A White Fawn Whispers to Sertorius

One morning a hunter brought a snow-white fawn into camp and presented it to Sertorius.

One of Argonne’s famous white deer makes a rare appearance on a misty morning (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license photo)

Sertorius smiled to see such a beautiful and curious animal. He was happy for a gift like that from the Lusitani. He needed all the support he could get.

He had it tied to his tent. In time it became tame and gentle and he let it follow him around camp. It obeyed his orders—it came when he called and walked off when he told it to leave. Somehow it didn’t mind all the uproar of camp, all the thousands of soldiers. It listened only to Sertorius.

He was astute. Not for nothing was he known as the Roman Hannibal. Probably already as soon as the white deer began following him around he had the idea to say it came from heaven, from the goddess Diana, and that it talked to him and revealed her secrets. The Lusitani were all superstitious—it was easy to get them to believe a story like that.

Whenever he received secret information, he said the deer had whispered it to him. If news came to him that the enemy had made an incursion into his territory he told his men to arm themselves, that the doe had warned him in a dream of an imminent attack. When he heard of or suspected some mutiny or treachery among his soldiers, he said the fawn told him to be on the lookout. And when news reached him of the victory of one of his generals, he hushed the messenger and brought out the doe all covered in garlands. “Good news,” he announced to his soldiers. “Blessed news. Let us offer sacrifice to the gods because good fortune has come our way. I’ve been told.” And he turned to the fawn, who looked back at him with great, loving eyes.

“By these devices,” says Plutarch, “he made the people tractable, and so found them more serviceable for all his plans; they believed that they were led, not by the mortal wisdom of a foreigner, but by a god.”

Meanwhile, everything began to go well for Sertorius and his army of Lusitani barbarians. His power grew and grew. He had started out with only a handful of real Roman soldiers and a motley band of Libyans from Africa. In Lusitania (modern Portugal) he picked up four thousand targeteers and a few hundred horsemen. That was all—that was his army.
With that he waged war against four Roman generals and one hundred and twenty thousand foot-soldiers, six thousand horsemen, and two thousand archers and slingers. Most of the cities in Spain were hostile too and closed their gates to him.
“But nevertheless, from so weak and slender a beginning,” says Plutarch, “he not only subdued great nations and took many cities, but was also victorious over the generals sent against him.”

Who was this Sertorius anyway—and what was he doing fighting on the side of the barbarians against the Romans, his own people?

There was a civil war going on in Italy.

 Lucius Cornelius Sulla – a denarius portrait issued by his grandson (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license photo)

A general named Sulla, after winning a great victory in the East, had come back to Rome with his army and started killing his adversaries. He was on the side of the senate and the old patrician families. Sertorius was a leader of the other side—the people’s party. He had to flee or be murdered. For months he was on the run all over the Mediterranean and Africa. Finally he accepted the call of the Lusitani to be their leader and he began organizing an army.

He began organizing a second Rome, a more just Rome, from Spain. His reputation as a fearless soldier and a great leader had already spread over Hispania. He knew how to win the confidence of his men with shows of clemency and also frequent victories. Yet his situation was always very precarious.

Pompey the Great, 106-48 BC ( public domain photo)

Now Pompey,  the greatest Roman general of all, had come to Hispania with a vast army to end his revolt.

And just when Sertorius needed all the help he could get to keep his army confident, an aide announced that the doe was gone. No one had seen it for days.
Yet Sertorius was lucky one more time. Some men found the doe wandering in the hills at night and brought it to him. “Keep this quiet,” he told the men, and paid them good money.

He hid the doe and allowed a few days to pass. Then one morning he came out of his tent with strange cheerfulness and strode to the tribunal, where he did his daily business. “I’ve had a wonderful dream,” he told the barbarian leaders. “Great good fortune is on the way.”
Then he climbed up onto the tribunal and began to work.

“And now,” says Plutarch, “the doe was released by her keepers at a point close by. She spied Sertorius and bounded joyfully towards the tribunal, stood by his side and put her head in his lap and licked his hand as she had always done before. Sertorius returned her caresses appropriately and even shed a few tears, whereupon the bystanders were struck with amazement. Convinced that Sertorius was a marvellous man and dear to the gods, they escorted him with shouts and clapping of hands to his home, and were full of confidence and good hopes.”

He beat Pompey.

Read more about They Called Him the Roman Hannibal

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El David o el Bloque sin Valor

El David de Miguel Ángel. Es el momento antes de la batalla con Goliat. GNU-FDL Foto deRico Heil (User:Silmaril)

El David de Miguel Ángel salió de un bloque de mármol estropeado que no quería nadie. Las limitaciones de su material obligaron al artista a superarse; y creó su gran obra maestra. ¿Cómo lo hizo?

Había oído hablar de un gran bloque de mármol de casi cinco metros de alto que llevaba años abandonado en un patio. Cuando fue al ayuntamiento a preguntar por él se le dijo que el gobernador-alcalde lo había prometido a un escultor llamado Sansovino. Otro oficial le corrigió al primero, diciendo que él tenía entendido que era para Leonardo da Vinci; pero en cualquier caso, lo mejor sería olvidarse de él porque no valía para nada.

“¿No le han dicho?” preguntó el oficial. “Un tipo llamado Agostino di Duccio empezó a sacar una figura hace años y, ni corto ni perezoso, pero tonto, sí, hizo un agujero justo por el medio. Si hubiera sido un agujero limpio, quizá tendría solución. Pero a continuacíon, el gracioso va y quita piedra a los dos lados del agujero, como para fastidiar el bloque ya bién del todo. Un montón de escultores han ido a echarlo un vistazo y todos han vuelto rabiosos y algunos casi llorando. Era un bloque hermoso, sin el más mínimo fallo. ¡Qué imbécil,  di Duccio! Era para matarle.”

Miguel Ángel conocía la historia y, allá en Roma, mientras esculpía la Piedad, se preguntaba si el bloque de verdad estaba tan mal y si él no podía sacar una figura de él, aún con su agujero. Que una docena de otros escultores no hubiesen sido capaces de hacerlo no le importaba nada.

“Me dejaría ir a verlo?” preguntó.

En el patio del Departamento de Obras de la catedral pasó mucho tiempo con la gran piedra. Yacía como un obelisco caído entre las malas hierbas. Dió vueltas a su alrededor, sacó medidas, se quedó pensando.

“Ahora puede Vd. comprender por qué la gente lo ha rechazado,” dijo el viejo portero con su anilla de llaves. Miguel Ángel no le respondió.

Tan pronto como llegó a casa se puso a dibujar y a hacer un pequeño boceto de cera de un David, que era el tema de di Duccio. Cuando estaba seguro de que podía sacar su figura del bloque, fue a pedírselo al alcalde. Después de pensarlo un rato, Soderini dijo: “De acuerdo. Al fin y al cabo no vale nada ya, y no puedes estropearlo más.”

Miguel Ángel extrajo la figura con tanta precisión que todavía se pueden apreciar en algunos sitios la antigua superficie del bloque y las marcas del cincel de di Duccio.

 David tan grande como Goliat

Tiene más de cinco metros de altura. Representa el David de la Biblia, el pastor que mató a Goliat con una piedra de su honda y más tarde se convirtió en el rey de Israel.

 Miguel Ángel empezó a trabajarlo en 1501 y, según Condivi, su biógrafo, lo esculpió—lo “ventiló”, como dicen los canteros—en sólo dieciocho meses. Si eso es cierto, es casi  obra de un mago.

¿Dónde lo ponemos?

Se convocó una conferencia de artistas para decidir sobre su ubicación. Entre ellos se encontraban  algunos de los artistas más famosos del renacimiento italiano: Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli y Filippino Lippi.
Votaron erigir la gran estatua a la entrada del Palazzo Vecchio, el palacio y antiguo ayuntamiento de Florencia.

El Palazzo Vecchio, Florencia (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license foto de JoJan)

En 1872 fue trasladada a la Academia (un museo), donde se encuentra actualmente.

El David en la Accademia de Belli Arti de Florencia (Creative CommonsAttribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported foto de Clayton Tang

Unos años más tarde, esta réplica se colocó en el sitio original:

Réplica del David de Miguel Ángel delante  del Palazzo Vecchio, Florencia (Creative CommonsAttribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license foto de Massimo Catarinella)

Un símbolo de la libertad

Se propuso como un símbolo de la libertad. Los habitantes de Florencia se habían enfrentado valientemente a su gobernante tirano, Perfrancesco de Medici, y lo habían echado de su ciudad. Este nuevo David recordaría a quienquiera gobernara Florencia en el futuro que debiera proteger a su pueblo de la injusticia, como había hecho el rey David.

Cómo la transportaron
El traslado de la enorme figura del taller de Miguel Ángel a la plaza del ayuntamiento planteó un serio problema. Dos hermanos (Sangallo) finalmente lo resolvieron. Construyeron un armazón de madera del cual colgaron la estatua con cuerdas gruesas. De esta manera se balanceaba mientras la transportaron y absorbió las vibraciones sin romperse. La cuerda de la que colgaba tenía un ingenioso nudo corredizo que apretaba con el peso. El transporte se llevó a cabo de la manera tradicional, es decir, construyendo delante de la estatua un camino de tablones de madera , colocando debajo del bloque unos rodillos de hierro y tirando adelante con torno y cuerda.

Daños

El David fue dañado en 1527, cuando una vez más los Medici fueron expulsados de la ciudad. Alguien tiró un banco de una ventana del palacio y partió el brazo izquierdo. Las piezas fueron recogidas y restauradas por Vasari. Las juntas son visibles.

Brazo izquierdo del David, que muestra las juntas de las piezas pegadas (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.  foto de  User:JuanMas)

Grandes elogios y algunas críticas

Vasari dice que “cualquiera que haya visto [el David] no tiene necesidad de ver otra cosa de ningún otro escultor vivo o muerto.” Así lo valoraban muchos de sus contemporáneos. Era la estatua por excelencia. Un crítico moderno, Justi, la llamó “la estatua más perfecta de Miguel Ángel de un hombre desnudo”.

Pero no todos los críticos le pusieron la máxima nota. Algunos pensaron que el David no parecía lo suficientemente joven. La Biblia lo describe como un niño y la figura de Miguel Ángel tiene el cuerpo de un hombre casi completamente desarrollado. Otros, como Jakob Burckhardt, opinó que Miguel Ángel había cometido un error al tratar de representar la figura de un adolescente en proporciones colosales. “Sólo las personas adultas pueden ser convenientemente ampliadas”, escribió.

Otras figuras de David

Miguel Ángel no fue el primero en hacer una estatua del rey de Israel.
Ya había algunas excelentes estatuas de David en Florencia. De ellas, las de Donatello y Verrocchio son las más famosas.

El David de Donatello

Donatello, uno de los primeros grandes escultores florentinos, creó este David alrededor de 1445, antes de que naciera Miguel Ángel.

El David de Donatello (Creative CommonsAttribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported foto de Patrick A. Rodgers)

Es la figura de un niño, que sostiene la enorme espada que ha quitado a Goliat, pero su cuerpo es una curiosa mezcla de formas masculinas y femininas. Al igual que el David de Miguel Ángel, tenía una significación política. También celebraba el derrocamiento de un tirano.

El David de Verrocchio

Verrocchio fue el maestro de Leonardo da Vinci y una tradición dice que el propio Leonardo posó para su David.

El David de Andrea Verrocchio (wikipaintings foto)

Una copia. En otra versión  pasa el gran obstáculo de la cabeza de Goliat levantando su pie con la facilidad de un niño. Pero su rostro es serio.

Al comparar estas figuras de David hay que recordar que la de Miguel Ángel mide más de cinco metros de altura, y es de mármol. Las otras dos tienen menos de un metro y son de bronce, una técnica muy diferente.

Para la planificación de una figura tan grande Miguel Ángel tuvo que tratar de imaginar cómo se la vería desde abajo y a mucha distancia, y ajustó algunos detalles para “corregirla” desde esas perspectivas. La cabeza, por ejemplo, es muy grande. La mano derecha se mantuvo grande y baja probablemente con el fin de acentuar la inclinación del torso, que da vida a la figura.
A diferencia de todos los demás Davides, la de Miguel Ángel no lleva ninguno de los emblemas del profeta bíblico.  No hay ni espada de Goliat ni  cabeza cortada. La honda que sostiene en la mano izquierda no es reconocible como tal y la piedra (en realidad, una diminuta columna de mármol) dentro de la mano derecha no es siquiera visible. De hecho, los florentinos de la época no se referían a la figura como “el David”, sino simplemente como “El Gigante”.

El hombre capaz de hacer todo

Fue la primera de las figuras titánicas en piedra y pintura que Miguel Ángel realizó y podría también representar al hombre orgulloso, fuerte y hermoso de los filósofos humanistas del que Miguel Ángel había oído hablar cuando era adolescente. O al hombre del Renacimiento que creía que era capaz de hacer todo lo que quería.

El artista joven

Miguel Ángel nació en 1475. Empezó a dibujar y pintar cuando era muy joven y pronto fue patrocinado por un aristócrata poderoso (Lorenzo el Magnífico) que montó una escuela para enseñar escultura a los jóvenes y favoreció a Miguel Ángel. Le invitó a vivir en su palacio y a asistir a las clases con sus hijos, impartidas por profesores eruditos. Así, mientras esculpía sus primeras figuras, se educó con los mejores profesores de Italia.

Por aquél entonces los italianos comenzaron a descubrir e investigar la antiguas culturas romanas y griegas, que parecían ofrecerles una fuente inagotable de sabiduría.

La Escuela de Atenas de Rafael: retratos de los profesores humanistas y artistas de su tiempo como los grande filósofos de la Antigüedad. Stanza della Segnatura , el Vaticano. Se cree que Miguel Ángel es la figura de la túnica morada que escribe sobre el bloque de mármol (foto del dominio público)

¿Qué es un humanista?

Los filósofos a los que Miguel Ángel escuchó en el palacio de Lorenzo de Medici se llamaban “humanistas” porque convirtieron al hombre en un héroe. Pusieron a un lado las consideraciones abstrusas de la edad media acerca de Dios y se concentraron en el hombre, en sus logros y en su lugar en el plan divino del cosmos. Todo desde la punto de vista “humano”, de ahí “el humanismo”, su doctrina.
¿Qué lugar ocupa el hombre en la cadena de los seres que Dios creó, desde los ángeles hasta los animales?  La cumbre, decían los humanistas: él es el fin mismo de la creación de Dios. El hombre es el vínculo entre los dos mundos, el cielo y la tierra, entre lo divino y lo humano. Incluso los ángeles allá arriba deberían envidiarlo porque él, a diferencia de ellos, fue creado con la capacidad de elegir su destino.

El David de Miguel Ángel es ese hombre orgulloso de los humanistas, del Renacimiento. Ya no es un niño—acaba de convertirse en hombre, un hombre que despierta después de miles de años de infancia, de servidumbre.  Es un hombre independiente, bello y fuerte. Frunce el ceño mientras hace una elección, la elección que es su prerrogativa única.

Nunca más se verá el hombre a sí mismo tan magnificado, tan maravilloso. Ya no es posible. En la edad media formaba parte de una comunidad avergonzada, pecaminosa. Y en años posteriores el hombre volvió a convertirse en un prisionero sin opciones reales. Al llegar a nuestro tiempo, era un manojo de complejos y un peón impotente en algún esquema humano. Lo vimos hambriento, roto, amontonado en pilas y tirado como basura. De nuevo no era nadie, menos que nadie. Un moderno David golpeándose el pecho es tan tonto como King Kong.

En cierto modo, los héroes de Miguel Ángel eran demasiado grandes para el mundo, que nunca supo qué hacer con ellos una vez que la filosofía humanista se había extinguido. No había suficiente ternura en ellos, carecían de la simpatía del muñeco. Así que se quedaron girando, brillando como magníficos orbes celestes, lejanos e ininteligibles.

 Miguel Ángel esculpió su famosa estatua de la Piedad cuando tenía sólo 23 años y comenzó El David tres años más tarde.

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Las mejores fuentes generales son
Las vidas de los grandes artistas, de Giorgio Vasari, publicada por primera vez en 1555; y la Vida a Miguel Ángel de Ascanio Condivi, unos años más tarde, ambas en vida de Miguel Ángel.

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Basílides Chickens Out. Would You?

“The incense is in that bowl, Basílides,” said the Roman official. “When you are finished making your offering to the emperor, I will give you this certificate with my signature. Keep it with you and show it to any Roman official who might ask to see it and you will not be bothered further.”

Basílides looked at the bronze tripod with the fire burning, and the bust of the Emperor Decius. He had only to put his hand in the bowl of incense, bring out a few grains, and sprinkle them onto the fire. It was nothing. The official sitting at his desk would then sign his name to the little parchment strip and stamp it.

The official pretended not to pay much attention but he was curious. What would this Basílides do? He was an intelligent and well-educated man in his fifties. If he did not sacrifice to the emperor he would be thrown into prison and then fed to the lions in the amphitheater once the next group of rebels had been rounded up. He was known to be a leader of the illegal Christian community. They called him a bishop.

The Christian Martyrs’ Last Prayer, a painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme (public domain photo)

“Please,” said the official. “I don’t have all day.”

Basílides stood taller for a moment, then walked over to the tripod and sacrificed to the emperor Decius.
He was the bishop of the diocese of Leon-Astorga in 250 during the Decian persecution. The bishop of Merida (Emerita) likewise apostated.

Their sin naturally angered their Christian communities, who wrote to the Bishop of Carthage, St. Cyprian, to ask for their dismissal.
Why did the Spanish Christians write to an African bishop to deal with this case? There was obviously a special relationship with the African Church. Most scholars believe Christianity came to Spain from Africa. Maybe Carthage was their Mother Church.

Cyprian fired the two apostates and called a synod of bishops. All this appears in the famous letter 65 of his correspondence, and it is the first real news we have of the infant Christian community in Spain (254 AD).

Basílides himself appealed to the bishop of Rome. The pope in Rome had no particular authority over the Spanish Church but Rome was reputed to be more tolerant. And in fact Pope Steven I reinstated him. There is no record of the conflict this must have created.

Those bishops had sinned very gravely and needed some exemplary punishment, no doubt. The pile of stones is just over here….all you have to do is pick one up and throw it at them.

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This is a certificate like the one given to Basílides after he had offered sacrifice to the emperor as a god. It was called a libellus, and the owner, a libellaticus. Excavators in Egypt have turned up many of these. Every Roman citizen was obliged to possess one and show it on demand. The heavy writing in the middle is the signature of the presiding officer and the writing at the bottom is the date. It was issued in 250 AD, just the year Basílides apostated.

Read an actual letter from a Roman governor asking how to deal with the Christians in his province.

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Cellini Insults a Great Lady

From one of the world’s great books: The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini

Cellini’s great statue of Perseus in the Piazza della Signoria, Florence (public domain photo by Jrousso)

Benvenuto Cellini, goldsmith and sculptor, gets invited to France by its very king, Francis I, who gives him the commission for a colossal statue of Jupiter. This is Cellini’s funny report of the royal visit to his workshop:

“I told [King Francis] all I had been doing, and he was at once seized by a strong desire to have a look at the work. So after dinner he set out with Madame d’Étampes, the Cardinal of Lorraine, and several other lords including the King of Navarre (the King’s brother-in-law), and the Queen, Francis’s sister, as well as the Dauphin and the Dauphiness.  So that day all the flower of the court came to visit me.

King Francis and Madame d’Étampes visit Cellini in his workshop–an illustration by Comte (photo by Roger-Viollet)

“Meanwhile I had returned home and began working. When the King appeared at the door of my castle he heard the hammers going, and ordered everyone to keep quiet. Everyone in the shop was hard at it and as a result, not expecting the King, I was taken by surprise. He entered my hall, and the first thing he saw was me myself, standing there working on a great piece of silver, which I was using for the body of the Jupiter [the colossal figure commissioned by King Francis]. One man was beating out the head and another the legs, and the noise was deafening. While I was working I had a little French lad of mine helping me: he had annoyed me in some way or another and so I had given him a kick, and, as luck had it, catching him in the crutch I had sent him hurtling forward a few good yards. So as the King came in the little lad clung to him to keep his balance.

“His Majesty burst out laughing, while I stood there, dumbfounded. Then the King began to ask me what I was doing, and wanted me to go on working…”                   

Autobiography, Benvenuto Cellini, Penguin Classics, 1976, translated by George Bull, p.260

A medallion by Cellini with a portrait of King Francis I ( Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license photo by Sailko)

The King declares he has never been so pleased with an artist and calls him “mon ami” (my friend), a singular honor.  However, Cellini soon ruins his good fortune at court by inadvertently slighting the King’s mistress, Madame d’Étampes. And then by pointedly insulting her.
Here is what happened:

Hearing King Francis praise Benvenuto, Madame asks him to have Benvenuto create a beautiful fountain for the castle at Fountainebleau. Francis jumps at the idea and orders Cellini to get started on a model. “We must remember to do something great for this fine artist,” the King tells Madame d’Étampes. “I shall remind you,” she says.

After a few weeks, when he returns to Paris after a trip, the King hurries to see the model, unaccompanied this time by Madame d’Étampes. Cellini, who has everything ready, gives the King a detailed explanation of the model and the meaning of all its parts, and makes Francis almost delirious with delight. However…

“As my bad luck had it I was not warned to play the same act before Madame d’Étampes; and that evening, after she had learned from the King’s own mouth all that had happened, such poisonous anger accumulated in her breast that she burst out: ‘If Benvenuto had shown me his fine works of art he would have given me cause to remember him when the time comes.’
The King tried to make excuses for me, but it was useless. I heard about all this a fortnight later…”

And now the worst happens:

“So I took the beautiful little vase that I had made at Madame d’Étampes’ request, thinking that by giving it to her I would recover her favour.  I went to see one of her nurses, bringing the vase with me.
“I showed her the beautiful vase that I had made for her mistress, and explained that I meant to give it to her. She welcomed me with extraordinary kindness and said that she would have a word with Madame, who was not yet dressed, and that as soon as she had spoken to her I would be admitted. The nurse told Madame everything, and she replied contemptuously: ‘Tell him to wait.’

Madame d’Étampes (Anne de Pisselieu) by François Clouet (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license photo)

“When I heard this I submitted with a good grace—a thing I find very difficult—and waited patiently until after her dinner-time. Then, seeing how late it was, my hunger made me so angry that I could not endure it any longer and went away, devoutly saying to myself that she could go and rot. I went to the Cardinal of Lorraine and gave him the vase as a present…”

                                                             Autobiography, Benvenuto Cellini, Penguin Classics, 1976, translated by George Bull, p.272

 

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A Legendary Speaker by Mark Twain

This is Mark Twain’s unforgettable description of an Iowa “erratic genius” and the legendary speech he gave to an audience in Keokuk.  It begins:

Keokuk, a long time ago, was an occasional loafing place of that erratic genius, Henry Clay Dean.

Keokuk, Iowa in 1865 (public domain photo)

I believe I never saw him but once; but he was much talked of when I lived there. This is what was said of him:

He began life poor and without education. But he educated himself—on the curbstones of Keokuk. He would sit on a curbstone with his book, careless or unconscious of the clatter and the tramp of the passing crowds, and bury himself in his studies, never changing his position except to draw in his knees now and then to let a dray pass unobstructed; and when his book was finished, its contents, however abstruse, had been burned into his memory, and were his permanent possession. In this way he acquired a vast hoard of all sorts of learning, and had it pigeon-holed in his head where he could put his intellectual hand on it whenever it was wanted.

His clothes differed in no respect from a “wharf-rat’s”, except that they were raggeder, more ill-assorted and inharmonious (and therefore more extravagantly picturesque), and several layers dirtier.  Nobody could infer the master-mind in the top of that edifice from the edifice itself.

He was an orator—by nature in the first place, and later by the training of experience and practice.  When he was out on a canvass, his name was a lodestone which drew the farmers to his stump from fifty miles around. His theme was always politics.  He used no notes, for a volcano does not need notes. In 1862 a son of Keokuk’s late distinguished citizen, Mr. Claggett, gave me this incident concerning Dean:

The war feeling was running high in Keokuk (in ’61), and a great mass-meeting was to be held on a certain day in the new Athenaeum. A distinguished stranger was to address the house. After the building had been packed to its utmost capacity with sweltering folk of both sexes, the stage still remained vacant—the distinguished stranger had failed to connect. The crowd grew impatient, and by and by indignant and rebellious. About this time a distressed manager discovered Dean on a curbstone, explained the dilemma to him, took his book away from him, rushed him into the building the back way, and told him to make for the stage and save his country.

Presently a sudden silence fell upon the grumbling audience, and everybody’s eyes sought a single point—the wide, empty, carpetless stage. A figure appeared there whose aspect was familiar to hardly a dozen persons present.  It was the scarecrow Dean—in foxy shoes, down at the heels; socks of odd colors, also “down”; damaged trousers, relics of antiquity and a world too short, exposing some inches of naked ankle; an unbuttoned vest, also too short, and exposing a zone of soiled and wrinkled linen between it and the waist-band; shirt-bosom open; long black handkerchief wound round and round the neck like a bandage; bob-tailed blue coat, reaching down to the small of the back, with sleeves which left four inches of forearm unprotected; small, stiff-brimmed soldier-cap hung on a corner of the bump of—whichever bump it was.

This figure moved gravely out upon the stage, and with a sedate and measured step, down to the front, where it paused, and dreamily inspected the house, saying no word.  The silence of surprise held its own for a moment, then was broken by a just audible ripple of merriment which swept the sea of faces like the wash of a wave. The figure remained as before, thoughtfully inspecting. Another wave started—laughter, this time. It was followed by another, then a third—this last one boisterous.

Illustration of Henry Clay Dean from an old edition of Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain (public domain photo)

And now the stranger stepped back one pace, took off his soldier-cap, tossed it into the wing, and began to speak with deliberation, nobody listening, everyboy laughing and whispering. The speaker talked on unembarassed, and presently delivered a  shot which went home, and silence and attention resulted. He followed it quick and fast with other telling things; warmed to his work and began to pour his words out, instead of dripping them; grew hotter and hotter, and fell to discharging lightnings and thunder—and now the house began to break into applause, to which the speaker gave no heed, but went hammering straight on; unwound his black bandage and cast it away, still thundering; presently discarded the bob-tailed coat and flung it aside, firing up higher and higher all the time; finally flung the vest after the coat; and then for an untimed period stood there, like another Vesuvius, spouting smoke and flame, lava and ashes, raining pumice-stone and cinders, shaking the moral earth with intellectual crash upon crash, explosion upon explosion, while the mad multitude stood upon their feet in a solid body, answering back with a ceaseless hurricane of cheers, through a thrashing snow-storm of waving handkerchiefs.

“When Dean came,” said Claggett, “the people thought he was an escaped lunatic; but when he went, they thought he was an escaped archangel.”

Twain, Life on the Mississippi, originally published by The Century Company in 1894. My edition: Dorset Press, New York, 1988 (p. 246)

A statue of Mark Twain in Garden City, Kansas (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license photo by Billy Hathorn)

Read more about Dean here.

See Twain’s description of a scary thunderstorm.

 

Meeting Hemingway’s Hero

I knew a bar called Las Panderetas where bullfighters went and I had seen Nicanor Villalta sitting at a table in the corner one afternoon.  I could have approached him right then but I wasn´t ready, and by the time I had figured out what I could say to him he had gone to speak to somebody and the occasion was lost.

Bar “La Taurina” in old Madrid (photo from file)

That night and a few other times I rehearsed the conversation I planned to have if I ran into him again.  And about a week later I went back to Las Panderetas and there he was again, sitting at the same table.  I sipped a glass of white wine (chato de vino blanco) at the bar while I went over my questions one more time and built up courage.  You´d have thought I meant to assassinate the guy.
OK.  One last look.  There he is now and looking in my direction.  Here goes.

I walked over to him and spoke just a little too soon, before I had reached him.  “Señor Villalta?”
His table was on a kind of podium and he bent way down to try to hear me.  “¿Perdón?”
“Are you Sr. Villalta the bullfighter?”
“Sí,” he said dryly and sort of defensively.  Maybe he thought I wanted to sell him something or ask him for a dime.
Opposite him at the table was an old guy who took a deep interest in this interview and made me nervous with his watching.

“I´m American,” I began.
“Sí,” said Villalta again.  He was hard of hearing and listened with a grimace and a squint and one ear towards you.
“Last week the American bullfighter Sidney Franklin died.  Do you remember him?”
He didn´t hear me or understand me but fortunately the old guy with him at the table told him what I had said.
“Yes,” said Villalta, starting to look inside himself while he remembered.  “He was very brave.  Muy valiente.”   I wondered if he meant this as a false compliment.  Bravery was a lot more common than quality fighting.  Maybe he was saying that Franklin was brave but no good.
“He was left-handed,” he went on.  His statements came out one by one, decisively, the way old people often make them.  “He did all the pases the other way around.  It was very curious.  But it worked.  He was all right.  Yes, I remember him.”

I could see that that was about all I was going to get out of him on the subject of Franklin. He hadn’t asked me to sit down: I was still standing at the foot of his table/podium and sweating heavily.  Always so nervous.   But I tried to relax and make this conversation look casual.  “Would you let me buy you a drink?” I asked.
“No.”   Bad luck.      He wasn´t enjoying this conversation much.
“And Hemingway, do you remember him?”   The other guy at the table explained that I wanted to know about Ernest Hemingway, the writer.

Ernest Hemingway’s 1923 passport photo  (public domain)

“I think they introduced me to him once,” said Villalta.  You could see he had something against old Hem.
“You are in his book on bullfighting,” I said.
“Yeah, he called me I don´t know what kind of insect.”   I saw the misunderstanding right off.  Villalta cut a strange figure in the ring (and outside of it).  He was disproportioned: tall as a basketball player, with a wee little head on a long neck.  There was something stilt-like about his legs, something stiff about his way of walking.  Though he performed all the pases competently, he wasn´t pretty to see.  “He has a kind of praying mantis style,” wrote Hemingway.

“But Hemingway admired you, ” I said.
“Nah.”
“Do you know he named his son after you?”  This last wasn´t rehearsed.  It may not even be true.  I knew one of Hem´s sons was called Nicanor and deduced.
But Villalta wasn´t appeased.  He had made a judgment on Hemingway years before and that was that.  He went back to Franklin.   “Your Franklin wasn´t around very long,” he said.   “I remember an awfully big cornada (horn wound).”
“Did you get many?”
“No!” He almost shouted it.  He looked exasperated, as though for years he had been fighting a recurrent lie.   “Very few.  None.”
Not every bullfighter sees gorings in the same way.  Some brag about them.  Villalta seemed to think that you got gored out of incompetence, mostly, and poor judgment.  That if you understood bulls you didn´t get gored except now and then from bad luck–the wind, the bull´s distraction.

He was one of the very greatest of bullfighters.  He still has the record for ears in the Madrid ring.  He must have made big money in the early ’30s but by the time I knew him he was so poor he had to ask for help.  I went to a benefit fight for him.  He came down into the ring to take the applause of the crowd and one last time made a trip around the ring and even tried to run a little–sideways like they do, with his arms outstetched.  But his old legs were too stiff and he had to give it up and just bow.  In his old suit which was too big for him he looked like a tall scarecrow, or with his little head, like a …praying mantis.

So that’s how I begged an old guy for change.  What he had he gave in the ring to the people who paid for it then.  I  won´t be such an ass as to complain that what I made him give me out of his old  pocket wasn´t worth much.

(photo source)

Here is some of what Hemingway says about him in Death in the Afternoon:

“…When he does a great faena [performance, the torero's work] it is all valour; valour and that magic wrist, and it makes you put up with the greatest awkwardness…You are certain to see him looking as awkward as a praying-mantis any time he draws a difficult bull, but remember that his awkwardness is caused by his physical structure, not cowardliness.

photo of Nicanor Villalta y Serrés (1897-1980) from Death in the Afternoon

Because of the way he is built he can only be graceful if he can put his feet together, and where awkwardness on the part of a naturally graceful bullfighter is a sign of panic, in Villalta it only means that he has drawn a bull which he must spread his legs apart to work with. But if you ever see him when he can put his feet together…then you will forgive him the neck God gave him, the muleta the size of a bed-sheet that he uses, and his telephone-pole legs, because his strange mixture of a body contains enough valour and pundonor [moral imperative, sense of honor and responsibility] to make a dozen bullfighters.”

Though I only guessed about it at the time, it is a fact that Hemingway named his first son after Villalta. (“If the baby had been a girl we would have named her Sylvia. Being a boy we could not call him Shakespeare.  John Hadley Nicanor is the name. Nicanor Villalta the bullfighter.” Letter to Syvia Beach, Nov. 6, 1923)

Hemingway put in a long afterward about Sidney Franklin in Death in the Afternoon.  He says things like this:

“Franklin is one of the most skilful, graceful, and slow manipulators of a cape fighting today…He is a better, more scientific, more intelligent, and more finished matador than all but about six of the full matadors in Spain today, and the bullfighters know it and have the utmost respect for him.”

Sidney Franklin (1903-1976) public domain photo by Carl Van Vechten

Hemingway was proud of his friendship with Franklin, who taught him much about bullfighting. Franklin died in a New York nursing home in 1976.

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What You Can Learn From Hannibal

1. Take the initiative, keep the initiative. This gave Hannibal a tremendous advantage. His enemy had constantly to try to guess his intention and defend himself against several alternative attacks. The enemy Roman consul was forever on the defensive, waiting, wondering, guessing, bracing himself for the blow.  When the consul Longus, bent on making Hannibal stand and fight him, lined up his army for the battle, Hannibal ordered his men to go back to camp. He refused to fight. At that time he was not prepared for a general battle, says Polybius, “and made it a principle never to be drawn into a decisive engagement unless by deliberate choice, and certainly not on a casual impulse.”

Hannibal Barca, 247 BC – 182 BC (public domain photo)

2. Be quick. Surprise. Hannibal decamped by night from Capua and got to Rome before the Romans in Capua ever realized he was gone. He crossed Etruria through a swamp because that was the way everyone assumed he wouldn’t go.

3. Be crafty, lay a trap. Hannibal’s plans were always ways of fooling his enemy, misleading him, enticing him into combat, surprising him with hidden forces, seeming to be somewhere else. Everyone remembered the way he got out of the difficult pass in Campania, with Fabius’s army all around him. Along a path that paralleled the only road out, which was heavily guarded by Roman troops, he stampeded a herd of cattle at night with lighted torches on their horns. The guards, thinking the cattle were Hannibal’s soldiers, rushed to confront them, abandoning their positions on the mountain. While they were dealing with the bulls, Hannibal quickly sent his army through the pass. That was his most ingenious trick. But all his tactics were ploys and ruses and feints, even when not outright traps.

4. Be flexible. Have a plan but be able to alter it or even drop it as circumstances change. Bad generals believe they will one day meet the enemy squarely on the field and have a nice pitched battle. Those generals toy in their minds with troop dispositions—where to put their cavalry, where to stand their light-armed soldiers, how deep to build their phalanx, and so on. “That will be the decisive day,” they tell themselves, and hope for good luck.

For Hannibal every day was that decisive day. The great battle was now, it was always going on. He didn’t merely march until he came to a perfect situation for battle. He created the situation or took advantage of one. He was stubborn only about his objective, not about his means. He was at every moment aware of his advantages and disadvantages. And of the enemy’s.

5. Fight for tomorrow as well as today. Think two steps ahead, not just one.

6. Understand your enemy; learn his weaknesses. Hannibal always sent out spies to learn the enemy’s plans. He interviewed prisoners and guides to get information. As soon as new Roman consuls were given command, Hannibal sent informers to find out who they were. He wanted to know whether the new general was a hothead or whether he had ever led troops in battle and what the result had been; whether he was cocky or impatient; whether he liked to drink or was in any other way intemperate or undisciplined.

After Hannibal had beaten his first consuls, along came another one called Flaminius with his army. Hannibal learned from his informers that this Flaminius was “on fire with ambition” and that he believed in his own good luck. “Here’s a man after my own heart,” thought Hannibal and arranged a trap for Flaminius’s army. He knew the man would attack with his whole force at the first opportunity, good or not, so Hannibal lured him along a narrow road between a mountain (where his own army lay hidden) and a lake. Flaminius was fool enough to believe that HE had the advantage and sent his whole army into Hannibal’s trap, where it was annihilated.

7. Be daring. Come down with your army across the Alps with elephants and attack Rome on Roman ground, far from your own country and without logistic support except what you can steal.

8. Keep your mouth shut. Hannibal never told anyone what he was doing.

Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus (public domain photo by schurl50)

9. Be all of the above except when you are faced with an enemy who is all of the above. In that case, be like Fabius, the Roman general. Cautious, prudent, unrisking, defensive, back-holding. No war manual ever told anyone to be like Fabius. Under the circumstances, his was the winning strategy.

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