City of New Orleans
Consider this - prior to its fall to the Goths (476 according to the redoubtable Edward Gibbon in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire) Rome had about as many occupants as New Orleans before Katrina (between 500K and 1 million.)
Before the Goths had their way with Rome, the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Huns and Vandals paved the way. You gotta love saying Ostrogoth and Visigoth.
Just a few hundred years later the population was down to about 10,000. Transpose the recent images of the abandoned Big Easy and picture the Eternal City in its stead.
Oh, and Mike Myers Coffee Talk character Linda Richman was right - the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy nor Roman nor an Empire. Discuss.
Before the Goths had their way with Rome, the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Huns and Vandals paved the way. You gotta love saying Ostrogoth and Visigoth.
Just a few hundred years later the population was down to about 10,000. Transpose the recent images of the abandoned Big Easy and picture the Eternal City in its stead.
Oh, and Mike Myers Coffee Talk character Linda Richman was right - the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy nor Roman nor an Empire. Discuss.
posted by Howard at 9:30 PM
1 Comments:
the quote I believe comes from Voltaire, who also said that ' witty saying proves nothing.'
It is interesting that the early Emperors of the HRE were elected by German Electors. The original title of the Emperor was Imperii Agustus or Emperor Augustus after Augustus Ceasar. This was pronounced the same as Kaiser in ancient Rome, from whence we got the name of the German Kaiser's.
I would assume that the word Holy was inserted due to the crowning and approbation of the Pope.
It is also a link to the ancient past. All cities took great pains to explain their divine origins, i.e., the Aneid, etc...
The question of where the term comes from is facinating and worth a PHD thesis.
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