The Black Death

As I read an re-read the excerpt on the black death I thank my luck stars that I am born in the time that I am. As a physician in that time, how helpless can one possible feel. Knowing that if you even try to help you are signing your own death warrant, and yet you are compelled to do what ever in your power to help. To try to find out what is causing this horrible disease.

The other thing that amazed me was the flagellant parading around town doing penance, as physical punishment, scoring their bodies in the imitation of Jesus. I am not to familiar with the Catholic religion, but isn't there a sect of the church to promotes this type of atonement of sin (extremest as they maybe). Could this be where they came from?

The Crusade's

As I read about the crusade's I shudder. I have a hard time imagining what it must have been like for anyone in those times. Fearful to say the very least. It makes me sad to know that a faith that teaches love and tolerance had such a violent and aggressive beginning. Thousand of years later we are still fighting a war over peoples right to warship freely and not to impose one religious doctrine over another. Will humankind ever learn to live in peace?

Wikipedia #2

This give a brief account of all Mediterranean countries from Rome to China and their ancestries. A vast array of information.

1) Word Count 11,449
2) Word search Ancient
3) Ancient may refer to:
• Ancient history, the span of recorded history starting about 5,000 years ago
• Ancient music
• Ancient (band), a melodic black metal musical group
• Ancient (company), a Japanese software developer
• Ancients (art group), a group of English artists in the 1820s and 30s
• Ancient (Stargate), a race who built the Stargates Stargate universe
• Ancient (Traveller), a mysterious race that once dominated the galaxy in the Traveller role-playing game
• Ancients (Eternal Darkness), a god-like race in Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem
• Ancients (Legacy of Kain), a race in the Legacy of Kain games
• Ancients, an advanced species in the FreeSpace space simulation computer game series
• Ancients, a race in the Farscape TV series
• Ancients or Cetra in Final Fantasy VII
• The Ancients, a race of highly-advanced worldcrafters in the Might and Magic universe
4) There is no current activity in the discussion page
5) Last Change Oct. 16, 2008 First Change May 05
Total changes over 500
6) No external links
7) 82 references
8) No further reading

Charlemagne - Conquest of Saxony

If at first you don't succeed try and try again. That was Charlemagne battle cry for complete success in assimilation of Saxony into his Christian realm. Having to go to the extremes of scattering the whole tribe and then bring an influx of Frankish to what was left of the villages. To maintain order and the new way of life, testifies to how resistant individuals can be to change. That also testifies to the will of Charlemagne, he was a King to be reckoned with, a man of perseverance.

Rise of Monasticism

Moses, Elijah, Jesus, and Mohammad all holy men how went into the deserts outside of of Egypt and Syria to fast and to seek the solitude of the endless wasteland, and to fight the demands with-end them. But hermits? Not in the traditional terms for they came back after periods of time to share with their people there enlightenment. To think of them as the beginning of today's monk's, and how they have evolved from the harsh deserts of Egypt and Syria to today's monasteries is enlightening. One that I would have never given much thought too given the stretch from desert to damp dark dreary monastery, from solitude to communal living.

Xenophon & Socrates

I find this conversation between Xenophhon & Socrates quite enlighten as to why the Roman girls/woman married so young. Not only for procreation and to combat the low birth rates that Rome experiencing at the time, but in order to train his new wife.
How gently he explains to his new bride just exactly what his expectation are of her, and why he believe that her role is important not only to him but to the gods as well.

He was a way of evoking his wife to respond in question so that she may not fear him, and yet rises to the occasion to want to please her husband.

This is an art that has long since disappeared in today’s society. He teaches her that one of the greatest gifts is in teaching those who do not know, and in teaching them you have created wealth for yourself.

In today's society we go into marriage full of expectation that are unsaid and expect our partners to be able to live up to those expectations. We are a society full of self and self gratification, we certainly are not about trying to help one another learn and to help each other prosper

Tiberius and the Senate

The senate and the people of Rome, had received a large inheritance from King Attalus III of Pergumun, which Tiberius wanted to use for compensating the veterans Romans, for their loyal services to Roman in the form a huge tracts of land. Now Tiberius ran for tribune of the people and was elected in 133, even though this was not common practice among the military personal.

There were other tribune who were against Tiberius, "Land Act". I find it interesting that Tiberius's men grabbed the other tribune who were against him to prevent them from personally delivering their " veto voice publicly" in the assembly, whereas the Land Act passed.

Our government today, has only one person who has the veto power if a bill makes it pass the Senate and the House of Representatives, that office is the President of the United States.