STORIA, SALVE!
The god Thoth-Hermes as a god of written language and magic is a most important deity of Pantheon of Great Gods to me. The ancients reckoned written language to be a magic in a way. I agree with them: writing and reading are a kind of magic for me. La magie blanche.
My beloved Emperor is Hadrian, and not the Emperor Elagabalus, but after I read the book The Life of Antoninus Heliogabalus by Aelius Lampridius (that proved to be unexpectedly simple read, and that I liked, though I’d argue with the author of the book) I’ve written the poem with a working title of “Heliogabalus and others”. It would be interesting to know your opinion about the poem (word for word translation):

The quill paused.
Everyone expected a sequel.
Take courage, beloved Emperor!
They shouted: “Let’s kill him again!”
His silhouette deepened.
The candle-end of consciousness decreased.
“There he is! He who acts”.
Cassocks dance in a ring again.
The footmen change portraits.
“That’s the very one who’s helped us!”
Now we mint his silhouettes.
Laurels, triumphs, victory robes.
New syllables of insight.
Those who were in raptures
changed the object of adoration.
For the former fell into disuse.
The diadem doesn’t fit.
We’ll adapt the head.
A moment of grandeur is evanescent.
Eternity is humans’ oblivion.
And the lowest of the dead know
the awakening in the land of the living.
Everyone expected a sequel,
but the quill paused.

Talking of history, my favorite Roman Emperor in Suetonius’s The Lives of the Twelve Caesars is the Emperor Vitellius; I like the completeness of Vitellius’s nature, and there was the interesting story of his lover Asiaticus; the story may be a wonderful plot of an entertaining novel. In Suetonius’s book there is one emperor I dislike and even hate; it’s Tiberius. The old man was said to kill the children who gave him pleasure. It’s mean.

Talking of literature, while reading ancient authors ( Plato, Martial, Suetonius, Petronius ) I realized that I understand the manner of their writing so much, it is so close to me, to the frame of my mind, to my apprehension. Or perhaps that was a matter of the good translation of their works? May be. And sometimes I feel like arguing with the ancient authors as though they are my contemporaries. Reading as transcendence. While I was reading The Life of Heliogabalus by Aelius Lampridius, it occurred to me: a new book has to be written. An American writer has to write a book of comments to Lampridius’s book, the comments written by the Emperor Elagabalus himself or more truly by his luminous immortal spirit. Imagine: the Emperor Elagabalus’s spirit read Lampridius's book and he disliked it; he had patience for a long while silently, and now he couldn't stand that any loner and he came to a decision to write a refutation, a dementi as it were; may be he was about to do it with the help of a modern day mortal writer, who would do it, taking a dry historical fact and fleshing it out with colour and drama. He comments and we learn what is truth, what are exaggerations, and what are outrageous lies in the book we know. The reader will have much to think about. For, as I think, here and there Lampridius’s book seems to be exactly what’s needed in the current politics conjecture of his time, a kind of blackening reputation of a person who could not reply. Notice: the ‘bloodthirsty beast of antiquity’, young Elagabalus seems to be quite tolerant to ideological opponents of paganism. As Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848–1907) says in his book A Rebours, Tertullian "lived in stormy times, at a period of fearful stress and strain, under Caracalla, under Macrinus, under that amazing personage, the High-Priest of Emessa, Elagabalus; and he had gone on calmly and quietly writing his sermons, composing his dogmatic treatises, preparing his apologies and homilies, while the Roman Empire was tottering to its foundations, while the frantic follies of Asia and the foul vices of Paganism were at their worst; he was preaching with an air of perfect self-possession carnal abstinence, frugality of diet, sobriety of dress at the very moment when, treading on powder of silver and sand of gold, his head crowned with a tiara, his robes studded with precious stones, Elagabalus was at work, among his eunuchs, at women s tasks, calling himself by the title of Empress and every night lying with a new Emperor, selecting him for choice from the ranks of the Court barbers and scullions, or the charioteers from the Circus." The later followers, sympathizers and Christian brothers of Tertullian hardly ever could show a tolerance like that of the High-Priest of Emessa. No doubt, as a hotheaded, effusive crown-bearing boy the Emperor Elagabalus was capable of committing some effusive acts, but there were the ridiculously numerous follies, which Lampridius and others clumsily imputed him, which make me shrug shoulders. Personally I can explain in a positive way at least two of the follies, and an American writer can do it hundredfold better than me. There has to be much humor, irony, self-irony and even bed scenes in the future narration. A delicious concoction. The luminous immortal spirit of the Emperor Elagabalus along with his modern day author has to hold Lampridius and others up to ridicule. The best example (or a paragon?) of a novel as a book of comments is Nabokov’s greatest novel Pale Fire. A new Pale Fire has to be written by an American or a British writer. A British writer is better because the British authors’ irony is killing sometimes.

Epitaph:
“He knew how death hunts at distance; dug his own grave with both hands and heart scornful of mortal childishness. May the Sun of such wisdom shine long beneath the Sun”.

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