had been agreed before everything happened. You see? Most of the people who kept saying that Troy was going to win the war understood perfectly well that it wasn't true. But they had to keep saying that Troy was going to be great again if they wanted to fool the Trojans and save themselves.

Well, it is a way of seeing the story that I had never imagined. But it sounds true. And you think it is related to our times?

Yes, you were telling me about this king of yours, the one who has carrot-colored hair. You say that he denies that you have a problem?

That's what he does. People say he is not very smart. 

Maybe he is not so smart, yes. He may be like Deiphobus, I mean, he may really believe that there is no such a thing as a climate change problem. But I bet he is not the only one. Am I right?

You are right. After all, you are a prophetess!

That was an easy prophecy! But I think that the people around him, around that silly king, I am sure they are lying. They know very well what's happening. And they are fooling him and many others. They have to if they want to save themselves.

You think so?

Yes, of course. You have been telling me that because of this 'climate change' a lot of people will die, right?

Well, I hope they won't....

You know better than that. You told me about seas rising, droughts, heat waves, storms and more. Do you think people won't die because of all that?

Yes, it is a possibility.

And those who will die will be the poor, right. Do you think your kings care about the poor?

Well, I guess, really, you are right, but.....

Your carrot-haired king may be part of the plot or not. It doesn't matter. But those behind him are surely planning to move to safer and cooler places. And leave the poor to drown or to starve - or to die of overheating.

I am not sure I believe you, Lady Cassandra.

As if it were something new......

Oh, I am sorry, Lady. I didn't mean to offend you. 

You are not offending me. After all, I am Cassandra, the prophetess nobody believes.

Really, I am sorry. I shouldn't have said that. 

No, no.... don't worry. I understand you. Some things that I say are really difficult to believe.

But are you really supposed to be always right?

It is part of the curse of being a prophetess. You should know that; you told me that you are a kind of - say - prophet, with those 'models' you make. You told me that people don't believe in what you say.

It is part of the job, indeed. So, what should I do?

The Goddess may help you, but in the end it is for the Moirai to decide.

You mean the fate?

Yes, in Ingliss you use that word. There is not much you can do. Fate will decide.

I see.....

You look sad. I am sorry.

You don't have to be sorry, it is not your fault. 

Let's see.... actually, there is something you could do. Why don't you offer me a beer?

A beer? But you are a ghost, Lady Cassandra! 

But I always loved beer. And there is no beer in Hades. I was thinking, well, the Goddess is very powerful and I could pray her a little....

That's strange, Lady Cassandra, you are not bluish and transparent anymore. 

See? I told you that the Goddess is powerful.

Well, you look real now. That much I can say. 

And I think I could drink a beer. Do you have beer, here?

Yes, we do. It would be a pleasure. 

But, now that I think about it, don't you think I am dressed a little strange? Wouldn't people be surprised at seeing me?

Let me see... Linen tunic, woolen cape, golden arm rings, golden bracelets, and leather sandals. No, I don't think people will be surprised. You may be more surprised at seeing how some of my students are dressed! 

So, let's go for that beer! Hades can wait.

A Selfie with Galla Placidia

Myself in Barcelona. In the background, the remains of the temple of Augustus. A place where Empress Galla Placidia surely walked in her times, during the 5th century AD. You cannot see her in this photo, but I felt like she was there.

I am not into ghost summoning, of course, but sometimes I think I can hear ghostly voices of people who lived in remote times in my head. One of these voices is that of Galla Placidia, Empress of Rome and queen of the Goths, who lived an adventurous life some fifteen centuries ago. After so many years, her voice has become faint, indeed. But, paying attention, one can still hear it.

Because of the vagaries of life, it has happened to me to go to Barcelona, in Spain, several times during the past few years. And Barcelona is a place where Galla Placidia lived for some years with her husband, the Gothic king Athaulf ("The Wolf") with whom she had a child whom they named Theodosius. It was the name of Placidia's father, Emperor Theodosius "The Great," the last Roman Emperor to rule on both the Eastern and the Western part of the Empire. And by naming the child Theodosius, Placidia's plans were transparent: to create a new state that would have seen the former enemies, the Goths and the Romans, to live in peace with each other. A beautiful dream, but beautiful dreams are often short lived. This one vanished into thin air when the young Theodosius died as a child. He was buried in a silver coffin in Barcelona, then brought to Italy, and finally put to rest in the Imperial Mausoleum in Rome, possibly in the same year when Placidia herself died, in 450 AD.

So, Placidia was in Barcelona, called in her times Colonia Julia Augusta Faventia Paterna Barcino Even though she left little or no physical traces there, it is curious how she left an impression in my mind; an impression of presence. This impression came to me for the first time a few years ago. I was walking in the busy "La Rambla" avenue, full of tourists. It came to my mind that I had read that there was this Augustan temple in Barcelona, even though I had never seen it. At that time, I didn't have a GPS map on my phone, so I walked at random. Not completely at random; I had a vague idea of where that place was supposed to be. And I found it.

I remember how I felt when I went through a small door in front of an anonymous building that led into a large room where three columns of the ancient temple of August are still standing. It is not a really remarkable place, but I remember how happy I was when I found it. It was a place where Placidia had walked. She had seen these same columns. It was like if Placidia herself was there, welcoming me in her palla dress, smiling while wearing her double ringed pearl necklace. 

It was a curious sensation of elation that, now, I feel everytime I happen to be in Barcelona and I find the time to go to visit the great columns of Augustus temple, in the small road called "Carrer del Paradis." I did the same this May 2017 and I took a selfie of myself with the columns behind. You can't see Galla Placidia in this picture but perhaps you can imagine her being there, too.