APPENDIX #1
BRIEF HISTORY OF THE WORD PORNOGRAPHY
People are usually made to believe that the word "pornography" was created by the ancient Greeks when their civilization and their written language developed between the years 1000 and 300 BCE (Before Common Era.) Nothing can be further from the truth.
While the ancient Greek language includes numerous written examples of the word porné depicting a class of public prostitutes, and the word graphia indicating written words, murals, poems and anything that is displayed on, or with material objects, the word porné-graphia or pornographia cannot be found in any tablets, parchments, papyruses, inscriptions and other material objects of the Ancient World. Even among the ancient Romans this word was unknown. It cannot be found in the Latin language, which was largely tributary to the Greek language, nor in any of the ancient languages of the planet Earth.
The absence of a specific word indicating sexually explicit writings, dramas, statues, frescoes and pottery doesn't mean that the ancient Greek and Roman artists didn't produce sexually explicit works. Despite the huge amount of destruction of ancient sex art perpetrated by religious zealots and other "sexophobes" (prudish people who have a phobia or hatred with anything sexual,) thousands of such works have been found everywhere throughout the Greek and Roman Empires. Hundreds can still be admired in today's museums. As a matter of fact, classic artists have been producing a myriad of sexually explicit works from the times of Homer (800 BCE) until the fall of the Roman Empire of the West (500 CE, Common Era).
As for the reason why ancient Greeks and Romans didn't create a specific word to define sexually explicit art, it is obvious. The depiction of nude bodies and sexual acts was neither forbidden nor scandalous. No one ever thought that sex was a sin, or something to be ashamed of. Quite the contrary, nudity, and the pleasures of unrestricted sex were highly familiar and very desirable to men and women of those times. Their joyous Gods and Goddesses engaged in a plethora of imaginative sexual encounters, indicating to the people that sex was truly the essence of life and love.
Numerous religious rituals encompassing a variety of sexual events were held on a regular basis in various parts of the Greco-Roman world in honor of the most exciting of their Gods. Promiscuity among men and women or even among people of the same gender didn't offend anyone. It was simply regarded as a natural expression of individual preferences. The word "homosexuality" was not known in ancient times. Like the word "pornography" there was no use for it.
Actually, starting with the first graffiti and figurines made by modern men's ancestors around the years 20,000 BCE, the depiction of nudity, sex organs and erotica is common to every culture of the Planet. From man's first civilization of Sumer (3,700 BCE,) to Mesopotamia, Babylon, Egypt, India and China, from Western Europe to Oceania, Asia, Africa, South & North America there isn't a single place where sex hasn't been depicted in its explicit, enjoyable glory, mostly in a religious context.
Under these circumstances, why should anyone ever think of creating a specific word for something that was as natural as drinking wine and eating lamb, and was even the foundation of widespread cults, festivals and religious events? Sexually explicit art was simply art, period. There was no necessity to censor the genitals, or distinguish "sacred" from "profane" art, nor any cultural-judicial need to classify sex art as obscene or immoral.
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Unfortunately, after four thousand years of magnificent cultural evolution which produced breathtaking monuments and uncensored works of art on this basis of sexual happiness and freedom, the Ancient World was about to experience the unthinkable: the surge of a new religion based on sexual repression!
Around the year 410 CE, a few decades before the official Fall of the Roman Empire in the West, the writings of a Christian bishop, Augustine of Hippo, North Africa‹aka Saint Augustine‹began to spread the bewildering idea that "Luxuria est inimica Dei" (Lustful sex is the enemy of God.)
This new concept was created to dismantle and replace the classic religions of the Roman Empire for a very simple reason: It would allow the pillaging of the thousands temples filled with riches and gold dedicated to Gods and Goddesses who regarded unbridled sexuality as a positive force. In the beginning, this new religion didn't really attract the masses of Roman citizens, or the so-called barbarians who invaded the Empire shortly thereafter.
As a matter of fact, during the ensuing centuries, while the new dogmatic, monotheistic, "sex-o-phobic", totalitarian religion progressively seized political power with the support of Romanized barbarian kings, the ancient cults and lustful sex practices remained vastly cherished by most women and men of those difficult times (500-900 CE) usually called "dark centuries"‹and beyond.
After the Crusades (1000-1200 CE,) as the power of the Church became aggressive and pervasive, a major crackdown on religious and sexual freedom was initiated by Pope Innocent IV around the year 1260 CE with the creation of the infamous Holy Inquisition. This body of clergymen was charged to put an end to all what the Pope called "heresy," which included all sorts of ancient and new cults, and, of course, any lustful sexual practices. However, after unspeakable massacres and tortures, this dreadful institution produced a welcomed backlash, which became known as The Renaissance (1300-1500 CE.)
The rediscovery of the splendid culture of Greece and Rome with their wonderful ancient Gods, works of art and sexual freedom, brought to the world an incredible number of artistic geniuses, from Michelangelo to Titian, from Rubens to Rembrandt, from Botticelli to Leonardo da Vinci, who honored their priceless works with the unsurpassable perfection of the nude body. Provencal troubadours began singing love poems to courtesans and lonely ladies, while writers such as Boccaccio and Chaucer wrote masterpieces depicting lustful capers of common citizens in their national languages.
Not surprisingly, the people of Europe overcame plague and famine, and joyously climbed to economic prosperity. But, as men and women of the Renaissance happily engaged in orgiastic delights and multiple "sinful" affairs, the Holy Inquisition began burning the "sinners" on the stake in the name of morality.
In the year 1451, Pope Nicholas V, inspired by the almighty God of Christianity, signed into law the already widespread use of torture in order to give the Holy Inquisition the proper judicial tool to extirpate the "devil" from the human body, especially from attractive young women called "witches." Eventually, by torturing and murdering millions of people in the most atrocious ways that humans conceive when they are twisted by religious folly, the Church was able to silence eminent dissidents such as Galileo Galilei and Giordano Bruno, and brought the Renaissance to an end by the beginning of 1600.
Despite the danger of being arrested by the enforcers of the Inquisition, or captured by the police of the various States where Protestant sects sprung up after Martin Luther split from the Roman Church in 1517, a number of European artists produced and distributed sexually explicit works. Sometimes inspired by their own sensuality, sometimes intending to shock or mock or arouse their friends, sex art began circulating underground among the bourgeois, or quite openly in the elegant mansions of the European aristocrats who never ceased to look for new lovers and mistresses with a penchant for erotic excesses.
Sexually explicit art became extremely popular even among the working class during the Eighteenth century‹the time of Enlightenment‹when the philosophy of liberty fostered the American and French Revolutions. Still, as the word "pornography" hadn't been invented yet, these works were generically called "libertine art" regardless of their real artistic value.
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Around the year 1760, exactly 500 years after the institution of the Holy Inquisition, a young French journalist called Restif de La Bretonne, was charged by the French government of King Louis XV to carry out a research on the extent of prostitution in the capital city of France. Enthusiastic but extremely secretive about his first official assignment, Restif began spending his nights exploring the quarters of Paris.
In black clothes, with a large black hat and a long cape, the mysterious young man visited the Parisian slums, the brothels and the parks, and wherever it was possible to interview and classify all sorts of prostitutes. As a result, he delivered his final report on about 25,000 prostitutes who were working in Paris‹at that time a city of no more than 250,000 people.
Restif de La Bretonne was paid a small sum for his job; he didn't get any official honor for his accuracy, and his report got lost among hundreds of useless files of the French administration. After a few months, a disappointed Restif wrote a book on his experience with prostitution. Being already an author of neologisms (new words) he created for his book a title which exactly depicted the job he had done‹writing a report on common prostitutes.
Restif choose the ancient Greek word porné for common (non religious) prostitutes and the word graphia for writing. For phonetic reasons he changed porné into porno' and the title became... "Le Pornographe."
The young French author didn't even look for a publisher for he knew that no one would dare to publish his work. He bought a small second-hand printing press on credit and began printing and binding Le Pornographe ("The Pornographer") with his own hands, in the secrecy of his modest house. Of course, he didn't have the slightest idea that the word he created for his book would become so popular that it was used‹without author's consent‹as pornographie ("pornography") depicting all sorts of prostitution activities, sex writings, erotic paintings, etc.
Restif died in his late sixties around the year 1805. In his life time he survived as a little-known author through the end of the monarchy, the French Revolution and the beginning of Napoleon's Empire. He was proud to call himself Le Pornographe since the word, in a Revolutionary time that scorned Christian "sex-o-phobic" commands, wasn't yet given any negative connotation and sounded fresh, witty and exciting.
All over Europe tantalizing role-models such as the international Venetian womanizer Gian Giacomo Casanova, King's Louis XV kinky mistress Madame de Pompadour, the insatiable Russian Czarina Catherine the Great, and Napoleon's nymphomaniac young sister Paolina Bonaparte (called the Imperial Venus,) populated the fantasies of the young, the rich, the snobs and the beautiful. Lustful sex spread without barriers among men and women of all classes in what has to be called the "First Sexual Revolution of Modern Times."
Taking full advantage of both the defeat of the Church and the expansion of the printing press, a gigantic number of sexually explicit illustrations, prints, books, maps, cards, as well as all imaginable objects, theater plays, satires and songs were spread among all classes of citizens. Pornography was a new joyous word which simply depicted the welcomed sexual liberation and its promotional texts, gadgets and art.
Many of those items reached the Americas. In the newly-born United States, where political liberty was achieved under the enlightened leadership of the Founding Fathers‹Thomas Jefferson in particular‹the predominantly French-produced pornography circulated chiefly among military and business communities.
As France was not only a cultural reference of the Enlightenment but also a decisive ally of the American Revolution, anything French had a special elegant flavor which spurred permissive behavior despite the angry opposition of Puritan zealots, ready to hang anyone who didn't believe in the "commandments" of their single God.
* * *
But alas, disaster struck again... After the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815, the old monarchic regimes of Europe resurrected the power of the Church and resumed the harsh totalitarian posture that had allowed this alliance to keep absolute domination for the centuries beforehand.
In the three decades between 1815 and 1848‹a vengeful period called The Restoration‹the Old Order got rid of all traces of the freedom ushered in by the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars which spread the French libertarian philosophy throughout most of continental Europe.
While retaliatory police threw the iron fist against liberals, Austrian Emperor Francis I, pushed by his Chief of Staff, the ruthless prince Metternich, promulgated the first censorship law against freedom of the press. Then, in 1818, pressed by the Catholic clergy, the Austrian Emperor signed the first law against any material work that could be considered obscene.
According to the personal view of the judges, the depiction of the human body in lustful attire, nudity and even partial nudity, and any representation of genitals, sexual acts, explicit, non-explicit and even suggested, was declared "obscene" and had its authors imprisoned.
While the word pornography hadn't been yet introduced in any European dictionary, the Austrian law was incorporated in all European laws without any public discussion about the legal meaning of the word obscene which was simply described as anything contrary to public morality!. These first judicial excesses against nudity and sexual images, writings, etc. demonstrated that the totalitarian regimes needed to repress human sexuality in order to maintain total control.
Accordingly, when the French Academy modernized the French dictionary in the mid-1840, the academic pundits felt free to pick the word pornography‹the copyright of which should have forever belonged to Restif de La Bretonne‹and introduced this neologism in the new French dictionary with two definitions: (a) description or portrayal of prostitutes or prostitution, which literally depicts the original meaning given by Restif who loved young French prostitutes for their freedom, sense of humor and beauty; (b) obscene or licentious writing, painting and the likes, which certainly must have made Restif turning in his grave. "Obscene? What's obscenity? How dare they to make that kind of idiotic statement?" he would have thought.
However, the new meaning of this "word" was inculcated into the youth and impressed into the conscience of the masses along with the "new morality" with the assumption that "pornography" doesn't simply define sexually explicit items, but causes moral repulsion (obscenity) and a sense of inadmissibility (licentiousness) towards erotic pleasure. Both these fuzzy adjectives were purposely added to the official definition of pornography in order to support the "sex-o-phobic," intolerant attitude of the Restoration Church.
The new entry was then translated verbatim and added to the English Victorian dictionary, and soon thereafter to all other European dictionaries. For the next 120 years pornography remained linked to obscenity and to any negative connotation that anyone felt free to attach to the word.
A quite different destiny than what its author ever intended.
* * *
In the early 1960s the world was in turmoil. The smell of revolution‹any revolution‹was pervasive.
The young generation was embracing the culture of Sex, Drugs and Rock n' Roll. Hugh Hefner's "Playboy" and Bob Guccione's "Penthouse" titillated mainstream public with slick pictures of gorgeous semi-nude women. On the scientific foundations provided by Freud, Reich and the Kinsey Report, sexuality was coming out of the closet and still no one had dared to challenge the old repressive laws which prevented artists, film makers and publishers to produce realistic, explicit images of sex in the context of arousing entertainment.
Most people didn't even know the word pornography existed. Some limited editions of classic erotica, mostly drawings and prints made before World War II, were only cherished by elite collectors. A few, scattered publishers in Europe and America, fearful of being jailed for production or even possession of "obscene" material, operated small illegal porn businesses from fetid basements or squalid hideaways. Result: poorly-photographed, insignificant products portraying unattractive people in the nude, engaged in basic sexual positions. A few clients were buying this stuff under the counter from a few bookstores or newsstands, mostly in Paris, Hamburg, Amsterdam and New York.
Bootleggers, thieves and pimps patching together "porn" products with nothing else in mind than making a few extra bucks, reduced pornography to the lowest possible level. They rightfully feared that legalization could creat competition, not only by number of rivals, but by higher, more expensive quality products beyond their means.
In 1961, a multilingual European law student who enjoyed diplomatic immunity and was endowed with a vast international culture and a solid attraction for sexy women, embarked with all his energy in a secret mission: change the old-fashioned morals which forbid people to approach sexuality with an open mind by producing and distributing appealing, modern, well-designed sexually explicit products, and promote the legalization of pornography‹in Northern Europe first, then in the USA and finally around the world.
This was not an easy task, but a necessary revolutionary step, nonetheless.
In the years 1962/1965, in association with two Belgian publishers, he produced porno novels; he imported from Scandinavia various nude magazines, and published the first of his magazines with his own photographs shot in Paris of naughty girls exposing their hairy genitals without any inhibition. Meanwhile, he travelled Europe with diplomatic immunity‹meaning he could not be stopped and searched‹and introduced his products to hundreds of bookstores, enticing their owners or managers (who never saw anything like that before) with the prospect of making more money.
Through his numerous connections, in 1964, the European "secret diplomat of pornography" had the chance to meet a young member of the Danish Parliament. This member was a social-democrat who understood the social damage provoked by censorship on sexual matters. Together they formed a political strategy to provoke a historical change in the Danish censorship law and it was implemented from 1965 to 1969. After finishing Law School, the "diplomat" started making short porn movies in 1966. He created a series of highly transgressive but lavishly produced short sex-films in color that were to become famous all over the world.
Meanwhile, in 1967, he organized the world's first mail order business with pornography in Stockholm; he built the first porno-lab in the world to mass-produce his own 8mm color copies in 1968; he designed and printed the first full-color boxes ever made for porn movies, and advertised his works with the slogan "Pornography is beautiful!" As he was the first international entrepreneur of modern pornography, he became known to the press as Lasse Braun‹name chosen for the initials LB = LiBerty & LiBido‹and was the first man on the Earth to be named "King of Pornography" by the international press.
The relentless efforts of the former law student paid off. Through his growing international mail order clientele LB raised the financial means to take the revolution further ahead; and masterminded the last phase of the struggle for legalization in Denmark with the Danish Member of Parliament and with a precious ally, Danish publisher and sex-shop owner Leo Madsen‹a man of vision who was instrumental in keeping the pressure of freedom upon local authorities.
In June 1969, the results came about. They were beyond the wildest dreams of anyone involved. For the first time in the history of mankind, a legally elected parliament of a highly civilized country legalized sexually explicit images! Hard-core photographs, sex drawings and movies could be produced, published and distributed without any fear of arrest and judicial consequences!
Pornography was free at last! The representation of human sexual behavior wasn't a crime any longer! It happened totally unexpected in a small country‹Denmark‹slightly larger than the state of Rhode Island. Only 4.5 million inhabitants. But what a lesson of modern civilization! Never forget about the Danes! Never forget the date of that final vote: June 4th, 1969!
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The Danish sex earthquake was perceived all over the planet. Scandinavian pornographers sprung out like mushrooms after the rain. With no police harassing the producers of pornography, technical quality increased. Production made a huge leap forwards.
From all neighboring countries bootleggers flocked to Copenhagen. Journalists as well. They had to write about the new phenomenon. Everywhere in the world the public was eager to know. How did the Danes dare to do this? What about morality? Was it the end of an era? Of course, it was. 45 days after the historic vote of the Danish parliament, Apollo XI landed the first man on the moon. A small step for a man... In a short time the world changed. Along with a peek on the moon, the people had a peek on something much closer and available to every human being: S.E.X. = Sensual Erotic Xperience.
Yet, despite the ensuing success of the Sexual Revolution and the virtual abolition of censorship on sexual matters in Europe and the Americas, the all-powerful coalition of political conservatives, organized religions and major corporate institutions in charge of "the system" didn't give up. How could they? How could they relinquish their grip on the people's bodies, minds and souls by allowing the propagation of S.E.X. through the appalling and appealing slogan "Pornography is beautiful!"? Fearing that the revolution could seriously attack the 3Ms‹Monotheism, Monogamy, Monopoly‹they had to react pretty quickly. Having promoted for 120 years the slogan "Pornography is obscene!" they used their total control of the media, the legislative, the judiciary, the school and even the job system to reduce and circumscribe the impact of sexual liberation.
They kept repeating the same tired old tune in the ears of the vulnerable, powerless brains already lobotomized by several centuries of sexual repression, and infused them over and over again with the usual propaganda: pornography is disgusting; sex is a sin; sex is bad; sex is wrong; good people don't do it; proper people get married and do it once in a while solely with their spouses and only for procreation; womanizers, homosexuals, swingers, prostitutes and pornographers are a bunch of moral criminals; abortion is a murder; abstinence is the only way to heaven... and so on.
Besides Lasse Braun and Leo Madsen, only a few exceptional individuals publicly fought with honor and courage against censorship and sexual repression in their own countries‹notably the great Reuben Sturman (with whom LB formed a profitable alliance and a life-long friendship,) the exuberant Mitchell Brothers, and later the indomitable Larry Flint in the USA; the resolute, clear-minded Beate Uhse in Germany; and the articulate, debonair Monsieur Mishkind in France. All the other pornographers of the Seventies went about building successful businesses on personal ambition with no concern for the cultural significance of what they were doing, nor with any real interest for S.E.X. They only used pornography‹"the word"‹because it was commercially useful to depict real, explicit images of aroused genitals in every possible combination. Most of them were even proud to produce "obscenities" and happily called themselves "purveyors of filth."
On the other hand, the Swede Bert Milton of "Private," in the first issues of his girls-only magazine (years 1968/1970) refused to publish any sexual intercourse; then, when he had to follow the new trend of the Seventies, he eventually photographed some of his girls having sex with men or women, but he rejected the word "pornography" and defined his publication as "erotography."
"The word" that sounded fresh, witty and exciting to Restif, Lasse Braun, Leo Madsen and Rueben Sturman was overwhelmingly dismissed by other pornographers in order to legitimize their personal business and to avoid legal troubles and the scorn from friends and family.
As a matter of fact, "the system" viciously advertised "the word" as "child pornography," propagating through the media the idea that pornography was an evil, abusive monstrosity, exclusively profiting maniacs and criminals intent on harming the innocence of all children. A slim minority of the lawbreakers did that too, but everyone knew that the majority of pornographers had nothing to do with it. Nevertheless, while the real pornographers distanced themselves from minors, the venom of "child pornography" spread from the media to the masses.
At the height of the Sexual Revolution of the Seventies, porn movies were called "Adult" or "XXX-rated" by producers and distributors, while "the system" continued to call them "pornographic," with the obvious purpose to link any representation of human sexual behavior with "child pornography," and immorality.
Feminists lead by unattractive women publicly shouted: "Pornographers are terrorists!" They divulged the asinine idea that pornography actually "degrades" women. This was to say that young women didn't really like making love; healthy girls didn't need to do it on every possible occasion; it wasn't in any woman's natural right to do so with as many lovers they wished; and to show women doing all those things that women were happily doing in those sex movies was actually "degrading" all women!
But since the rational mind has rarely any control over the emotional zeal of humorless, deranged demagogues, the cultural battle to restore the original snobbish, amusing meaning of "the word" came quickly to an end. The system exploited the AIDS scare to the fullest and the Sexual Revolution came to an end as well.
With zero contributions from any pornographer‹all were quite busy in making money, buying Rolls Royces, playing golf, building villas in Mallorca, or fighting for market supremacy, proudly declaring themselves businessmen who were uninterested in culture‹any chance for pornography to develop into something more meaningful than a way to make easy profits was at best, very slim.
The new generation of pornographers of the Nineties, have no idea about the origin of "the word" nor any interest in its history. There is actually no trace of the word pornography in any of the hundred advertising pages published in the May 1999 issue of the AVN, the exploitative, poorly motivated monthly magazine containing virtually all the advertisement of the so-called American Adult Industry. In over 256 pages filled with all sorts of 4-color ads there is no more than one mention each of "Porn," "Pornstar," "Gay Porn," and "e-Porn" plus a video titled "Pornological 2". Following Milton's example in the Seventies, hundreds of "pornographers" advertise their products as "adult entertainment," "explicit erotica," "XXX videos," and other euphemisms.
Today, the connotation of "the word" is still as bad, obscene, disgusting, sinful, degrading, and illicit as it was before the last Sexual Revolution. Perhaps, in the so-called Third Millennium, some more courageous people will pick up the torch and lead another revolution to a resounding victory.
If anything can be learned from past mistakes, the new "Rebels of the Years 2000s" should never wage a defensive war on behalf of pornography. Attack censorship because you're right! Attack because sex is wonderful, mystical and invigorating in every circumstance! Attack right at the core of the 3Ms! Demand the full and perpetual separation of Church and State! Leave the calls to the single "God" to the priests and keep them contained in their churches! Don't let them use the public judiciary system and the police to impose their single God's "commandments" over the people! Demand that for every dollar spent to promote anti-sex stories and ideas there must be equal dollars given to the promoters of sexual liberation. Support the ancient Gods! Spread their wonderful mythology through pamphlets enclosed with the sex products along with the Manifesto of the New Revolution!
Demand total freedom and respect for prostitution! Abolish the laws imposing "monogamous marriage" as the sole socially respectable choice available to the people! Spread the revolution to the teenagers, and demand that the "age of consent" be lowered to 14 years! Never give up supporting the word pornography and build a monument to Restif de La Bretonne in every city!
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TOP
APPENDIX #2
DISCREPANCIES WITH ANCIENT AND MODERN CALENDARS
In the first page of LADY CALIGULA you'll read the exact date when the story begins.
I first wrote the year in Roman numerals for they've been in use in Europe until the year 999 CE when Pope Sylvester II ordered all numbers to be changed into Arab numerals‹much easier to write and definitively more practical.
Nevertheless, by writing the year in Roman numerals DCCXC = 790, followed by the Latin words "ab Urbe condita" (abbrev. aUc; transl. "From the Foundation of Rome") I intended to enlighten the reader on how ancient Romans numbered the years in their official documents.
After some thoughts about the opportunity to define that year according to the Christian year calendar, I've added 37 CE (CE = Common Era, also known as AD = Anno Domini = In the Year of the Lord) in order to facilitate readers' perception of the historical period, which is now commonly referred to with Christian year numbers.
My reluctance in translating the correct Roman years of the events into their modern Christian counterparts is not a simple exercise in futility. The Roman years have been turned into Christian years starting around the year MCCCVIII (= 1308 aUc = 555 CE aka AD 555.) That was about 70 years after Rome and the Roman Empire of the West "fell" to barbarian invaders, who progressively assimilated Roman civilization and life-style into their own. Meanwhile, the Roman Empire of the East (aka Roman Byzantine Empire, with capital in Byzantium aka Constantinopolis aka Istanbul in modern Turkey) continued Roman rule in southeast Europe, Turkey, the Middle-East and Egypt.
Some 230 years before the change of dates, around the year MLXXVIII (= 1078 aUc = 325 CE aka AD 325,) when Rome was still the capital of a united Roman Empire, a new monotheistic religion‹Christianity‹derived from the 15-century-old Jewish monotheistic faith, was legalized by Roman Emperor, Constantine. The new religion began to thrive among a myriad of ancient cults devoted to a huge number of Gods and Goddesses of the Greco-Roman mythology along with all sorts of exotic religions from all over the Empire including Judaism‹traditionally reserved to the Hebrew people.
After Constantine's death, the new Christian clergy became progressively more aggressive and spread their doctrine among the vast Roman bureaucracy. Eventually, the zeal of some bishops converted to monotheism some of Constantine's successors, such as Emperor Theodosius, called Theodosious the Great by Christian historians. As a matter of fact this man forbade the cult of the ancient Gods in the year MCXXXXIV (= 1144 aUc = 391 CE aka AD 391,) and made Christianity the sole official religion of the Roman State. Then he cancelled the Olympic Games, which have been held in Olympia, Greece for more than a millennia, because they were dedicated to the great God Zeus, called Jupiter by the Romans.
This turnabout wasn't really inspired by any sudden revelation of the punishing Judeo-Christian God. The motive was rather based on profit. By gaining total control on the people through a single, dogmatic, menacing creed, the Emperors had a perfect excuse to destroy the thousand temples of the ancient Gods and plunder their enormous millennial riches.
* * *
In that fateful year MCCCVIII (= 1308 aUc = 555 CE aka AD 555) a Christian monk called Dionysus Exiguus (Exiguus = the Short) proposed to Christian Roman Byzantine Emperor Justinian to honor the birth date of the fabled Messiah of Christianity, Joshua of Nazareth, aka Jesus Christ, by changing the year count of the Roman calendar, and start the year numeration from the alleged date of birth of the Christian prophet whom Dionysus the Short‹without any shred of proof whatsoever‹believed was born in the year DCCLIII (= 753) ab Urbe condita, during the reign of Emperor Augustus, successor of Julius Caesar.
Since the opposition to the destruction of the great temples and cults of the past was still quite strong among all peoples of the Roman Empire, a new dating system based on Christian dogmas imposed with the force of Imperial authority and arms upon everyone, would serve both the policy and the Treasury of Emperor Justinian.
Now realizing that by using such a far-reaching artifice he could deliver a definitive blow to the mythological religious beliefs of his citizens, Justinian charged Dionysus the Short with the humongous task of doctoring all documents and history records, and turn all dates into BC = Before Christ, and AD = Anno Domini = in the Year of the Lord, that is after the birth of Jesus Christ.
Now use your imagination. Think about what it means, without computers, to turn the year 753 aUc into the year AD 1 and turn all prior years backwards into 1 BC, 2 BC, 3 BC..., and change the years from 753 to 1308 into AD 1, AD 2, AD 3....
Think about these additional complications: (a) get thousands of bureaucrats in thousands offices scattered all over the Empire to change the dates on thousands of ancient documents; (b) use bulky Roman numerals absolutely impractical for mathematical calculations; (c) change the dates of the myriad of documents where the years weren't even written according to Roman calendar, but they were indicated in reference to the reign of certain kings, or mentioned in connection with events of dubious dates such as "sixty six years after the birth of Pharaoh Ramses II", or "in the year of the third Consulate of Pompey the Great" or "in the ninth year of the reign of King Herod of Judaea," or "in the year CCCX (310) from the birth of Emperor Diocletian," with this last reference (corresponding to MCCCVIII = 1308 aUc = 555 CE aka AD 555) still widespread in the time of Justinian. (d) define these names in a time when the same name (Ramses or Herod, Caesar or Cleopatra, etc,) was used by predecessors or successors without any indication of numbers such as the first, the second, the third and so on‹being these references added in later times; (e) compare documents of various nature (tablets, inscriptions, papyruses, parchments, etc.) which might already have been doctored or forged for various reasons; (f) change all Roman numerals into Arab ones after the year DCCCCIC (aka IM) = 999 CE when pope Sylvester II ordered the use of Arab numerals; (g) define the exact date of birth of Jesus Christ, which is now widely confuted along with the alleged historical existence of the Christian Messiah himself.
The confusion, the mistakes, the disputes were absolutely mind-blowing.
Some modern scholars found discrepancies of various decades between events and probable dates, and others are claiming that here and there a couple of centuries are entirely missing! Just as an example of disagreements about dates, Julius Caesar's famous "crossing of the Rubicon" (a date that changed the course or history!) is dated not only on December 16th, 50 BCE (as I believe it's right) but also on January 10th or 11th, 49 BCE! And even the date of the momentous calendar change made by Dionysus the Short is dated by some scholars on the year 555 CE and by others on 533 CE. This last discrepancy is probably due to the similarity of the Arab numerals 3 and 5, which were later used to define all years BC/BCE and AD/CE, or to some disagreements over the Diocletian's birth date.
While the use of Arab numerals is certainly an improvement, the change of the Roman years didn't serve any other purpose than imposing the particular, restrictive Christian faith and impress it into the conscience of the people with the force of Imperial police and torture. However, the work of Dionysus the Short and his scribes‹which continued after the death of the monk who started the whole mess‹had at least the positive effect to unify the dates of history into a single calendar system that eventually became clearer after the adoption of Arab numerals.
Nevertheless, bear in mind that the actual Christian year calendar, which is now universally employed even among ethnic groups or countries such as Israel, India, Japan and China, where traditional calendars are still in use, doesn't deliver absolute certainty for what concerns the years of antiquity before the year 1000 CE. We should consider it only as a simple conventional framework to facilitate historical references.
Under these premises, I've also adopted most of the commonly accepted historical dates of the Christian year calendar, despite my profound disagreement with the authoritarian, totalitarian imposition of this faith derived from historically unsubstantiated legends, and despite many discrepancies that I found between Ancient and Modern Calendar on the dates of several events of the times of Caligula.
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