This is the column of Marcus Aurelius, the last of the "five good emperors." He spent his last decade fighting Germanic tribes on the frontier, and as we all know, was responsible for the epic downfall of Russell Crowe in Gladiator thanks to his shit poor opsec. But Crowe worked his way back to the top, wreaked revenge against Joaquin Phoenix, and got an Oscar out of the deal. All in all, not so bad.
He really should have picked someone better than his son to be successor. The other four emperors before him all adopted a cousin, nephew, or in-law as their successor.
He tried to have a better heir. They kept dying on him. This was a common problem in the ancient world. Unfortunately, he was unlucky in this regard unlike Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius. Augustus also had a problem with dying heirs although most of his choices were related to him.
Oh great. Now we're going to be seeing men's columns in this blog?
Jeff Bezos could fly it to the moon.
I dunno....
Looks like the pedestal lifted him out of the spotlight.
https://youtu.be/Bh8hSl_lTQo
Since Mr. Drum liked his visit to St. Peter’s Basilica, check out this video of this evening mass. It’s a candlelight entrance and all the decorations are beautiful.
And JS Bach’s cantata for the celebration
https://youtu.be/Q_5DG9BD-SU
Hasn't Sigmund Freud been deprecated for at least a century now?
I thought Commodus was the last, the Emperor to end the Pax Romana, until he began to lose grip of reality and be strangled in a bath by a wrestler after a botched poisoning. Huh, I guess a gladiator was close enough.
😉
Marcus Aurelius. Good emperor. Competent warrior. Philosopher.
And absolute fucking failure as a father.