Diodorus Siculus (c. 1st century BCE)
“The understanding of the failures and successes of other men acquired by the study of history, affords a schooling that is free from the evils of experience.”
Dividing wealth among treasure-hunters is often a tense task, prone to arguments and suspicion, but relationships in such situations can become especially strained when the discovered treasure turns out to be much less than what was originally expected. Such was the case of Hernan Cortes and his conquistadors. In 1521, Cortes and his forces attacked the Aztec capital city of Tenochtitlan in a bloody months-long siege. They were driven on by the belief that once they conquered and pillaged the leading city of the Aztec Empire, they would discover untold riches. Many died in battle during that assault to take Tenochtitlan, and dozens of conquistadors who were captured during the daily skirmishes ended up as human sacrifices, dispatched within view of their comrades. With all the bloodshed and terror involved in conquering the Aztecs, Hernan Cortes’ conquistadors hoped that the discovery of treasure would make their tribulations worthwhile. Yet, when they conquered Tenochtitlan, captured the last Aztec emperor, Cuauhtémoc, and began searching the city for treasure, the wealth that they discovered was far less than what they were expecting.
After the Spanish king’s cut of the treasure was safely stored away, and Cortes’ own share was taken from the loot, the rest of the pool that was to be divided among the troops was relatively small, and few of the conquistadors were content with their allotted plunder. With the anger came suspicion and conspiracy theories. Some of the conquistadors accused Cortes of hiding vast quantities of treasure, keeping it hidden for his own gain. These disgruntled troops soon found a creative way to vent their anger—they started leaving graffiti messages on the white walls near Cortes’ quarters. These messages of protest, sometimes written with poetry and humor (yet other times composed as plain insults), became quite an entertaining feature in the conquistador camp. Hernan Cortes soon began to write his own responses to the messages left on the defaced wall. Before long, dialogue on the white wall evolved into a battle of wits between the conquistador captain and the most eloquent of the vandals.
Bernal Díaz del Castillo, one of the conquistadors present in Hernan Cortes’ entourage, wrote a lively description of the graffiti incident in his history, The Conquest of New Spain. He stated, “While Cortes was at Coyoacan, he lodged in a place with whitewashed walls on which it was easy to write with charcoal and ink; and every morning malicious remarks appeared, some in verse and some in prose, in the manner of lampoons” (Bernal Díaz, Conquest of New Spain, vol. II, chapter 157). Díaz also commented on Cortes’ written responses to the scribbles on his walls. According to his account, the captain’s responses were seen as a bit too selfish for many in the camp. He wrote:
“When Cortes came out of his quarters of a morning, he would read these lampoons. Their style was elegant, the verses well rhymed, and each couplet not only had point but ended with a sharp reproof that was not so naïve as I may have suggested. As Cortes himself was something of a poet, he prided himself on composing answers, which tended to praise his own deeds and belittle those of Diego Velazquez, Grijalva, and Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba” (Bernal Díaz, Conquest of New Spain, vol. II, chapter 157).
Stoked by the lack of loot and the somewhat insensitive self-praise of Hernan Cortes, the graffiti battles in the camp soon became less jovial and more bitter. As the story goes, the last message that Cortes wrote to his detractors on the whitewashed surface outside his headquarters was, “A blank wall is a fool’s writing paper,” to which one of the captain’s critics responded with a message of, “A wise man’s too, who knows the truth, as His Majesty will do very soon!” (Bernal Díaz, Conquest of New Spain, vol. II, chapter 157). After this exchange, Hernan Cortes forbade his troops from writing any further notes on his walls, and instead focused on settling his conquistadors down in their newly conquered lands.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
Picture Attribution: (Hernán Cortés Arriving in Mexico, by Vicente Alanís (1730–1807), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).
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This painting, created by the French artist René-Antoine Houasse (c. 1645–1710), depicts the origin story of a prominent member of the Greco-Roman pantheon of gods. In the upper-center section of the painting, shown with her foot lodged in the head of Jupiter/Zeus, is the goddess who was called Minerva by the Romans. The peculiar circumstances behind this scene can be traced back to ancient Greece, in writings concerning Minerva’s Greek equivalent, Athena—also known as Athene, and sometimes called Tritogeneia and Atrytone. Athena’s bizarre birth was told by the poet Hesiod (c. 8th century BCE), who wrote, “Zeus as king of the gods made Metis his first wife, the wisest among gods and mortal men. But when she was about to give birth to pale-eyed Athene, he tricked her deceitfully with cunning words and put her away in his belly…” (Hesiod, Theogony, between lines 872-906). Zeus’ odd cannibalism of Metis was said to have occurred after he was told of a prophecy that Metis’ children would overthrow him. Therefore, Zeus used a trick from his tyrannical father’s playbook and decided to swallow Metis before she could deliver her children. Nevertheless, being trapped inside the god’s gut did not stop Metis from giving birth to Athena. According to myth, and depicted in the painting, Athena grew up strong and powerful, despite her constricted environment. In time, she became strong enough to dramatically burst from Zeus’ head. On this awkward occurrence for Zeus, Hesiod wrote, “out of his head, he fathered pale-eyed Tritogenia, the fearsome rouser of the fray, leader of armies, the lady Atrytone, whose pleasure is in war and the clamour of battle” (Theogony, between lines 907-936). Such is the scene that René-Antoine Houasse re-created in the painting above.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
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Unfortunately, history for the period of the Third Veientine War between Rome and Veii is incredibly vague. It was such a pivotal and prideful victory in the minds of the ancient Romans that they chose to embellish it with an elaborate legend, modeled on Homer’s famous Iliad. Although mythologizing the war honored the conflict and made it easier to remember in oral storytelling, it also obscured the historical facts about the conflict. Roman tradition claimed that the Third Veientine War, like the Trojan War, was a ten-year endeavor (reportedly from 406-396 BCE). Storytellers of Rome also told that Veii, like the Trojans, had divine protection and favor, which was slowly whittled away by Roman ingenuity, piety and trickery during the alleged decade-long siege of the city. Finally, the Veientine people, like the Trojans long before them, were said to have been defeated because of an unnoticed threat from within their walls. Yet, instead of a Trojan Horse being the method of conquest, the Romans supposedly tunneled their way into the palace of Veii. Nevertheless, even when the Roman diggers had reportedly punched a hole into the palace of the Veientine king without being discovered, victory for Rome was still not certain. No, as the bizarre story goes, the fate of the battle for Veii rested on one peculiar organic item in the palace—fresh entrails.
A Roman historian named Livy (c. 59 BCE-17 CE) reported the odd tale of the fateful entrails in the palace. He wrote, “There is an old story that while the king of Veii was offering sacrifice, a priest declared that he who carved up the victim’s entrails would be victorious in the war; the priest’s words were overheard by some of the Roman soldiers in the tunnel, who thereupon opened it, snatched the entrails, and took them to [their leader] Camillus” (The History of Rome, 5.21). When Marcus Furius Camillus made the final cuts to these sacrificed entrails, he added Veii’s own prophecy to a growing list of omens and religious assurances that Rome would win the battle. As the story goes, it was after this incident that Camillus launched his final assault on Veii in 396 BCE, which resulted in the conquest of the city, the enslavement of its population, and the plunder of its wealth.
Even for a folklore-inclined ancient historian like Livy, the tale of the entrails was too bizarre for him to believe. He wrote, “this tale, which is too much like a romantic stage-play to be taken seriously, I feel is hardly worth attention either for affirmation or denial” (The History of Rome, 5.21). So, like most ancient tales of vague historical accuracy, take the story with a proverbial grain of salt, and enjoy the tale if only for the sake of entertainment.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
Picture Attribution: (Odysseus in the Underworld, painted by Alessandro Allori (1535–1607), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).
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This painting, by the Swedish artist August Malmström (c. 1829–1901), depicts some of the most famous figures from the Viking Age. On the left side of the canvas, are Ubbe, Halfdan, Ivar the Boneless and others—a group that played a pivotal leadership role in the so-called Great Heathen Army that invaded England in 865. Although these figures, themselves, became legends, they were said to have been sons of an even more legendary, mythologized Viking: Ragnar Lodbrok. Standing in the center of the painting, are Anglo-Saxon messengers, bearing correspondence from King Ælla of Northumbria. No negotiations or diplomacy, however, would save Ælla from the brothers mentioned above, for they held a great grudge against the Anglo-Saxon king. It was an understandable feud, as, according to legend, Ælla had captured Ragnar Lodbrok and executed him through the gruesome means of a snake pit. When Ubbe, Halfdan, Ivar the Boneless and other leaders of the Great Heathen Army arrived in England around 865, they quickly targeted King Ælla in Northumbria. Although Ælla and his rival, Osberht, joined forces to present a united front against the Vikings, the Northumbrians were not able to overcome the Great Heathen Army. King Ælla and Osberht were both killed by the Vikings after a battle at York in 867.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
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Aristotle (c. 384-322 BCE)
“The man who exercises his intellect and cultivates it seems likely to be in the best state of mind and to be most loved by the gods.”
Philoraios was a bodyguard known to have been working in Constantinople during the reign of Emperor Romanos II (r. 959-963). He was employed by the ruler’s cousin, Magister Romanos Moseles, and became a man of some renown. Interestingly, Philoraios’ brief wave of fame was not due to his abilities as a bodyguard. His name, instead, was written down in the history books as a result of his natural talent for showmanship.
As the story goes, Philoraios—presumably as a side job to his duties as a guard—was something of a circus performer. Appearing in shows amid famous venues such as the Hippodrome of Constantinople, he reportedly awed and amazed adoring crowds with dangerous and entertaining feats. Large racetracks like the Hippodrome must have been ideal for his performances, as the tricks he attempted often centered on horsemanship. A later historian, John Skylitzes (c. 1041-1101), colorfully described one of Philoraios’ supposed shows, writing, “He could ride around the track of the Hippodrome standing upright on the saddle of a racehorse running at full speed, bearing in his hands a sword which he would turn like a windmill without in the least declining from his upright position” (Synopsis Historion, chapter about Romanos II, section 7). Through such expositions, Philoraios entertained the masses, while also warning would-be assailants of what they would face if they harassed the bodyguard or his employers.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
Picture Attribution: (Illustration from the 13th-century Skylitzes Matritensis manuscript, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).
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This illustration, with its unique ink and watercolor style, was created by the great British artist, Arthur Rackham (c. 1867–1939). He produced this peculiar artwork for a 1909 reprint of Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, which was originally published in 1726. Displayed here is the opening scene of Gulliver’s odd series of adventures, in which, after being shipwrecked and left adrift in the ocean, Gulliver washed up on the shore of a mysterious island. He quickly passed out due to his exhaustion, but the shipwrecked sailor soon awoke to the feeling of small creatures scurrying to-and-fro over his various limbs. When he tried to move, he found himself tied to the ground by a network of little strands crisscrossing his body. Worst of all, when Gulliver began to struggle against the restraints, arrows began raining down, piercing him all over. Fortunately, these arrows did no more damage than splinters, for the locals who were firing the projectiles were miniature humanoids who measured in at approximately the height of a shoe. After much negotiation, and a few more volleys of arrows, Gulliver was eventually hired by his captors, who called themselves Lilliputians. From there, a series of humorous and satirical events ensued, revolving around Gulliver’s experiences as a giant in a land of little people—at least until his next adventure brought him to different lands with vastly different peoples.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
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The Thousand and One Nights
(a large collection of anonymously-authored stories of Indian, Persian and Arabian origin, compiled and edited between the 9th and 15th centuries)
“Who hopes that his superiors will pardon him
Has to forgive inferiors their faults.”
