Ides of March ! - stabbing of Julius Caesar; Holocaust and more !!
The title page of the movie showed ‘shadow of a cross’, with "No war is holy" written across the transept. Constantine’s Sword is the story of James P. Carroll's journey to uncover the roots of war. Carroll, a former Catholic priest whose father (Joseph Carroll) was a famous Air Force general, implies that there has been a relationship between religiously inspired violence and war, beginning with the adoption of Christianity by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in 312 AD. Carroll focuses on Catholic and evangelical anti-Judaism, and invokes the cross as a symbol of the long history of Christian xenophobic violence against Jews and non-Christians, from the Crusades, through the Roman Inquisition and the creation of the Jewish ghetto, to the Holocaust.
Odoacer also spelled Odovacer was a barbarian soldier and statesman from the Middle Danube who deposed the Western Roman child emperor Romulus Augustulus and became the ruler of Italy (476–493). Odoacer's overthrow of Romulus Augustulus is traditionally understood as marking the end of the Western Roman Empire. When Illus, master of soldiers of the Eastern Empire, asked for Odoacer's help in 484 in his struggle to depose Zeno, Odoacer invaded Zeno's westernmost provinces. During the winter of 487–488, Odoacer crossed the Danube and defeated the Rugii in their own territory. Theodoric invaded Italy in 489 and by August 490 had captured almost the entire peninsula, forcing Odoacer to take refuge in Ravenna. The city surrendered on 5 March 493. Theodoric invited Odoacer to a banquet of reconciliation, where instead of forging an alliance, Theodoric killed Odoacer, and replaced him as king.
In response to Odoacer's dying question, "Where is God?" Theodoric cried, "This is what you did to my friends." Theodoric was said to have stood over the body of his dead rival and exclaimed, "The man has no bones in his body." The killing took place this day in AD 493 !!
Today is 15th March !! - History is always interesting ! have you seen Rajnikanth, Sridevi starrer SP Muthuraman directed movie “Priya” shot in Singapore, with soothing music of Isaignani Illayaraja. It was a story of Sujatha, which was distorted beyond a point !! Though Sujatha detective novels are all about Ganesh – Vasanth – the character of Vasanth was not featured in the movie and somewhere it was reported that the Director could not finalise the visa for the artiste who was to play Vasanth !!!!
A cursory search on web today revealed these as International Headlines :
· Extreme weather in parts of US gets rarely-used 'high risk' designation
· Will only release American-Israeli hostage if truce deal implemented: Hamas
· Putin calls on Ukrainian troops to surrender as Trump pushes for ceasefire
· Iran using drones, facial recognition to enforce hijab laws: UN report
· Turkey, Israel face mounting tensions over future of post-Assad Syria
· ISIS chief killed in Iraq, Trump says fugitive leader 'hunted down'
· Trump-driven volatility in market pushes new investors toward gold ETFs
· Cuba suffers another massive power outage, millions left in in dark
· UN chief, Bangladesh's Yunus discuss domestic issues, Rohingya crisis
Moving away 15th March is significant – “the Ides of March” ! what ?
The Ides of March is the 74th day in the Roman calendar, corresponding to 15 March. It was marked by several religious observances and was a deadline for settling debts in Rome. In 44 BC, it became notorious as the date of the assassination of Julius Caesar, which made the Ides of March a turning point in Roman history.
The Romans did not number each day of a month from the first to the last day. Instead, they counted back from three fixed points of the month: the Nones (the 5th or 7th, 8 days before the Ides), the Ides (the 13th for most months, but the 15th in March, May, July, and October), and the Kalends (1st of the following month). Originally the Ides were supposed to be determined by the full moon, reflecting the lunar origin of the Roman calendar. In the earliest calendar, the Ides of March would have been the first full moon of the new year.
On Ides of March day in 44 BC, Julius Caesar was stabbed to death at a meeting of the Senate. As many as 60 conspirators, led by Brutus and Cassius, were involved. According to Plutarch, a seer had warned that harm would come to Caesar on the Ides of March. On his way to the Theatre of Pompey, where he would be assassinated, Caesar passed the seer and joked, "Well, the Ides of March are to come", implying that the prophecy had not been fulfilled, to which the seer replied "Aye, they are come, but they are not gone." This meeting is famously dramatised in William Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar, when Caesar is warned by the soothsayer to "beware the Ides of March." The Roman biographer Suetonius identifies the "seer" as a haruspex named Spurinna.
Those movie buffs would recall Rajnikanth playing Julius Caesar in the movie Priya !!. Caesar's assassination opened the final chapter in the crisis of the Roman Republic. After his victory in Caesar's civil war, his death triggered a series of further Roman civil wars that would finally result in the rise to sole power of his adopted heir Octavian. In 27 BC, Octavian was raised to be emperor Augustus, and thus he finally terminated the Roman Republic. Writing under Augustus, Ovid portrays the murder as a sacrilege, since Caesar was also the pontifex maximus of Rome and a priest of Vesta. On the fourth anniversary of Caesar's death in 40 BC, after achieving a victory at the siege of Perugia, Octavian executed 300 senators and equites who had fought against him under Lucius Antonius, the brother of Mark Antony. The executions were one of a series of actions taken by Octavian to avenge Caesar's death.
The worst crime against humanity would be ‘the Holocaust’ – and it is not Hitler or Mussolini alone to blame and that the other Christian world cannot stand exonerated for this chilling crime against fellow humans, in the name of religion.
The Holocaust saw the mass murder of both Greek Jews and ethnic Greeks. Greek Jews died mostly as a result of their deportation to Auschwitz concentration camp, during World War II. By 1945, between 82 and 92 percent of Greek Jews had been murdered, one of the highest proportions in Europe. Before the war, approximately 72,000 to 77,000 Jews lived in 27 communities in Greece. The majority, about 50,000, lived in Salonica (Thessaloniki), a former Ottoman city captured and annexed by Greece in 1912. Germany, Italy, and Bulgaria invaded and occupied Greece in April 1941. During the first year of the occupation, Greek Jews as well as Christians suffered from famine, property confiscation, and hostage killings.
In March 1943, just over 4,000 Jews were deported from the Bulgarian occupation zone to Treblinka extermination camp. From 15 March through August, almost all of Salonica's Jews, along with those of neighboring communities in the German occupation zone, were deported to Auschwitz concentration camp. After the Italian armistice in September 1943, Germany took over the Italian occupation zone, whose rulers had until then opposed the deportation of Jews. In March 1944, Athens, Ioannina, and other places in the former Italian occupation zone witnessed the roundup and deportation of their Jewish communities, although more Jews were able to escape than in the earlier deportations. In mid-1944, Jews living in the Greek islands were targeted. Around 10,000 Jews survived the Holocaust either by going into hiding, fighting with the Greek resistance, or surviving Nazi concentration camps.
Following World War II, surviving Jews faced obstacles regaining their property from non-Jews who had taken it over during the war. About half emigrated to Israel and other countries in the first decade after the war. The Holocaust was long overshadowed by other events during the wartime occupation, but gained additional prominence in the 21st century.
On 15 March 1943, thousands of Jews in Salonika, Greece, were deported from ghettos to Auschwitz-Birkenau. A silent march is held every 15 March from the center of the city of Thessaloniki to the old train station to honor the Jews deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp. Speeches are given at the Freedom Plaza where there is a commemorative sculpture of the Holocaust.
I am not a votary of celebrating Birthdays of people who have died… but today, perhaps we must remember this hero for his deed and martyrdom - on what would have been his 48th birth day -~ yes he died young at 31 (pictured at the start) ……. He did enough for the country. Sandeep Unnikrishnan rose to become a Major in the Indian Army serving in the elite Special Action Group of the National Security Guards (NSG). The wounds of Bombay carnage is slowly dying off for rest of the Nation [would ever remain a scar for the Nationalists and those who have had personal loss] – the valiant Major gave his life fighting terrorists in the November 2008 Mumbai attacks.
On the occasion of the 48th Birth Anniversary of Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan, Tributes were paid at Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan Road, Yelahanka, Bangalore, by the Parents of Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan, Ashok Chakra. Remembering the hero of 26.11 attacks with a heavy heart !!
Regards – S Sampathkumar15.3.2025 (Ides of March)
