mercredi 4 février 2004

First Man In Rome Last week I hit a milestone. I finished reading The October Horse, the last of a six part series by Colleen McCollough on the end of the Roman Republic, from Gaius Marius and Sulla in The First Man In Rome to Caesar then Octavian at the finish. This series feels interwined with milestones in my life over the last 12 years since I read the first book. Thus, the finish has a hint of the bittersweet. Oh, but what a magnificent and truly enriching series it has been. Rome, at the end of the Republic, was just like Washington now during the American ascendancy, and perhaps like Paris from Louis XIV through Napoleon, and perhaps the Turkish courts during the Ottoman golden age. Meaning, it was some sparkling mixture of talent, ambition, money, power, brilliance, and corruption. Unlike the latter two, mix in freedom. Those that long for the "old days" should read this series for a reality adjustment. My first shock was that the Roman Senate is exactly like the American Senate, both in their mutual worst and best. McCollough, at least to the non-classicist, appears to be a master at synthesizing scholarship and storytelling. She applies the beneficial trick of "historical" fiction to pure effect, not degrading the underlying history, yet vividly showing how that history happened. This to me is the true gem. In "The Conquerors", Michael Beschloss gives a compelling account of politics near and after the end of WWII, and shows how several radically different outcomes came close to actual history. Germany as a medieval agrarian economy? It could have happened. Roosevelt and Morgenthau supported it. But it didn't happen, due to personalities, circumstances, and chance. The First Man In Rome series is similar. There is a direct line from the dinner in book one between Gaius Marius and Gaius Julius Caesar (the grandfather), directly to Caesar being assassinated (sorry for the spoiler, wink). In between, there are a nearly dizzying parade of people and earth-shaking events. But the events still arrive at that point, with Caesar's blood spilling forth from the 28-odd knife wounds. So, so many things happened that didn't have to, so many turning points. But, the delicious question: would history actually have changed? Would a different path lead to the same destination? (I'll leave that answer to Tres, who knows this stuff almost professionally.) Last night I finished re-reading book one, 12 years after I first tackled it. It is a joy to re-read the book, seeing the introduction of people and trends that affect the course of the future books. In McCollough's series, Caesar stands forth as, essentially, the most astonishing human ever produced. Gaius Marius and Sulla also stand out for the same reasons: they bent history. Rather, they drove history, rather than being driven by it. It's a reminder for us vastly farther down on the food chain than these titans, that we have a role to play. We can diminish that role, or we can fulfill that role. But, should we so try, we might possibly transcend that role, and bend a little history ourselves. 8:58:59 PM   comment []

LinuxSolutions 2004 The comment on the previous entry reminds me to say that I'll be at LinuxSolutions tomorrow (Thu) in Paris, at CNIT. I'll be hanging out in the Zope Village with BlueDynamics, PilotSystems (who organized the booth), and Adesium. I'll also spend time with Ingeniweb in their booth. In the afternoon I give a talk in the Zope track called "Plone is Sexy". Should be a hoot. :^) 8:24:08 PM   comment []