Julius Caesar (c. 100-44 BCE)
“Ought not the defects of an army to be as carefully concealed as the wounds in our bodies, lest we should increase the enemy’s hopes?”
(Miyamoto Musashi fighting Tsukahara Bokuden, painted by Yoshitoshi (1839–1892), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)
Birth of a Legend
Around 1584, a boy was born into the Hirata family of samurai in the village of Miyamoto, located in the Harima Province of Japan. The boy’s father, Miyamoto Munisai (or Shinmen Munisai), was considered to be one of Japan’s greatest swordsmen, and he ran the village’s local dojo. With such a skilled parent, many would have expected that the boy would grow to be skilled with a sword. Yet, few could have predicted the unprecedented martial prowess that the newborn child would soon show the world. The boy’s name was Miyamoto Musashi, and he would later claim to have fought in over sixty duels, many of which ended in the death of his opponents.
Although Musashi is best remembered for being the undefeated “Alexander the Great” of dueling, he was also a bit of a renaissance man. Besides being a duelist, he joined the military and fought in around six battles. He also was an artist who painted, sculpted and carved. As another occupation, he became a foreman or supervisor and worked in construction. Yet, his greatest contribution to his legacy was his writing career.
When he was around twenty-two (perhaps, 1606) he produced his Writings of the Sword Technique of the Enmei Ryu (Enmei Ryu Kenpo Sho), which was his first known written work on swordsmanship. In addition to this, near the end of his life, he also wrote the Thirty-five Instructions on Strategy(Hyoho Sanju Go). All his earlier writing, however, were surpassed by the book he wrote in the years preceding his death in 1645—The Book of Five Rings, or Go Rin no Sho.
Nevertheless, Musashi’s careers in literature and construction are not why most readers are here, reading this article. No, the most interesting and dramatic events in Miyamoto Musashi’s life came about because of the decades he spent wandering Japan as a traveling duelist.
In 1596, the thirteen-year-old Miyamoto Musashi was living a quiet life with his uncle in a temple located in Hirafuku, but his future was about to change drastically. As Musashi was walking the streets of Hirafuku, he saw a posted message that caught his ever-attentive eye. The public note was a challenge issued by Arima Kihei, a traveling samurai. In the note, Kihei challenged anyone to test their mettle against him in a duel. With this samurai’s notice, the cogs of fate began to turn for Miyamoto Musashi.
The thirteen-year-old boy signed up for the challenge against the samurai, but his uncle found out and was understandably displeased with his rash nephew. The uncle’s displeasure turned to horror when Arima Kihei accepted the young boy’s proposal for a duel. Miyamoto Musashi’s uncle continued to protest up until the day of the duel, when Musashi arrived with nothing but a stick to meet his samurai opponent.
There was no way anyone could have assuredly predicted what would happen next. Sure, Musashi was the son of one of Japan’s most skilled swordsmen, and he had even trained for a short time in his father’s dojo. Yet, he was still just a thirteen-year-old boy with a stick, facing down a samurai warrior. He could not possibly win. Nevertheless, win is exactly what Musashi did.
The duel was apparently over quickly. The young boy knocked the samurai off his footing. Then, the thirteen-year-old Musashi proceeded to savagely beat Arima Kihei to death with his stick. Before even settling into puberty, Miyamoto Musashi had already killed a man.
A Life of War and Dueling
In 1599, at around fifteen or sixteen years of age, Musashi decided to leave home and explore Japan. It was a chaotic time, to say the least. The military leader of Japan, Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-1598), had just died without a proper heir, leaving a perfect power vacuum available to be exploited by anyone who had the means and ability to seize power. Two major factions formed: the unstable remnants of the Toyotomi clan and its allies, against the powerful forces led by the daimyo (feudal lord), Tokugawa Ieyasu. The Miyamoto samurai were pulled into the war by their liege, the Shinmen clan, which sided against the Tokugawa. During the war, Musashi joined with his liege’s forces and participated in some of the battles. Most notably, he is thought to have been present at the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600—the battle that cemented Tokugawa’s dominance in Japan. With the Toyotomi forces suppressed for the time being, and the Shinmen daimyo in hiding, Musashi became a rōnin (a samurai without a master) and took to the road, beginning a long string of famous duels.
By 1604, Miyamoto Musashi made his way to the city of Kyoto. The young duelist entered the city with a specific task in mind—he wanted to duel the elites martial artists from the Yoshioka School. The head of the school, Yoshioka Seijuro, accepted the challenge, and agreed to meet Musashi for a duel, with the condition that each warrior would be allotted only one blow.
Seijuro arrived for the duel at the designated time and place, but Miyamoto Musashi was nowhere to be found. In fact, Musashi was using one of his specialties—psychological warfare. By the time Musashi arrived with his signature wooden sword (or bokuto), Yoshioka Seijuro was confused, frustrated and anxious. As stated earlier, each duelist would only attack once, but that was ample enough opportunity for Miyamoto Musashi to secure victory. He brought down his wooden sword with enough strength and precision to break Seijuro’s left arm and completely cripple the shoulder. Musashi undisputedly won the duel.
After the fight, Seijuro reportedly decided to spend the rest of his life as a monk, and handed leadership of his family and school to his brother, Yoshioka Denshichiro. Looking to regain lost honor for the Yoshioka family, Denshichiro challenged Musashi to another duel—this time to the death. Denshichiro arrived for the duel, wielding a staff reinforced with steel rings. Miyamoto Musashi, once again, arrived strategically late, carrying his trusty wooden sword. When the duel began, Denshichiro was completely outmatched. Legend claims that Miyamoto Musashi killed his opponent with a single blow to the head.
After the death of Denshichiro, leadership of the family fell to a twelve-year-old boy named Yoshioka Matasichiro. Once again, for the sake of honor, Matasichiro also challenged Musashi to a duel—but this time, the Yoshioka family had no intention to fight fair. Nevertheless, the two agreed to duel in a relatively isolated location at night. Musashi, however, was growing suspicious of the Yoshioka clan. Therefore, he broke away from his earlier tactic of arriving late, and instead, arrived early to the location of the duel. When the time of the duel neared, Yoshioka Matasichiro arrived with a small army (including archers and marksmen) and prepared an ambush. Little did he know, however, that Miyamoto Musashi was watching from the shadows. Witnessing the treachery, Musashi leapt into action and charged at Matasichiro. He killed the twelve-year-old boy and fought his way out of the ambush using two swords. He would later teach this two-sword style of combat in his martial arts school, Nito Ryu (also known as Niten Ichi-ryu).
After escaping Kyoto, Miyamoto Musashi traveled to Nara, where he dueled spear-wielding warrior monks. He eventually decided to travel to the new Japanese capital city of Edo around 1607. While on the road, he dueled to the death with a man named Shishido Baiken, who wielded a kusarigama, a sickle or scythe attached to a long chain. This duel, like all others past and future, ended with Musashi as the victor. Within the same year, Musashi was challenged to a duel by another undefeated duelist named Muso Gonnosuke. The two both fought with wooden swords and Musashi emerged victorious. Gonnosuke survived the duel and studied his loss carefully, refining his technique. Gonnosuke and Musashi fought a rematch years later and, despite Gonnosuke’s improvements, Musashi proved to be unbeatable.
Perhaps, the most famous duel of Miyamoto Musashi’s long career came in 1612, when he dueled a man in Kyushu known as Sasaki Kojiro. Kojiro wielded a very long sword called a nodachi—basically an extra long, two-handed katana. The two agreed to meet on an island to the north of Kyushu. On the day of the duel, Musashi returned to his old tricks. He arrived in a boat multiple hours late to the duel. When he stepped off the boat onto dry land, he curiously carried with him an oddly-shaped oar. When the two warriors readied themselves for the duel, it became apparent that Musashi intended use the oar as a weapon. As the fighting commenced, the master duelist showed the oar’s true potential—it had been fashioned into a wooden sword with more reach than Kojiro’s nodachi. With his long, wooden sword, Musashi deflected his opponent’s attacks and waited for an opening. The opening arrived quickly and Musashi delivered a blow that killed the great swordsman, Sasaki Kojiro. Some say this fight caused a spiritual awakening in Miyamoto Musashi. After this duel, he decided he would never duel an opponent to the death again.
War, Dueling and Legacy
From 1614 to 1615, Miyamoto Musashi is thought to have rejoined the Toyotomi forces in their continued struggle against Tokugawa rule in Japan. The Tokugawa, deciding to subdue their rivals once and for all, besieged Osaka Castle, the center of operations for the Toyotomi. It is generally assumed that Musashi was aiding the Toyotomi during the siege, but his military career during this time remains vague. Nevertheless, after the fall of Osaka in 1615, Miyamoto Musashi somehow befriended the Tokugawa regime, even after having fought against them several times during his life.
After the destruction of the Toyotomi, Musashi decided to learn a new profession—construction. That same year (1615), he became skilled enough in the craft to be appointed as a foreman or construction supervisor in Harima, ruled then by the Ogasawara family. At an unknown time of his life, Musashi also began to create multiple forms of art. He produced calligraphy, sculpted in wood and metal and was known to have been painting by the 1630s. Birds seemed to be his favorite subject—he painted a shrike perched on bamboo and geese passing through reeds. Musashi also, helpfully for us, painted a self-portrait that still exists, today. During the later parts of his life, Musashi also adopted at least three sons, named Miyamoto Mikinosuke, Miyamoto Iori and Takemura Yoemon.
Even though Miyamoto Musashi had found himself new professions, hobbies and even a newly adopted family, Musashi’s dueling career continued. Around 1621, he dueled at least four men in the region of Himeji. The most important of his opponents was named Miyake Gunbei. After the duels were concluded—as always, with Musashi victorious—the master duelist decided to stay in Himeji. While there, he used his skill in construction to help with the development of the town. Musashi’s adopted son, Mikinosuke, even became a vassal of a local lord in Himeji.
Miyamoto Musashi’s other sons also achieved prominent positions in Japan. Iori became a vassal of Ogasawara Tadazane in Harima and Takemura Yoemon eventually achieved the position of Master of Arms in Owari and gained a reputation as a skilled swordsman. Surprisingly, Musashi, himself, apparently found no entrance back into the prominent positions of feudal Japan—his application to be a Sword Master of the Shogun was declined in 1623 and the Ogasawara family refused to take him as a vassal. Despite this, he remained curiously in good standing with the influential Ogasawara and Hosokawa clans. Miyamoto’s family, however, was shaken in 1626 when Mikinosuke committed the ritual suicide of seppuku after the death of his lord.
One year after the death of Mikinosuke, Musashi began, once again, to resume his familiar travels throughout Japan. He eventually settled down with his other adopted son, Iori, in either 1633 or 1634, in the region of Harima. There, he continued his duels—he defeated a prominent warrior named Takeda Matabei, who specialized in the lance. Also, when the Christian-influenced Shimabara Rebellion erupted in 1637, Musashi helped his son and the Ogasawara daimyo defeat the rebels by offering advice on military strategy and management.
In the last decade of his life, Miyamoto Musashi began writing down more of his fighting technique and philosophy. In 1641, he wrote the Thirty-five Instructions on Strategy (Hyoho Sanju Go), which would serve as a rough draft of his next and greatest work. Finally, after he began to suffer bouts of neuralgia, Musashi retired in 1643 to live in Reigandō, a cave located in Kumamoto, Japan. There, it is said that he worked on his masterpiece, The Book of Five Rings (Go Rin no Sho), until the last year of his life in 1645. A simple read and short in length, The Book of Five Rings can be easily underestimated. Yet, like its author, Miyamoto Musashi, the little book overflows with unique skill and insight.
Written by C. Keith Hansley.
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Miyamoto Musashi (Japanese samurai, duelist, artist, construction worker, and author, c. 1584-1645)
“Today is victory over yourself of yesterday; tomorrow is your victory over lesser men.”
Geoffrey Chaucer (English poet, 1342-1400)
“Our will is always catching on the nail,
Wanting a hoary head and a green tail,
Like leeks have got; the strength to play that game
Is gone, though we love foolishness the same.
What we can’t do no more we talk about
And rake the ashes when the fire is out.”
Marcus Porcius Cato, better known as Cato the Younger (95-46 BCE), was a brilliant Roman statesman who spent his life fighting against corruption and defending the status quo of the Roman Republic against prospective dictators, such as Julius Caesar and Pompey. The interesting life and accomplishments of Cato deserve (and will get) an article of their own, but for now, all that really needs to be known about Cato is that he was, along with Cicero, one of the key politicians in the Roman Senate that sided against Julius Caesar during the long Roman Civil Wars.
In 46 BCE, Cato must have known that the Roman Republic, as he knew it, was coming to an end. Pompey the Great had already been defeated by Caesar and was assassinated in Egypt. The other extremely skilled general, Labienus, had just lost a major battle in North Africa against Caesar at Thapsus (read about how Caesar prepared for Thapsus, HERE). From his position in Utica, located in modern day Tunisia, Cato could only observe as the Roman Republic fell, once again, into the hands of a dictator.
While most of Caesar’s armed opponents fled to Spain after the Battle of Thapsus, Cato remained where he was in Utica. There, the hopeless politician decided to end his life, no matter what it took to get the job done. The accounts of Cato’s suicide given by Plutarch, Dio Cassius and Julius Caesar, himself, leave behind a very grisly and disturbing scene.
After the Battle of Thapsus, the usually charismatic and gregarious Cato shockingly became bizarrely introverted and calm. He checked that the finances of Utica were all tidy, and then withdrew from governing the city.
Cato’s friends and family, suspicious of the statesman’s sudden change of character, followed him home and kept a constant watch on the man. They even searched Cato’s home, locking away all the dangerous instruments they could find. Nevertheless, Cato somehow found a knife.
On a certain day, after having just finished an evening meal with his comrades, Cato retired to his room to read. That night, it is said he read Cicero’s entire Phaedo, a collection of arguments for the immortality of the soul. After reading his final book, Cato produced a knife that he had managed to hide from his friends and vigorously stabbed himself in the gut. Losing strength and consciousness, Cato fell to the floor with enough force to alert his nearby friends.
The already wary friends and family rushed into the room, staunched the bleeding and quickly brought in a doctor to stich up the knife-wound. Miraculously, the doctor stabilized the statesman. Cato, however, eventually regained consciousness, and he was determined to die. With his own two hands, he ripped open the doctor’s stitches and brought about his death by yanking out his own innards, one handful at a time.
After Cato’s suicide, his young daughter, named Porcia Catonis, married a certain zealot for the Republic named Brutus. Once married, she reportedly joined the conspiracy to assassinate Julius Caesar, and her husband, Brutus, was one of the men who stabbed the dictator to death on the Ides of March in 44 BCE. Brutus, however, was hunted down by Caesar’s successors in the next generation of the Roman Civil War by 42 BCE, and he committed suicide as Octavian and Mark Antony closed in. His wife, Porcia Catonis (Cato’s daughter), also allegedly committed suicide around this time. The most popular accounts of her death either involve suicide by sealing herself in a room with noxious smoke, or by gruesomely swallowing live coals.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
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Doctor Charles de l’Orme (1584-1678) is credited with the iconic plague doctor’s ensemble that continues to unnerve modern viewers. It was designed to protect the wearer against plagues, such as the Black Death, which had spread throughout the Middle East, Europe and Russia by around 1352. Unfortunately for our cousins and ancestors from the past, the medieval doctors knew agonizingly little about the plague and its possible treatments.
Instead, plague doctors of the time relied on observation and often-faulty assumptions, such as plague spreading through aroma or eyesight. Regardless of the medical inaccuracy of these medieval doctors, their assumptions eventually led to Charles de l’Orme’s beaked plague suit. Even though l’Orme’s suit is the first recorded beaked plague suit that historians have found on record, it is probable that earlier doctors manufactured their own personal makeshift suits in attempts to preserve their health. Yet, the modern perception of the plague doctor’s ensemble comes from l’Orme’s widely-used design.
The headwear of the plague doctor suit consisted of a large-brimmed leather hat and a beaked mask. The hat, even without the mask, was an article of clothing that identified the wearer as a doctor. Its wide brim supposedly was also designed to deflect bacteria. As for the mask, it fell down to the shoulders, and was constructed with glass eye sockets and a beak. The main purpose of the beak was to hold aromatic substances, which plague doctors believed could ward off the plague. Some favorite aromatics for the beak were pleasant herbs such as mint, or sponges soaked in perfume or vinegar.
Beneath the mask was a waxed gown or robe that fell down to the feet. Underneath the gown, the doctor wore leather breeches, made similarly to those used by fishermen. Most plague doctors also wore leather gloves. Concerning the footwear worn by these beaked doctors, accounts are vague, yet, like the rest of the outfit, the shoes or boots were probably waxed and similar in nature to a fisherman’s gear.
Most plague doctors carried long wooden canes that they used to lift the clothing or bedding covering plague victims and to give visual instructions to onlookers, such as family members. Also, many plague doctors carried long-handled spoons that they would use to ladle medicine (unfortunately, often ineffective or harmful) to the sick from a safe distance. Sadly, the plague suit proved to be ineffective at deflecting the plague, and many of the doctors died from the illness they were trying to contain.
Written by C. Keith Hansley.
Sources:
The Malleus Maleficarum (Written by Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, c. 1487)
“So heinous are the crimes of witches that they even exceed the sins and the fall of the bad Angels; and if this is true as to their guilt, how should it not also be true of their punishments in hell?”
Until Mt. Vesuvius destroyed the city of Pompeii on August 24, 79 CE, it was a thriving city with a population of around 12,000 people. Pompeii was well connected to the Roman maritime trade network and likely received a lot of traffic from ships entering and leaving the port. The city had anything these visitors (or locals) could want or need—an amphitheater, an elaborate public park, and a religious and political forum. There were even houses for Mystery Religions, and, of course, there were brothels.
Despite the generally male-oriented society of the Roman Empire, women in Pompeii seemed to have been able to carve out some surprising economic autonomy in the bustling city. There is evidence of women from the city loaning money to each other, managing businesses, and even owning the enterprises completely. Of these influential women in Pompeii, none showed more business acumen than Julia Felix, who possessed a villa near the town amphitheater.
Archeologists and historians hypothesize that Julia Felix began to develop her large estate into an economic marvel around the year 62, when an earthquake gave her a reason to begin renovations on her property. She proved to be quite the entrepreneur, with her businesses catering to all types of people. By the time Mt. Vesuvius buried Pompeii in 79, Julia Felix’ villa complex had become something of a luxurious resort hotel.
Her target clientele was the wealthy elite of society. Julia Felix advertised her private bath as a club where only the genteel were invited. She also rented some of her villa’s rooms to respectable people visiting Pompeii. She also had a beautiful garden and a swimming pool and, for added aesthetics, much of the villa was decorated with columns, statues and frescos. For those who wanted more than rooms, beauty and bathing, the complex also was outfitted with fully functioning shops. Catering to the lower classes, her villa also had either a tavern, restaurant or diner that served food and drink, which could then be consumed on built-in tables and benches. To bring in clients to her establishment, she had at least one sign erected outside of her villa to advertise for potential customers.
It is impossible to know how wealthy Julia Felix truly was, but the truth was probably very impressive. With Pompeii thriving as an economic port city, and with her ability to provide services for both the elite and common people of the city, she had the potential for an incredible amount of income—especially considering her location just a short distance from the city amphitheater. In all likelihood, Julia Felix was a very, very prosperous ancient woman.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
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The crossbow was an effective weapon used by many cultures across the world from the ancient times to the Middle Ages, and the deadly device is still used by hunters, today. It is thought to be the world’s first mass-produced mechanical weapon. Able to be produced in large quantities and easily taught to soldiers, the crossbow proved to be an effective weapon on the battlefield for more than a thousand years.
Historians still debate where the crossbow originated, but a wide majority places the first crossbows in ancient China around the 5th and 4th century BCE, but some even claim it was developed in the 6th century BCE. In ancient China, the crossbow trigger mechanisms were fairly standardized, so soldiers could repair their weapons without much difficulty. Furthermore, detailed manuscripts of crossbow use have been discovered in China dating from the 4th and 3rd century BCE.
Across the world, the ancient Greeks, and later the Romans, used a much larger crossbow design to make powerful siege engines known as ballistae. There is some evidence that crossbows may have been used in Europe by the 390s BCE, and the ballista is definitely thought to have been in Alexander the Great’s arsenal during his conquests in the 330s and 320s BCE.
The crossbow remained a relevant weapon well into medieval history. It’s use turned simple and weak peasants into deadly soldiers, especially when it was outfitted with a crank, making the device easier to load. The crossbow only went out of style, along with other ancient projectile weapons, when firearms began to become the world’s long-range weapon of choice.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
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