Standard troll. Why Caligula hated the Senate and forgave the common people

Artistic comparison is used not only for rhetoric, but in order to somehow explain to a third party a sensory experience that was previously unfamiliar to her, in the absence of the closest analogues for comparison.

If anyone has read Garrison, they remember how the hairy, primitive Neanderthal Paramutan explained to the equally primitive but sober Cro-Magnon hunter Kerrick the pleasures of drinking "fire water."

It's as good, - said the paramutan, - as eating a fresh liver, lying on a woman.

The kind and direct Neanderthal simply combined the highest values ​​​​in his life - to eat and fuck, and in this way described the sensory experience of drinking in the hut of single hunters. And note - he did not say that the sensations are the same as eating a liver during intercourse. He said - "it's just as good." "The same" and "the same" are two different things.

Kerrick tried to drink from a wineskin, got into a hard hangover and said "yes, that's good, but next time we'd better give a liver and a woman." He, too, in his primitive simplicity, believed that the comparison was direct. But it turned out that you suddenly become stupid, you will laugh and sing for no reason, and in the morning you will have headache and dry.

Then people developed from the Stone Age to the Space Age, and for comparison they began to use all sorts of diagrams, graphs and video presentations, such as “how many matchboxes can be laid out from the Earth to the Sun”, or “what will happen to a horse from a drop of nicotine”.

And here it must be clearly understood that comparisons are often entertaining, and are used for the sake of the comparisons themselves, and not at all for the transfer of sensory experience. People don't need to know how many matchboxes you can fit between a star and a planet. It's just that they don't give a fuck so much that this knowledge entertains them. In the same way, the hunter Kerrick, who was caught in the winter in the camp of the Paramutans, did not fucking do it. And from the entertainment until spring, only reindeer liver, women and fly agaric tincture remained.

But as soon as the winter ended, Kerrick began to write down not moonshine recipes, but the composition of Paramutan poison for hunting large vertebrates. This was absolutely helpful information, for the sake of which it was worth the whole polar winter to turn off moonshine from stainless steel in the company of Bigfoot.

On the eve of the elections, I receive valuable information that Zelensky is not a clown, but an artist. The artists were Reagan, the president of America, and Schwarzenegger, who wanted to but couldn't. Nero was an artist by vocation, and what an artist Fuhrer Schicklgruber was, so this is generally a song of the Nibelungs.

But here the same distortion of the transfer of sensory experience occurs, as in the case of comparing moonshine and liver, dick and tram handle, chess and preference.

Reagan was not just a trade unionist and governor of California (as even children already know). He was one of the most scandalous governors of the States. Even before he became president, he was presented in the USSR as a fierce obscurantist and necromancer. No kidding, books have been published about him. For example, when I was a pioneer under Jimmy Carter, I knew that Reagan hated nature - he said "whoever saw one sequoia saw them all" and allowed the cutting of relic trees.

The sensory experience from President Reagan was not that he was an artist. He was in what Roni said, “California girls. You freaked out. Do you need roads in the state or sequoias? Pick one. I promised you roads. Choose another governor - and then you will not have roads, but there will be sequoias. These are your sequoias, and your roads. I'm just serving your interests."

He did not say - ask for whatever you want, I will promise everything, the main thing is that you vote for me again. He said - I already promised you everything. And I already do

You can imagine what eggs you need to have in order to say similar in a country where the words “woman” and “Negro” are insults, the rights of turkeys are protected by Congress, and the male derivative of the word “cook” is not “cook”, but “cook” .

Schwarzenegger did not become famous as an artist at all. Arnolik began acting in films, already being a millionaire. After emigrating from Austria as a bodybuilder, he went into the construction business and put up so many bricks for sale that the first film was of no commercial interest to him. Then he starred because the fans asked him about it.

The brilliant DiMaggio conquered the country not only by being a baseball idol and the husband of Marilyn Monroe. He is the only one who came to her funeral with sincere grief. A dumb blonde dumped a dumb jock for being dumb, what could be more eloquent? What artistic comparison can be used here? In terms of stupidity, it's like eating a liver while lying on a woman.

Neither smart Arthur Miller, Marilyn's next husband and owner of a Pulitzer, nor the whole Kennedy family, who banged her in turn, came to see the stupid blonde on her last journey, who, with the help of special services, had overindulged in luminal. "Why are you here?" DiMaggio was asked at the funeral.

Well, how ... well, this ... well, in general ... I promised, both in sorrow and in joy, and until death do us part ...

And at that moment, everyone in America stopped being funny. And the one who called Joe DiMaggio a "muscular idiot" suddenly felt like an idiot without muscles.

You understand, he behaved like a man not because he was an athlete. Vice versa.

Chaplin and Purviance, Edith Piaf and Marcel Sedan. Grigory Skovoroda was offended by the tycoon's rudeness and left straight from the table into the night barefoot, leaving a plate of refreshments. A hundred out of the yard were sent in pursuit of him, but they did not catch up. "The world caught me..."

Artists, sculptors, philosophers, artists, musicians - they did not get into politics because they were good at drawing, dancing beautifully or joking funny. Just at a certain moment they showed unusual facets of the soul. And "new faces" came to world politics not because they are new.

So you can catch any passer-by on the street, the face is clearly newer than that of the politicians who have fucked all the politicians from the TV.

But the scale of the personalities of the "artists-athletes" was such that it inevitably pushed a person into social service, and the media flair and paparazzi sparkles were a secondary effect.

And choosing a person because of the secondary effect of popularity is like eating deer liver on a woman, and in the morning being surprised by a hangover. It's about the same, but somehow not like that.

***

To end this literary epic of primeval hunters, baseball champions, and blue-bearded presidents.

There was such a Roman emperor Caligula. Also, in a sense, an artist. He played the roles fucking, and he was eventually stabbed to death along with his pregnant wife. After the performance, as a result of a conspiracy organized by Cassius Hereia.

But the problem was that he appointed his horse, the Initiate, as a senator. And it was impossible to expel a horse from the Senate. Killing Caesar is still all right, but the horse in the Senate was not guilty of anything, especially since the senators themselves confirmed his candidacy.

Sho writes about this guide.

« After the murderemperorin defense of Incitatus, it was said that, unlike other senators, he did not kill anyone and did not give the emperor a single bad advice. Senators also faced a problem: according to Roman law, before the end of the term, no one from the Senate, even a horse, could be expelled. Then the emperor Claudius found a way out: Incitatus was cut off his salary, and he was removed from the Senate, as not passing on financialqualification"

Because they chose a horse. Under pressure or not, the horse was brought into the Senate. And there was no way to kill him. Rome was built on the inviolability of the horse in the Senate. Caesar is a matter of life. Not one is the other. But knock out a stone from under the election, and then the whole SPQR will be indignant - what are we actually building on? On what right and what word? And why, then, cannot a slave slaughter his master if he succeeds in stealing the sword? And why did the senators, such greyhounds without Caligula, dutifully agree to a horse under a despot? And why not slaughter the rest of the senators then? Moreover, some of them are not very different from horses?

Now they bring a horse to us. Like a new face.

Already tried the "red director". Already tried the "European beekeeper". We have already tried the “normal kid in authority”. But as soon as something more or less began to work out, there was a desire to try a “new face”.That's a bitch two terms of Kuchma, with all his pizdets and horses in the Senate - no one wanted new faces. But when the aggressor stands four hundred meters from our chicken coop, a “new face” is suddenly required, right now, and not later or earlier.

In that case, if an artist is unavoidable, I vote forDinklage.

A dwarf, an invalid and an outcast, he became world famous for his role as Tyrion Lannister. Also a movie politician. But. Which, unlike the spherical media blue-beard, ruled without the help of the Dnieper oligarchs and did not ask from the budget for filming. Who realized himself both in the media and in realitythlife.

In the movies, he fought against his family, separatists, pirates, dragons, religious obscurantists.Personally participated in hostilities. He loved one woman all his life.I never compared my unfortunate homeland with a prostitute. And once voluntarily gave up power in favor of the general welfare.

But in reality, he is at least a cooler media figure than Zelensky. He is known by monarchs and presidents.

Governor Schwarzenegger - Terminator. President Reagan - Oscar nomination with Kings Row. Peter Dinklage - three Emmys and a Golden Globe.

Ukraine - goloborodko, television of the Galaseevsky district, champion of the kaveen. Or not a champion. But what a difference.

You know what. If you have definitely decided to choose a horse for the Senate, choose at least a thoroughbred pacer, and not a furred hinny from the quarters. If an artist - then Dinklage, If a playwright - then Havel, If an artist ... well, let it not be Hitler, let it be crazy Diego Rivera. If a writer, then Hemingway. If the producer and showman - then Trump. If the oligarch - then Rockefeller, not Kolomoisky. If a crook, then Professor Moriarty, not Yanukovych. If an athlete, then DiMaggio, not Onopka.

It was an artistic comparison. Like eating liver on a woman. Since rational arguments no longer work, one has to explain how a Neanderthal is a Cro-Magnon. Shaw "the same" and "the same" are two different things.

And sho was clear even to primitive Cro-Magnons.

On March 18, 37 AD, the citizens of the Roman Empire met with the most sincere rejoicing and praise of the gods: contemporaries of the events wrote that more than 160 thousand animals were sacrificed in gratitude. This is how 1980 years ago they met the news that the emperor of Rome was Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus. We know him better by his nickname: Caligula.

In the film of the same name Tinto Brassa lovingly and competently collected all the gossip about Caligula that ever circulated. Endemic sodomy, wild debauchery and mass rape, incest, monstrous executions and torture, psychopathy, sadism, dismemberment - this is an approximate, but far from complete, series of associations that arise, one has only to pronounce this name. School knowledge looms on the periphery: something about a horse that Caligula made a senator. In a word, a madman blinded by power.

The most interesting thing is that he was not insane. Oddly enough, Caligula ruled the empire quite reasonably. But he accompanied almost all his steps in this field with a hurricane buffoonery with injuries and corpses. If the statement that trolling is “a form of social provocation and bullying, inciting quarrels and hatred” is true, then Caligula deserves the title of a reference troll.

Prostitution small text

As soon as he became emperor, Caligula abolished the famous law "on lese majesty." This law, which has been in force for half a century, has cost the lives of very, very many. If our hero had become emperor only four years earlier, the whole world history could have gone differently. Religious history, yes. Because among the others convicted of "insulting the majesty of the Roman Caesar" was a preacher from the distant Roman province of Judea. His name was Jesus, and he is known to have been crucified at the very end of March 33 AD. Under Caligula, this execution simply could not have taken place.

Marble bust of Caligula. I century. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

This is about great things. In small matters, Caligula showed no less ingenuity. One case, described by the Roman historian Suetonius, should elevate Caligula to the rank of an honorary historical patron of a number of crooks. For example, bankers, housing and communal services officials, manufacturers of low-quality products and organizers of "win-win" lotteries.

Knowing about the passion of the Romans for legality and law, Caligula introduces a curious practice: he announces laws on the introduction of new taxes, for example, on prostitution, through heralds. People remember badly, get confused, do not pay on time, incur fines. What happens next? And this is what: “Finally, at the request of the people, Caligula publicly exposed the text of the law. However, it was written in the smallest type and hung out in a hard-to-reach place: specifically so that it could not be copied. It is very similar to the situation with the current deceived investors.

Benefits of Democracy

Describing the antics of Caligula, many are confused. For example, they see trolling in the most ordinary things like the lifetime deification of the emperor's personality. Referring to the evidence of the same Suetonius: “He wished to be the expression of all the gods and began to appear to the people only in the attire of deities and with their attributes: many times he appeared with a gilded beard, holding in his hand either the lightning of Jupiter, or the trident of Neptune, or a wand , or - even in the vestments of Venus. He wore a triumphant robe all the time, and sometimes put on a shell Alexander the Great taken from his tomb."

This is not trolling, this is show-off. The real trolling was hidden in what seemed to contemporaries a boon.

So, he, “the all-powerful emperor, the embodiment of the living god,” suddenly returns democracy to the people of Rome. Not all, partially. Elections to magistrates. For what?

Everything is very simple. The supreme power - according to the ideas of the Romans - had to regularly provide mass holidays with the distribution of money and bread. In principle, Caligula was not opposed, but he was stingy with money. In addition, it was necessary to equip the empire, prepare an invasion of Britain, pay the troops ...

And Caligula returns the election. Now candidates fighting for high office must win the people over to their side. But what? Yes, all the same: festivities with the distribution of money and bread. But already at their own expense, and not at the expense of the treasury. A brilliant solution, not at all like "madness".

Eustache Lesueur. "Caligula places the ashes of his mother and brother in the tomb of his ancestors." 1647. Photo: commons.wikimedia.org

horse in coat

The story of the introduction of the horse to the Senate is from the same series. The fact is that Roman citizenship, once sacred, by the time of Caligula had already become a subject of bargaining. Many - including the emperor - did not like this. But the Senate paid almost no attention to this.

The move was great. By law, only a Roman citizen could become a member of the Senate. And Caligula scrupulously fulfills all the requirements. He gives the horse the rights of citizenship. Puts him on payroll. Pretty quickly, the horse becomes a wealthy citizen and passes the property qualification required for a senator. Actually, that's it: accept a new member of the Senate named Incitat, that is, "fleet-footed".

Aerobatics mockery of the formal execution of the law. If the goal was to show the helplessness and imperfection of the bureaucratic machine, then this was achieved with brilliance. Because even after the death of the emperor, the horse could not be removed from the Senate. There was no formal evidence for this: the horse did not do anything bad, he did not give stupid or harmful advice, he was not an enemy of the people.

Thanks to the efforts of Koni, the jury released the terrorist who wounded the mayor Trepov, right from the courthouse. Unfathomable! In our time, it is difficult to imagine that a person who made an attempt on the life of a major political figure will not suffer any punishment.

Judicial stage

Fate predicted him a theatrical stage or a writer's fate. Anatoly Koni's father was a famous vaudevillian and theater critic, and his mother played on stage. Anatoly's godfather was the famous novelist Ivan Lazhechnikov.
However, the young man chose a different path. The scene for him was the place of judgment. He had to participate in the dramas, tragedies and comedies of life. He performed all the old roles: he was a villain - a prosecutor in the eyes of the accused; a noble father, leading the jury and protecting them from mistakes; reasoner, since as chief prosecutor he had to explain the law to the senators.

Koni went on the legal path by accident. He entered St. Petersburg University ahead of schedule at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics, after the sixth grade of the gymnasium. Moreover, he adequately answered questions outside the program. As a result, the famous Professor Somov was so delighted that he lifted Koni into the air, exclaiming: "I'll blow you down!" But, seeing the offended face of the future student, he left him alone.

In December 1861, St. Petersburg University was closed for an indefinite period due to student unrest. A chance meeting with educated lawyers Viktor Fuks and Piotr Kapnist sealed Koni's fate. And he graduated from the law faculty of Moscow University. Career was going well. Having worked for several years in the judicial chambers, and later as the prosecutor of the district court in St. Petersburg, Koni gained fame as a good orator and a talented judicial figure.

On January 24, 1878, Koni assumed the post of chairman of the St. Petersburg District Court. On the same day, Vera Zasulich wounded Mayor Trepov with a pistol shot. Just two months later, the trial of the terrorist took place. For the first time, such a high-profile case was entrusted to the jury that appeared in 1864. The tsar was waiting for an accusatory decision in the Winter Palace, while the liberal intelligentsia craved justification. A crowd of sympathizers huddled outside the courthouse, waiting for the jury's verdict. Koni had to preside over the trial in this case. In his summary, he did not push the jurors in one direction or another, but only illuminated before them the logical path that they must go through. His resume was so brilliant that in the case of Vera Zasulich, the jurors delivered a verdict of not guilty. However, it cost him a forced break in his beloved work in the criminal court, he was transferred to the civil department of the judicial chamber.

However, the authorities appreciated Anatoly Fedorovich. In 1885, he was appointed Chief Prosecutor of the Criminal Cassation Department of the Senate. There is even an epigram about this:

To the Senate of the horse
Caligula brought,
It stands, removed
both in velvet and gold.
But I'll say
we have the same arbitrariness:
I read in the newspapers
that Koni is in the Senate.
To which Kony replied with his epigram:
I don't like such ironies
How unreasonably evil people are!
After all, progress
what is Koni now,
Where before there were only donkeys.

Five years later, Koni left judicial activity and, by decree of the emperor, was transferred to the general assembly of the First Department of the Senate as a senator present.

In July 1906, the head of the Cabinet of Ministers, Pyotr Stolypin, invited Koni to join the government as Minister of Justice. For three days Anatoly Fedorovich was persuaded to take this post, but he, citing ill health, categorically refused. In 1907, he became a member of the State Council, out of habit combining work for the benefit of the state with teaching and writing. He suggested to Leo Tolstoy the plots for "Resurrection" and "The Living Corpse", borrowed from judicial practice.

Inexhaustible altruist

After the October Revolution, which deprived him of all privileges, Koni did not leave his homeland. Walking the streets, he took crutches with him (he suffered a leg injury in a train crash on the Sestroretsk road in 1890) and often sat down to rest, then compassionate women tried to give him alms.

The brilliant orator had one weakness: he stubbornly defended those norms of Russian speech that existed during his youth. For example, the word "mandatory" had, in his opinion, one and only meaning - "amiable". Towards the end of his life, "definitely" began to mean "definitely", which infuriated Koni.

Imagine, - he said, excitedly, - today I am walking along Spasskaya and I hear: "He will definitely stuff your face!" How do you like it? One person informs another that someone will kindly beat him!

Removed from the judicial field, Koni took up teaching: he began lecturing at Petrograd University. He gave several thousand public lectures at various educational institutions. And this despite his age and state of health.

The students zealously followed where and when Anatoly Fedorovich's lecture was supposed to take place, trying not to miss a single one of them. An old little man with difficulty on crutches got to his place, sank into a chair, wiped his sweaty, tired face, sat down more comfortably and gradually changed. The face took on a calm expression, the eyes became mischievously young, the senile voice, which was very weak at first, gradually became confident, and the students forgot that the old man was in front of them. “The auditorium was always overcrowded,” Andreeva, a student of the 1920s at Leningrad University, recalled. speech, often interspersed with jokes, a sharp word, an image of what is told in faces (he was an excellent actor), we were ready to listen to the speaker indefinitely.

Anatoly Fedorovich in the classroom recreated the jury, as it should have existed according to the plan of the judicial reform of 1864. In order for the listeners to understand everything properly, in order to have the clearest idea of ​​the role of the participants in the process, real "trials" were arranged. At Koni's lectures, one could see deep, gray-haired elders, such as Vasily Ivanovich Nemirovich-Danchenko, and other representatives of literary circles, for whom it was a great pleasure to listen to Anatoly Fedorovich. Koni recalled some case from his practice and offered to conduct its trial.

The inexhaustible altruist hoped to the last that a legal society would be reborn in the new state. 82-year-old Koni claimed: “I lived my life in such a way that I have nothing to blush for. I loved my people, my country, served them as best I could and could. I am not afraid of death. I fought a lot for my people, for what he believed in." In the spring of 1927, while lecturing in a cold, unheated auditorium, a well-known judicial figure, a former senator and member of the State Council, a brilliant speaker and writer, an honorary academician Kony caught a cold and fell ill with pneumonia. They couldn't cure him. September 17, 1927 Anatoly Fedorovich died. Hundreds of wreaths lay at the foot of the grave at the Tikhvin cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. In the mid-30s of the last century, the remains were transferred to the Literary bridges of the Volkov cemetery.

The Case of the Imperial Train Wreck

Anatoly Koni was entrusted with investigating the case of the collapse of the imperial train on October 17, 1888. Then the imperial family miraculously managed to avoid death, they said that the strongman Alexander III supported the collapsed roof of the car until his relatives got out, for which he paid with his health. What versions did not come up, for example, a terrorist boy, under the guise of an ice cream dealer, brought a bomb onto a train. However, Koni denied all speculation. Principal criminologist came to the conclusion about the "criminal non-fulfillment by all of their duty." Koni swung at top officials: he considered it necessary to prosecute members of the board of the Kursk-Kharkov-Azov railway for theft, as well as for bringing the road to a dangerous state.

The whole point was that the imperial retinue was numerous, all important persons wanted to travel in comfort and demanded a separate compartment, or even a carriage. As a result, the royal train became longer and longer. It weighed up to 30 thousand pounds, stretched 302 meters and more than doubled the length and weight of the usual passenger train, approaching in weight a freight train of 28 laden wagons. According to experts, the crash occurred precisely because the swaying engine tore the tracks and derailed.

It must be said that the imperial train traveled in this form for ten years. The railroad workers who were related to him, and the Minister of Railways himself, knew that this was technically unacceptable and dangerous, but did not consider it possible to interfere in the important layouts of the court department. The confusion, in essence, was due to the fault of the Minister of Railways, Admiral Konstantin Posyet. In addition, his car was with faulty brakes!

Posyet, a month after the crash, was removed from his ministerial post, but appointed to the State Council with a decent pension. They pitied him. Everyone agreed that it would be inhumane to publicly declare him guilty. Alexander III, by his own will, completely stopped the case of the crash.

The Case of Abbess Mitrofania
From the memoirs of Anatoly Koni

At the end of January or at the very beginning of February 1873, the St. Petersburg merchant Lebedev personally brought me, as the prosecutor of the St. Petersburg district court, a complaint against Mitrofaniya, the abbess of the Holy Protection Monastery in Serpukhov, who was very famous in St. Petersburg and Moscow, accusing her of forging bills on his behalf in the amount of 22 000 rubles.

When the hot summer of 1873 set in, Mitrofania began to feel very ill in a stuffy hotel in one of the busiest and noisiest places in St. Petersburg. A repetition of her interrogation was not foreseen very soon, and I, in agreement with the investigator, decided to satisfy her request and let her go on a pilgrimage to Tikhvin, and then, if time and the course of the investigation allowed, then to Valaam. The trip to Tikhvin significantly strengthened her and evoked from her side in a letter to me an expression of genuine gratitude for "consolation in a bitter situation" ... In her posthumous notes, published in Russkaya Starina in 1902, she warmly recalls our attitude to and naively notes that she prayed in Tikhvin, among other things, for the servant of God Anatoly ... At the end of January or at the very beginning of February 1873, the St. Petersburg merchant Lebedev personally brought me, as the prosecutor of the St. Moscow, Abbess of the Vladychne-Pokrovsky Monastery in Serpukhov, Mitrofaniya, accusing her of forging bills on his behalf in the amount of 22,000 rubles.

It would seem that the daughter of the governor of the Caucasus, the maid of honor of the royal court, Baroness Praskovya Grigorievna Rosen, in the monasticism Mitrofania, standing at the head of various spiritual and charitable institutions, having connections at the very heights of Russian society, living during her private visits to St. Petersburg in the Nikolaevsky Palace and appearing on the streets in a carriage with a red court footman, apparently, she could stand beyond suspicion of committing forgery of bills. But the arguments of the merchant Lebedev were so convincing that I immediately made a proposal to the forensic investigator Rusinov to start an investigation. The examination carried out by him clearly proved the criminal origin of the bills, and, by agreement with me, he decided to bring Abbess Mitrofania as a defendant and write her out for interrogations in Petersburg ...

Summoned from Moscow, Mitrofania stayed at the Moskva Hotel on the corner of Nevsky and Vladimirskaya... Mitrofania's appearance was, so to speak, completely ordinary. Neither her tall and heavy figure, nor the large features of her face with plump cheeks, framed by a monastic attire, represented anything that attracted attention; but in her bulging gray-blue eyes, under her knitted brows, a great intelligence and determination shone...

The forgery of Lebedev's bills was, in fact, a rather ordinary crime in terms of the situation and according to the testimonies of various obscure personalities put forward by Mitrofania in his defense, and a triple examination established with certainty not only that the text of the bills was written by her, but also that Lebedev's signature on bills and bills of exchange forged, and rather clumsily, by Mitrofania herself, who, at the same time, was unable to hide some of the characteristic features of her handwriting. But the personality of Abbess Mitrofania was quite extraordinary. She was a woman of vast mind, purely masculine and businesslike, in many respects contrary to the traditional and routine views that dominated the environment in the narrow framework of which she had to rotate ...

Her very crimes - the fraudulent appropriation of Medyntseva's money and belongings, the forgery of the will of the wealthy eunuch Solodovnikov and Lebedev's bills, despite all the reprehensibility of her course of action, did not, however, contain elements of personal self-interest, but were the result of a passionate and unscrupulous desire to support her. , to strengthen and expand the working religious community created by her and prevent her from turning into an idle and parasitic monastery. Workshops - handicraft and art, breeding of silkworms, an orphanage, a school and a hospital for visitors, arranged by the abbess of the Serpukhov Vladychno-Pokrovskaya community, were at that time a welcome innovation in the field of callous and aimless asceticism of "Christ's brides". But it was all wound up on too wide leg and required huge funds.

Not embarrassed in the ways of acquiring these funds, Abbess Mitrofania saw their sources in a wide variety of enterprises: in the construction of "hydraulic lime" and soap factories on the lands of the monastery, in soliciting for a railway concession for a branch from the Kursk road to the monastery, in the efforts to open a the monastery of the relics of the new saint Varlaam, etc. When nothing came of all this, Mitrofania turned to personal charity. Her contacts in St. Petersburg, her closeness to the higher spheres and the possibility of generous distribution of awards to philanthropists helped her to cause an abundant influx of donations from wealthy ambitious people ... When the sources that fed such charity were exhausted, the influx of donations began to weaken rapidly. With the impoverishment of funds, institutions dear to Mitrofania, those of her offspring, thanks to which the Serpukhov monastery was an active and vital cell in the cycle of spiritual and economic life of the surrounding population, had to collapse. With the decline of the monastery, of course, the role of the unusual and highly influential abbess also faded. The proud and creative soul of Mitrofania could not reconcile with all this, and the latter went to crime...

Subject to detention by order of the Moscow investigator, Mitrofania was transferred to Moscow, where, according to her probably exaggerated statement at the trial, neither her rank, nor sex, nor age was shown respect and legal indulgence ... While still in Petersburg, abandoned by everyone who was not personally interested in her justification as an escape from her own responsibility, she vaguely foresaw both the new accusations that threatened her in a many-day trial, and the refusal the best forces from her defense, and the cruel curiosity of the public, and harassment from the petty press, and insidious questions at the trial, aimed at making her let it out and give weapons against herself ...

All this, taken together, in connection with the debilitating swelling of the legs, was reflected in the moral state of Mitrofania during her stay in St. Petersburg and prompted the investigator Rusinov - a man who knew how to combine heartfelt kindness with vigorous activity - to avoid, if possible, summoning the accused to the chambers of the judicial investigators of St. Petersburg , where her appearance, of course, would have aroused the intensified and greedy attention of the crowd crowding in the vast reception room ...

When the hot summer of 1873 set in, Mitrofania began to feel very ill in a stuffy hotel in one of the busiest and noisiest places in St. Petersburg. A repetition of her interrogation was not foreseen very soon, and I, in agreement with the investigator, decided to satisfy her request and let her go on a pilgrimage to Tikhvin, and then, if time and the course of the investigation allowed, then to Valaam. The trip to Tikhvin significantly strengthened her and evoked from her side in a letter to me an expression of genuine gratitude for "consolation in a bitter situation" ... In her posthumous notes, published in Russkaya Starina in 1902, she warmly recalls our attitude to her and naively notes that she prayed in Tikhvin, by the way, for the servant of God Anatoly ...

http://www.rgz.ru/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8038&Itemid=72

INCITAT - one of the horses, which, thanks to its owner, has become world famous; Spanish horse of the Roman emperor Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, better known as Caligula. It was a light gray Spanish horse named Porcellius, which means "pig". The stallion easily won races for the "greens", of which the emperor was a fan. Handsome, stately, fast, very soon he was renamed by Caligula into Incitatus (lat. Incitatus fleet-footed).

Incitatus was able to win the love of one of the bloodiest rulers of Rome. A greedy, vicious, cruel man, enjoying bloody reprisals and considering himself a god, showered him with honors and gifts. Confirmation of this can be found in the books of his contemporaries and historians, for example, "The Life of 12 Caesars" by Suetonius.


Imperial benefits for a pet:

1. The stable for him was made of marble, the manger was made of ivory, and the drinker was made of gold. The horse was dressed in purple bedspreads trimmed with pearls.
2. Later, Incitat had his own palace with servants.
3. The horse was officially married to the mare Penelope.
4. For disturbing the rest of the horse, an execution was supposed.
5. At the festivities, the emperor's slaves and even his wife had to dance before the Incetate, and the subjects raised goblets to his health.
6. The horse was allowed to be present in the emperor's refectory, where he was served the most delicious dishes and brought intoxicating drinks.

These whims of Caligula surprised people, but the emperor did not stop there:

1. He first made the horse a citizen of Rome, then introduced it to the Senate. According to the consul and historian Dion Cassius, if Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus had not been killed, then after a while the horse could become a consul. Suetonius also mentions this.
2. After proclaiming himself a god, the emperor appointed Incetates, all the former consuls and several honorary citizens as his priests. For this position, people had to pay a very large sum (8 million sesterces). In order for the horse to hand over money to the treasury on an equal basis with others, all horses were taxed with tribute, which was to be collected annually. In case of non-payment by the owner of the money, the animal was sent to the knacker.
3. In the end, the emperor's favorite horse was declared the embodiment of all gods. Now people were obliged to worship him, tirelessly glorify and praise him. For this, even the words were entered into the oath: "for the sake of the well-being and good luck of Incitat."

Life after the death of the owner

Having lost all privileges and gifts after the death of Caligula, Inciatus lived in an ordinary stable, but continued to be called a senator, since according to Roman laws, members of the Senate could not be excluded until the end of the term for which they were elected or appointed. In addition, he was not separated from Penelope, considering it cruel and unfair to the animal.

Emperor Claudius, in order to exclude Incitatus from the composition of senators, will cut his payments to the daily ration of a cavalry horse, dismiss the grooms. Consequently, he will not be able to pass the financial qualification for re-election. Having dealt with this difficult situation, the new emperor will ironically say that he was the only senator who did not give stupid advice, did not kill anyone, and did not unleash a single war.

The attitude of historians towards the emperor in different eras

Caligula was considered crazy for inhuman cruelty, a vicious relationship with his sister, excessive permissiveness, but such an attitude towards the horse only strengthened the opinion of contemporaries and later historians who described the period of his reign, in the correctness of such an opinion. At present, most scholars support the opinion of this emperor as a mentally abnormal person, but there is another attitude to this issue.

Anthony Barret, an English historian, believes that Caligula ridiculed senators and consuls with the help of a horse, demonstrated his power, but was not crazy.

The modern meaning of the word "incitat"

The very word "incitat" from its own name has become a household word. Now it is used in the sense of “an example of tyranny, arbitrariness, which is carried out, despite the complete absurdity of orders; appointing a completely unsuitable person to the position.

Usage in literature

The image of Caligula's beloved horse was used in Russian poetry. One of the first to address him was G. R. Derzhavin in the ode “Nobleman”, the poem of Vladimir Vysotsky “We are ancient, tested horses ...”, which was conceived as a poem about horses, is also very famous.

Ruler; crazy orders, which, nevertheless, are carried out; appointing a person who is not at all suitable for her in all respects.

Horse biography

The horse came from Spain and was a light gray color. Most of the information about him is drawn from ancient historical anecdotes, and not from solid documents. But there is no doubt that in the list of Caligula's madness, his horse was not in last place.

Luxurious life

Grade

Some modern historians question the negativity of Caligula's portrait. Specifically, Anthony Barrett Caligula: The Corruption of Power(Yale, 1990) argues that Caligula used the horse as a means to anger and ridicule the senate, and not because he was crazy. They suggested that the late Roman historians who brought these stories to us were highly politically oriented and, in addition, interested in colorful, but not always true, stories. In 2014, the Irish historian David Woods analyzed this plot in a special article and concluded that it was taken out of context and came from an emperor’s joke, which was built on a typical pun for Roman culture and could refer to two people due to associations phrases "horse Incitat" ( Equus Incitatus, literally "fast horse") with their names. The addressee of the barb could be the future emperor Claudius, whose name is formed from the adjective claudus(lame, crippled) or 38-year-old consul-suffect Asinius Celer, whose name comes from the word asinus(donkey), and together with the cognomen Celer(fast) forms a "fast donkey".

Horse of Caligula in Russian poetry

Gabriel Derzhavin in the ode "Nobleman" cited Incitat as an example of the fact that a high rank does not make a person worthy:

More than a hundred years later, the poet Alexei Zhemchuzhnikov, also known as one of the creators of Kozma Prutkov, responded polemically to these lines of Derzhavin:

So Derzhavin played with words, Embraced by indignation. And it seems to me (guilty!), That Caligula is famous for that, They say that the horse decided to send it to the Senate to be present. I remember: in my youth I was captivated by His irony; And my thought depicted In the walls of the sacred tribunal, Among the dignitaries, a horse. Well, was he out of place there? For me - in a dress saddle Why should a horse not be in the Senate, When it would be more appropriate for people of the nobility to sit in a horse stall? Well, was the sound of a cheerful neighing more harmful to the empire And servile silence, And the flattery of breathing speeches? Well, didn't a horse with a beautiful muzzle overshadow insignificant faces And shame with a proud posture People accustomed to prostrate?

In the history of Russian literature, an episode called the “duel of epigrams” is known. This episode is connected with the appointment of the famous lawyer A.F. Koni as a senator (