Rome 24/10 – Day 15: Anger and good food

At 7:21 the sun rose and it will set at 18:30.

The Ave Maria Bell, marking the end of the ecclesiastical work day, would ring at 18:45.

Thank you, Lord, for this day.

Since it is also the Ides of October, today in ancient Rome would have been their “Oktoberfest”… day of the October Horse.  More on that below.

Today is the Feast of the Patroness of Chess, St. Teresa of Avila, Doctor of the Church.

St. Teresa, pray for us.

St Teresa, a great many of us are fed up with the … shenanigans!

Pray for the Church’s pastors who are persecuting traditionally-minded women religious.  Intercede with God to blunt the mania of aimless process for the sake of process.  Ask God to curb, even with chastisement if necessary, the insanity of gender-bending sex confusion and the appalling acts that it involves.

Her relic at The Parish™ which The World’s Best Sacristan™ prepared for exposition at the altar for the Masses today.

Last night was the “cena di congedo” for my friends who returned to home after the celebration of their 50th anniversary.  La Signora desired some of my green risotto and I was happy to oblige, thus the swoop out of the side.   Proof that we do more than take photos of prepared plates.  We eat the food, too.

The light wasn’t the best, but I think you get the idea.    “Fiorentina”.

After, amaro (one I had not tried before) and ciambelline made in house.

I am spectacularly irritated at Acqua Nepi for bastardizing their label on their .65 l bottle. The nerve.

They went whoring after modern and zippy only to lose their class and identity. It’s good water but I want the company to suffer for this impudent and useless innovation. The other bottles have still a decent label but… what the fresh hell is going on?!? Are they – sorry – testing the waters?

The offending close-up.

They need to get some bad feedback. The last time they tried this crap, I called them up and gave them a piece of my mind and, as they told me then, they scrapped their update that excluded the motto.

It is not to be borne. One more change…. I shall write to them a serious nastygram.

What is the motto, you ask?

Nepe civitas, nobilis atque potens, in cuius fertilissimis agris balnea scaturiunt salutifera.

Can you imagine? They took off the best part, their motto ribbon and Latin phrase.

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In churchy news… this.

Cardinal Müller re-joined the Synod today, after missing the 2024 meetings so far due to illness.

He reportedly began his first day by renewing his criticism that the meeting is not a Synod of Bishops, due to comprising lay voters.https://t.co/KEi3ciNSXe pic.twitter.com/pbpzdhslSx

— Michael Haynes ?? (@MLJHaynes) October 14, 2024

I promised more about the October Horse and ancient Rome.

One of the annual rituals of ancient Rome was the rite of the October Horse.  On this day there was a race between two-horse chariots held in the Campus Martius (at that time open fields).  The right hand horse of the victorious pair would be sacrificed by the flamen (priest) of Mars on an altar there in the Campus Martius (Martius… Mars… right?).  After the sacrifice, people who lived in the Via Sacra neighborhood would fight the people who lived in the Suburra and Francis Ford Coppola for the horse’s head. If the Sacravienses won, would display it on the Regia (where the Roman kings had been). If the Suburrenses won, it was displayed at the Turris Mamilia (a long-gone tower in the rough and tumble Suburra low zone along the slopes of the Viminal and Esquiline Hills). Meanwhile, the horse’s cauda (both tail and genitals) would taken to the Regia to drip its blood on a the sacred hearth.  The Vestal Virgins got some of the blood for use at the Parilia festival on 21 April which was associated with the Birthday of Rome.

The Australian writer Colleen McCullough penned a series of books set in ancient Rome beginning with the rise of Gaius Marius in The First Man in Rome and going all the way through the time of Caesar into the whole Anthony and Cleopatra train wreck.  One of the books is The October Horse which concerns the assassination of Julius Caesar and the rise of Octavian.  The books are admirably well-researched for historical novels.  She explains where she takes any liberties and why.  They stick well to the history of the devolution of the Republic and give great explanations of the events, Roman law, religion, culture, the fierce politics and dynamics of families and tradition, the role of the military.

In the first volume, on Gaius Marius, she gets her feet wet. She hits her stride in The Grass Crown, about Lucius Cornelius Sulla.  Yes, there are objectionable passages, blahhhaity blah blaaaaah.  Skip them and don’t get worked up.  They are historical novels, but they have a great deal of just straight history in them.

We like straight.

In straight chessy news… HERE

(Black to move and straight away and straight mate in 3)