I just read The Prince which Niccoló Machiavelli wrote way back in the olden days. It was very interesting. I disagreed with lots of it of course, but it was so ahead of its time. The interesting thing was that it wasn't amoral at all. I'd got the impression that he favoured pursuing power for power's sake, and any means were justified. I think this book is his best known one, and the one which gave us the meaning of the word machiavellian. But it's not nearly as distasteful as I'd expected. It's actually not that different from a lot of what goes on today. He talks about acceptable brutality as a path to stability and peace. And about the "vice" of generosity in a leader.
That's at the core of what people don't like it I think. But he was also describing very different times. I reckon he was in favour of free republics, but thought there was value in making for more efficient autocracies while there were so many of them. I really believe that if his analysis was right, and has been put into practice, then a lot of war would have been avoided.
Lots of it was about military strategy, which is always cool. He talked about the military strategies of all sorts of blokes from 500 BC through to the 1500s AD. The history was really interesting too. I love history. Some of the characters in Gladiator were based on real people. Marcus Aurelius and his son Commodus were real people. They were both quite similar to the characters in the movie, but Marcus Aurelius was killed by his own soldiers. And Commodus was well known for fighting against gladiators in the Colosseum and was a really nasty chap that no one liked. There was also a big famous general guy, called Maximinus, who became emperor. Some people reckon he organised the plot to kill Marcus Aurelius. So maybe the Gladiator character was based on him. It's made me want to go and read some history books. Although history books about the BC bit of the Roman Empire, rather than the Renaissance. The Roman Empire was bloody amazing. It went for a hell of a long time, and survived a lot. It's all so groovy.
gladiator was based on them. yay for distorted historical facts. go for it, read history books! BC was mostly the repulic, and AD the empire. 1st century AD you have lots of in-bred and crazy emperors, so they’re fun to read about, especially caligula and nero. caligula disembowelled his own sister.
happy reading.
Rach / 9:39pm / 5 August 2004