Monday, November 30, 2009

Post 188. How to access my subject-dedicated blogs in Blogger.

How   to  access   my   subject-dedicated   blogs  in  Blogger.

(1)Under   'About Me '   click     
' View  my  complete  profile '.

(2).   Scroll  ' Templar ' until   reaching  
' My Blogs ' . 

(3)Click   blog  of   interest-:  i.e.,

Ferrarii  Clan . / Sir  Laurence  Gardner # : A  Study
ferreri   ferrari   ferrer,  ferriere.................. 
theological
poetry






Sunday, November 29, 2009

Post 187. My Book.


Frontpage  of   my  Book.

Please  Note-: To   magnify   keep   '  Ctrl '  (Control )  pressed   and   press   +   on   numeral     quadrant  at   right-hand-side  of   keeboard.  Thank   you.


Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Post 187. Italians' never-ending Lamentations without Solutions.

Follow the link to read the post:
http://www.beppegrillo.it/en/2009/11/helmet_jacket_and_tie.html

Giovanni Favia, Five Star Councillor, and the case of Hera in Bologna.

It’s strange, at times, how you wake up in the morning with some new questions. Questions that even the day before you weren’t even thinking about. And it’s disturbing that those questions are so obvious, radiant, so vivid, that you get so surprised that you had never formulated these questions before.
If a mayor is the indirect cause of the death of hundreds of his citizens through a respiratory disease, is he guilty? Should he be convicted of culpable homicide on many people with aggravating circumstances? If a President of the Lower House signs the Fini-Giovanardi and Fini-Bossi laws and he is allied with Berlusconi, is he a Left-wing President? If a president of Fiat keeps quiet at the moment of getting cash as State aid and after that then speaks up against the short time-frame for the Statute of Limitations, is he the man of tomorrow? If an anti-mafia writer publishes his books with the Mondadori that was purchased with the corruption of judges is that a thing that is right and fitting? Well then why don’t Marco Travaglio or Lirio Abbate do that? If the mafia is in power, is its task to fight the competitors of organised crime that are present in the market? Who authorises a Minister to call the state employees “lazy-bones” when the ones with the top absence records are the Parliamentarians? Why does no one sound the alarm for the Public Debt that is growing at the rhythm of almost a billion a day when it is clear that it will take us into bankruptcy? If a guy has being making “ad personam” laws for fifteen years with complete impunity, is it because they are of use to everyone, even to the presumed Opposition? If Andreotti is “prescritto” {subject to the time limit for the Statute of Limitations} for mafia, why can he stay in Parliament? Is it perhaps a mystery of the Vatican Faith? Will the Fiscal Shield be used by those parliamentarians of the PDminusL who were not present at the moment of the voting? And if that is the case, how can a citizen find out? If a party doesn’t liberate itself from its convicts and it gets them elected to Parliament, is it because those convicts are blackmailing the party leader? If the convicts that are in the first line of closeness to the mafia are elected as senators is it for the votes that they bring with them? If a parliamentarian does two jobs, actor, lawyer, administrator, does he do twice as much filth? Does the money that he takes away from the unemployed take away his sleep? If nuclear is anti-economic who gains? If "Il Fatto Quotidiano" refuses public contributions and just lives on the money from its readers, why are we gifting public money to La Repubblica, Libero and il Corriere della Sera? If throughout the whole world, there’s investment in broadband why has Gianni Letta blocked 800 million euro already approved? If digital terrestrial is of no use, what use is it? If in Italy there is not the crime of torture, then it’s possible to torture Bianzino, Cucchi and a hundred other poor wretches? If D'Addario is still alive and Brenda is dead, is it because the former is protected and the latter has lost her protector?
The last question that arrives when you are still in front of the mirror, the one that definitively ruins your day, is not new, it comes back every morning and you don’t manage to be liberated from it: “Which are filthiest, the Italians or the ones that govern them?” Then you put on your helmet and you go out to face the unknown.
calendario2010.gif The Calendario dei Santi Laici 2010 is available. It can be downloaded for free or purchased in the coffee-table-version at a price that’s up to you.

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 09:09 PM in Wailing Wall


Comment by blogger, censored by the glorious Italian Democratic Republic of Sicilian, Calabrian, Pugliesi and Neapolitan etc. goat-herders!
A good but depressing and angering summary of Italian political wows.
As usual, Democratic Republican Italians CRYING, WAFFLING, WYINGING, CONFESSING AD INFINITUM, AD LIBITUM, as if in a tragic-comic OPERA!, implying........." Look I am the one to elect to power, I am the Saviour-: i.e., Giovanni Favia, Travaglio Beppe Grillo, etc. the Tersites ( see him in Homer's "The Iliad " ) of modern Italy!
Where are the alternative, suitable, trustworthy men or women in Italy today?
Can women join the MAFIA anyway?
How can one fight the MAFIA in today's Italy without joining it, since it is everywhere?
Your only hope, oh Italians, is that the European Union is asked by a National Referendum to operate on the Italian Cancer!
Else..............keep on winging and confessing and waffling you idiots! There is one semantically powerful, wide-ranging word I invented years ago for people like you.......FUCKUMITES................
I am glad I am not living there, else I would murder someone or join the MAFIA in desperation.
It makes me angry to see Italy in the hands of a bunch of shepperds and goat-herders with a slave-like people doing nothing else but talking and censoring comments such as these! Yes, this comment of mine was censored as others were too, by the FUCKUMITES.
I AM SO ANGRY I AM, LIKE JESUS, OR A TALIBAN OR A PALESTINIAN SUICIDE-BOMBER, READY TO DIE FOR ANYTHING, IN PROTEST!
Now I finally understand, contrary to the school-propaganda I was fed at school in Italy during my days as a student there, from 1946 to 1958, why Italy was subjected to foreign powers during its History until some Aristocrats and the Savojas liberated it from foreigners beginning with the Italian Risorgimento in 1848, only to make it the prey, first of FASCISM, then, since the end of WWII, of the local MAFIOSI supported by their Bronx-Gangsters-relatives in the American Army that landed in Sicily.
Someone, even you oh God, please help the poor bastards!

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Post 186. WATER.

Follow the link to read the post:
http://www.beppegrillo.it/en/2009/11/eau_de_paris_merde_ditalie.html

In defence of public water.

In Italy we are always slightly against the flow.
In France, in Paris water will return to being public from 1st January 2010. The mayor, Bertrand Delanoe has not renewed the contracts with the multinationals Veolia and Suez. Water will be managed by a public body called “Eau de Paris”. The saving for the people of Paris will be at least 30 million euro a year.
In Italy, the non-Parliament has transformed into law, a decree that makes public water private. The Ronchi law sets out that the percentage of public capital in the companies that manage water is not more than 30%.
Water is a natural right of man. Not a business. Wherever the management of water has been privatized, its price has gone up, doubled, tripled. Whose is water? It’s ours. It belongs to our towns, our regions. It’s the rain that falls from the sky. The multinationals and the ones who voted for the Ronchi law can go and F*** off. Have they done the law? I will start a referendum to repeal it. The next V-Day will be for water, for our life. In Spring, after the elections. They will never give up (but is it in their interests?). Neither will we.


I’m publishing the text of a telephone interview I gave recently.

Matteo Incerti: "Beppe Grillo, public water is basically in great danger?"
Beppe Grillo: Look, here the tricks, rather than public/private, are in the semantics of what it means to be public and what it means to be private: we have to be very watchful, because the reaction, when you say “we want water to be public”, they say: “but it is public: the water sources are still publicly owned, give the management to the private sector with a 30 /40% public share in the management of it and so what are you grumbling about? Water is still public property and the management is private”. This is the hellish trap because, what determines the market situation, is the one that manages it and not the ownership of the source. They are the pipes, and the distribution of the water. It’s like energy, it’s the same thing: who has the pipes, the wires, has the effective ownership. Another distinction that you have to make is that when a company becomes a corporation and it handles the water for a province, for a town, for a city or for a region, it is subject to takeovers and thus a corporation that manages water can be bought and there’s another situation: that who effectively manages the corporation is not the one with the majority of public/private shares, 49 and 51%, that has nothing to do with who manages the controlling package of shares. Do you remember that “Tronchetti-the-unhappy” managed Telecom with 0-0.8% of ownership of shares? Another thing, the incredible thing is that the corporation has reference points that are not the users of water, but its shareholders and consequently it has to go off and make profits, get the share price going up, sell broken piping, not do repairs, raise the price of water. Where there’s been private management there’s been an increase in the price, there’s been chaos. Water is not only what is drunk, but it’s what is distributed in all senses. We need a substantial reform of the concept of water, how a house is built and thus the water management in the houses with double piping and the recovery of rain water, the water that goes into the washing machines and the dishwashers for the first wash, then goes into the toilet flush, the water in agriculture, where 70% is wasted. 70% of drinking water goes to agriculture, half is wasted with incredible management that is anti-technological. Water is behind any type of energy, anything is done with water, a car needs 400,000 litres, a suit 40,000 litres, a drink of orange 10 litres. There’s always water behind anything, so water is the principal thing, together with energy. It is the energy of the future and it is absolutely necessary that the word “private” disappears from its management, from its ownership and from the word “water”! “Private” and “water” are two oxymorons. They should never meet! Water is public property. It should be publicly managed by a transparent network: any spending on the water system, on the charges and on the increases should be justified to the citizens through the Internet, who can make proposals, take ownership of the charges or have a discussion on the charges, that is a transparent discussion on the prices, on the maintenance, on the real costs together with the citizens. This is the management of the future of water!”

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 10:35 AM in Politics |

Comment by LUIGI PACELLA.

How valuable water is? Today 31 countries are experiencing a water shortage. The World Bank said that by 2025, two-thirds of the world population will be short of clean water. The rush for water is on. Corporations are scrabling to buy water rights, privatize publically owned water systems promote bottled water and sell "bulk" water by transporting it from water rich areas to markets desperate for more water.

Ten years ago, Fortune magazine wrote, "...the dollars at stake are huge. Supplying water to individuals and companies is a 400-billion dollars-a-year industry. That's 40% of the size of the oil sector and one-third larger than global pharmaceuticals. And this is just the beginning..." Johan Bastin, of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development said, "Water is the last infrastructure frontier for private investors."

If that's the case, -and that's the case-, one can understand Silvio's enthusiasm for privatizing water in Italy. A few private individuals will profit big time. And who knows where he fits in all of this. Privatization of water is theft, it will condition democracy, the water flow will be manipulated, rate hiked, service will deteriorate and no one will be accountable.

Economic factors effect other questions. In the case of water privatization the repercussions on human rights are crucial. Water is a resource basic to our very own existence. No water means dehydration and death, no water means less sanitary conditions leading to poor health. The moment prices for water are set, social inequality increases. The poorest that must do with less water, live more difficult lives, lessening their human dignity.


When water is unaffordable and not physically accessable a litany of basic human rights are denied: work first of all, adequate food, good health, enjoyment of cultural life, and the right for future generations to natural resources are all denied. Water must be protected by the state by keeping it under public domain and by passing anti-pollution laws. It must
make sure that water is available to all, especially to people that can't afford it or individuals unable to get to the water source.

Posted by: louis pacella | November 21, 2009 07

Comment by blogger-:

In Sicily the Mafia has always owned water resources.

Post 185. NUCLEAR POWER.

Follow the link to read the post:
http://www.beppegrillo.it/en/2009/11/nuclear_power_will_never_be_ap_1.html

Greenpeace Director, Giuseppe Onufrio, on nuclear power

Nuclear power will never be approved.

There are only two kinds of people that are in favour of nuclear power, namely those who are ill-informed and those that stand to profit from it. There is no such thing as a safe nuclear power station. Not a single insurance company anywhere in the world has ever been willing to insure any nuclear power station. No safe system has yet been discovered for disposing of radioactive waste. Nuclear power is not cheap and the costs involved in the construction, operation and decommissioning of a nuclear power station far exceed the value of the power that it generates. Nuclear power is always paid for by the country’s citizens, either in the form of an extra levy on their utility bills or via their taxes. Nuclear power is generated using Uranium, a limited resource that will be exhausted within the next 50 years. Only 4/5 countries in the world have Uranium deposits, and Italy is not one of them. France, the Country that wants to export its nuclear industry (funded by the Government) to Italy, has already failed in Finland and continues to have nuclear accidents occurring in their own Country. Have you heard enough yet? No? Well then I will carry on. Italians voted against nuclear power in a referendum and it is impossible to go against the will of the people. If someone wanted to build any new power stations, another referendum would have to be held first. A non-Parliament, consisting of non-parliamentarians not elected by the citizens has made a law regarding nuclear power. The only ones that this Government has bothered to consult are Confidustria and Enel. Power from renewable resources has overtaken nuclear power around the world. The United States has decided not to build any more nuclear power stations and is now investing in solar power and wind power. Should any nuclear power station in Italy, let’s say at Trino Vercellese, explode like the Chernobyl plant did, and no one can guarantee that this would never happen, life as we know it would disappear in our Country for tens of thousands of years.
Together with Greenpeace, I am currently going around to the public libraries and schools to explain just how senseless nuclear power really is. Again together with Greenpeace, I have produced a documentary entitled "Terra reloaded", which includes the opinions of renowned global experts, such as Lester Brown and Jeremy Rifkin, with regard to the future of this planet. Any schools that request a copy of this video from the Blog will receive one free of charge.

Interview with Giuseppe Onufrio, Director of Greenpeace Italia.

Giuseppe Onufrio: "In Finland and in France they are busy building these new power stations known as Epr, which are a French design. In this regard, a few months ago we discovered that these power stations have never been approved due to the fact that their emergency systems do not meet the minimum nuclear safety requirements, which are? The emergency system may not be physically located in the same area as the normal operating systems because, in the event of an accident occurring, if one of the systems should fail, then the backup system would also fail.
The first indication came in a letter dated December last year: the Finnish safety authority wrote to the French manufacturer, Areva, complaining about the fact that the people attending the meetings were incompetent with regard to nuclear safety and stating that: “notwithstanding the fact that we ordered you to re-design the emergency system, this has never been done”.
In April, this letter was leaked and Greenpeace lodged a complaint in this regard. In June 2009, the British Nuclear Safety Agency drafted a document, which, in addition to stating that this type of power station, both the French and the American Ap 1000 design manufactured by Westinghouse, would not survive a direct hit in the event of an aircraft crash, also reiterated the Finnish claims, namely that the emergency system does not meet the minimum nuclear safety requirements regarding the independence of the two systems.
On the 15th October, the French Nuclear Safety Agency wrote to the manufacturer, saying the same thing. On the 22nd October, no less than three Nuclear Safety Agencies issued a joint communiqué stating that it would be impossible to approve the current plans for the Epr reactor. Yet the power station is already under construction and our politicians are trying to fool you into believing that we will have a plant that is the epitome of safety while, in reality, both in the country in which the power plant is being built, and in England, which is itself interested in replacing its own ageing power plants with these new ones, they are saying that “The project cannot be approved and it is going to take at least two or three years to get back on track”. Meanwhile, back in Finland, the Finnish Safety Authority has discovered no less than 2,100 non-compliances at the Olkiluoto construction site, where one of the two reactors in question is currently under construction. Furthermore, in October it was discovered that the welds on the power station’s cooling circuit, which constitutes an extremely important safety system, are not up to the required standard and all further work within the plant was halted. This alone should be enough to convince you that the people we are dealing with are trying to sell us something that doesn’t exist! There is another alternative, however, namely to cut our power consumption in Italy by 20%, thereby saving money. Energy saving really is our first option. Generating power from renewable resources and energy savings could provide three times the amount of power supplied by the four nuclear reactors that Enel wants to build. In this way, we could still achieve the European objectives, which would also result in the creation of numerous jobs. In closing, what I would like to say to anyone who is prepared to listen, is that the German renewable energy sector employs more people than their automotive industry, and the German automotive industry is by no means smaller that the Italian one."

Blog: "Why is there so much insensitivity in our Country when it comes to environmental issues?"

Giuseppe Onufrio: "Apparently not! Just today, Eurisko released a ...(off-mike discussion) in any case, the problem lies with the elite of this Country, the financial and political elites, that prefer to not get involved. I would like to remind you that the issue of global warming is a topic that no longer divides the left and the right wing in the major European Countries, but has also become an industrial objective. In Italy, instead, we have an elite that, in the interests of little lobby groups or little private interests, want to put this Country back on the nuclear energy path while, in certain other Countries, the problem is what to do to keep it going. In Italy, someone who is perhaps currently selling steel or cement would like to get into this business. In reality, this elite has no future vision for our Country and, unfortunately, when a Country has no real vision of its own future, then it also has no real vision of a possible future. We believe that the battle is still ongoing and that we can win it, but there is a hard battle ahead of us, so I believe that in Copenhagen, that is unless Copenhagen fails dismally, Italy could play a leading role because there is no shortage of intelligence and ability in this Country. What is lacking is only a vision of a possible future, albeit an industrial one."

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 04:33 PM in Energy |

COMMENT by blogger-:

I wonder why and how, in the present climate and scale of global energetic failure, no one declares excessive procreation illegal and criminal to-day, together with a suggestion and recommendation that no aid of whatsoever type, with the exception of anti-conceptional drugs or devices, be given to anyone not controlling demographic expansion?
With all the available anti-conceptional drugs, devices, know-how, why does not anyone has the guts to tell Moslems, Asians and Africans to stop their criminal fornications without control?
Babies may be beautiful and innocent but, in the long run, excessive, irredsponsible procreation causes wars, famines, treacherous, merciless competitions, water-scarcities, etc.
With regard to energy, including the Nuclear, may I remind the global multitude and majority of Democratic, politically spoiled western Pinocchios, worshippers of rights and freedoms without duties, risks and sacrifices, that the Masters of our New Era, i.e, of Global Warming shall be those who, like China shall hold energetic resources, plenty of water, while others shall have become the new paupers, slaves, peasants, the citizens of Third World Nations, for the fear of keeping pace with and the risks involved with the energetic race?


I have  checked  the   50   years   availability  of  uranium   with  an  Australian   Organisation   and   found  this    may   be   incorrect.   Here is the  answer-:
Hi,

Thanks for asking !

We get this 50 year question a lot, and based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 4th assessment report, the answer is “centuries” !


Feel free to use this link in your blog !

Best regards,

Richard McNeall

cid:image001.png@01CA71E1.E4039220
Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy Australia Inc.
100 The Crescent Cheltenham  NSW  2119
Mob: 0421 059 377
Fax:  (02) 8569 0324




Monday, November 16, 2009

Post 184. Where to Find Incorruptible Trustworthy Italians in Italy or Abroad?

Follow the link to read the post:
http://www.beppegrillo.it/en/2009/11/ive_had_a_gutsfull_of_berlusco_1.html

Can Politically Incorruptible, Trustworthy Italians be found in Italy or Abroad To-day?

"I’ve had a gutsfull of Berlusconi". Say it public, in all the bars and the restaurants. Shout it out loud on the radio and at the traffic lights. Write in to the newspapers, send e-mails to both Italian and International websites, to the e-mail addresses of Deputies and Senators. "I’ve had a gutsfull of Berlusconi". I don’t want to spend my days looking out for the latest Alfano Bill, the latest Ghedini bullshit or the latest legal acquittal of a corruptor. I don’t want to get into yet another discussion on the umpteenth “ad personam” law, or on the way in which democracy is being taken for a ride time and again. I can no longer tolerate these servants that continue to blabber on about reforming the justice system on our television programmes. The kind of people that continue to defend the indefensible and get paid to lie, cover up and howl.
How is it possible that the Italian people, even those whose brains have been turned to mush by the crap on television, don’t get the urge to gag, the urge to vomit when they see the Italian Republic treated like some common whore? Has the Great Corruptor even succeeded in corrupting our consciences? Everything that he has ever laid his hands on throughout his life has become corrupted and has fallen apart. He is the H1N1 that has infected our democracy. The champion of the kind of fake propriety that has turned everyone into a Capezzone clone: from Ratzinger through to Bossi and from Fini through to Bertone. The only exception is D'Alema, who has always been a “capezzone” by nature.
The psychodwarf is a man that is constantly on the run, living a life that is spent running away from court cases, a man who always has a “Plan B” ready and waiting in order to escape the Justice System, then another Plan B and yet another. He has millions of Plan Bs, enough to sink the entire Country. This is a man who allowed topless pictures of Veronica Lario, the mother of three of his children, to be published in “Libero” with her boobs flapping in the breeze, simply because she had the gall to criticise him. A man that uses the media as a shit-spraying fan against anyone who dares stand in his way. Italy deserves far better, we have become the laughingstock of the entire world.
This old man of seventy-four has had his chance, just like the gaggle of henchmen that he has gathered around himself to protect him, henchmen that have managed to infect both the media and our Parliament. Arrogant and ridiculous individuals. Once Berlusconi goes (and go he will), we will have to clear his shit from every barn in Italy. It's going to take take years.
A “heartfelt farewell” celebration for the psychodwarf, to be known as "No B day", has been organised by the Web for the afternoon of 5 December, in piazza della Repubblica in Rome. I will be there. 250.000 other people have already indicated that they will also be there. The Pdwithoutanel has refused the invitation, apparently they prefer collusion to street demonstrations. I invite the Meet up groups to participate and to spread the word about this initiative. They may never give up (is it in their interest?), but neither will we.

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 03:09 PM in Wailing Wall

COMMENT by uploader, Attilio Louis Ferreri-: Can Politically incorruptible, trustworthy Italians be found in Italy or abroad To-day seing that corruption is to-day endemic, a cultural characteristic spread like an infectious desease to the whole of Italy?
O.K. say Berlusconi gets removed. Where can one find incorruptible, trustworthy Italians to replace him and the ocean of Parlamentarians, the Judiciary and the Police etc. the formers being, according to Beppegrillo and Travaglio, one of his most popular reporters, absent from Parliament most of the time? If BeppeGrillo and his associates are saying the truth, this has been going on in Italy since decades even since the end of WWII with the birth of the Italian Republic. It seems to me that the whole system of the Republican Government is just not suitable to the ancient scenario of the Italian culture and of the ethical make-up or history of the truly Italian people. Modern Republican Italy appears to be governed by a large oligarchy of descendents from slaves promoted to freedmen by the Romans, shepperds, goat-herders, mafiosi in general, bent into orientalising Italy.
Consider that even the Melbourne newspaper IL GLOBO in the Italian language does not report on these issues in the way Beppe Grillo and, say, Travaglio do. Why? What is the truth? I know that my Comments to Beppe Grillo's Posts on his website have been censored or refused a print. Who does the censoring? If not Beppegrillo, it seems he may be saying the truth and that the Italian Republic hides the truth. If so then, IL GLOBO should be asked wether it is saying, reporting the truth on Italian affairs. The Australian Government should also become interested as to wether the IL GLOBO is publishing the truth, as it is moulding, educating and influencing the conscience of Italo-Australian voters. The ethical political standards of potential parlamenterians of ethnic origins and affiliations, should also be thorougly scrutinised to avoid the same rot that exists in Italy to infect our Parliament and Political System. In the Global political scenario of the West every nation member showing a corrupted system of government should be investigated and reformed, via a western anti-corruption Commission created for this purpose. One solution to the Italian Dilemma is the Restauration of the Monarchy as a check to the usurpations of power by these mafiosi oligarchists, corruptors of the Italian Democratic ideals and aspirations and of the Goals of the Italian Risorgimento which has been anyway a movement led by the Italian Aristocracy.

Post 183. Jesus Deliver Us from the Italian Rot!

Follow the link to read the post:
http://www.beppegrillo.it/en/2009/11/the_nonparliament_must_be_clos.html

Jesus Deliver Us from the Italian Rot!

The non-Parliament is unconstitutional, it’s a fiction, it does not exist. The non-Parliament must be closed down. It’s a no-place in which the non-elected don’t-go and don’t-discuss the non-laws. The Lower and Upper Houses are “il deserto dei Tartari” {the Desert Steppe}. And the non-elected are also taking us for a ride. Luca Barbareschi, often “on tour” (he has not been seen for 52.95% of the sessions) states: “I couldn’t manage to continue with just the politician’s income” of 23,000 Euro a month. “Mavalà Ghedini” disappeared 3,564 times out of 4,789 (74.42% di absence), followed by Massimo D'Alema: 3,294 out of 4,789 (68.78% absence). And we must not forget Emma Bonino who holds the top position for absence in the Senate: 2,099 out of 2,725 (77.03% absence) (data from openpolis.it). The non-elected non-parliamentarian continues to do his own thing for the whole legislature and can get a double salary after being promoted by the boss in Parliament. Like the unbeatable “Lurch Ghedini” who rakes up private lawyer’s fees and money from being a deputy. The non-Parliament is a no-place because the non-parliamentarians are not there. No citizen has elected anyone. Those that don’t roam around have been taken on by the psycho-dwarf, by Topo Gigio Veltroni, by Casini. They are non-parliamentarians. They never speak. They take orders. They press a button in the Chamber, when they turn up. This is their work, trained monkeys and well paid. A whole non-parliament “appointed” by 6 people. The election law that denies the preference vote has transformed Italy into an oligarchy. No party raises the topic for discussion any more. Their judicial problems, called “reforming the justice system” are more important than restoring the rules of democracy. They don’t even have enough shame to suspend Cosentino as Undersecretary for the Economy. A whole country is held hostage by them.
The non-Parliamentarian is not even capable of discussing non-laws. He only approves decree after decree. Tar Head’s decrees. They are government decrees with corrections expressed by the PDminusL that approves them with the non-presence in the Chamber as happened for the Fiscal Shield. The Senate in two years, has not found the time to discuss the "Parlamento Pulito" {Clean Up Parliament} popular law which was made legitimate with 350,000 signatures. Schifani (second top position in the State, but do you realise where we have got to?) is not interested. He is only the non-President of the Senate with the “amount carried forward”. Fini has suspended the work of the Lower House for 10 days because of the lack of financial resources to cover the non-laws. That’s never happened since the war.
Mussolini threatened to make Parliament a “bivacco di manipoli” {temporary encampment for a handful of soldiers}. The parties have transformed it into an encampment for convicts, of ruffians, of families. Anyone with a minimum of dignity should resign as a parliamentarian. Anyone staying in Parliament is an accomplice to the end of democracy. They will never give up (but is it in their interests?). Neither will we.

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 09:19 PM in Politics



COMMENT-: What can anyone say? We, including the Italians, are fighting in Afghanistan supposedly for Democracy, and for the right/freedom to make and burst Bubbles, but what about the end of Democracy in Italy? Should not Europe and the Free World, if any really exists any longer, intervene in Italy? Are the Talibans and Islam perhaps on the right side, fighting for truth and the right issue that is against western mafias and western corruption trying to corrupt them too? I have also always wondered about
how a small nation such as Italy can afford such a disproportionately vast Parliament. One can see an oceanic expanse of goat-looking heads at Montecitorio, mostly in absentia! And what about an Italian Parlamentarian's remuneration at the rate of 552,000 Australian dollars a year? Does this not appear to be rather excessive and scandalous in a nation i n which spo many are living deprived lives? Is this not rather scandalous? and how comes the glorious Italo-Australian newspaper IL GLOBO is not reporting all these scandalous affairs and issues? Is IL GLOBO perchance supporting the MAFIAs? Should not the Australian Government investigate IL GLOBO in relation to its reportings' credibility, since it is being red by Italo-Australians voters and moulding their political consciences? And ask questions about Beppe-Grillo's veridicity and credibility? ETC.ETC.ETC. AD NAUSEAM?

Post 182. Italian Judiciary Duplicity fit for Mafia!

Follow the link to read the post:
http://www.beppegrillo.it/en/2009/11/berluschino_the_short_marco_tr.html

Again my commiserating Comment was censored. Can anyone think of any praise being possible for such malingering laws being passed in Italy?

Can anyone be so hipocritical and full of duplicity!
Italian Republican Judiciary's Duplicity fit for Mafia!

Text:
Good day to you all. I believe that, with so much talk about the “short trial” and reading in the newspapers, the expression “short trial”, people have not yet really understood what we are talking about: Berlusconi is a publicist. He has a degree in advertising and he did his dissertation on advertising. He has always done publicity and above all for himself and thus, on this front, he’s good. It’s the only front where he excels.

The law on dead trials


Consequently, he has always managed to invent for himself slogans that work, like the “short trial”: in reality we should use its name to refer to it, the trial that is the fruit of the so-called reform of Justice, we should start to call it the “dead trial”, because the average duration of a trail will not get shorter by even a minute, but in fact, this law, by creating my expectation of impunity with the new set up of the Statute of Limitations for the trial, will be an incentive for the defence lawyers to draw out all the substance and aim to get a time out from the Statute of Limitations. I’ll explain: Today the Statute of Limitations is applied to the crime, or to the punishment, in that after a certain period from the moment the crime is committed, the countdown for the Statute of Limitations starts. And thus the defendant accused of that crime can no longer be put on trial. Then there is the Statute of Limitations relating to the punishment: after a certain number of years, if the punishment, … - oops – commissario Basettoni’s helicopter has fallen down – well – it’ll be some kind of sign! After a certain number of years, if the punishment has not been applied, it can no longer be applied, and thus, for example, the one who runs off, gets away with no punishment, unless he is caught in time, he gets away scott free. Now, with this law, we’ve got the Statute of Limitations on the trial, that depends not on when the crime was committed, but from the moment when the defendant was sent for trial: from that moment the time bomb starts ticking, and it explodes after two years at the first level of trial, after two years in the Appeal and after two years in the Court of Cassation. Last week we said , when there was not even the text, - then the text came out on Thursday - that it will work like this: the judges, from the moment of sending the defendant for trial to the moment of the first level verdict, they will have to do all that in 2 years; if one day more goes by , the trial is dead, at the first level, even if the crime was committed two years and two days earlier, that is to say if paradoxically I go - well – let’s say - I go and molest a child today, and tomorrow they catch me and they get me on trial by the fast-track route and then the trial lasts … - they don’t manage to finish it at the first level within two years, I am already ruined – excuse me - the victim is ruined : why? Because they will never get justice and I am safe. Thus it doesn’t matter when the crime was committed, but what counts is how long the judges take to do the three phases of justice: two years for the first level, but not two years from the first to the last hearing, two years from the moment of sending the defendant to trial. It is the G.I. P. who sends the defendant for trial, then he takes all the evidence and at times they need a truck to transport all the bundles of documents, just think of all the trials where there are multiple defendants or of the trials where there are technical consultants, expert witnesses etc. … - they take the documentation, and send it to the Tribunal and the Tribunal then according to the accumulation of delay that there is, fixes the start of the trial from here to who knows when. All this “down-time” is of no interest to this law, from the moment the G.I.P. sends the defendant for trail to the verdict of the judge at the first level no more than two years can go by, otherwise the trial dies there and then, even if the crime was committed two years and two days earlier.

...

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 07:49 PM in Information

Post 181. Australians are pathetic wingers!

Australians are pathetic wingers!

To-day in peasant Australia, a child who has individualistic traits is liable to be labelled as autistic or some other label, by some ex-sheep-shearing grongo with a Degree in Psychology or Psychiatry from Latrobe University...............etc. Last night on TV Rudd and Turnbull were lacrimating for and apologising to the half a million British children brought down toward the end of the WWII when England appeared to be liable to be overwhelmed by Hitler, before the American intervention, an idea in which the great, stoical, historical western giant, yes also sometimes fallible ( as in the debacles of Csetiphont and Gallipoli when he was still in his learning stage), as he was also a great human being, Churchill participated. Both Rudd and Turnbull have not the greatness required to even tie-up Churchills' shoelaces. Why not apologise to Australian soldiers thrown onto impossible targets at Gallipoli without artillery? Being born in Australia is not, I repeat, is not especially to-day, at all a prerequisite or proof of greatness, rather the contrary applying for reasons I cannot get into here. There are plenty of explanations I am afraid. To-day, forgetting the motivation and sacrifice that the British themselves painfully felt at the time, but bore with noble stoicism, a word lackadisiacal Australians do not even know exists, Australia is apologising for and condemning the whole exercise as an act of pure cruelty, the act of a sadistic generation. For what? As for the Australian Aborigenes' so called lost generation, films and records show every good intention and material care extended to these children who were magnificently dressed, housed, fed and educated etc. Yes, in all such large scale exercises involving children, one finds paedophiles, sodomites (sarcophiles ), sadists, abusers of various sorts etc. mixed within those employed to oversee and supervise etc. Even the great Roman Catholic Church has these, owing to its magnitudes of scale and ambition for goodness. So what? If an apology should be made at all, this should be about Australia having transformed these 500,000 British individuals from once stout, stoical, uncompromising "beefeaters' " stock, into pathetic Australian wingers, by their long haired, substance-indulging, morality-bending hippie-like teachers, whose knowlege of history begins at the Eureka Stockade, who ignore the meaning of stoicism and moral duty, always waffling about human rights without duties. It is a matter of statistics. Every statistician knows about the Curve of Population Distribution which invariably, shows that every population of objects and even of a quality such as human beings' intelligence always presents a narrow band of exceptions. In the case of objects in relation to quality control this exception is of the defective objects, in the case of intelligence it is of the geniuses or the supra-normal individuals, if one is looking at useful abnormality ( the genius), referring to the criminals and distorted individuals in the cas e the curve is about defective intelligence. In Australia, in particular one may find a higher concentration of these vermin ( defectives) but this is to be expected as Australia has had, is having, shall have a large number of European rejects, also from other nations as Immigrants. Australia has also got the highest level of tolerance for these vermin-like individuals as well as criminal elements. There is in fact no other Nation in the world where exploitative, abusive, oppressive, corrupting crime and sexual distortions could be more easily controlled due to the absence of overpopulated, ghetto-like, dilapidated, ruinous suburbs as some of the other Metropolis in the world have, in which these vermins take shelter, hide and multiply through the procreation of their own kind. Transparency and knowlege of these individuals is the blessed reality of Australia. Yet one has here the accumulation of a distorted sense of false humanity and compassion that protects and shelters these individuals, ( I suggest that they should be reformed ) these criminals, resulting from a distorted sense of guilt and fellowship that stems from the fact that some anscestors were guilty of these type of crimes and distortions. I wonder, when the Australian Police High Commissioner publicly admits that Australia is unable to defeat crime or reduce or cure sexual distortions, but can only hope to maintain these under a bare minimum of control, wether the same Police, Judiciary and Politicians are not sheltering their own relatives among these groups of anti-Social elements. What I mean is that, we obviously know exactly who and where these people are and live but have so called democratic laws, which require excessive proof of criminal or distorted activity being carried out, so biased in favour of crime as to render our crime-fighting-organisations practically helpless. The danger in this type of scenario is demonstrated by present Repubblican Democratic Italy where Crime is in control, having infiltrated all levels of Government since the end of WWII after the exhile of the Savoja Monarchy. If one adds to the above mentioned crimes, terroristic activities, then the scenario becomes even more frightening and unacceptable. Stoicism for the sake of the Nation and of the Civilisation, for the majority, is required by leaders in so far as these have to be prepared to indite and do something effective about their own ofspring ( if/when criminal or distorted ), relatives, friends, etc. once these are known to be carrying out criminal or distorted activities. Changing moral/ethical definitions is not the solution. Stop the pathetic winging, apologising, and take concerted action you mongrels, else go back to running your waterless farms. And get us Nuclear Energy and unlimited new water so as to maintain and support the increasing population else criminals from desperation shall increase!

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Post 180. "The Law is Equal for All ", is pure unadultered Italian Republican Mafia's crap.

Post 180. "The Law is Equal for All ", is pure unadultered Italian Republican Mafia's crap.
Note-: The uploader's Comment was censored and not posted by the iniquitousn system. A me' Italiani! Alla Riscossa contro la MAFIA Saracenica e puzzolenta!

Posted by Beppe Grillo at 04:20 PM in Wailing Wall.

Follow the link to read the post:
http://www.beppegrillo.it/en/2009/11/giuseppe_uva_yet_another_victi_1.html

This is now the umpteenth youngster who has died in jail. The umpteenth Stefano Cucchi. This time around, in the case of Giuseppe Uva of Varese, they didn't even offer the usual excuses like "He was an addict, a drug dealer, he got what was coming to him". Giuseppe was neither of the two. He was simply drunk and landed up dying because he was showing off. This massacre must stop now. 1531 deaths in ten years in our jails alone, not to mention all the other cases. Federico Aldrovandi died in the street, Riccardo Rasman instead in his own home. The ones that are dying are poor devils, with clean records, the youngsters, the invisible ones. By the end of this year, the "Vittime di Stato" association will be up and running, to help the families affected.

Interview with Giuseppe Uva’s sister and his friend Alberto Bigiogero

Lucia Uva: "I am here with my sister Carmela Uva and one of Giuseppe Uva’s friends, Alberto Bigiogero and I’m here to tell this story, a terrible story that ended very badly: at 3 o’clock in the morning on 14 June 2008, my brother was stopped in the street, together with his friend Bigiogero..."

Alberto Bigiogero: "I was out with Giuseppe Uva on the night between the 14th and the 15th June 2008 when, being somewhat under the influence, we barricaded off a road in Varese, thereby essentially obstructing the traffic in the centre of Varese. When we were stopped by a “Carabinieri” vehicle, Mr. Uva was thrown to the ground and then chucked into the car and punched. I was thrown into a Police vehicle, a squad car and we were taken to the police station in Via Saffi in Varese, where these two policemen, one of whom was a Carabiniere, and his colleagues began to beat the living daylights out of him, right there in the police station, and saying: “your turn is coming”. At which point, the moment I was left alone, I phoned 118, begging them to come and help us because a friend of mine was being beaten, but they said that there was nothing they could do because we were in the police station. Then a man with Asian features arrived, I think he may have been Chinese, carrying what looked like a medical bag, at which point my friend Beppe stopped screaming. I felt extremely relieved because I thought that they had stopped beating him."

Carmela Uva: "I am Giuseppe Uva’s other sister and I received a telephone call regarding him at 7,20 on the morning of 14 June 2008. The first thing I did was to ask “what has happened?”. The person on the other side said “nothing lady. I just wanted to let you know that your brother was found lying in the street and he is in a terrible state”. Except for the fact that this doctor was very insistent and wanted to know whether my brother took any drugs, in other words, was he a drug user. Now, I’m well aware that my brother could have passed for a tramp, in fact they call him “the Tramp” and, out on the streets he could well have done many things, but as far as we are aware, he never did any drugs. So I told this man “look, I will come down there just as soon as I can get ready”. He answered saying “Yes, okay, but you can take your time because he is quiet right now, at the moment he is sedated, there’s no problem”. At that point, this doctor arrived and showed us into his office. I asked him “Excuse me, but where is my brother precisely?”. He said “Well lady, stay calm, he is next door, all…”. “No, no, we want to see him”, “yes, okay”. He led us next door and when we walked into the room, well, all I can tell you is that it was something... He didn’t even look like our brother any more. He was lying there with four pillows under his head and covered by a sheet, a drip in his arm and he was snoring loudly, but it did not sound like any normal snore. Something was clearly wrong…he was close to death. I tried to move closer to him but this doctor stopped me, saying “no, madam, look, don’t go any closer because he is asleep”. I said “Doctor, how can he be asleep like this? Is this normal?” He said “yes, yes, he has been sedated. Don’t worry because by this afternoon, in about three or four hours he will wake up and then you can talk to him as much as you like”. “Ok”, so I said to my sister “Listen, it’s almost midday already, stay calm”. At 11h30, or was it 11h00, they came out and said “madam, please sit down”. I said “Doctor, what is the matter?” Then the other doctor said “we did everything we could for him, even the impossible, but unfortunately even that was not enough”. So I said to the Doctor “Excuse me doctor, but who are you talking about?” He answered “your brother has died”.
My heart sank and I reacted really badly because, after all, one minute they tell you that he is sedated and that he is sleeping, and the next minute they come out and tell you that he died, because his heart gave in. At that moment I was screaming like a mad person. I said to this doctor “that’s impossible, there is no way that he could have died of cardiac arrest, so I demand that an autopsy be done”. They let us see him and when we looked at him, we could see that he had been beaten, he was covered in bruises, I can’t tell you the state he was in ... so my other sister said “excuse me, but what is this swollen bruise? Why is his knee so swollen? Why does he have ...?” The doctor stated that he had got the swollen bruise when the four people jumped on him in an attempt to resuscitate him.

Lucia Uva: "It is now a year and a half that I have been seeking justice. We have been unable to get justice simply because some or other magistrate was not even notified that my brother had died! I have to ask myself how these doctors, good doctors according to all accounts, could have administered Tavor, En and Solfaren to someone who was drunk, four medicines that led to cardiac arrest. This is what they said, we have the report from the doctors, who were placed under investigation. We are appealing to a magistrate to ask that some light be shed on all why Giuseppe had all those bruises, why Giuseppe had so many marks on his body, body blows, a broken nose, his eyes ... blows to his legs, cracked ribs, all the things that have been hushed up. It is said that Giuseppe was high on drugs, a drug dealer, all sorts of things are being said. I had some toxicology tests conducted, which showed that my brother was neither a drug user nor a drug peddler. Doctor Kelly’s findings arrived too late, so my attorney failed to submit them to the Court in time. I arranged for another forensic pathologist from Bologna to check the autopsy findings by looking at all of the photographs of my brother, because even my pathologists feel that another autopsy should be carried out on the body and because every bone in my brother’s body was broken! What makes me angry is that a doctor was prepared to do an autopsy and then report that my brother’s body only displayed some minor abrasions and slight bruising. This attorney messed me around for a year and a half. He must have been in league with the people who told him that the matter should be hushed up, because the police never bothered to question the youngster that was with my son, nor have they ever bothered to call me, nor have we ever received any honest answers. The fist case ended with the doctors being blamed, all okay. Now they’ve opened another criminal case, but the prosecutor has not yet given us permission to come in to examine the case docket, which mentions certain other unknown persons who were involved. They have the names of those who picked him up and those who took him to the police station, they have witness statements, they have everything they need, yet no one knows precisely what happened to Giuseppe! They say that “Giuseppe was shouting, he was possessed, he was beating himself”, but if he had indeed hit himself, even if he had used a stick, I don’t see how he could have massacred his own hand, massacred his own nose and his entire body like that. I don’t believe it because I know my own brother and he was no masochist! What I want to know, from the magistrate that handled the case from the very beginning, is precisely what happened that night. I want the truth and you, Mr. Public Prosecutor, must tell me what that truth is! And the same goes for those family men in uniform who should be protecting us and not beating us to death, because I am certain that, on that fateful night, Giuseppe was beaten to death! And I want to see justice done, justice!! Pino and all the others like him must be allowed to rest, because they need to rest, but not to die in this manner! We also have children, just like you gentlemen in uniform, so tell me, what would you do if one day the same thing should happen to you as what happened to us, that some of your colleagues come across your sons and don’t happen to recognise who they are! I will continue the battle to find out what happened to Giuseppe and all those like him, every last one of them, starting with Stefano and then Federico, Marcello, all these people who are apparently dying of cardiac arrest, I wonder why! I keep asking myself why! I no longer believe in fairy tales. I am 50 years old and I stopped believing in fairy tales when I was 6 years old: I want to know why Giuseppe died!"

lasettimanabanner.jpg

UPLOADER COMMENT: NOT POSTED BY SYSTEM.

Italy and perhaps all the West, badly, urgently needs a Judiciary System and a Police that distinguishes between the average independent individual, who is perhaps stupid, childish, naive, loves to play pranks and to act as a strong person in an unpremeditated way, unarmed, harmless to the State and to Society, and the recruit of organised crime ( of the Mafia-type or the Brigate Rosse-type ), dedicated to carry out orders in a terroristic way, using explosives, sabotage, powerful weapons, powerful systems of communications, electronic communications systems and controls provided and allowed by the extreme wealth of the organised crime that uses him ( her ). For what little we know these powers could eventually, treasonably serve our enemies.
The treatment suffered onto death by these individuals who, although braking the peace and the Law in ways relatively innocuous to the State and to Society, if perhaps insulting and frustrating to our hard-pressed and Law-Rules of Engagement-frustrated-maddened Carabinieri ( let us try to understand these poor bastards too ), when contrasted to those of our Mafiosis ( i.e., the murderers of Falcone Borsellino, Della Chiesa’s etc.), should be reserved by special Laws, defined as Martial or Unti-Terroristic, aimed against those who act on behalf of organised, planned, premeditated Crime. The only choice given them should be information about their Organisation and their accomplices, or death by hanging and the evaluation of their extended families’ complicity, with reulting confiscations of wealth, deprivation from civil rights like voting, etc..
During their apprehension and capture, no Rules of Engagement should apply, execution in the street being allowable at the discretion of the Police ( as the Brazilians do ), when captured with explosives or powerful weapons in their possession or when reacting with unreasonable resistance and having caused the death of a member(s) of the capturing team. We are now at a stage of infiltration by Mafias, when emergency measures ( Martial Law/Unti-Terroristic Law) must be adopted. Normal Civil law to be continued for unpremeditated crime of a non-terroristic nature.
In short the Italian, Democratic, Republican dictum that “ THE LEGGE E’ UGUALE PER TUTTI ” ( “ THE LAW IS THE SAME FOR ALL ” should not be allowed to mean that a uniform legislation should cover all types of crimes ( I understand there is already a difference recognised between a premeditation and a crime of passion, but this should be expanded ) and be allowed to SOPHISTICALLY protect those, like the Mafiosis who have the means to compete with the State, because, in addition to money, they have infiltrated it, or have the power to fill our Police with that fear, desperation and frustration that paranoically drives it to lash out unreasonably against poor bastards, as an illusion and self-delusion that something is being done afterall. These poor bastards become in short the scapegoats or sacrificial victims to a State and its Judiciary that is fellonious, false, irresponsible and criminal.
May God begin punishing the saracenic traitors for generations! Amen!
It also follows that, paradoxically so, unless the system begins distinguishing between the quality of Crimes, by the use of Martial or Unti-Terroristic legislation with Capital Punishment, including Summary Executions, the relatives of these relatively innocuous victims should concentrate in demanding that the Law be indeed equal for all and that Mafiosis be dealt with at least the same severity and fatality ( starting with Sicilian, Calabrian, Pugliesi Police Stations ) these pooor bastards have experienced. We want to see lists of Mafiosis apprehended and beaten to death else I’ll say our Carabinieri, especially the southern ones sent to Northern Italy, are a band of COWARDS who victimise those who cannot retaliate and that these Carabinieri are perhaps they themselves Mafiosis in uniform. So help us God!

Friday, November 13, 2009

Post 178. The Q'uran and the Segregation and Subjugation of Women.

From-: Marco Villa,
Instablogs Team
http://www.instablogs.com


Middle East
1. Iran tested advanced nuclear warhead design
2. Women and children are killed in attacks on starving villagers
3. Another conflict at the heart of Yemen: water crisis
4. What the Hajj Says About Islam
5. Saudi Censorship


The Q'uran and the Segregation and Subjugation of Women.

Saudi Arabia :

The annual pilgrimage to Mecca recently took place. Muslims are required - as part of the Five Pillars - to do the Hajj, as it is known, once in their life if health and money are permitting.

This year, the fear of Swine flu dominated news about the Hajj. Some Arab governments - such as Tunisia - banned their citizens from coming for fear that they would contact the diseases from one or more of the two million pilgrims. Egyptian authorities monitored returning pilgrims for any sign of sickness (Personally, I would have mandated Swine flu shots for any travelers).

Clearly, in such an environment an air born virus can cause a lot of infections:
What the Hajj Says About Islam [LA Times.]

But this photo says more than just that precaution needed to be taken by Hajj pilgrims. It says something about the mixing of men and women in Islam. The original thought isn’t mind, so I’ll quote:

A religion that has men and women perform pilgrimage together did not intend to impose gender segregation in society. In other words, the Hajj, strictly speaking, is against the teachings of Wahhabi Islam. If you read the books of the literary heritage of the Arabs, you know that men and women used to fall in love and have sex during the Hajj.

The new found sexual segregation - which only exists in Saudi Arabia - is an extreme interpretation of Islam. Islam does not create lines of segregation between sexes of any groups of people no matter how defined.

Saudi Arabia claims it is upholding Islamic law throughout the nation, part of that the Saudis claim is sexual segregation. How unfounded and ironic this all seems when the one place Saudi Arabia allows for sex intermixing is in the holiest Mosque of Islam in the holiest city of Islam. Do they not see the irony and the fallacy of their ways?
Tags: Islam, hajj, Hajj Pilgrimage

Uploader's comment-:
This is what I myself mean when I suggest the Q'uran was redacted 150 years after the death of Mohanmmed and may not fully reflect his religious beliefs and ethics but those of some desert warriors or islamic imperialists bent onto the subjugation and total control of Moslems through the subjugation and control of their women.

Post 177. III Instalment of " The Franks".

continuation of ' The Franks " from Post 176.
Milan.

Orestes ( died ca. 476), whose son was to become Emperor after Nepos, with the name of Augustulus ( 475-476), tried to curb the greed of his soldiers who demanded one third of all profitable Italian lands which would have resulted, together with their increasing wages, in the impoverishment of his subjects, and was executed by Odoacer, after the fall of Pavia where he had tried to resist.
Augustulus, Orestes’ son was compelled to resign the title of Emperor of the West, petition Zeno ( 474-491), the Emperor of the East to abolish the title and to exercise his imperial prerogatives as sole and only Emperor of the one empire, while Odoacer styled himself King of Italy, with the Emperor’s support and consent.
Orestes junior was Tatullus’ grand-son, Orestes senior’s son, and originated from Pannonia. Orestes junior’s father had served Attila as ambassador and secretary after Pannonia had been ceded to the Huns by the eastern Romans and Attila had risen to power. When Attila died, Orestes senior entered the service of Valentinian’s successors till, under Nepos, whom he betrayed, he was elevated to the honour of Patrician and to the rank of Master-General of the troops.
Odoacer was Edecon’s son, who belonged to the tribe of the Scyrri, and had been a colleague of Orestes junior’s father, sent, with Orestes senior as a joint-ambassador, to Theodosius II ( 408-450) at the court of Constantinople, to represent Attila and his Gallic secretay Costantius.

Before proceeding this Appendix on the Franks beyond the days of Odoacer, the first King of Italy , I would like to mention the unusual alliance formed, after the death of emperor Majorian (457-461) by Theodoric II, the king of the Visigoths of Gaul, who chose to forget the terrible insult offered to his sister by his traditional enemy, Genseric, King of the Vandals and Alani of Africa, and broke the alliance he had entered into with emperor Majorian after the latter had vanquished him, re-united Spain and Gaul and reconciled to Rome the remaining Bagaudae of Gaul and Spain. By thus breaking his treaty with the Romans, Theodoric II gained the control of Narbonne, and since count Ricimer, the despotic controller of Rome was also an ally of the Vandals, Theodoric II also received permission to wage war against Aegidius, the Roman Praefect of Gaul, whom the Franks had for some time elected their King, and who had been able to resist Theodoric’s attempts at the conquests of Orleans and Arles. At the death of Aegidius, after Euric’s murder of his brother Theodoric, the Visigoths extended their war to Spain and Lusitania, and I quote Gibbon I, p.586-: Their ambition was soon rekindled; and the design of extinguishing the Roman empire in Spain and Gaul was conceived and almost completed in the reign of Euric, who assassinated his brother Theodoric and displayed, with a more savage temper, superior abilities both in peace and war. He passed the Pyrenees at the head of a numerous army, subdued the cities of Saragossa and Pampeluna, vanquished in battle the martial nobles of the Tarragonese province, carried his victorious arms into the heart of Lusitania, and permitted the Suevi to hold the kingdom of Gallicia under the Gothic monarchy of Spain. The efforts of Euric were not less vigorous or less successful in Gaul; and throughout the country that extends from the Pyrenees to the Rhone and the Loire, Berry and Auvergne were the only cities or dioceses which refused to acknowledge him as their master. In the defence of Clermont, their principal town, the inhabitants of Auvergne sustained with inflexible resolution the miseries of war, pestilence, and famine; and the Visigoths, relinquishing the fruitless siege, suspended the hopes of that important conquest. The youths of the province were animated by the heroic and almost incredible valour of Ecdicius, the son of the emperor Avitus [ 455-456 ], who made a desperate sally with only eighteen horsemen, boldly attacked the Gothic army, and, after maintaining a flying skirmish, retired safe and victorious within the walls of Clermont. His charity was equal to his courage: in a time of extreme scarcity four thousand poor were fed at his expense; and his private influence levied an army of Burgundians for the deliverance of Auvergne. From his virtues alone the faithful citizens of Gaul derived any hopes of safety or freedom; and even such virtues were insufficient to avert the impending ruin of their country, since they were anxious to learn, from his authority and example, whether they should prefer the alternative of exile or servitude. The public confidence was lost; the resources of the state were exhausted; and the Gauls had too much reason to believe that Anthemius [ 467-472 ], who reigned in Italy, was incapable of protecting his distressed subjects beyond the Alps. The feeble emperor could only procure for their defence the service of twelve thousand British auxiliaries. Riothamus, one of the independent kings or chieftains of the island, was persuaded to transport his troops to the continent of Gaul; he sailed up the Loire, and established his quarters in Berry, where the people complained of these oppressive allies, till they were destroyed or dispersed by the arms of the Visigoths.
Unquote from Gibbon I, page 586.The rise of Clovis the Merovingian.

Odoacer (476-490) and his barbarian mercenaries were satisfied with the rule and possession of Italy, under the condescention of Zeno
( 474-491), the Emperor of Bizanthium. The Visigoths, led by king Euric and the Franks, a loose Federation of tribes belonging to thre three branches of Salii, Sicambrian and Ripuarii, led by independent princes of the Merovingians’ family, among whom Clovis appeared to be the most popular at the time, were the only forces beyond the barrier of the Alps, beyond the north of Italy, which could have threatened Odoacer, however the latter had relinquished to Euric his most immediate neighbour in Gaul, with the eastern Emperor’s approval, all Roman claims beyond the Alps, while Euric and the Franks existed in a precarious state of equilibrium, mutually waiting for any sign of weackness to attack the other.
In reality, Euric represented the greater power because Clovis the prince of the Salian branch was a very young man, however Euric died leaving an infant son Alaric, and this event allowed Clovis who had begun raiding his neighbours at this time of gothic weackness, to begin to attract the attention of all the other tribes and gather adherents and followers, coalescing the Federation into an armed Confederation at war.

Clovis defeats and has Syagrius executed.

The first target of Clovis was the Roman Syagrius, the son of Aegidius, the latter having died in the days of Ricimer, greatly respected by the Gauls and the Franks. Aegidius had been the Master-General of all Roman and provincial troops in Gaul at the times of Marjorian (457-461) and acted as a partner of Marcellinus, another capable Roman general who had learnt the arts of war under the great Aethius, but had been involved in the latter’s murder, had been proscribed in the days of Valentinian III (423-455), was pardoned by Marjorian, and given by the latter the government of Sicily to serve as a base against the Vandals of Africa. However, after Marjorian’s death, Aegidius refused to condone Ricimer’s manipulations of the imperial authority, and having occupied the province of Dalmatia, waged continuous war against Ricimer and his puppet-Emperors, together with Aegidius; the two did not however posses enough resources and military genius to totally defeat Ricimer and reform the Empire.
Syagrus’ legal skills had been favourably seeked by Burgundians and Franks alike, and he was relatively powerful since he had inherited from his father as his personal patrimony the city and dioceses of Soissons, which, in the time of Caesar would have supplied fifty thousand cavalrymen fully equipped by the three arsenals or manufacturing centres that existed in the city. In addition to the possession of Soissons, Rheims, Troyes, Beauvais and Amiens, the remnants of the second Belgic were subjected to his rule.
Clovis defeated Syagrus who fled to Toulouse, under the feeble protection of Alaric, who was still a child, and had to deliver the Roman to Clovis, who now controlled all Belgic provinces in addition to the dioceses of Tongres, toward the east.
Clovis had in the meanwhile married Clotilda, the niece of the King of Burgundy, who although belonging to the Arian Creed, had allowed his niece to be educated in the profession of the Catholic Faith. Clotilda eventually convinced her husband to be baptised at Rheims, at the age of thirty, and the Franks became the first barbarians in Gaul to accept the Nicene Creed, as a direct conversion from paganism, or as Sir Laurence Gardner claims in “ Genesis of the Grail Kings ”, at least in relation to the Sicambrian branch, from a Nazarene Creed professed by the Irish and Celtic peoples of Armorica and of the northern islands, since, while the Gauls and Gaul’s provincials were predominantly Roman Catholic, all barbarians still adhered to the Arian faith that had been preached in the times of their residence at the borders of the Empire, before the invasions by Sulpicius. It is important to note that even Anastasius I ( 491-518), the Bizantinian Emperor had been following at the time of Clovis’ conversion, Orthodoxy, an erethical faction of Roman Catholicism, while Odoacer and later, Theodoric of Italy had both been of the Arian Faith, and therefore Clovis was practically the only ruler at that time, holding Faith to the Nicene Creed.

Clovis conquers the Alemanni.

Clovis totally and completely defeated the Alemanni, slaying their King and pursuing them in their territories, taking possession of their lands in Gaul, allowing one of their nobles to rule their Germanic territories, under the suzerainty of Clovis, with the title of Duke. Eventually the Armorican republic joined Clovis supplying him with their outstanding bodies of cavalry, which made Clovis’ armies the most powerful in his times.
Clovis directed his attention next to the Kingdom of the Burgundians. Quoting from Gibbon, I, p.612-: The kingdom of the Burgundians, ...... was defined by the course of two Gallic rivers, the Saone and the Rhone, extended from the forest of Vosges to the Alps and the sea of Marseilles.
Unquote.Clovis attacks the Burgundians.

In the days after the first permanent penetration of the Roman borders by the barbarians led by the Goth Radagaisus in ca. 407, King Gundobald, of the Burgundians, in order to seat on the throne, had murdered his two brothers, one of whom was Clotilda’s father, the wife of the King of the Franks, Clovis.. However a younger brother had been left alive, Godegesil, who ruled a small dependent principality near the Lake of Geneva, ( Lake Leman) in Switzerland.
Gundobald and his Kingdom were of the Arian faith, and saw with apprehension the increasing power of Clovis, who had embraced Catholicism, adopting his wife’s Creed, which she had been educated to profess, paradoxically in the midst of an Arianism-professing court. Gundobald was determined to resist conversion offered by the Roman Catholic Bishops of Gaul, while at the same time making them believe in the imminence of his change of heart, and eventually Clovis and he engaged in war. The Burgundians were formidable because of their popularity with the Gauls and Roman provincials, whom cunningly, Gundobald had elevated by his enlightened laws, almost to equal status as his own Burgundians, but Godegesil’s joining of Clovis’ side, apparently helped Clovis to win.
Clovis was contented with imposing a tribute, and having received assurance that Godegesil would be respected as his ally, having left him with a guard of five thousand Franks in the city of Vienne, retired within his own borders.
However Gundobald soon broke the treaty and resumed the war, after massacring Godegesil anf the Franks’ garrison, a situation which Clovis and his descendents endured until the times of Gundobald’s son Sigismond, who had embraced in the meanwhile Roman Catholicism. Sigismond was a very tragic character who, having killed his own son to please his son’s step-mother, repented and, although having a wife and two children, decided to live a monastic type of life. Clovis’ sons had in the meanwhile occupied Burgundy and, having discovered Sigismond’s retreat, buried him and his family alive in a deep well, also spurred on by Clotilda’s desire for revenge on Gundobald’s son for her father’s murder by the former. Yet, both Sigismond and Clotilda are regarded as saints, owing to the fact that, a conversion to Christianity by members of those barbaric races must always be considered a miracle, considering the wildernes of the times and of their background. The Burgundians were eventually subjected to Merovingian rule with the same privileges granted to the Alemanni in so far as they were allowed to be ruled by one of their own people as a Duke subjected to the King of the Franks.


Clovis defeats the Visigoths.

Having conquered the Burgundians, Clovis challenged the power of the Visigoths which was superior to his own, even when considering the support of his Burgundian and Alemanni vassals.
At first, after preliminary trials of strength, both monarchs decided for peace sanctioned in a small island on the river Loire, near Amboise. However, Clovis who had already made Paris his royal seat, found a pretext in the visigothic profession of the Arian faith, and declared war. Theodoric, the King of Italy, who ruled over the formidable power of the Ostrogoths, although related to Clovis through his marriage with Clovis’ sister, Albofleda, and had acquiesced with the subjection of the Alemanni and Burgundians by the Franks, decided at this stage to support Alaric and the Visigoths and sent an army to their relief. Clovis had the support of the local populations (Gauls), and Orleans let him cross the Loire unchecked, however, the next river, the Vigenna (Vienne) had been swollen by early-spring, heavy rains and the melting of mountain snows from the Auvergne ranges of mountains, and the Visigoths were camping on the opposite bank. Logistics pressurised both sides to action since foodstuff for both horses and men available in the area would be quickly exausted by the two armies which relied on the previous year’s reserves, since the new grass had not yet fully grown.
Alaric should have immediately retreated in such a way as to be joined to Theodoric’s army, which was marching to approach Alaric, in order to make his might irresistible, but, precious time was lost in arguing that, perhaps, the location was a strong one and battle should be engaged with the Franks trying to cross the river. Eventually, toward the evening, the Visigoths, who held a superiority in both numbers and armament with the exception of the cavalry arm, which was not essential in an action at a river’s crossing, and should have favoured resistance at the river location which made total encirclement by the armorican enemy cavalry impossible, hastily retreated in disorder while local peasants were showing Clovis an unknown fording place on the Vienne, which Clovis decided to use in order to attack with the element of surprise in his favour. He marched all night following, undetected, the retreating Visigoths whom he overtook ten miles beyond Poitiers, before dawn. Apparently the surprise was devastating to the Visigoths whose confusion and unpreparedness was transformed in terror and panick. Clovis personally slayed young Alaric, narrowly escaping from the dedicated pursuit of two guards of Alaric who had committed themselves to the revenge of their King’s death. The Roman Catholics of Auvergne, who were fighting on Alaric’s side, fought to the last man, forgetting their religious allegiance for the sake of their military honour, since they had been placed in the centre of the marching army, and Gregory of Tours, the historian decries the loss of Apollinaris, the valiant son of Sidonius Apollinaris, who died leading the forces of the Berry and Auvergne. These Epics must be remembered as they teach us the lesson that deeds and honour must be placed above ambiguous theological differences within the framework of the same society or civilisation. It is because of a lack of unity and honour that the same Visigoths lost Spain to the Moslems about 300 years later. Roman provincilas were still made of a different moral fibre though.
It is important to note that Auvergne and the Berry, perhaps because of the mountainous nature of the former and the hilly aspect of the latter, had acquired and preserved like Armorica, a high level of Roman civilization among the general fall and degeneration of the provincials and of the original celtic populations of Gaul.
These provinces of Gaul did in fact together with independent Brittany ( Armorica ) allow Romans, Roman provincials and Romanised Gauls sanctuary in the midst of the chaos and anarchy, that continued to exist in Gaul since the days of the first ( 407) permanent settlement of Radagaisus’ barbarian troops and their families in Gaul and Spain, until the days of Charlemagne ( ca. 800).
( This is an essential fact in my writing about the migrations of the De Ferrarii’s clan, the “gensferreria/ferraria ” whose migrating trek leading to their sanctuary in Armorica, their Holy Grail, in the midst of a barbaric world, passed through Lake Lemann, the Auvergne and the Berry since the days of the ancient migrations and the latest one that occurred in the times of Gaius Julius Caesar, from lake Lemann).

Clovis’ victory was total, due to the obstinate resistance of the Visigoths, including their Romanised Celts, who fought to the last man. Aquitaine was occupied, the Visigothic treasure removed to Paris, the borders with Spain secured, the Roman Catholic church re-confirmed as supreme, however, Clovis and the Burgundians were unable to push Theodoric’s armies out of Gaul and, after the loss of thirty thousand men at Arles, Clovis and Theodoric agreed to the terms of a peace-agreement, allowing the Visigoths control of Septimania, a strip of land which included access to the Mediterranean sea, from the Rhone to the Pyrenees, which straddled the Pyrenees, included the fortified town of Carcassonne, including a parallel strip of lands on the side of Spain and the Ostrogothic presence in the Provence, at Arles and Marseilles.

Clovis and all Merovingian claims in Gaul are sanctioned by Justinian, the Emperor of Bizanthium.

Anastasius I ( 491-518), the Emperor of Bizantium decided to honour Clovis with the title of Roman Consul, thus legitimating all of Clovis’ conquests.
Twenty-five years after the death of Clovis, Justinian I (527-565) and the sons of Clovis confirmed Anastasius’ decrees, more formally, giving the whole of Gaul to the Merovingians, including all Visigothic and Ostrogothic territories, thus freeing all Romans, provincials, and Gauls from their nominal allegiance to the Empire and to the Goths. In addition to the territorial concessions and legitimations, the Merovingians obtained the privilege that even the Persians had been refused, to have their gold coin impressed with their name and images allowed as legal currency in the Empire.

THE END.

Post 176. II Instalment of "The Franks ".

continued from post 175: "The Franks ".
Sarmatians on the Danube. In Asia, he received offers of peace from Varanane the Persian Emperor, but, not satisfied with the terms offered, marched onto Seleucia and Ctesiphon, where he died. Numerianus was nominated Emperor by the troops, ordered the
retreat from Persia but also died.

The troops then nominated Emperor Diocletianus (284-305 ) against whom Carino, the remaining legitimate Caesar who had in the meanwhile defeated the Franks and Alemanni in Gaul, marched, meeting him in Moesia, after defeating Cajo Giuliano, another usurper, before reaching Diocletianus. Carino was assassinated during the battle against Diocletianus, at the moment when victory had come within his grasp.

Diocletianus who, like Claudius, Aurelianus, Probus and Carus, was also an Illyrian, realized that, in view of the numerous, continuous and geographically distanced events requiring the Emperor’s personal presence, he needed associates in order to efficiently rule such a large Empire. Eventually a tetrarchy was nominated consisting of Diocletianus and Massimianus (286-305) as Augusti, and of Valerio Galerio and Flavio Costanzo as their respective Caesars. Milan and Nicomedia were nominated as the new capitals.

Maximianus’ first mission was to subdue the rebellious Bagaudae of Gaul; these were a people from the celtic peasant class, that had increasingly become desperately oppressed since the days of the Roman occupation of Gaul, owing to the accumulation of tithes they had been required to pay, not only to their nobles, since celtic tribes had been allowed by the Romans to maintain their traditional ancestral structure, customs and religion, but also to the Romans. The continuous raids and depredations of the barbarians, that had begun in the days of Gallienus, while encouraging the anarchy of troublemakers and independent and adventurous spirits, made this state of affairs so insufferable that the peasants saw in rebellion a hope for the improvement of their condition. The danger that this rebellion represented for the Romans was at one time demonstrated by the fact that the leaders of the rebellion even considered usurping the authority of the Emperor to themselves and make Gaul an independent celtic Empire.

Gibbon is careful to note and expand on these events, the significance of which were little appreciated by the ancient historians, in view of their decreased sensitivity in relation to the sufferings and alienation of the provincial peasant classes in the face of the existence of slaves, a class of people at a lower level than the peasants, whose living conditions and expectations in life were potentially even lower than those of the peasants. In fact, the scenario of corruption and general moral degeneration in the cities, offered to those among the freed slaves, who were prepared to compromise their character and morality, the opportunities for relatively better living conditions which were denied to the peasants. Moreover, the peasant classes were expected to either supply soldiers or pay a heavy gold tax for a substitute. Many among the peasants due for enlistement even mutilated themselves, a crime that was punished with the death-penalty. Many among the peasants and the rural workers were then tempted to move to the cities, and the centralised Government began to issue laws tying the populations to their native places and occupations. Gibbon correctly sees in these events and the developments within the celtic tribal societies during the rise and fall of the Empire, the seeds of the future feudal social structures adopted by european societies in the times of chaos and anarchy, following the fall of the Roman Empire of the West ( ca. 450 A.D.). So, while in China there was a swing, pendulum-like,
almost conscious and somehow controlled by the nobility, between feudalism and central government that occurred in order to maintain social equilibrium, restore independence from foreign invaders, limiting whatever excessively negative trend is intrinsic to either systems, in the Roman Empire, feudalism occurred once only, in the West and was catastrofic to the unity of the Empire, resulting from the competitions between the Papacy the Holy Emperors and the various european nationalistic movements rising with the mutually competing Desposyniic Monarchies, a trend that was to be resolved only to-day with the creation of a United Europe, which is admittedly still an untried political system. In the eastern Roman Empire the development of society followed a process of orientalisation in which centralisation, oligarchy and theocracy always remained predominant characteristics of its government, which totally disintegrated under the constant pressure of Islam. The weackness of Bizanthium was the sabotage by the religious establishments of the monks and the clergy of the military spirit and determination to win, by answering the brutalities of the Ottoman-Turks leading Islam, with equal brutality. To this was also added the sabotage by the various heretically diverging christian sects existing in the Middle East, such as the Jacobites, the Arians, the Copts etc.

In 305, both Diocletianus and Maximianus retired, nominating as their successors, Galerius (Augustus ), Massiminus Daius ( Caesar), Costanzo Cloro ( Augustus ) and Flavius Valerius Severus ( Caesar).

Until the days of Constantine I (324-337) power struggles disturbed the Empire, also resulting from the abuses and divisions generated by christian theological disputes and the competition between pagans and christians.
Constantine was repeatedly compelled to fight against the Franks on the Rhine, in the times when Maximianus, before his death at Marseilles, had challenged him, while also attending a conference with Licinius at Milan. In 322 he sent his son, the future Constantine II ( 337-340 ), answering the Sarmatians’ call for help to fight the Goths who had attacked the former in their territories of the Chersonesus ( the Crimean peninsula ). Constantine II defeated the Goths and took their King Ariarico’s son as hostage, however 300,000 Sarmatians were later-on expelled by the local populations, whom they had enslaved, the Sarmatians being resettled by the Romans among the provinces of the Empire.
In the meanwhile, Costantine was preparing a great expedition against the Sasanids’ dynasty of Persia to pre-empt their demands for the return of the five persian provinces beyond the Tigris, which Diocletian had taken from Persia, however Constantine died.

It is of interest to note that Constantine’s son trusted Franks to guard and to provide garrisons at camps and in the imperial palaces, even though fighting these at the same time, which means their oath, or sense of honour was reliable.

According to Gibbon I, p. 278, Constantine and members of his dynasty were responsible for weakening the structures of the Roman army, by for example, reducing a legion ( its infantry) from 6,000 to not more than 1,500 soldiers, the reason being that they thought a body of soldiers thus reduced in number and power, could not represent as effective a threat in a rebellion as the full-strength legion had hitherto. Although this consideration has some merit and the total number of fighting men was reduced since the number of legions remained the same, one must also notice the fact that the armament of the general infantry-man, and cavalry-trooper of both the offensive and defensive kind had been being made heavier with time, to match the improved standard of armament which the barbarians had also acquired with time through the gains from conquest, raiding and subterfuge. The cavalry arm was however increased in number and quality in contrast to the reduction of the number in the infantry. The use of missile weapons, such as javelins and arrows, was also increased, especially in the cavalry. Gibbon and others who are not military historians fail to understand these particulars. The Roman army became relatively weakened by the incapacity of the economy of the Empire to increase the overal numbers of recruits and units, preferring to focus on the quality of the armament at the expense of the size of the units and of the total number of men under arms. From the times of Constantine onward, the capacity of the Roman armies of the West to be simultaneously at various places of conflict on the borders was in decline while the strategical awareness and collusion of the enemies of Rome had increased.

At the end of the power struggles, Costanzo II (340-361) and his cousin Julian (361-363) who had been nominated Caesar ruled together, however, mutual animosity and mistrust still remained between them, a legacy of the massacre of all the sons of Costanzo Cloro and his wife Theodora, perpetrated by the sons of Costantine I in 337. Only Gallo and Julian, sons of Giulio Costanzo had been left alive at the end of that massacre. Gibbon reports the rumour that Giulian maintained his ancestors originated from Moesia.

Owing to the excellent cavalry arm maintained by the Messagetae, an equestrian nation of very ancient indo-european origins ( ca. 6000-B.C.), these were able to attack the Persian Empire, which had also ido-european origins in addition to its greek and macedonian blood acquired during the conquest by Alexander the Great (ca. 350 B.C.), and thus be of help to the Romans. The Massagetae had been steadfast indo-european allies of the chinese Empire since the beginning of chinese history, owing to their economy depending from the Silk Route between Europe and China remaining open, and were also friendly to the Romans during the war between Costanzo II ( Augustus: 340-361) and Shapur II in 350, at a time after the Romans had suffered a disastrous defeat at Singara in 348. Incidentally, the Celts, the Goths, the Scythians and the Sicambrian leaders of the Franks had originated from the lands westward of those occupied by the Messagetae who were the only original peoples still left there.

Hebrews, Isaurians and Syria’s Saracens caused several rebellions in the Middle East, partly the result of Gallo’s ineptitude to govern after his nomination to Caesar by Constanzo. Gallo, who was like Giulian, a cousin of Costanzo, both being the sons of Cloro’s brother Giulio Costanzo, whose life had been spared during the massacres of the members of his family, was therefore judged and executed in 354. In the meanwhile, the Franks, Saxons and Alemanni raided along the frontier between the lake of Constance and the North Sea; it was at this time, in 355, that Constanzus nominated Gallo’s brother Giulian: Caesar in 355, making him responsible for the provinces of Gaul, Spain and Britain.

Gaul’s border-territories were at the time occupied by the Franks and Alemanni. Giulian first expelled from the regions of Alsace and Lorraine ( their modern names ) the Alemanni, whom he pushed beyond the Rhine, pursuing them, proposing a truce of ten months, during which, in spite of winter, he attacked the Franks who had crossed the Rhine, the Moselle and the Meuse and besieged them in two of their fortresses forcing them to surrender for lack of food
( this was the first time in the history of the Franks, when they decided to change their law that forbade them to surrender in war ).
The following year, in 359, he defeated the Salian Franks ( the other branch competing for predominance with the Sicambrian Franks ), who had been occupying the region of Brabant ( its modern name ), which had belonged before then to the Batavians, which region can be considered to be that from which their monarchy later-on proceeded, then moved against the Chamavi whom he also defeated, finally crossing the Rhine again to renew the war with the Alemanni, subduing two of their Kings, Suomario and Ortario.
It is here important to note, in view of the fact that, the future french monarchy originated from the union of the Sicambrian ( R , I, J etc. Y-DNA haplogroup) and the Salian Franks ( probably R ), whom he then accepted as subjects and auxiliaries of the Roman Empire, that these were the only one among the vanquished barbarians whom Giulian allowed to remain in their territories comprising of Brabant and the Batavian islands. Since then, the Salian Franks, preceded by the Visigoths, who were the most emancipated among the barbarians, after the distinctive Swiss, who had never rebelled since their surrender to Rome in the first century ( hence their reputation even to-day for loyalty ) and the romanised Gallic Celts, enjoyed special consideration from the Romans

Giulian crossed the Rhine three times, in his pursuits of the Alemanni, the first time after the battle of Strasburg, in which Giulian’s 13,000 men fought Chodomar’s forces of 35,000 men, led by a staff of six other Kings, ten royal Princes together with their retinue of nobles. This was a text-book type of battle which may be used for the purpose of teaching the dangers inherent in the use of heavy but relatively slow cavalry ( the first use by the Romans of sword-swinging-un-saddled-un-stirruped cuirassiers on Giulian side, therefore particularly predictable and slow ), that must be initially supported by infantry as well as missiles troops, until it has had the time to gather speed and momentum, when opposed by determined, numerous, fast, light, cavalry and infantry, ready to seize the initiative.
Giulian relied principally on the heavily armoured cavalry of cuirassiers which he intended to be supported by a numerous body of archers whom he was personally leading in the right wing of his forces. The Alemanni however managed to initially confuse and disrupt Giulian’s resistance to their swift attack by a mix of light infantry and cavalry, the sudden movement of which must have unnerved and made Giulian’s archers and cavalry to panick and hastily retreat. However Giulian fortunately succeeded to rally his cuirassiers who, being decidedly superior to the Alemanni’s cavalries, counter-attacked and slaughtered 6,000 Alemanni, with a minimum of losses. The initial panick actually working-out as a feigned retreat, like the one used by the Bretons and Normans at Hastings in 1066.
Giulian defeated in the locality of Cleves, a territory presenting difficult access, a little-known but pugnatious tribe of Franks called the Attuarii.
Costanzus was worried by Giulian’s successes but could not do anything about it, in the usual Roman tradition of vengeance and repression, since the barbarians were always raiding across the Danube and Persia was again taking the initiative against Rome. It so happened that the provincial (Batavians, Eruli and Celts) auxiliaries in Giulian’s legions, upon having been summoned by Costanzus to join and reinforce his armies in the preparation of the war against Persia, refused to go to the Orient and leave their families behind, rebelled and convinced the legions to elect Giulian Emperor. Giulian tried to deal with Costanzus but in the face of his lack of co-operation, was forced by his troops to march against him who died of illness in 361.

Giulian himself died of a Persian arrow-shot, when, during a sudden attack by the enemy, he neglected to wear his cuirass, during his attempt at conquering Persia in 363.

The Franks were the most politically subtle and ambitious among the barbarians of those times and had already infiltrated the imperial court in the days of Gratian (378--383 ), who was murdered by Andragathius, a frankish master-general of the usurper, of Maximus’ cavalry. Mellobaudes, the King of the Franks, was also one of Gratian’s generals, and after the latter’s death, also served in the same capacity as Andragathius, Valentinian II ( 375-392 ), Gratian’s brother. In the case of Valentinian II, Arbogastes, a Frank who had held the second highest military command under Gratian, had succeeded in isolating and controlling emperor Valentinian II until the latter was found strangled. Arbogastes had also succeeded in winning over to his side most people at the imperial court and in the armed forces of Gaul and as these were prepared to elect him Emperor of the West as a colleague of Theodosius I ( Caesar of Valentinian II: 379-392; Augustus: 392-395), petitioned Theodosius for his approval. Theodosius refused and declared war to Arbogastes whom he fought and defeated in Italy, in 394, but he himself died in 395, of illness ( idropisy ) at Milan. The generally widespread honour of the average Frank was not apparently shared by the leaders.

The Huns had by now already reached the Volga river and defeated the Scythians ( who had been weakened by the Goths prior to the Huns’ arrival ), the Roxolani, the Sarmatians, the Alani, the Goths etc. ( ca. 375 ), thus causing the latter to seek quarters and settlement within the roman Empire across the courses of the Rhine and Danube rivers. The battle of Hadrianopolis ( 378 ) proved to be a total disaster for the Romans and revealed the danger of the Huns, who had become the temporary allies of the Goths. While the Visigoths and the Baltic Goths, after continuous wars against the Romans had settled areas of Spain and Gaul becoming their allies in the times of Aetius who was preparing the resistance against Attila’s claims on Gaul, the eastern Ostrogoths had remained under Attila’s sphere of influence, while the Franks had also split into two factions, one loyal to the Romans under Meroveus, the other joining Attila before the indecisive battle of the Catalaunian Fields (451), when hunnic power and unity was weakened by Attilsa’sa retreat after a two-days fight ending in a draw. Attila retreated to Italy, his death (453) resulting in the divisions between, power-struggles and decadence of the Huns, returning the Visigoths in the West and the Ostrogoths in the East to a position of dominance until the times of Clovis the first King of the all the Franks ( 481-511).

In the times of Theodosius I ( Caesar: 379-392; Augustus: 393-395 ) the Roman Empire had enjoyed the last moments of unity and integrity in so far as it had remained free from a permanent occupation by barbarians.

In the times of Honorius ( 394-493 ), however, the first great permanent invasion of the Roman Empire of the West, that practically began the fragmentation of the Empire, occurred in Gaul after the death of Radagaisus the baltic Ostroghoth, who died at the siege of Florence, leaving approximately 100,000 desperately hungry and impoverished confederates consisting of Ostrogoths, Suevi, Vandals, Alani and Burgundians free to move north toward the borders of the Rhine, according to a plan previously devised by Alaric the Visigoth, who was at the time employed as the master-general of the army of the eastern Illyrichum by Arcadius ( 383-385 ), the Emperor of the East.
During this crisis the Alemanni decided to remain neutral while the Franks actively aided the Romans, showing great loyalty and observance of the treaty of alliance ( 359 ) agreed upon by the Salian Franks with Giulian ( Caesar: 355-361; Augustus: 361-363 ), to such an extent that Marcomir, one of their kings had been brought by his people before the tribunal of the roman magistrate accused of violating the faith of the treaties and condemned to exile to the province of Tuscany. The Franks subsequently even punished with death Sunno, Marcomir’s brother who had presumed to seek revenge for his brother’s public disgrace.
The Franks attacked the remnant of Radagaisus’ forces, slaying 20,000 of the Vandals, who formed the vanguard, among whom was their King, Godigisclus, and would have totally destroyed the whole nation if supporting Alani cavalries had not intervened at the end of the battle and put the infantries of the Franks to a serious disadvantage, compelling these to a retreat.
However, the Rhine froze during that winter and these barbarians crossed over into Gaul, desolating it, inexorably moving toward Spain.

In the meanwhile, Alaric, who had originally contemplated the design to invade Gaul, deciding instead to invade Italy, possession of which he attained in 412, after besieging Rome three times and finally sacking it, died after the conquest of Sicily, while he was preparing an expedition to invade Africa, in ca. 413. He was succeeded by Alaric’s brother-in-law Adolphus, who had great admiration and respect for the positive achievements of the Roman Empire and decided to use gothic powers and resources to preserve and defend it.Adolphus and his Goths, with the blessings of the Romans, entered Gaul and occupied most of it.
During the occupation of Arles by Constantine the usurper from Britain, Constantius, a very capable Roman general of Honorius, defeated an army of Franks and Alemanni led by Constantine’s ambassador Edobic. Constantine who had been finally captured,
had not yet been executed, when another usurper from Upper Germany, called Jovinus was instigated by Goar, the King of the Alani, and Guntarius the King of the Burgundians, to aspire to the position of Emperor. When Costantius, who was becoming old and fatigued retired, Adolphus first sided with Jovinus, however when finding that Sarus the Gothic supporter of the House of Baltic had also joined the conspiracy, changed sides and took Jovinus’ and his brother Sebastian’s heads to Honorius.

The Visigoths led by Adolphus, entered Spain in order to destroy, in the name of Honorius, the barbarian settlers, the descendants of Radagaisus’ allies, but although reducing the power of the Alani of Spain causing them to become submerged in the vandalic tribes, also destroying the Silingi who had irretrievably devastated Baetica, and reducing the power of the Suevi, the Visigoths returned to their possession of Aquitaine in Gaul, leaving a remnant of the original invaders, including the Vandals, in possession of parts of Spain. The survival of the Vandals was to have terrible consequences for the integrity of the Roman Empire, due to their subsequent invasion and conquest of Africa ( 428 ). Gibbon I, p.520-:
...........the successors of Alaric fixed their royal residence at Toulouse, which included five populous quarters, or cities, within the spacious circuit of its walls. About the same time, in the last years of the reign of Honorius, the Goths, the Burgundians, and the Franks, obtained a permanent seat and dominion in the provinces of Gaul. The liberal grant of the usurper Jovinus to his Burgundian alllies, was confirmed by the lawful emperor; the lands of the First, or Upper, Germany were ceded to those formidable barbarians; and they gradually occupied, either by conquest or treaty, the two provinces which still retain, with the titles of Duchy and of County, the national appellation of Burgundy. The Franks, the valiant and faithful allies of the Roman republic, were soon tempted to imitate the invaders whom they they had so bravely resisted.....................................The ruin of the opulent province of Gaul may be dated from the establishment of these barbarians, whose alliance was dangerous and oppressive, and who were capriciously impelled, by interest or passion, to violate the public peace. A heavy and partial ransom was imposed on the surviving provincials who had escaped the calamities of war; the fairest and most fertile lands were assigned to the rapacious strangers, for the use of their families, their slaves, and their cattle; and the trembling natives relinquished with a sigh the inheritance of their fathers.
Unquote.
I have already mentioned the appearance of the Huns on the Volga river ( 375 ), their wars against all the barbarians settled in the Balkans, and their victories, significant among which is the almost complete destruction of the eastern Ostrogoths and the reduction of the power of the Visigoths. In the meanwhile, Radagaisus, the leader of the northern Osgtrogoths who had moved from the Baltic shores, carrying along all vandalic tribes located between the Baltic and the Carpathian ranges, and had confederated with that branch of the Huns which had separated from the one directed to the Volga and the Ukraine, which had been fighting the Goths of the lower Danube, was planning the invasion of Italy. The Gepidae, a division of the Goths, had during the latest migrations to the Balkans, remained outside Pannonia, struggling to survive against neighbouring nations which included the fierce Lombards and had therefore joined Attila. The Romans were near to panic in view of the complex scenario created by the meeting together of all these alien forces.
At the time of Attila’s leadership, the Huns had reached the peak of their power in relation to the European scenarios. The Huns’ presence at the European borders with the steppes had resulted from their defeats in the struggles with the chinese Empire, which had been going on for a millennium, until the time when the pastoralist, nomadic confederation they had led ( the Hsiung-nu ), had become fragmented, owing to the competition for dominance offered by other tribes, of mongolian, turkic, turkish origins, and by the ubiquitous Scythians, ther ancient masters in the times of the Scythian dominance on the Altai Plateau.
While the Visigoths and small sections of the other tribes, like for example the Franks, had obtained from the Romans the right to join Aetius under their own standards and national or tribal leaders as allies, and not any longer as subjected auxiliaries, the majority and bulk of the Germanic and Scythian tribes under Attila were deprived even of the status of auxiliaries or of allies. This was in fact the case for Ardaric the King of the Gepidae and Walamir the King of the eastern Ostrogoths fighting on Attila’s side.
The alliance of Radagaisus with the northern Huns explains the presence of the Ostrogoths and Gepidae among Attila’s hordes at the battle of the Catalaunian Fields ( 451). Attila had positioned the Ostrogoths at his left wing, opposite Aetius’ right wing consisting of Theodoric and Torismond’s Visigoths while the Gepidae who had lost 15,000 men in the rear-guard-action against Aetius’ Franks, during Attila’ initial tactical retreat from Orlean, were located on the latter’s right wing, commanded by their king Ardaric, with all Attila’s other supporters: the Rugians, the Heruli, the Thuringians, the Ripuarian Franks ( note the Salian, the Sicambrian and the Ripuarian branches of the franks finally united by Clovis ) , and the Burgundians, facing Aetius.
The loyalty shown by the Visigoths toward the Romans, resulted partly from their having settled with Roman blessings their territories in Gaul, their rejection of Attila’s pretensions to exclusive sovereignity, their having obtained from the Romans, before the battle, together with Salian, the Sicambrian Franks and the Burgundians, among other traditional roman auxiliaries from Gaul and Germany, the status of allies and equal partners with Rome. The latter concession must have worried Aetius who is thought to have entered secret intelligence with Attila, before the battle, aiming at a draw, relying on Attila’s hatred of the Visigoths, aiming at conducting the battle in such a way as to result in a maximum of losses among the Visigoths. Only the acceptance of such a possibility can explain Attila’s order before the battle, to burn all saddles, which would have seriously curtailed the speed of both a pursuit and a retreat of the enemy, and his turning left, following the probably pre-arranged flight of Aetius’ Alani cavalry, un-conventionally positioned at the centre of his front-lines by Aetius, concentrating all his power against the Visigoths, in spite of the latter’s advantageous occupation of the only elevated ground in those plains.
It seems to me that Attila should have located the eastern Ostrogoths in his right wing, against Aetius’ Romans, placing all other tribes, including the Gepidae opposite the Visigoths in his left wing, in a semi-static or at least a slow moving attack, of retention, initially avoiding a climb of the raised ground upon which the Visigoths were located, until Attila, having turned right onto the Romans’ side, would have, supported by the eastern Ostrogoths, defeated the Romans, to subsequently turn around all vailable forces onto the Visigoths’ side and end up if not as the full victor, since the saddles had been destroyed and a fast pursuit was not possible, at least as the dominating side in the battle. As it happened, the battle was a draw, and Aetius on whom the onus of finishing it had resided, decided to not pursue the Huns in their retreat, also convincing Torismond to not do so, warning him of the possibility that his competitors ( five younger brothers ) for the position of King might have been conspiring at Toulouse against him, urging him to leave the battle field. The Visigoths had carried the weight of that battle, almost alone, since the Alani cavalry that had been supposed to support and protect both Aetius and Theodoric’s flanks at the centre of the battle front, had taken flight. King Theodoric had been killed when his troops were assaulted from two directions, from the front by the eastern Ostrogoths and on the left flank by Attila’s cavalry aiming at encircling them. His eldest son Torismund having narrowly succeeded in rallying his troops nearing a condition of panic, resisted and counterattacked the Ostrogoths who were aiming at occupying the high ground the former had been able to secure at the beginning of the battle, depriving the enemy of the advantage, while Aetius, who was confronting Attila’s auxiliary tribes with his Armorican ( Breton ), romanised-celtic, relatively heavy cavlries, was too far off and seriously engaged to help with a concerted maneuvre.

In the years preceding the battle, Aetius had restrained the Huns and Alani in his pay, in Gaul, from their customary raiding of Goths, Burgundians and Franks who had been their traditional enemies, restraining them by limiting their operations to oppose the aspirations of the Visigoths led by Theodoric, Alaric’s son, to expansion in the Provence and of the Burgundians in Belgic Gaul. Even before the war against Attila, he had reduced Burgundian power by slaying 20,000 of their troops in a battle and restricting their remnant within the confines of the mountains of Savoy, then under Roman control.
Aetius and Theodoric’s Visigoths eventually reached a mutual measure of trust and respect, agreeing to a peace-treaty, after a war in which, the victories of Aetius at Arles and Narbonne, including the slautering of 8,000 Goths, were marred by the total defeat of Aetius’s general, Count Litorius, whom he had left behind when called back to conduct some urgent business in Rome, to continue the war against Theodoric, at the head of an army of Huns. Aetius and Theodoric were planning the reduction of Vandal power in Africa, following the outrageous offensive treatment by Genseric of one of Theodoric’s daughters, who had married one of Genseric’s sons. It was in fact the conbination of several excuses masking his motivation to invade Gaul as a preliminary to the taking over of the Roman Empire of the West, that had decided Attila to fight in Gaul. These were the perceived slight resulting from the refusal of a Roman Lady of the Imperial Family to marry him, the request for help by Genseric, the Vandal ruler of North Africa, wnbo feared Aethius’ planned invasion of North Africa aided by the Visigoths, together with a similar plea for protection from the eldest son of Clodion, the Merovingian king of the Franks, that ended in the Battle of Chalons-sur-Marnes (Catalaunian Fields ).


The Franks also, who aspired to Belgic Gaul, represented a problem for Aetius, since Clodion, the first Merovingian King of the Franks, had been confined within his traditional territories of the Lower Rhine, before the battle of the Catalaunian Fields, had invaded in ca. 431 the second Belgic, had been defeated by a surprise attack of Aetius’ light cavalry, and had devoted his House to the cause of opposing the Romans. In spite of Roman opposition, Clodion recovered and achieved some of his goals. However, fortunately enough for the Romans, at Clodion’s death, his younger son Meroveus asked their protection, and was adopted by Aethius, thus bringing a considerable part of the Franks to the Roman side, as an ally of emperor Valentinian III (423-455). This is why, at the battle of Chalons ( Catalaunian Fields ) in 451, Franks fought on both sides.
Attila entered Gaul moving from Hungary to where the Rhine and the Neckar rivers meet, joining the elder of Clodion’s sons and his frankish followers, directed to the siege of Orlean, while devastating a large area of Gaul on his approach route. Sangiban, the King of the Alani, who were Aetius’ allies, in spite of traditional enmity towards the Huns, betrayed the Romans, and instead of opposing Attila at the crossing of the Loire, let him through.
In the meanwhile, the Visigoths of Theodoric and Torismond were persuaded by the Romans to meet Attila under the walls of Orleans rather than waiting for him in their territories, around the town of Toulouse, and asked his loyal collaborator, the provincial Roman Avitus, who owned large estates in the Auvergne, and had recently retired from the position of Praetorian Prefect of Gaul, to form a Confederation of tribes from Gaul and Germany. These barbarians asked the Romans to be promoted to the elevated status of volunteers and independent sovereign allies rather than fight as the custom had been until then, at the lower status as provincial-auxiliaries. This, in itself was a sign Roman dominance in Gaul was at an end.
The Confederation opposing Attila comprised of the Laeti, the Armoricans, the Breones, the Saxons, the Burgundians, the Sarmatians, the Alani, a portion of the Ripuarians Franks, and the Salian Franks who followed Meroveus.
Attila abandoned the siege of Orleans and moved back across the Seine to the plains of Chalons, more suitable to cavalry manoeuvres, loosing 15,000 Gepidae who had formed his rear-guard, at the hands of the pursuing Franks, during the march from Orleans. This is why many military historians consider the Battle of Chalons to have occurred during the span of three days.

See, Aetius and Battle of the Catalaunian Fields.

At the death of Maximus (455), who had succeeded Valentinian III (423-455), the Saxons infested the seas, the Alemanni and the Franks had advanced from the Rhine to the Seine. Maximus had recalled a colleague of Aetius, called Avitus, to the rank of Praetorian Praefect of Gaul, thus ensuring a measure of order, after Aetius’ death. At Maximus’ death, Avitus obtained the support of Theodoric, the King of the Visigoths, a younger brother of Torismond, who had been murdered, and during the one year-government of Avitus (455-456), Theodoric had invaded and conquered Spain and Lusitania, claiming to be fighting in the name of Rome, while really planning a Visigothic empire, defeating Rechiarius the King of the Suevi, who represented the only force in those areas capable to oppose the Visigoths.
During the last days of Avitus’ rule, a powerful, if dark character and personality had manifested itself, Count Ricimer,
( the son of a Suevi father and of the daughter of Wallia, the King of the Visigoths ), who had become famous as the destroyer of sixty galleys of Vandals on the coasts of Corsica. Ricimer hated Avitus whom he saw as the ally of the Visigoths of Gaul who had humbled the power of the Suevi and of their King, Rechiarius. He expelled Avitus from Rome and offered him the station of bishop of Placentia, but Avitus died during his travels.
Ricimer covertly controlled the imperial power vested in the Emperors who succeeded Avitus-: Majorian (475-461), and Severus (461-465), etc.; at the death of Severus, Ricimer ruled directly for six years as a despot, but his influence was limited to Italy alone by two Roman generals, Marcellinus, who had assumed the title of Patrician of the West and ruled Dalmatia, and Aegidius who maintained a strong army in Gaul as the Master-General of Gaul; when the Franks exiled their foolish king Childeric, they asked Aegidius to become their King; he accepted but returned the kingship to the Merovingians when the Franks requested him to do so; these were the only characters capable to resist Ricimer, without however being able to overthrow him, supported as he was by the power of the Visigoths, in Gaul, whom he had attracted to his sphere of influence and by that of Genseric’s Vandals and Alani in Africa.
Anthemius (467-472), a Bizantinian, was finally appointed Emperor of the West, by Leo I (457-474), the Emperor of the East, as soon as the latter had been able to free himself from the influence of a powerful Bizantinian, by the name of Aspar, whose family had controlled the Bizantinian army for three generations, and who had elected the same Leo, at the time a tribune from Thracia, planning to act as Ricimer had done in Rome by controlling puppet-Emperors.
Aspar and his family were in a collusion with the Vandals of Africa in the same way that Ricimer had been. Anthemius opposed and fought Ricimer, but was eventually killed by the Burgundian and Suevi mercenaries of Ricimer who had attacked and entered Rome. In the meanwhile Leo I had planned, and attempted an invasion of Africa, with a huge army and fleet at the command of which he had placed Basiliscus, Leo’s wife’s brother, seconded by Heraclius, the Praefect of Egypt, but the Basiliscus’ ineptitude, incompetence and lack of determination, doomed the expedition to failure.
Following Anthemius’ murder, Ricimer had Olibrius (472) elected, who died seven months after Ricimer’s own death.
Ricimer’s heir, Gundobald, a prince of the Burgundians, tried to play the same power game as his uncle, nominated Glycerius Emperor (473-474), an obscure soldier, but had to abandon him to his destiny when called back to Burgundy were pressing business attended him. Glycerius was forced to renounce the title of Emperor and to accept the bishopric of Salona in the way of compensation.
Nepos (474-475), a Greek, was subsequently elected by the Senate and the Roman people, but, upon being attacked by a barbarian Confederacy of Heruli, Scyrri, Alani, Turcilingi and Rugians led by Orestes, panicked and, abandoning the better fortification of Ravenna, fled to his principality of Dalmatia, where Glycerius, assassinated him, being promoted for his crime to the Archbishopric of
CONTINUES AT THE NEXT POST 177: The Franks.