SPQR by Mary Beard

 

I have just finished Mary Beard’s SPQR. I have just started Susan Sontag’s Against Interpretation. The connection? Susan Sontag’s essay deals momentarily with the relation, if any, between form and content. She seems wary of the concept of form, seeing it often subservient to content. Perhaps the confusion is mine, since it may be the argument, rather than form, that stands out. More on this later.

SPQR is, put simply, an overview of the origins and the rise of Rome, from fabled Trojan settlement to Empire. It charts the growth of the state, from a probably mythical wattle and daub hut to an empire built of marble, from its assumed foundation in the middle of the eighth century BCE, as far as Caracalla’s offer of Roman citizenship in 212 CE. This is roughly, as the author labels it, Rome’s first millennium.

Remembering my first paragraph, it’s the form that Mary Beard imposes upon her work that makes the book’s argument. A less inventive mind would have started at the city’s foundation and progressed chronologically. Mary Beard profitably avoids this approach by beginning with the confrontation between Scipio and Catiline in the first century BCE, conveniently just over half-way through the author’s chosen era.

Catiline had led a revolt, not the first, or last, or most bloody, or most successful, against the established authority of the republic. The kings were already long gone, and the emperors has yet to assume their status. But the confrontation between the brilliant but rather condescending Scipio and the brash, brutal aristocratic chancer that was Catiline provides a starting point for an author who wants to stress what she defines as the essential cultural and political characteristics that can frame the reader’s understanding of this vast imperial achievement. For Mary Beard, this trial before the Senate symbolizes a couple of basic ideas that she uses as a cement to bind the various courses of the city’s history. These are the continual struggle for power alongside the surprising, for the uninitiated, but consistent, tendency for the Roman state to accommodate new ideas, new values, new religions and new citizens from those peoples it conquered.

The struggle for power was perpetual and ruthless. There were no rules apart from the winner took all, and then suffered the continual neurosis of how to hold on to it. Starting with the perhaps mythical fratricide that founded the city when Romulus killed Remus, ruling families or elites internally turned on themselves and one another to secure a hold on power. This is nothing special. Any visitor to Istanbul will vividly recall the rows of miniature coffins that were displayed when newly enthroned sultans disposed of their siblings to reduce potential competition. But Rome was, at least in extent, rather different, since it morphed from local warlords, perhaps, through kings, to republican presidents, in all but name, and then finally to emperors. Each manifestation of power brought its own kinds of struggle, but eventually struggles they all were, and usually involved eliminating the competition. The names and roles may have changed, but the methodology did not. You killed your way into power and killed to maintain it. There were, of course, exceptions.

The second characteristic that Mary Beard uses to create the form and thereby the content of this history is the Roman propensity for assimilation. This began with the rape of the Sabine women. Myth, perhaps, cites a shortage of breeding-age females amongst the early settlers, so what better way to obviate the problem than embark on the cattle raid? The logic, if that be the word, is quite simple. I do not have cows. My neighbour has cows, so I will steal them. It’s the same with women, it seems, and the booty seems to share the same status as the booty from a cattle raid.

But what ensues is change. There is inevitably a clash of culture that leads to accommodation and assimilation, resulting in complications of culture via marriage, albeit a marriage in chains. This process, argues the author, became a characteristic of Rome, in that kingdoms and peoples subjugated by force were culturally assimilated by Rome, and not necessarily destroyed by it. Indeed, some aspects of the defeated culture, such as their religions, were transported back to the centre, where they gained pragmatic adherents eager to try anything that might offer a competitive leg up. And it is this constant ability to change via assimilation that forms the second strand that gives form to this wonderful work.

But why finish with Caracalla, when the Roman empire endured for more than another century after his demise? Mary Beard is clear about this. It was Caracalla’s granting of Roman citizenship to all free men in the empire that change things. Until then the differences in status between men and women, between citizens and classes, between free men and slaves, between military and civilian that had set the boundaries on Roman life, boundaries that were admittedly fluid by virtue of people’s ability to be on either side and to change their relative status, gender apart. Mary Beard thus makes the case for the later years of the empire representing a different historical reality and thus warranting a different treatment. This change became even more apparent when the state adopted Christianity, which would brook no alternative and led to the conscious exclusion of further assimilation.

Mary Beard does offer the reader much detail. But her insistence on setting events in their wider political and cultural context really does clarify a bigger picture which then starts to reveal inter-related detail. By the end of SPQR, we fell we have been there.

In conclusion, Mary Beard warns against importing perceived values or solutions across the centuries in the belief that they might have relevance to contemporary society. Not only do we not really understand the values of this ancient age, nor do we really have sufficient material to be certain about anything. Rome did exist and is therefore worthy of study, but its example is relevant only to the furtherance of that specific study.

Form and content thus come together to create, in Mary Beard’s hands, a stunning, brilliant book that provides context, observation and profound insight into Roman history. It’s a book that only could have been written by someone who has both brilliant communication skills and perhaps unsurpassed in knowledge of her subject. This book is not recommended reading: it is nothing less than essential.

SPQR by Mary Beard

I have just finished Mary Beard’s SPQR. I have just started Susan Sontag’s Against Interpretation. The connection? Susan Sontag’s essay deals momentarily with the relation, if any, between form and content. She seems wary of the concept of form, seeing it often subservient to content. Perhaps the confusion is mine, since it may be the argument, rather than form, that stands out. More on this later.

SPQR is, put simply, an overview of the origins and the rise of Rome, from fabled Trojan settlement to Empire. It charts the growth of the state, from a probably mythical wattle and daub hut to an empire built of marble, from its assumed foundation in the middle of the eighth century BCE, as far as Caracalla’s offer of Roman citizenship in 212 CE. This is roughly, as the author labels it, Rome’s first millennium.

Remembering my first paragraph, it’s the form that Mary Beard imposes upon her work that makes the book’s argument. A less inventive mind would have started at the city’s foundation and progressed chronologically. Mary Beard profitably avoids this approach by beginning with the confrontation between Scipio and Catiline in the first century BCE, conveniently just over half-way through the author’s chosen era.

Catiline had led a revolt, not the first, or last, or most bloody, or most successful, against the established authority of the republic. The kings were already long gone, and the emperors has yet to assume their status. But the confrontation between the brilliant but rather condescending Scipio and the brash, brutal aristocratic chancer that was Catiline provides a starting point for an author who wants to stress what she defines as the essential cultural and political characteristics that can frame the reader’s understanding of this vast imperial achievement. For Mary Beard, this trial before the Senate symbolizes a couple of basic ideas that she uses as a cement to bind the various courses of the city’s history. These are the continual struggle for power alongside the surprising, for the uninitiated, but consistent, tendency for the Roman state to accommodate new ideas, new values, new religions and new citizens from those peoples it conquered.

The struggle for power was perpetual and ruthless. There were no rules apart from the winner took all, and then suffered the continual neurosis of how to hold on to it. Starting with the perhaps mythical fratricide that founded the city when Romulus killed Remus, ruling families or elites internally turned on themselves and one another to secure a hold on power. This is nothing special. Any visitor to Istanbul will vividly recall the rows of miniature coffins that were displayed when newly enthroned sultans disposed of their siblings to reduce potential competition. But Rome was, at least in extent, rather different, since it morphed from local warlords, perhaps, through kings, to republican presidents, in all but name, and then finally to emperors. Each manifestation of power brought its own kinds of struggle, but eventually struggles they all were, and usually involved eliminating the competition. The names and roles may have changed, but the methodology did not. You killed your way into power and killed to maintain it. There were, of course, exceptions.

The second characteristic that Mary Beard uses to create the form and thereby the content of this history is the Roman propensity for assimilation. This began with the rape of the Sabine women. Myth, perhaps, cites a shortage of breeding-age females amongst the early settlers, so what better way to obviate the problem than embark on the cattle raid? The logic, if that be the word, is quite simple. I do not have cows. My neighbour has cows, so I will steal them. It’s the same with women, it seems, and the booty seems to share the same status as the booty from a cattle raid.

But what ensues is change. There is inevitably a clash of culture that leads to accommodation and assimilation, resulting in complications of culture via marriage, albeit a marriage in chains. This process, argues the author, became a characteristic of Rome, in that kingdoms and peoples subjugated by force were culturally assimilated by Rome, and not necessarily destroyed by it. Indeed, some aspects of the defeated culture, such as their religions, were transported back to the centre, where they gained pragmatic adherents eager to try anything that might offer a competitive leg up. And it is this constant ability to change via assimilation that forms the second strand that gives form to this wonderful work.

But why finish with Caracalla, when the Roman empire endured for more than another century after his demise? Mary Beard is clear about this. It was Caracalla’s granting of Roman citizenship to all free men in the empire that change things. Until then the differences in status between men and women, between citizens and classes, between free men and slaves, between military and civilian that had set the boundaries on Roman life, boundaries that were admittedly fluid by virtue of people’s ability to be on either side and to change their relative status, gender apart. Mary Beard thus makes the case for the later years of the empire representing a different historical reality and thus warranting a different treatment. This change became even more apparent when the state adopted Christianity, which would brook no alternative and led to the conscious exclusion of further assimilation.

Mary Beard does offer the reader much detail. But her insistence on setting events in their wider political and cultural context really does clarify a bigger picture which then starts to reveal inter-related detail. By the end of SPQR, we fell we have been there.

In conclusion, Mary Beard warns against importing perceived values or solutions across the centuries in the belief that they might have relevance to contemporary society. Not only do we not really understand the values of this ancient age, nor do we really have sufficient material to be certain about anything. Rome did exist and is therefore worthy of study, but its example is relevant only to the furtherance of that specific study.

Form and content thus come together to create, in Mary Beard’s hands, a stunning, brilliant book that provides context, observation and profound insight into Roman history. It’s a book that only could have been written by someone who has both brilliant communication skills and perhaps unsurpassed in knowledge of her subject. This book is not recommended reading: it is nothing less than essential.

Theodoric the Goth: Barbarian Champion of Civilization by Thomas Hodgkin (1897)

The fifth and sixth centuries of the Christian era are often listed as part of what we dismissively label as the “Dark Ages”. These times saw the fall of Rome, repeatedly, and the following centuries that were not well documented, compared to what had gone before. For many of modern mind, this era marks the end of what was assumed to be the civilizing influence of the Roman Empire on the world as it was known. This assumption is immediately challenged by the title of Hodgkin’s provocative and detailed account of the life of Theodoric and his dynasty.

History, when truthfully and fairly examined rather than pre-judged is always more nuanced than populist assumptions allow.  There were not many of Rome’s emperors, especially those from the later years of the empire, that can claim to have done much for civilization. Constantine, of course, two centuries before the period covered by this book had adopted Christianity as the Empire’s official religion and had moved the imperial capital to Byzantium. But on closer examination it can be argued neither of these acts was driven by anything other than pragmatism or perhaps the vanity we still associate with absolute power. For Constantine, Byzantium was simply closer to home than Rome and the iconography of the new religion provided opportunity for political self-promotion in a way that would not offend those who retained previously established beliefs. Early Christian art in the period after Constantine’s adoption of the religion suggest that it was the Emperor, himself, who became the acceptable image of Christ, if perhaps not God. And it was this image that persisted for several centuries before the long-haired, bearded and heavily romanticized image we generally associate with the name became currency.

Anyone who has visited Ravenna knows the artistic achievement of the so-called barbarians. There was perhaps no great innovation in their work, but the very fact that continuity is an identifiable trait again contradicts the populist view that civilization was brought to an end by these sackers of Rome.

It is true that for many decades Theodoric and his dynasty were associated with warfare, power struggles and political intrigue. But was this any different from what had preceded their rule? Probably not very much, not so different from what went before to justify the label “barbarian” that we generally attach to the era.

Hodgkin’s book has much detail, and sometimes that detail is quite hard to assimilate, especially so since many people appear to share names. But reading an account of this era is nothing less than eye-opening for anyone not familiar with the all-important detail that so often contradicts the popular view. The Barbarian Champion of Civilization is thus capable, like all good historical accounts, of challenging these received opinions, encouraging re-evaluation and thus enlightening dark minds in perhaps darker ages.

Thought on The Golden Ass by Apuleius

In her book Pompeii, Mary Beard counsels wisely, saying that no one can read confident, unequivocal significance into anything dug up in an archaeological site, since we do not know if this particular object was representative, a prized possession, rubbish, discarded, lost, cherished or whatever. What, then, is any contemporary reader to make of perhaps the only piece of Latin fiction from ancient Rome to have survived intact? The Golden Ass by Apuleius in its translation by Robert Graves is certainly readable. It is certainly farcical. But does it prove, for instance, that in ancient Rome, it was quite normal for human beings to change into asses? Or that Roman asses write good Latin?

Imagine an age, two millennia hence, when printed words have become irrelevant, since texts can be downloaded, pre-understood, directly into the brain. Suppose an archaeological dig in the remnants of the only twentieth century city to have been discovered unearthed only one book, a novel from the thriller or crime section of an airport bookshop. One wonders what contemporary readers might conclude about a society from millennia past that appeared to be obsessed with doing violence to young women, since that might appear to be a common thread in much pulp fiction. One is reminded of an episode of Star Trek where Kirk and Spock find themselves in a society where everyone dresses and behaves like film-set Chicago gangsters, because once upon a time a spaceship landed there to leave behind a book about Al Capone.

Perhaps we are missing something in the Golden Ass. Perhaps the regular references to different gods held real significance for the ancients that went beyond storytelling. Perhaps… and so what if it did? Our understanding of the text would be no deeper, our ability to read the book would not be enhanced.

What does strike a modern reader is just how much time Lucius, the book’s principle character, spends thinking about and pursuing opportunities for sex. Or perhaps Apuleius’s text survived from a particular section of the bookshop. Despite some obvious differences, what is very interesting about the Golden Ass is just how mundane and even familiar are many of the situations in the sitcom. Human beings to have seem to have very similar weaknesses within these pages from two millennia ago as they do today. And Lucius’s intensely moral destiny is perhaps similar to a Hollywood denouement, where a hero rides stoically into the sunset, eventually proving to be just too pure, too good for this world. Some things do not appear to change.

Mary Beard’s Pompeii

 

Mary Beard’s Pompeii succeeds in several quite different and sometimes surprising ways. This is a guidebook, a history, a survey of social relations, a description of culture and religion, a catalogue and analysis of art, and an archaeological record.  It is also an excellent read, highly informative, enlighteningly descriptive and scrupulously accurate.

Pompeii is a complicated site. At first glance, it may appear to be very simple. One day in 79 AD a coastal town in modern-day Campania, near Naples, which was then at the heart of a Greco-Roman culture, was buried under volcanic ash that spread from the eruption of the nearby Mount Vesuvius. The town was completely destroyed, smothered under metres of ash. The disaster progressed quickly giving the town's inhabitants little chance of escape, let alone a chance to gather their possessions. This naive description might thus suggest that all archaeologists need to do is uncover what the ash buried, and first century life in a Roman town will be revealed.

The reality, however, is somewhat different. The volcano did erupt and did bring about the end of Pompeii. But the town had previously in AD 62 suffered an earthquake, which had damaged many buildings, some of which was still not repaired in AD79. And Pompeii has been excavated many times. Some digs a couple of centuries ago extracted treasures for the titillation of monarchs, before volcanic ash, original construction materials and much of the historical and other material was randomly piled back to fill the holes. On the other hand, some areas have never been excavated and others still wait to be uncovered, but possibly not for the first time. Much work in previous centuries was undocumented, so who would know? Only the finds, and only some of those, were lodged in museums, and the provenance of many of those remains unclear.

Such a complicated history presents tremendous difficulties for modern archaeologists. There are many layers of possible interpretation, many potential complications. A great strength of Mary Beard's book is that she always acknowledges these difficulties and, where simplistic, convenient or fashionable positions might create more attractive copy, consistently she is cautious with her assertions and considered in her conclusions. Refreshingly, where evidence is lacking, contradictory or merely open to interpretation, she usually leaves the matter open, thus allowing the reader to appreciate how hard it is to be definitive about the unknown.

Descriptions of everyday life in the first century AD are in many ways reassuringly familiar, with one significant exception. The modern reader may be rather shocked by how much daily life seems seemed to revolve around sex. But Mary beard does point out several times that this may be an overstatement. One is tempted to imagine how a modern town might be seen, if, once buried and uncovered, all that could be identified were advertising hoardings along a street where the only shop not to be obliterated sold sex toys. Our contemporary lack of knowledge about Pompeii's inhabitants is illustrated by our inability to decide what might have been stored in the terracotta jars that were built into many of the town’s shop fronts. Mary Beard points out that theories they might have contained wine or oil are undermined by the simple fact that terracotta is porous, so it is more likely they contained dry goods. In one shop, a jar may have been a till, because it was found to contain a stash of small coins. But who knows whether the shop’s owner, frightened by a sudden eruption, merely tipped a box of small coins into the jar in a vain attempt to fill the box with more valuable possessions that might be carried?

The area of life that was clearly different in first century AD was that of religion and beliefs. There seemed to be a market in gods, as well as one in goods, and most buildings seem to have paintings or altars dedicated to a panoply of deities, drawn from several different traditions. Whether people did pick and choose, or whether people’s origins or ethnicity dictated allegiance, we simply do not know.

Pompeii clearly did have its own version of mass entertainment, both in theatre and amphitheatre. There was even a famous riot after a disputed contest, where supporters from a nearby town fought with locals. It made regional news. There was also a local language that was not Latin, but we have precious little of its literature.

A concept such a slavery, which in the modern mind is inextricably linked with the trade of recent colonial powers, is yet another aspect of ancient Roman life that is more complicated than contemporary assumptions allow. Mary Beard regularly refers to the complexity of these relationships throughout the text and long before then end we feel we really have learned something about a culture that quite suddenly feels much more distant than a mere couple of millennia.

Mary Beard's Pompeii is a brilliant book that is worth reading in itself. But anyone who has visited or plans to visit the site will find it brings the experience or memory completely to life. It is a comprehensive description of the site and its culture, but makes clear that there are still stones to be turned. Unusually, however, readers who previously might have thought they were well-informed on the history, culture and archaeology of Pompei might just find, after reading this book, that they knew rather less than they thought.

A Reflection On The Annals Of Imperial Rome by Publius Cornelius Tacitus

History changes when it is re-read. The casual reader, as opposed to the historian, always reads history with one eye on the present: there is always comparison at work whenever we reflect on events we assume are faithfully recorded from the past. And this past is not itself fixed, since our appreciation of it has already been formed as an amalgam of contemporary interpretations. On re-reading Tacitus, therefore, the reader is also feeding from lasting impressions formed by Cecil B DeMille, Gladiator, I Claudius. Julius Caesar, Lindsay Davis, Spartacus and Caligula, at least.

But Tacitus set for himself a different task from that which the contemporary reader appreciates, in that he saw himself as merely a recorder, year by year, of the important events that affected the public life of the empire. Tacitus seems largely unconcerned with ordinary people, except where collective opinion bore down on those with power or influence or, indeed, to record where those everyday folk unlucky enough to be left in residence at the end of a siege were summarily slaughtered. Neither, by and large, do slaves figure, except when they are paid or cajoled to act above their pay grade.

Tacitus is interested in emperors, consuls, politicians in general, military leaders, armies, rich socialites and influential foreigners, especially enemies. The Annals of Imperial Rome thus catalogues internal intrigue and external warfare and records how both impinged on a society we continue, despite much of the evidence, to label ‘civilised’.

It was not an age where prisoners were taken, unless they could be sold. Within these pages there is much blood letting, many wars, and some fascinating detail on the myriad ways human beings can set about killing one another. Current horror genres could learn much from Tacitus, since the blend of blood and drama is unrelenting. This was also an age of ceremony, where gods had to be pacified, oracles consulted and diviners believed. Of course, if you chose not to believe the soothsayers, you could always have them killed. Served them right, one supposes. Never deliver a story you think might not be received gratefully. There will always be consequences.

But within these pages ceremony was often the determining factor. It could not be by-passed. And of course, being civilised, Romans maintained respect for the law. Murder, for instance, was always culpable, but when committed by bovver-boy emperors, no doubt tattooed to their little boots, the crime often went unpunished. Towns where only the old, the female and the young remained after siege were of course subjected to mass slaughter, because none of those left could possibly fight back. Just how important constitutional means were to these living gods is illustrated by a fall from grace whose consequence was the elimination of the offender’s entire family, just in case… In a particular case this also meant doing away with a couple of young daughters, but at the last minute an official noted that the law banned the execution of virgins. Not wanting to stand on ceremony, the executioner was invited to rape them first and then carry out his duty. Must do things properly… Presented with the severed head of a rival, offered as proof that instruction have been dutifully carried out, Nero calmly observed that the fellow had started to go grey.

But what also must be borne in mind is that Tacitus, himself, was no contemporary observer. His productive life was more than a generation later than any of the events described in The Annals, whose stories begin half a century earlier than that. So it is possible that the reported sexual acts in public, the free and almost communal use of prostitutes and the general contempt for almost everything below elite status was just exaggeration. It might just be that contemporary mores required a vilification of the past, and that Tacitus was willing to provide it. Pigs, apparently, do fly.

A stunning juxtaposition comes in a comparison of two reported cases. One poor chronicler historian had the cheek to suggest that Brutus and Cassius might not have been all bad, despite their having murdered an emperor. The author, of course, signed his own death sentence. A games promoter, on the other hand, built a stadium that in the event collapsed, killing and maiming thousands. His punishment was a limited exile, the judgment doubt influenced by the fact that it was only the plebs who suffered.

During The Annals, we perhaps begin to wonder why we read history and, indeed, why it is written. By the time we have finished this account, we surely know. The modern country seems to be a feeble invention when compared to the more durable empire, which itself can be remarkably transient. Empires exist to pursue conflict with other empires, usually at the periphery, but with the aim of maintaining stability at the centre, where there is a constant struggle for power. So while plotters were being uncovered and eliminated in Rome, the great external threat at the end of this era came from the Parthian Empire. In anyone does not recall the location of the Parthian Empire, please do check it out. And then re-read history.

Julian by Gore Vidal

When you are born into greatness, you may be forgiven for exhibiting a sense of destiny or an assumption of purpose. When you also find yourself marginalised, you may also be praised for a decision to pursue philosophy and learning alongside religious purity. When the celebrity that is your birthright also suggests that others might prefer you dead, you might be excused for wanting to keep your head down. But then you were born into greatness and had no choice in the matter. Your head is permanently above the parapet. 

 Gore Vidal’s masterpiece of historical fiction works on every level. The Roman emperor Julian is his subject. The novel charts Julian’s origins and early years in the eastern part of the late Roman Empire. He thinks of himself as Greek, never really masters Latin and never willingly expresses himself in it. Neither is he one of those new-fangled Galilean types who espouse a new religion with three gods. No, Julian is a traditionalist, though not because of a propensity for conservatism, but more because the tried and tested has worked for centuries, continues to do so and, crucially, reveals itself to him. Like his own pedigree, the old religion has an identity and record all its own and, alongside that, proven power. He takes this stand despite the habit of conversion, manifest in Constantine’s adoption of the new faith, running in the family. Julian’s form - in the sense of literary form – works with remarkable success and consistency. It is presented as his own journal, jottings toward an intended autobiography. 

But these notes have been pored over by two readers, Libanius and Priscus, both of whom the emperor has known since childhood. Since they are both also teachers, philosophers and advisers, their marginal comments are themselves interesting, enlightening and definitely not to be trusted. The book, thus, is a linear progression through a life, something akin to an autobiography in note form. It describes Julian’s early formation and education in detail and his almost Masonic adoption into the old religion. It captures beautifully how pragmatism must rule, despite the necessity of being faithful to ideology. It relates with great skill how greatness can be thrust upon even a willing recipient, be accepted, and yet be no more than a manifestation of cynical pragmatism. So when Julian is summoned to the status of Caesar, we see immediately that power prefers him on the inside projecting minimally outwards, rather than outside and potentially polluting. 

His changed status warrants a posting to Gaul to clear up the mess left by others less competent, a hospital pass if ever there was one. But Julian astounds all. He succeeds. He has the Midas touch. Everything goes his way and his pragmatism marries itself to opportunism to generate a populist mongrel that fights better, schemes more ruthlessly and thus wins. What it never does, however, is forget its origins. Throughout it remains frugal, thrifty and to the point, the greatness thrust upon it is reinvested towards achieving a greater, but ever-receding glory. Gore Vidal’s Julian thus raises its subject to Augustan status and follows the new leader to the east where he engages Persia and dreams of conquering India. Is this Alexander reborn? What the book does not do – thankfully – is offer detailed descriptions of military matters, since Julian himself has already written on these things elsewhere. This neat ploy keeps the focus of the book on the man, not his exploits. Late sections are in note form only, since the emperor was engaged with his day job of attempted world domination. As historical fiction, 

Julian has it all. It recreates a feeling of the places. It relives decisions and options in a thoroughly convincing way. It fleshes out events with credible, fallible people, despite their occasional god status. Above all, it takes you there. View the book on amazon Julian