Uwemedimo Dominic

Love and freedom are the two greatest, instinctive human desires...

Love is the feminine energy
Freedom is the masculine energy

As we each seek to balance these energies on an individual, relationship and collective level we are faced with many challenges...

Can I love someone whilst honouring their freedom?
Can I be free, love another intimately and feel loved?
Can love be free to love whoever it loves?
Can freedom include a loving, intimate, sacred connection?

Can I have it all?
Can I give it all?
Can I receive it all?
Can I be it all?

We have been conditioned to see love as a possessive quality
We have become attached to love...

Wanting to own love
Control love
Restrict love
Command love
Demand love
Judge love
Limit love
Label love

Yet as soon as we seek to limit love's innate desire to be free...
It is no longer love

As soon as we can no longer love freedom in all its creations...
It is no longer freedom

To balance the two
Love and freedom
Freedom and love

Is to balance the masculine and feminine within
To be whole
To be love
To be free

To be you
To be me.

Uwemedimo Dominic now takes appointments on their Page.

‪All life is one. The world is one home. All are members of one human family. All creation is an organic whole. No man is independent of this whole. Man makes himself miserable by separating himself from others. Separation is death. Unity is eternal life. Cultivate love. Include all. Embrace all. Serve all. Recognise the worth of others. Destroy all barriers, racial, religious and natural prejudices that separate man from man. Cease to find fault with others. Realise your unity with all.

Deborah was young and prone to ignorance. Punishment and education would have cured that ignorance. But they chose the barbaric option that has long been outlawed by human civilisation.

Humanity is greater than religion. If we practice humanity as sane human beings, we would not fall slaves to religion, which is just a manifestation of baser sentiment.

RIP Deborah, some barbarians chose the inhumane option of religion as against the option of humanity. It's a dark age.

Introspection

The veneer of decent feelings and civilised behavior had vanished. Right and wrong, good and evil, had no more meaning to the present world than the written word had for someone who had never learned to read.

Indiscriminate promiscuity, be******ty, and random acts of violence, the state of nature that existed before civilisation came into being, and that still exist wherever the human being follow the impulses of passion instead of the rule of reason, These are the meaning and measure of the present times.

This is certainly not that decent world where Churches helped to protect your soul and the Court helped to protect your lives and property. That sane world has gone to the Lekki dogs.

Now! You are responsible for your morality, choose wisely.

*LIFE IS A CIRCLE OF CONTRIBUTION*

*I contribute.*
*U contribute.*
*We contribute.*

*When any party ceases to contribute, the circle will be broken & leakages will be discovered.*

*Whatever u are enjoying today is someone else's contribution.*

*Whatever u are lacking today is because someone who is suppose to contribute didn't.*

*Don't be that person, who because he refuses to contribute, causes leakages to the circle.*
*Every person on earth is here to contribute to make the world a better place.*

*Contribution is the essence of living.*
*U can contribute anything useful.*
*U can contribute in knowledge, in understanding, in wisdom, in love, in peace, in resources, & in finances.*
*Also, U can contribute physically, spiritually, intellectually, financially, morally etc.*

*When u contribute, people will eat, when people contribute u will eat.*

*_ASK URSELF:_*

*What is my contribution in that place that I am?*
*What have u contributed to make progress?*
*What is lacking as a result of ur refusal to contribute?*
*What is the way forward?*
*The answer explains the scarcity or abundance in that place.*
*Ur presence is irrelevant if u have nothing to contribute.*

*In the office where u work, contribute, in the organisation that u are, contribute.*
*In the school, contribute.*
*In the house, contribute.*
*In the places of worship, contribute.*
*In the team, contribute.*
*In the training , contribute*
*In the community,* *contribute.*
*In the family, contribute...*
*in ur association, contribute.*
*In ur street, contribute.*
*Everywhere try & contribute...*
*U have something to contribute: Contribute in Love...*
*Instead of complaining, contribute.*
*Instead of destructive criticism, contribute.*
*Instead of being embittered, contribute.*
*Instead of watching, contribute.*
*Contribution is the right use of energy...*
*Nobody destroys where he has contributed to build*

*Contribute by passing this to others. THE WORLD WILL BE WORTH LIVING IF EVERYONE CONTRIBUTES MEANINGFULLY.*
*Good Afternoon

Akpan, Ndifreke Esq.

(Lead Attorney & Notary Public)

Star Attorneys,

11 Ebet Aya Street,

Opposite Sam Law Hotel

Off IBB Way, Uyo,

Akwa Ibom State

Mobile:+2348038832470

+2348023567217

http://www.starattorneys.org

[email protected]

[email protected]

Home Modern - Starattorneys Civil rights are rights that protect individuals’ freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one’s entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of society and the state without discrimination or repression.

I parked in front of the mall sitting inside the car waiting for my friend to get a few items from the mall.

Coming my way from across the parking lot was what society would consider a tramp.

From his looks, he had no car, no home, no clean clothes, and no money.

There are times when you feel generous but there are other times that you are just not in the mood and don't want to be bothered.

This was one of those "don't want to be bothered times."

"I hope he doesn't ask me for any money," I thought.

He didn't.

He came and sat on the curb nearby but he didn't look like he could have enough money to even get a good meal.

After a few minutes, he spoke.

"That's a very nice car, you got there," he said.

He was ragged but he had an air of dignity around him.

I said, "thanks," and continued listening to the car radio.

He sat there quietly, and the expected plea for money never came.

As the silence between us widened something inside me said, "ask him if he needs any help."

I was sure that he would say "yes" but I held to the inner voice.

"Do you need any help?" I asked.

He answered in three simple but profound words that I shall never forget.

We often look for wisdom in great men and women and we expect it from those of higher learning and accomplishments.

I expected nothing but outstretched grimy hands.

He spoke the three words that shook me.

*"Don't we all" ?* he said.

I was feeling high and mighty, successful and important until those three words hit me like a twelve-gauge shotgun.

*Don't we all?*

I needed help.

Maybe not for bus fare or a place to sleep, but I needed help.

I reached in my wallet and gave him not only enough for bus fare but enough to get a warm meal and a few other things for the day.

Those three little words still ring in my ears today.

No matter how much you have, no matter how much you have accomplished, you need help too.

No matter how little you have, no matter how loaded you are with problems, you can give help.

Even if it's just a compliment, you can give that.

You never know when you may see someone that appears to have it all.

They are waiting on you to give them what they don't have -

*A different perspective on life,

*a glimpse at something beautiful,

* a respite from daily chaos, that only you through a torn world can see.

Maybe the man was just a homeless stranger wandering the streets.

Maybe he was more than that.

Maybe he was sent by a power that is great and wise, to minister to a soul too comfortable in themselves.

Maybe God looked down, called an Angel, dressed him like a tramp, then said, "go minister to that man inside the car, that man needs help."

*DON'T WE ALL?*

Help somebody, you are only a custodian of whatever you possess.

We come, we go; the in-between defines who we truly are.
Good morning and a beautiful week ahead

Trevor Noah on the life-changing power of a mother to make her child dream:

"My mom raised me as if there were no limitations on where I could go or what I could do. When I look back I realize she raised me like a white kid—not white culturally, but in the sense of believing that the world was my oyster, that I should speak up for myself, that my ideas and thoughts and decisions mattered.

We tell people to follow their dreams, but you can only dream of what you can imagine, and, depending on where you come from, your imagination can be quite limited. Growing up in Soweto, our dream was to put another room on our house. Maybe have a driveway. Maybe, someday, a cast-iron gate at the end of the driveway. Because that is all we knew. But the highest rung of what’s possible is far beyond the world you can see.

My mother showed me what was possible. The thing that always amazed me about her life was that no one showed her. No one chose her. She did it on her own. She found her way through sheer force of will. Perhaps even more amazing is the fact that my mother started her little project, me, at a time when she could not have known that apartheid would end. There was no reason to think it would end; it had seen generations come and go.

I was nearly six when Mandela was released, ten before democracy finally came, yet she was preparing me to live a life of freedom long before we knew freedom would exist. A hard life in the township or a trip to the colored orphanage were the far more likely options on the table.

But we never lived that way. We only moved forward and we always moved fast, and by the time the law and everyone else came around we were already miles down the road, flying across the freeway in a bright orange, piece-of-sh*t Volkswagen with the windows down and Jimmy Swaggart praising Jesus at the top of his lungs.

People thought my mom was crazy. Ice rinks and drive-ins and suburbs, these things were izinto zabelungu—the things of white people. So many black people had internalized the logic of apartheid and made it their own.

Why teach a black child white things? Neighbors and relatives used to pester my mom. “Why do all this? Why show him the world when he’s never going to leave the ghetto?”

“Because,” she would say, “even if he never leaves the ghetto, he will know that the ghetto is not the world. If that is all I accomplish, I’ve done enough.”

~ SOURCE: Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood.

"One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle
will strike you as the most beautiful."
~ Sigmund Freud

RE-CREATING JEZEBEL, THE SENSATIONAL SIDONIAN PRINCESS:THROUGH THE LENS OF LAW AND FUNDAMENTAL FREEDOM.

Uwemedimo Dominic,
(Please read to the end)

Recent events in my private life have led me to begin to think of Jezebel, the Isreali queen in another light, and to come to appreciate those areas of her life that have been ignored for more than two thousand years.

Jezebel could have been saddled with a reputation as the bad girl of the bible the wickedest of women or the most accursed queen. Jezebel’s reputation as the most dangerous, seductress queen stems from her final appearance, her husband king Ahab is dead, her son has been murdered by Jehu, and as Jehu’s chariot races into the palace to kill Jezebel, “she painted her eyes with Kohl and dressed her hair and she looked out of the window: (2 Kings 9:30).

This ancient queen has been denounced as a murderer ,pr******te and enemy of God. Rehabilitating Jezebel’s stained reputation is arduous however, for she is a difficult woman to like. She is not a heroic fighter like Miriam or a cherished wife like Ruth, Jezebel cannot even be compared to the Bible’s other bad girls Portiphar’s wife and Delilah, for no good come from Jezebel’s deeds, these other women may be bad, but she is portrayed as the worst.
Yet, there is more to this complex woman to appreciate and admire ,thus, to attain a more positive assessment of Jezebel’s troubled life, if we must evaluate the motives of the biblical actors and reread the narrative from the queens vantage point, it will reveal that her character is not as dark as we accustomed to thinking.

Let us consider a few posers on the point of worshipping idols,

1) Was the Israelites not accustomed to worshipping alien deities before the coming of the Sidonian princes?

The answer would be that they did. For instance, the first commandment recommended monotheism, but the people were already attracted to foreign gods, and they considered the compellability towards monotheism as infringing on their right to private life, thus, when Jezebel entered the scene, she became an agent of freedom of worship by providing a perfect opportunity for them to practice their chosen religion. When Jezebel is referred to as an enemy of God, the question arises, which God? The simple fact is that, Jezebel was termed with all bad names because she had the courage to fight for the dignity of the common people and freed them from the cult of Yahweh just like Daniel did in Babylon, against the Babylonian God. Thus, the Bible’s antagonism stems primarily from Jezebel’s religion. It is known that in those days, girls of royal blood were made high priestess. Jezebel as the king’s daughter, may have served as priestess as she was growing up, in any case, she was certainly raised to honour the deities of her native land.

2) Should we blame Jezebel for Ahab’s conversion?

A reasonable answer would be “NO”. before the marriage contract was concluded there definitely must have been consent between the two parties. Besides that point, it is still the in thing for the superior spouse to convert the other to his/her religion, should we blame Jezebel for converting her husband to her religion? It is indeed what most of us would want to do today, and if Ahab has had the power, it could have been the other way round. It is shown from the facts that Jezebel brought her gods and goddesses to Isreal after the marriage contract had been concluded. This however, seemed to have an effect on her new husband, for he built a sanctuary for Baal in the very heart of Isreal, within his capital city of Samaria. What this means is that, king Ahab was not compelled to build a sanctuary for Baal. Again, there is also acquiescence here, for throughout the duration of the time in which sanctuary was constructed, the Israel God did not interfere, there was no destruction of the sanctuary like it happened to the walls of Jericho or to the Tallest building that wanted to reach heaven, and thus, Isreal’s God could not have possibly, with all his powers, turned a deaf ear and later cried over that which he assented by conduct. We could also see that Jezebel did not accept Ahab’s God, Yaweh. Rather, she led Ahab to tolerate Baal, thus represents a view of womanhood opposite to Ruth, another foreign woman from Moab, who surrenders her identity and submerged herself in the Isreal ways, she adopted the religions and social norms of the Isrealites and is universally praised for her conversion to God. Jezebel steadfastly remains true to her own beliefs. In contrast to the familiar gods and goddesses that Jezebel is accustomed to, Isreal became a home to the love of a masculine deity. Perhaps Jezebel optimistically believed that she can encourage religious tolerance and give legitimacy to the worship habits of her people, just like Esther did to the Jews, perhaps she saw herself as an ambassador who could help unite two lands and bring about religious pluralism, regional peace and economic prosperity, I admire Jezebel for remaining loyal to her religious upbringing and having the courage to maintain her cultural identity.

3. Elijah And Jezebel
After Elijah’s trumph at Carmel, Jezebel sends a message to him, threatening to slaughter him the same way he he slaughtered her prophet. So frightened is Elijah by Jezebel’s threatening message that he fled to mount Horeb. It is disheartening that despite his uncommon miracle of fire, that he was afraid to die. Elijah seemed to falter in his faith that the almighty God will protect him from a mere woman. Here, I admire Jezebel more, unlike the many voiceless Biblical wives and concubines of the Bible, whose muteness reminds us of the powerlessness of women. Jezebel was a tongue, she is more daring, clever and independent than most women of her time and today.

Jezebel And Naboth
If it was in Nigeria today, I would have had reasons to stand with Jezebel because of the radicalization of land ownership by the Land Use Act 1978, but as it seemed, land ownership is Isreal was free hold, bearing from the fact that it was handed down to Naboth from generation to generation, thus an attempt to divest both of the ownership in the property was inimical to natural justice, equity and good conscience. However, to fight for her sullen husband, though in a legally or “morally” wrong way, could be seen as displaying the trait of a good wife, at least to king Ahab’s estimation, besides, she could say that, she did not understand the Isreali law, and her upbringing could have also influenced her action, having been raised by a family of autocrats where royal prerogative were held in high prestige.
4.Should King Ahab be blamed for the plot she started?
She wrote the letters without Ahab’s knowledge and frame Naboth, and signs in his name, Ahab here could be excused by law, he could plead “NOT my deed”, but I wonder why the elders, were not charged for conspiracy. This also raises the question; if Jezebel was hated that much, one person would have leaked the plot, but none did that, could this have been an exaggeration of fact, fabricated to demonstrate the continued wrath against Jezebel? Ahab is reported to have died, as was reported to Elijah by God, my question is “why”? what has he done wrong? Jehu then, at the battle field murdered Joram, her son, and marched to the palace to murder queen Jezebel.

Could we say that the Mount Carmel’s contest was a fluke?

It is obvious that Elijah and Jezebel were engaged in a hard fought struggle for religious supremely, and the 450 prophets of Baal and Elijah’s love voice and the fire incident is what I am yet to come to terms with. However, after the Carmel’s episode, we could see how Elijah displayed murderous inclinations. He said “seize the prophets of Baal, let not a single one get away”. Well, on this point, history is always written by winners, it is evident that Jezebel died before Elijah was even taken or ascended to heaven. He slaughtered the 450 prophets of Baal. Here, Elijah reveals that he and Jezebel possessed a similar religious fervour, they are also equally determined to eliminate each other’s followers, even if it means murdering them. The difference is that the Bible decries Jezebel’s killing of God’s servant, but no sanction of Elijah’s decision to murder Jezebel’s prophets, and God rewarded him by sending a much needed rain, ending a three-year drought in Isreal. There is a definite double standard here. Murder seemed to be accepted and even venerated, as long as it is done in the name of a right deity.

As Jehu rushed home to kill Jezebel, Jezebel turned it to her finest hour. She did not disguise herself and flee like Elijah did, instead, she calmly prepared for his arrival. She sat at a window. When John appeared, she asked him about his master, her son, and he replied that is all well, she countered (is all well Zimri, murderer of your master? She knew that all was not well, unlike many other Biblical wives Jezebel had a distinct voice and she was unafraid to articulate her views. Jehu ordered her to be thrown down from the window.

There is a lot to admire about Jezebel, she was an out spoken woman in a time when females have little status and few rights, a foreigner in a strange land, an Idol worshiper in a Yaweh based state sponsored nation of strong patriarchs, she emerges an a fiery and a determined person, true to her native religion, and customs, she is even more loyal to her hubby. At the end, having lived her life in her own terms, she faced certain death with dignity.

Written by
Uwem Dominic , Esq.
13/6/2021.

To Fiddle While Rome Burns

On January 24, AD 41, Emperor Caligula fell dead, brutally hacked to death by his own Praetorian Guardsmen, a group who were notionally charged with protecting the emperor’s life. The news spread like wildfire in the city. While different factions of the Senate ineffectually squabbled over what to do next, the Praetorian Guard took matters into their own hands by acclaiming a new emperor of their own choosing. This laid bare the reality of where true power now lay in the Roman Empire.

The man they selected was perhaps one of the most unlikely candidates to assume the purple: this was Claudius, the 51-year-old uncle of Caligula and a brother of the popular general Germanicus. On the surface, these familial relationships would seem to have made him a solid candidate. However, most Romans, including the members of his own family, had always viewed Claudius with contempt. This was because he had been born with a variety of disabilities: He was plagued by uncontrollable tremors of the head, limped badly, was deaf in one ear, had a speech impediment, and was regarded by his contemporaries as a pitiful halfwit. In modern-terms, he may have suffered from cerebral palsy as well as a number of physical disabilities. Roman society, however, placed an enormous value on looking imposing and on controlling one’s body, so Claudius’s infirmities made him an object of cruel mirth and scorn. Under Augustus and Tiberius, his embarrassed family had largely kept him out of the limelight, and he seems to have survived the carnage of Caligula’s reign by deliberately playing up his weaknesses and adopting something of the persona of a court fool. What was invisible to most, however, was that his body harbored a sharp mind. Spurned by society, Claudius found solace in intellectual pursuits such as the study of history and law.

Claudius’s accession to the throne had some comic elements. Supposedly, after the death of Caligula, Praetorian Guardsmen were looting the palace when one of them spotted a pair of feet sticking out from under a curtain. Wrenching it aside, the soldier revealed the terrified Claudius who had hidden there fearing that he too would be slain. Panicked, Claudius dropped to the floor to beg for his life, when to his astonishment, the soldier, who had recognized him as a member of the imperial family, instead acclaimed his as emperor. Perhaps assuming that he would be easy to manipulate, the rest of the Praetorian Guard supported the nomination. The Senate had no choice but to go along. . .

Claudius certainly seems to have tried his best to be a good emperor, and while his studies helped him, his outcast status had prevented him from gaining any practical experience in leadership. Though outwardly respectful toward the Senate and other Roman elites, he had endured much ridicule at their hands and was therefore wary of them. To fill the need for aid in governing, he turned instead to the previously anonymous staffers who made up the imperial bureaucracy, many of whom were former slaves. Several of these freedmen, such as Claudius’s secretary, Narcissus, ended up wielding enormous power and influence in Claudius’s administration. On the whole, these men were highly efficient, but they had a tendency to exploit Claudius’s trust in them in order to enrich themselves.
Nevertheless, Claudius threw himself into the task of governing the empire and set in motion a number of significant initiatives. He established some important precedents by insisting upon the admission of Romanized provincial aristocrats into the Senate: a smart strategy that channeled the talents of people in regions conquered by Rome into working for the benefit of the empire rather than seeking to undermine it. In foreign affairs, he was vigorous, annexing several new areas and reorganizing some of the existing provinces. His most dramatic action was to finally launch a serious invasion of Britain, which Julius Caesar and Caligula had both made abortive forays against but with no lasting results. Claudius dispatched a sizable Roman army that successfully defeated the southern British kingdoms. Over the next half century, the Romans would gradually expand farther northward in Britain, converting most of it into another Roman province.

Claudius was extremely conscientious when it came to public works, particularly those that had a practical focus. He constructed a major new aqueduct to ensure an adequate provision of water for Rome and gave attention to the food supply system of the capital city. He also held sumptuous banquets and distributed largesse in the form of both cash and gifts to the people. . .

While Claudius was very successful as an administrator, he was less fortunate in his marriages. His first three wives were all unfaithful, and he divorced them. Although Claudius’s third wife gave him children, a daughter, Octavia, and a son, Britannicus, whom Claudius designated as his heir. Claudius soon married again, and his fourth wife was his own niece, Caligula’s sister, Agrippina the Younger. She proved more problematic because she harbored political ambitions of her own. She brought to her marriage with Claudius a son from a previous marriage named Nero. This boy was several years older than Britannicus, and Agrippina the Younger insisted that Nero be groomed as a possible successor in the same manner as Britannicus. Unable to stand up to the formidable Agrippina, Claudius agreed, and Nero was adopted as his own son. At Agrippina’s urging, Nero then moved ahead of Britannicus and became the favored heir by being married to Claudius’s biological daughter Octavia, Nero’s own stepsister by marriage. Once her son’s position was secured, in AD 54, Agrippina fed a bowl of poison mushrooms to Claudius, who then dropped dead. . .

Nero was only 16 when he became emperor, and initially he appears to have been very much under the control of three adult figures: his domineering mother, Agrippina the Younger; his personal tutor, the famous Stoic philosopher Seneca; and one of the prefects of the Praetorian Guard, Burrus, who was an able administrator. For roughly the first five years of his reign, this triumvirate ruled the empire in a somewhat efficient manner on Nero’s behalf, while he acted as the figurehead and spent most of his time indulging his passions for music, theater, and entertainments. As Nero grew older, however, he began to chafe under his mother’s heavy-handed control and to resent it when she disapproved of, or actively curbed, his pleasures. Eventually, in AD 59, he decided to rid himself of her by violent means. Nero’s first three attempts on his mother’s life were straightforward poisonings, but apparently Agrippina knew her son all too well since each time she preempted his efforts by drinking the antidotes. He then embarked on an almost Monty Pythonesque series of ever more elaborate murder schemes. One scheme involved a machine designed to collapse the ceiling above her bed while she slept, and another was a boat designed to sink shortly after setting sail. Tipped off by a workman about the ceiling, and being an excellent swimmer, Agrippina managed to thwart these attempts on her life. At this point, Nero simply lost patience and killed her by the much more direct means of having her executed.

A few years later, Burrus died (or, according to some sources, was poisoned), and Seneca was pushed to the side and eventually compelled to commit su***de. Nero was then free to indulge on his worst instincts and embark on a career of terror, debauchery, and self-indulgence. Not only did he have various senators, equestrians, and citizens killed, but he also murdered almost every member of his family, including his aunt, his stepbrother Britannicus, and Octavia, who was both his stepsister and his wife. He married again, but then kicked his second wife to death while she was pregnant, and also drowned his stepson. At night, apparently for fun, accompanied by large members of his bodyguard, Nero liked to wonder around the city in disguise randomly beating up men and molesting women. . .

As if Nero’s deprivations were not bad enough, the empire endured several massive crises during his reign. In Britain, Queen Boudica of the Iceni tribe raised a rebellion against the Romans. Suppressing it cost much bloodshed on both sides and resulted in the destruction of a number of major cities including London.
At the opposite end of the empire, in Judea, there was another dangerous insurrection when the Jews, incensed by the desecration of their temple and other insults, rose up against Rome. The revolt spread, affecting the entire province. Nero was forced to dispatch an experienced general named Vespasian to the east to deal with the rebellion. Vespasian methodically suppressed the Jewish fighters, eventually undertaking a siege of the city of Jerusalem itself. It would take a number of years to stamp out all traces of the revolt, but keep Vespasian’s name in mind, because we will meet him again later.

Back in Rome, on July 18, AD 64, a fire broke out near the chariot racing arena, the Circus Maximus, that eventually engulfed much of the city and burned for nine days. Known as the Great Fire, it destroyed, either partially or completely, 10 out of Rome’s 14 districts and transformed huge swaths of the city center into smoking rubble. When rumors, that were almost certainly false, spread that the fire had been started by Nero, he sought to divert anger away from himself by claiming that the fire had been set by the Christians. At the time, Christianity was still an obscure religion that very few Romans knew much about, so they made a handy scapegoat. Nero had Christians in the city rounded up and slaughtered. According to Tacitus, many of the Christians were thrown to the dogs for public amusement, while others were crucified and burnt alive to serve as torches for Nero’s nightly parties.

In the Book of Revelation in the New Testament, the great enemy of God - the anti-Christ - is given the number of the beast, triple six. By indicating the beast’s “number,” the author is referring to the common practice from antiquity of calculating the number of a word or name based on the numerical value assigned to each of its letters. If you spell Caesar Nero’s name in Hebrew letters and add them up, they total 666.

A probably false, but famous, rumor associated with the fire, is that while the city was enveloped in flames, Nero used the burning city as a backdrop to personally perform a play about the destruction of Troy. This is the root of the modern phrase: To fiddle while Rome burns.

In reality, Nero was active in efforts to fight the fire and offered assistance to those affected by it. Nevertheless, he could not resist taking advantage of the disaster to gratify his ego as well. The fire had cleared out one of the central areas of the city between the Palatine and Esquiline Hills, and Nero chose this high-profile spot to erect a lavish new pleasure palace for himself. This complex, known as the Domus Aurea, or the Golden House, was an astonishing conglomeration of over-the-top features. Containing over 50 different lavish dining rooms, its crowning feature was a 120 foot high golden naked statue of Nero himself outside its front door.
The Golden House elicited considerable resentment due to its extravagance, and later emperors soon abandoned and built over it, burying its remains under other structures. Its ruins still exist today beneath the streets of Rome. . .

Nero’s erratic behavior continued. In the late 60s AD, he decided that he wanted to travel to Greece to compete in the great Panhellenic festivals, such as the Olympics. Competing in various categories as an actor, a musician, and a charioteer, Nero happily collected no fewer than 1,808 prizes during his grand artistic tour of Greece. It does not seem to have dimmed his enthusiasm that many of these were awarded even before he actually performed.

Nero’s triumphant trip was cut short, however, by news that several of his own governors and generals, at last fed up with his excesses, had raised revolts against him in the provinces. Returning to Italy, Nero found his support rapidly eroding, with the Senate even declaring him a public enemy.

In June of AD 68, Nero was forced to run. As his foes closed in on him, it became clear that there was no way out. Nero tearfully asked his personal secretary for a dagger. He plunged the blade into his neck, expiring with the words, “Alas, how great an artist parishes with my death.” . .

Nero’s death sparked a true crises for Rome. By this point, the institution of the Principate was well established, and Rome had become accustomed to the rule of emperors. There would be no return to the days of the Roman Republic. However, it had also been firmly established that the emperors were chosen on the basis of heredity, with the nearest male relative to the previous emperor becoming the new ruler. Thus far, all emperors had been drawn from the extended Julio-Claudian family: Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. Nero’s depredations, however, had killed off nearly all his close relatives. There was no obvious person left to take his place. To be honest, after suffering through such crazy rulers as Caligula and Nero, another Julio-Claudian might not have been such a good idea anyway.

A crises loomed. Another Roman civil war was on the horizon.

(To be continued) if you like.

Podcast Source:
- Mike Duncan’s “The History of Rome” podcast series

Book Sources:

- “Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar” by Tom Holland

- “Ten Caesars: Roman Emperors from Augustus to Constantine” by Barry S. Strauss

- “SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome” by Mary Beard

- “Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire” by Simon Baker

- “The Twelve Caesars” by Suetonius

- “Annals” by Tacitus