Brian Thornton - The Book of Ancient Bastards: 101 of the Worst Miscreants and Misdeeds from Ancient Sumer to the Enlightenment
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When it comes to bastards, you cant beat the good old days of the Egyptian pharaohs, the Roman Empire, or Europe during the Dark Ages. The bastards of old abound--and they come in every color, creed, gender, and sexual preference.
From the cross-dressing emperor Elagabalus of Rome, who was assassinated by his own grandmother, to the icon-worshipping fanatical Empress Irene of Byzantine, who gouged out her only sons eyes, youll find the most malevolent malcontents who have truly survived the test of time.
The Book of Ancient Bastards: Because when it comes to bad, it really is ancient history!
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THE BOOK OF
Ancient
BASTARDS
101 OF THE
WORST
Miscreants
and Misdeeds
FROM ANCIENT SUMER
TO THE ENLIGHTENMENT
BRIAN THORNTON
For Robyn
Copyright 2011 by Brian Thornton
All rights reserved.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher; exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.
Published by
Adams Media, a division of F+W Media, Inc.
57 Littlefield Street, Avon, MA 02322. U.S.A.
www.adamsmedia.com
ISBN 10: 1-4405-2488-2
ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-2488-2
eISBN 10: 1-4405-2557-9
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-2557-5
Printed in the United States of America.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Thornton, Brian
The book of ancient bastards / Brian Thornton.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4405-2488-2
ISBN-10: 1-4405-2488-2
ISBN-13: 978-1-4405-2557-5 (electronic)
ISBN-10: 1-4405-2557-9 (electronic)
1. History, AncientMiscellanea. 2. BiographyMiscellanea. 3. Good and evilHistoryMiscellanea. 4. ScandalsHistoryMiscellanea. I. Title.
D62.T47 2011
920.02dc22
2011006235
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information with regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional advice. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.
From a Declaration of Principles jointly adopted by a Committee of the American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and Associations
Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their product are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book and Adams Media was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed with initial capital letters.
This book is available at quantity discounts for bulk purchases.
For information, please call 1-800-289-0963.
Ive said before that the creation of a book is a collaborative effort. Such was definitely the case with The Book of Ancient Bastards. Paula Munier, Director of Innovation at Adams Media, believed in the project from the moment I brought it to her, and supported me every step of the way. My agent Gina Panettieri helped get me a deal and made it a better one. Development Editor Jennifer Lawler was a true professional and the embodiment of grace under pressure. Thank you all.
And thanks to colleagues like author Jeri Westerson, who helped with the selection of bastards who occupy the medieval section of the book, and author/editor Heather B. Moore, for her help with the research on King Solomon. Your efforts helped make the book better, and for that, I am deeply grateful.
Lastly and most importantly, thanks to my family: my parents Hal and Berniece, and my brother Paul, for all of their support. And thanks most especially to my wife Robyn. Once again this book is dedicated to you.
When I wrote the original Book of Bastards, I pointed out the fact that no one is all good or all bad, that even Hitler loved kids and dogs, and that many truly Great Men of history had a touch of the bastard in them. As with American history (the subject area of the original book), so with the ancient world.
In fact, the ancient Greeks, who gave us such words as history and such notions as democracy, also gave us the concept of the hero. But where the modern interpretation of what makes a hero includes being on the good side of a given moral question, the original Greek concept of what makes a hero contains no such moral judgment.
For the Greeks, a willingness to risk and an impulse toward greatness was the major portion of what constituted a hero (that and of course the doing of great deeds, slaying of monsters, etc.). Such character traits can be found in spades among the ancient bastards in this book.
And while reptilian monsters such as Ptolemy VIII (a parricide who killed his own son, had him dismembered, and then shipped to his mother as a present) abound within these pages, there are, as was the case with the original Book of Bastards, plenty Great Men who showed plenty of innate bastardry in addition to (sometimes in support of) the great things they did in order to make names for themselves.
Perhaps thats part of the appeal. As Ive written before, perhaps our own inner bastards respond to learning about the bastardry (usually on an epic scale) of those gone before. Because who doesnt love a good scoundrel and the scandals that attend them?
Either way, these are stories that we continue to tell hundreds, even thousands of years after those involved returned to the dust that spawned them. Say what you will about historical bastardstheyve certainly got staying power!
SARGON OF AKKAD
Just Like Moses, Only Bloodier,
and Not Egyptian
(REIGNED 23342279 B.C.)
But because of the evil which [Sargon] had committed, the great lord Marduk [personal god of the city of Babylon] was angry, and he destroyed his people by famine. From the rising of the sun unto the setting of the sun they opposed him and gave him no rest.
The Chronicle of Early Kings
Imagine what it takes to forge a collection of petty, warring city-states into a unified, multiethnic empire. In a word: bastardry! Not necessarily out-and-out evil, but definitely bastardry.
Empire-builders down through the ages have been veritable poster children for the notion of bastardry: Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, Napoleon, Hitlerthe list is long. But who set the first example that so many conquerors have followed?
Ladies and gentlemen, meet Sargon of Akkad, the first bastard (but hardly the last) to build an empire through conquest.
Everything we know about Sargon screams tough guy: his rise from humble origins to serve as cupbearer to the king of the city of Kish (a job not as effete as it might sound; it was an influential post in the ancient Near East); how that king grew to fear him and his popularity, so sent him to the court of a neighboring king in Uruk, asking that king to kill him, only to have Sargon overthrow the king of Uruk, turn around and go home to conquer Kish, and by extension, the rest of Sumer, Mesopotamia, and the Fertile Crescent all the way to the Mediterranean Sea. You dont get these sorts of things done without having a bit of the bastard in you.
Legendary Bastard
Whether youre a devoted daily reader of the Bible or merely have seen the Cecil B. DeMille movie, youve likely heard this story: woman has baby, for debatable reasons woman decides to get rid of said baby, and rather than killing it outright, sets it adrift in a basket on a great river, hoping it will be found and taken in by some kindly soul. Moses, right? Well, yes, but the story of the foundling-who-goes-on-to-be-great is first told in the legendary birth story of Sargon of Akkad. In his case, he is the son not of an Israelite slave but of a temple priestess, and raised, not by the royal family of Egypt, but by a humble gardener. Still, the whole baby in a basket in the river thing is virtually the same (Sargon was adrift on the Euphrates, though, not on the Nile).
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