Obelisk #13

May 18, 2024 by Sailoil

When I began this journey I never realized how long it would take me to get back to Istanbul. It has been a revelation to me to find how many obelisks were brought to Rome. It is consequently as surprising that the New Rome, Constantinople, has only a single Egyptian Obelisk.

I have already written a post about the Walled Obelisk which mentioned the Obelisk of Theodosius, but this post is dedicated to the Egyptian pillar. There may only be one Egyptian Obelisk in ancient Constantinople, but it is without doubt a very fine specimen.

The original quarry work on this obelisk may have been started in the reign of Hatshepsut, with whom I began the Obelisk thread. But by the time it came to dedicate the stone and erect it Thutmose III, also Thutmose the Great, was on the throne in Egypt. He ruled in the 18th Dynasty from 1479 to 1425 BC. This was the first dynasty of the New Kingdom after the expulsion of the Hyksos rulers.

Thutmose erected the obelisk south of the seventh pylon at the great Temple to Amon-Re at Karnak.

Almost 1,800 years later the Roman Emperor Constantius II celebrated twenty years of his rule in 357 AD. He had two great obelisks moved from Karnak to Alexandria. The Lateran obelisk was shipped to Rome and mounted on the spina of the Circus Maximus. The other obelisk remained in Alexandria until 390 AD.

Theodosius I who is also known as Theodosius the Great was deemed great by the Christian Church for his delivery of the Nicene Creed. He was the last Roman Emperor to rule before the formal split between the Eastern (Byzantine) and Western Empires. Born in Spain he rose to power following the disastrous defeat by the Goths of Valens at Adrianople. He was a capable military commander, negotiating successfully through two civil wars and negotiating settlements with the Goths and the Sassanids that delivered stability to the Empire.

His court needed to move from place to place depending on circumstances. At times he had his capital in modern Lyon in France, or in Milan in Italy, or in Istanbul in Turkey. While in Istanbul, then known as Constantinople, he improved the Hippodrome, the main centre for public entertainment in the City. Regular chariot races between the Demes, known by their colours as the Reds, Whites, Blues and Greens were the sporting lifes blood of the city. The chariot fan clubs known as Demes were more than sports ultras. They peformed important public service in the city. They helped rebuild the walls after earthquakes, and operated a labour organizers, enforcers and as a form of mafia. Keeping the Demes happy was a political necessity in Constantinople, as Justinian learned during the Nika riots.

Theodosius shipped the obelisk from Alexandria in 390 AD for a renovation of the Hippodrome and his name is the one that stuck to the monument. During transport either from Karnak to Alex or from Alex to Constantinople, or during erection in the Hippodrome, the obelisk was damaged, losing 12 metres of its height. Erection on a Marble base, which commemmorates Theodosius’ victories and deeds, helped re-elevate it somewhat.

Today it sits in Sultan Ahmet Square beside the Blue Mosque of Istanbul. Turkish attention is firmly directed towards the Mosque and the ancient hippodrome is a ghost of its former glory. Many of the treasures that adorned the Spina and the Hippodrome were stripped of their wealth in the years before, during and in the 100 years of Latin rule after the sack of the city by the 4th crusade in 1204 AD.

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Obelisk #12

May 18, 2024 by Sailoil

To even the most novice egyptologist it is clear that this obelisk is the ungainly marriage of a remnant of an original obelisk with a red granite bottom section of dubious provenance. The top section began life on commission for Ramesses the Great for his great sanctuary in Heliopolis.

We don’t know who brought it to Rome. It may have predated Domitian and been repurposed by him for his Iseum where most of the Egyptian obelisks in Rome were found.

Early in the 14th Century the top half of the obelisk was excavated and brought to Santa Maria in Ara Coeli on the Capitoline where it remained for over 150 years, although it appears to have toppled over in this time. It was possibly paired with the Pantheon Obelisk for a time at Ara Coeli. In 1582 the city fathers presented the fallen obelisk as a gift to the avid art collector Ciriaco Mattei who was then constructing his Villa Celimontana, where it graces the gardens today. Consequently it is called by two names; The Matteiano obelisk or The Celimontana obelisk.

Mattei was brother to Cardinal Girolamo Mattei. He was married to Giulia Matuzzi, who was daughter of an illegitimate daughter of one of the scandalous Borgia popes, Pope Alexander VI. Alexander is considered by many to be the most corrupt Pope in history. Another of Pope Alexander’s illegitimate children was Cesare Borgia, a cardinal, a condottiero, and the inspiration for Niccolo Machiavelli’s “The Prince”.

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Clancy was a peaceful man…

May 16, 2024 by Sailoil

I am taking a short break from my Obelisk series to celebrate the achievement of a lifetime for the career Irish soldier Lt. General Sean Clancy. The Chief of Staff of the Irish Defense Forces has been appointed to the Chair of the European Union military committee.

Founded in 2001 the EUMC is the highest military body within the EU. The committee directs all military activity by the EU with particular attention on European union military activities with the Common Security and Defence Policy.

There is a strong overlap between the EU and NATO with 23 of the 27 members of the EU being members of NATO. Being a neutral nation within the EU is a positive when it comes to representing the EU defense policy. Ireland takes over the Chair from Austria, another EU neutral member.

General Clancy joined the Irish Defense Forces as a cadet in 1984, one year after I started my first permanent job. He trained as a pilot in the Air Corps. In other circumstances I might have served with him because on leaving school I applied to be a military cadet. My own Grandfather, Jerry Clancy, was a lifetime soldier. Originally a volunteer, who served jail time for subversion agaist the British Crown. When I applied for the Cadets Ireland was in deep recession and jobs were thin on the ground. A career in the military was very attractive and there were literally hundreds of applications for each and every available place.

Having a serving officer in the family was a bonus in that situation, and I didn’t have one. My father was a career civil servant. When any of my family went to civil service interviews we aced them. My father knew the trigger words and phrases that would impress the interview board and he coached us in them. But we did not have the inside track on military interview boards neurolinguistic programming.

This post is a massive congratulations to General Clancy on crowning his career with a massive and important commission. The title of this post is extracted from the song below, which used to be a party piece of my own family. And what advice can I add to that but of Polonius to Laertes (Hamlet I, iii).

Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
of each new-hatch’d, unfledged comrade.
Beware of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
bear’t that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.

Clancy lowered the boom; by Dennis Day

Now Clancy was a peaceful man
if you know what I mean,
the cops picked up the pieces
after Clancy left the scene,
he never looked for trouble
that’s a fact you can assume,
but never-the-less when trouble would press.
Clancy lowered the boom!

Chorus:
Oh, that Clancy, Oh that Clancy
Whenever they got his Irish up,
Clancy lowered the boom!

O’Leary was a fighting man,
they all knew he was tough,
he strutted ’round the neighborhood,
a-shootin’ off his guff,
he picked a fight with Clancy,
then and there he sealed his doom,
before you could shout “O’Leary, look out!”
Clancy lowered the boom!

Chorus

O’Hollihan delivered ice
to Mrs. Clancy’s flat,
he’d always linger for a while,
to talk of this and that,
one day he kissed her,
just as Clancy walked into the room,
before you could say the time of day,
Clancy lowered the boom!

Chorus:

Now Clancy left the barber shop
with tonic on his hair.
He went into the pool room
and met O’Reilly there.
O’Reilly said “For goodness sake,
now do I smell perfume?”
Before you could stack
oyur cue on the Rack
Clancy lowered the boom.

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Obelisk #11

May 15, 2024 by Sailoil

Today in our exploration of the Obelisks removed from Egypt we take a very dark turn. It is a tale of colonial exploitation in modern days on top of colonial exploitation in ancient days.

The Dogali Obelisk is a war memorial to the death of 500 Italian troops in Eritrea in 1887. It began life in the red granite quarries of Aswan in Egypt. Commissioned by Ramesses II, called the Great, the Pharaoh of the 19th Dynasty who ruled from 1279 to 1213 BC. It was erected as a pair of the Boboli obelisk in the precinct of Atum in Heliopolis.

There it remained until Emperor Claudius removed them to validate his elevation to the top job in Rome. After the fall of the Julio-Claudian dynasty with the suicide of Nero the year of the four emperors ended with the victory of Vespasian. It was Vespasian’s second son and the third Flavian emperor Domitian who repurposed Claudius’ obelisks for his Temple of Isis in the Campus Martius.

Rome declined and the captial of the Empire shifted east to New Rome. The city was depopulated and fell into ruin. The damage caused by earth tremors was not repaired, because there was not enough money in the public purse. Bellisarius conquered a Rome much reduced from its former glory. The obelisks erected by Domitian collapsed one by one into the dirt and were buried over time.

The Dogali obelisk was rediscovered by the Roman archeologist, Rodolfo Lanciani in 1883. Unlike many of the other obelisks on the site it was not rediscovered in the Renaissance period. Instead it appeared in time for Italian reunification in 1861. The newly reunited Italy had dreams of restoring the past glory of the Ancient Roman Empire. Italy was late to the age of colonialization behind Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, France and England. The scramble for Africa was well and truly under way. Britain was carving out a corridor from Egypt in the North to South Africa in the South. France had ambitions to build a swathe of control from Morocco and Senegal running Eastwards to the Red sea.

The Italians had designs on Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa. In 1887 at the Battle of Dogali a battalion of Italians well armed with modern weapons were massacred by an Ethiopian army outnumbering them 14 to 1. The newly unified Italy was humbled by their defeat at the hands of what they saw as a primitive native force.

The ancient obelisk of Ramesses the Great was repurposed as a memorial for the “Heroes of Dogali”. In this context it served as a model for many of the memorials later erected for victims of the great war. The Italian humiliation in Ethiopia did not end at Dogali. In 1896 in a defining battle of the first Italo-Ethiopian War at the Battle of Adwa the Ethiopians inflicted a decisive defeat on the Italians, blunting their ambitions in Africa.

Dogali and Adwa became rallying cries for the populist facists under Il Duce Mussolini. When he returned to Ethiopia 40 years later he smashed Ethiopa between two massive armies launched from Eritrea and Somalia. In 1936 Emperor Haile Selassie prophetically addressed the League of Nations in defence of his nation. In 1963, two days after my birth, he addressed the United Nations with this speech.

The Dogali Obelisk can be found in Rome on the site of the former Baths of Diocletian beside the Piazza della Repubblica.

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Obelisk #10

May 14, 2024 by Sailoil

We travel today from Urbino to the Florentine Boboli Gardens to seek out the Boboli Obelisk. Another red granite stone from the quarries of Aswan it was commissioned in the 19th Dynasty by the Great Ramesses II for the sanctuary of Atum in the city of Heliopolis. Atum is the primordial God of the Egyptian Pantheon from whom all the other Gods originated. The primordial mound Benben rose from the waters of the world in the creation myth and the pyramid shaped top of the obelisks represent Benben. Atum created himself upon the mound and proceeded to masturbate to create from his hand the Gods Shu and Tefnut.

This obelisk was one of a pair with the Dogali Obelisk and it is thought that they were shipped to Rome not by Domitian but by Emperor Claudius. Here was another Emperor who needed to justify his position. He was considered to be a stuttering fool during the reign of Caligula, and possibly survived in court because he was written off by Caligula as the idiot uncle. Following the assassination of the Emperor Claudius was found by the Praetorian Guard hiding behind the curtains. His acclamation may have begun as a cynical joke. Publicly cuckolded by his wife he was the laughing stock of Rome

But Claudius proved to be an influence for stability. He undertook important public works. His invasion of Britain earned him a triumph and the Britons worshiped him as a God in his own lifetime. He held the Empire together despite the worst excesses of Tiberius and Caligula, only for Nero to throw it all away for the Julio-Claudian dynasty. If his nephew could import the Vatican obelisk then Claudius could import two.

We don’t know where Claudius erected his obelisks but Domitian added them to those he shipped to Rome to authenticate his Temple of Isis and validate his own position. The Boboli was excavated at the Piazza Minerva, the site of the former temple of Isis, in the 16th Century and was acquired by Cardinal Fernando de’ Medici of the powerful Florentine family. He was building his Villa Medici in Rome in this period and as we saw with Clement XI it was a clear power move to have your own obelisk.

In 1790 the Medici family transported the obelisk to the Boboli Gardens where it sits today. Although what remains is quite well conserved some of the base was lost along with some of its height.

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Obelisk #9

May 13, 2024 by Sailoil

For the 9th Obelisk in this journey we are stepping out of Rome again, and this time further than the Vatican City. We travel all the way north to Urbino; the Renaissance world heritage site of the 15th century Dukes of Urbino.

As we tour the obelisks that were taken from Egypt you may notice a pattern emerging. They begin life in a pharaonic religious context as an expression of the worthiness of the pharaoh to rule. The names of pharaohs translate as “beloved of the god [insert god name]”.

In the days of ancient Rome they were removed and used as an expression of the worthiness of Roman Emperors to rule. The shakier your position the more obelisks you might need. Republican Romans had no need for Obelisks as their validity derived from the Senate and the People of Rome. Of course it was only when Egypt became a Roman Prefecture under Octavian that Romans earned the right to pillage the country for it’s wealth. They are an expression both of colonial imperialism and of personal validity.

With the emergence of the Papal States as a power obelisks are used by the Popes to express the validity of the papacy, the triumph of Christianity over paganism and the personal power and status of individual popes and their families.

Their final manifestation in today’s world is as tourist attractions drawing in tourism and a flowing river of tourist currency.

The Urbino Obelisk was paired with the Elephant and Obelisk when originally erected in Sais, the capital of the 26th Egyptian Dynasty by Pharaoh Apries (Wahibre) about 580 BC. They were removed under direction of Domitian for his precinct of Isis in the Campus Martius just behind the Pantheon today. With the decline of Rome as an Imperial Capital the monuments ceased to be maintained. Over time earthquakes, vandalism and simple wear and tear brought down all except the Vatican obelisk. Most were broken or otherwise damaged.

With the restoration of Rome under the papacy the obelisks were excavated, restored and re-erected, usually with a Christian Cross taking pride of place at the apex. In 1676 the Urbino obelisk was found in three pieces at the site of the former Temple of Isis. It was purchased by Cardinal Allesandro Albani who had it restored and erected in his private villa. The restoration was poorly carried out and the inscriptions on two sides are heavily damaged. The corners of the obelisk were probably heavily damaged so the restorers simply trimmed them off turning it from a square based plan into an octogon. The restorers may have used parts of another ruined obelisk to carry out the repairs.

Albani became Pope Clement XI and it was he who erected the Parthenon Obelisk. In 1737 he presented his home town of Urbino with the personal obelisk from his villa. It is not a large obelisk, the conservation state is poor, the restoration work abysmal and the municipality of Urbino have not gone to any lengths to celebrate it as an attraction. It stands in the middle of the street between the Church of St. Dominic and the Ducal Palace. It is a handy place to park a car without blocking traffic. All in all this is an unremarkable obelisk. Let’s hope nobody backs a truck into it.

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Obelisk #8

May 12, 2024 by Sailoil

Today it is called either the Pantheon Obelisk, or the Macuteo Obelisk. It began in the red granite quarries of Aswan as a commission from Ramesses II (The Great) in the 19th Dynasty in the 13th Century BC for the precinct of the Temple of Ra in Heliopolis, the centre of the cult of Ra in Egypt.

It was shipped to Rome in the 1st Century AD by Domitian as part of his program of establishing the validity of the Flavian Dynasty by Egyptianising everything. This obelisk seems to have been sited in the temple of Isis along with the obelisk of the Elephant and Obelisk.

Between the 1st and 14th Century it was moved by somebody round the corner from the temple of Isis to the Piazza di Santa Macuto. Around the 1370’s AD it was discovered and probably restored and moved again to the Basilica of Santa Maria in Ara Coeli on the Capitoline Hill.

Fast forward 300+ years to 1711 and Pope Clement XI had it erected on the already existing Barigioni Fountain of the Pantheon where it stands today. The Pantheon Obelisk might be called the wandering obelisk because it has occupied so many different positions, I count at least 5. But never to our knowledge on the Spina of a Circus or Hippodrome.

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Obelisk #7

May 11, 2024 by Sailoil

Most tourists in Rome are drawn to the Piazza Navona for the fountains. I remember sitting in the shade on a doorstep with my wife and the three kids, eating some lunch in the shade around 2005. When you have visited as many hippodromes and circuses as I have you have an instinct for how they morph into long narrow plazas. It came as no surprise to me that this was once the Circus Argonalis, a sports arena constructed in the 1st Century AD by Emperor Domitian. The obelisk should also be a dead giveaway as they are such a popular installation on the spina of the chariot track. But in this case it seems the obelisk was never associated with the stadium.

The Piazza lies between the Pantheon and the Tiber not far from the Elephant and Obelisk also associated with Domitian. But while the obelisk on the elephant is a real Egyptian obelisk the obelisk in the Piazza Navona, which I will call the Obelisk of Domitian, is a fake. It is not an ancient-ancient obelisk like all the other Egyptian pillars in Rome. It is only an ancient obelisk. Domitian commissioned it himself. He had it constructed in Egypt and inscribed with Hieroglyphs with dedications to Vespasian, Titus and to himself.

It was Jean Francois Champollion, translator of the Rosetta Stone who decoded the text. Some scholars simply see this as Domitian attempting to legitimise the Flavians as many Romans would never see them as “proper” Emperors. The Julio-Claudian line was still in living memory in this era so the Flavians could easily be seen as jumped up usurpers.

Personally I think that the production of this obelisk shows something deeper in Domitian. He was a 17 year old boy in the year of the four emperors. While his father Vespasian and brother Titus were in the East Domitian was in Rome when hostilities broke out. Vitellius had him placed under house arrest and he was in real danger of being executed. He had no illusions about the fact that he was a hostage. This must have been a deeply traumatising event in the young mans life.

When he became Emperor Domitian began to sign documents with Dominus et Deus (Lord and God). He was no longer content to be a Princeps, a first among equals. But also he assumed godhood, an honour often granted to Roman Emperors, but generally after their death. These are the acts of a deeply insecure person. He was paranoid, and was right to be. He ended up being stabbed to death.

As a result I interpret the creation of this obelisk as a crutch, Domitian trying to associate himself with an Egyptian legitimacy far far older than the Roman Senate. The obelisk was not installed in the hippodrome he built, but was more likely located in the temple of Isis or the Temple of Gens Flavia dedicated to his family.

It was moved out of Rome in the 4th Century by Emperor Maxentius who is most famous as the loser at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge which made Constantine the Great Emperor. Maxentius built the Circus of Maxentius three miles outside Rome on the Appian Way. There it ultimately collapsed, broke and sank into the ground. Pope Sixtus V was aware of its existence but chose not to restore it. It was in 1649 that Pope Innocent X restored it and had it erected in front of his own mansion in the Piazza Navona. It forms the centrepiece of the Fountain of Four Rivers which was designed and contructed by Bernini. Documents from the construction of the fountain incorrectly attribute the obelisk to Caracalla.

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Obelisk #6

May 11, 2024 by Sailoil

Obelisk #4 was commissioned by Psamtik II of the 26th Egyptian Dynasty. His successor Apries commissioned Obelisk #6. The 26th was the final native Egyptian Dynasty of the New Kingdom, and they ruled in a time of stability and properity which explains the obelisks. Today in Rome they stand not five minutes walk from each other as they might have done when originally erected in Sais, the Dynastic capital city located on the Canopic branch of the Nile Delta. Number 6 is the smallest of the ancient Egyptian obelisks in Rome and stands outside the Basilica of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, just round the corner from the Pantheon.

Today it is a popular tourist attraction because of the Elephant statue added by Bernini which was sculpted by his student Ercole Ferrata. Many tourist guides call this “The Elephant Obelisk”. But this thread is about the political symbolism of obelisks and it would be very easy to be sidetracked into fountains and later artworks. If you pay attention you may notice I am mostly avoiding commenting on the bases added to the obelisks during the Papal restorations. They are just further distractions.

After the fall of Nero and the year of the four emperors a new Dynasty emerged in Rome, the Flavians. When Otho was defeated by Vitellius Vespasian did not move on Rome, he moved on Egypt. He squeezed the Roman grain supply while he negotiated with the supporters of Otho and Galbus. Egypt was a very important stepping stone for the Flavian Dynasty.

After Vespasian and Titus passed away Domitian was proclaimed as the third Flavian emperor. His older brother destroyed the Second Temple in Jerusalem, but also built the Flavian amphitheatre which the Romans insisted on calling the Colosseum. Domitian celebrated all things Egyptian as symbols of his rule. The name of the church: Santa Maria Sopra Minerva translates as Saint Mary’s [built] over [the temple of] Minerva. This was actually an honest mistake by the Dominicans who confused the Cult of Isis with the Cult of Minerva. The pagan temple built by Domitian was to the Egyptian Goddess Isis; she who found the body parts of the dismembered Osiris, assembled them and resurrected her brother/husband to life.

In the decline and fall of the city of Rome the obelisk was toppled and buried. In 1655 in the reign of Pope Alexander VII it was rediscovered and excavated. Alexander had his family arms emblazoned on the obelisk and raised it on the site. In 1667 it was elevated onto the back of Bernini’s Elephant.

So to a name; is it the Obelisk of Apries? That’s confusing as there is a second in Urbino. Is it the Obelisk of Domitian? There are many of those. The Obelisk of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva? A bit wordy and inaccurate. The Minerva Obelisk because it sits in the Piazza Minerva? But we know it was Isis not Minerva. The Elephant Obelisk? This is a bit oxymoronic for me. I prefer “The Elephant and Obelisk”.

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Obelisk #5

May 10, 2024 by Sailoil

Obelisk 1 is in Egypt, 2,3 and 4 are all in Rome so it is time for a change of city and country. For Obelisk 5 we are relocating to … the Vatican City. Although it is an enclave within the City of Rome the Vatican is not Rome. It is a different city and a different state outside of Italy, while also being inside of Italy.

The Vatican Obelisk commands a magnificent position in the centre of St Peter’s Square (which is more of a circle) and stands right in front of St. Peter’s Basilica. But of course it was not always thus.

Carved of red granite it is clean of decorations, a model of zen simplicity. According to Pliny the Elder it was originally erected by Nuncoreus, a son of Pharaoh Sesostris I (or Kheperkare Senusret I) a Pharaoh of Middle Kingdom 12th Dynasty in Heliopolis in Egypt. If you are an ancient history scholar you will know that the tour guides who gave facts to historians were as big liars in ancient times as they are today. The material Herodotus provides on Egypt is fanciful and we can assume that Pliny fared no better in seeking the truth. Some scholars believe Pliny leaned on Herodotus, and perhaps a little too much. His story is not supported by the archeological record. Senusret did indeed erect obelisks in the 12th Dynasty and one of his is the oldest remaining obelisk in Egypt.

Because it is uncarved we don’t know who erected it, or even if it had been erected. Perhaps it had been transported to Heliopolis where final carving was to take place, and for some reason it remained unfinished. It may have been a very late creation, perhaps from the 26th Dynasty before the invasion of Persia.

What is very tantalizing is a discovery of an inscription which indicates that from 30 BC to 37 AD it was installed in the Julian Forum of Alexandria. If those dates do not set off alarm bells allow me to remind you that the Battle of Actium, where Octavian defeated Mark Anthony and Cleopatra was 31 BC. In 30 BC both Anthony and Cleopatra committed suicide and Octavian took Alexandria. He installed Gaius Cornelius Gallus as the first Roman prefect of Egypt. It was this prefect who erected the obelisk in Alex. As we know Octavian transported two Obelisks from Egypt to Rome between 13 and 10 BC, leaving the Vatican Obelisk in situ in Alexandria.

After the death of Tiberius when Caligula was acclaimed Imperator in 37 AD he began his reign with energy and positivity and the love of the people. The Romans loved Germanicus who restored the pride of Rome by recovering the Eagles lost in the Teutoberg Forest of Germany. The four year old Gaius Julius Caesar, son of Germanicus, was the mascot of the legions. They nicknamed him “little boot” or Caligula. In 37 AD when the new young emperor fell ill the people of Rome thronged the public places to pray for his recovery. He was the very opposite of the bitter old Tiberius and Rome heralded him as ushering in a Golden age. We know that Caligula loved chariot racing. One of his most outrageous acts was to build a bridge of boats across the bay of Naples and drive chariots over it, a horrendously expensive project that fell apart at the first sniff of a storm.

One of his first official acts was to commission a new chariot racing stadium across the Tiber in the area now known as the Vatican. Originally it was called Caligula’s Hippodrome. The Vatican obelisk was shipped from Alexandria to adorn the spina of the racetrack. After the fall of Caligula it became the private racetrack of Emperor Nero. It was renamed the Circus of Gaius and Nero and the emperor was another afficionado of the sport. Well known for burning Christians and Rome but did you know Nero won the olympic games? Indulging his passions in a way you can see today in North Korea Nero won every category he entered.

When the four horse chariot race was lining up Nero approached the starting line in a chariot drawn by ten horses. The farcical arrangement was impossible to control and Nero crashed and almost killed himself. Although unable to finish he was still proclaimed winner of the event.

Nero used the hippodrome built by Caligula as a private entertainment space. After he died the hippodrome became known as the Vatican circus. As Rome declined the Vatican Circus fell into disrepair but the Obelisk remained standing. It is the only Obelisk that never collapsed.

At this stage in the obelisk thread we know that Pope Sixtus V is a hero of obelisk restoration. In 1586 Sixtus had the Vatican Obelisk moved 800 metres in a single day to align it with the Old St. Peters Basilica. At the time this was seen as a great symbolic triumph of Christianity over Paganism. To this day it remains in the same positon. The new St. Peters and the square in front of it have evolved around the Vatican Obelisk.

When it was moved it was topped by a globe of the world. The globe was replaced by a cross and was moved to the Capitoline Museum. Superstitions say that the globe holds the ashes of Julius Caesar, or of St. Peter. That’s the tour guides at work again.

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Mindship

Monthly Archives: May 2024

Obelisk #13

Obelisk #12

Clancy was a peaceful man…

Clancy lowered the boom; by Dennis Day

Obelisk #11

Obelisk #10

Obelisk #9

Obelisk #8

Obelisk #7

Obelisk #6

Obelisk #5