 |
|||
| Name: | Big Ben |
Age: | Four years old |
| Gender: | Male |
Kind: | Orange Tabby |
| Home: | Stettler, Alberta, Canada |
||
|
We adopted Big Ben in August 2011 from a wonderful feline rescue organization called Whisker Rescue (Red Deer, Alberta), after losing our beloved Simon — who was also an orange tabby – to Feline Leukemia Virus earlier in the year. We had initially planned to adopt a kitten as we felt a younger cat would get along better with our two dark tabby girls. But we just fell in love with Ben! He really should be called ‘Gentle Ben’ because he is so sweet-natured.
Ben is a very handsome cat, with his big amber-colored eyes and a distinctive orange “soul patch” on his chin. His white underside extends partially down the inside of his back legs so in the rare moments when he shows us his belly, it looks like he is wearing white boxer shorts! Whisker Rescue did not have much information on Ben but we suspect there might have been some unpleasantness in his past as he is quite shy and uncertain, especially around strangers. We felt he was perfect for us because we have a very peaceful home with no small children. His first couple of weeks with us were a bit rough,though. He was treated for ear mites before leaving the kitty orphanage, then developed a yeast infection in both ears and had to return to the vet clinic to have his ears flushed and then treated with drops for a week. He managed to find some very creative places to hide, but his loud purr always gave away his location. All that is in the past now. He has become a playful cuddle-bug. Some of his favorite things are playing with his kong, enjoying couch-cuddles with his humans, watching the world from the big living room window, napping in his “man cave” (the comfy little room inside the scratching post), and being groomed by his little sister, Livy. As soon as the lights go out at night, he sneaks into bed with us and goes to sleep. Ben has definitely found his forever home. |
|||
Tag: Livy
Who were the Celts?
Who were the Celts?
The Celts were a group of peoples that occupied lands stretching from the British Isles to Gallatia. The Celts had many dealings with other cultures that bordered the lands occupied by these peoples, and even though there is no written record of the Celts stemming from their own documents, we can piece together a fair picture of them from archeological evidence as well as historical accounts from other cultures.
The first historical recorded encounter of a people displaying the cultural traits associated with the Celts comes from northern Italy around 400 BC, when a previously unkown group of barbarians came down from the Alps and displaced the Etruscans from the fertile Po valley, a displacment that helped to push the Etruscans from history’s limelight. The next encounter with the Celts came with the still young Roman Empire, directly to the south of the Po. The Romans in fact had sent three envoys to the beseiged Etruscans to study this new force. We know from Livy’s The Early History of Rome that this first encounter with Rome was quite civilized:
[The Celts told the Roman envoys that] this was indeed the first time they had heard of them, but they assumed the Romans must be a courageous people because it was to them that the [Etruscans] had turned to in their hour of need. And since the Romans had tried to help with an embassy and not with arms, they themselves would not reject the offer of peace, provided the [Etruscans] ceded part of their seperfluous agricultural land; that was what they, the Celts, wanted…. If it were not given, they would launch an attack before the Romans’ eyes, so that the Romans could report back how superior the Gauls were in battle to all others….The Romans then asked whether it was right to demand land from its owners on pain of war, indeed what were the Celts going in Etruria in the first place? The latter defiantly retorted that their right lay in their arms: To the brave belong all things.
The Roman envoys then preceded to break their good faith and helped the Etruscans in their fight; in fact, one of the envoys, Quintas Fabius killed one of the Celtic tribal leaders. The Celts then sent their own envoys to Rome in protest and demand the Romans hand over all members of the Fabian family, to which all three of the original Roman envoys belonged, be given over to the Celts, a move completely in line with current Roman protocol. This of course presented problems for the Roman senate, since the Fabian family was quite powerful in Rome. Indeed, Livy says that:
The party structure would allow no resolution to be made against such noblemanm as justice would have required. The Senate…therefore passed examination of the Celts’ request to the popular assembly, in which power and influence naturally counted for more. So it happened that those who ought to have been punished were instead appointed for the coming year military tribunes with consular powers (the highest that could be granted).
The Celts saw this as a mortal insult and a host marched south to Rome. The Celts tore through the countryside and several battalions of Roman soilders to lay seige to the Capitol of the Roman Empire. Seven months of seige led to negotiations wherby the Celts promised to leave their seige for a tribute of one thousand pounds of gold, which the historian Pliny tells was very difficult for the entire city to muster. When the gold was being weighed, the Romans claimed the Celts were cheating with faulty weights. It was then that the Celts’ leader, Brennus, threw his sword into the balance and and uttered the words vae victis “woe to the Defeated”. Rome never withstood another more humiliating defeat and the Celts made an initial step of magnificent proportions into history.
Other Roman historians tell us more of the Celts. Diodorus notes that:
Their aspect is terrifying…They are very tall in stature, with ripling muscles under clear white skin. Their hair is blond, but not naturally so: they bleach it, to this day, artificially, washing it in lime and combing it back from their foreheaads. They look like wood-demons, their hair thick and shaggy like a horse’s mane. Some of them are cleanshaven, but others – especially those of high rank, shave their cheeks but leave a moustache that covers the whole mouth and, when they eat and drink, acts like a sieve, trapping particles of food…The way they dress is astonishing: they wear brightly coloured and embroidered shirts, with trousers called bracae and cloaks fastened at the shoulder with a brooch, heavy in winter, light in summer. These cloaks are striped or checkered in design, with the seperate checks close together and in various colours.[The Celts] wear bronze helmets with figures picked out on them, even horns, which made them look even taller than they already are…while others cover themselves with breast-armour made out of chains. But most content themselves with the weapons nature gave them: they go naked into battle…Weird, discordant horns were sounded, [they shouted in chorus with their] deep and harsh voices, they beat their swords rythmically against their shields.
Diodorus also describes how the Celts cut off their enemies’ heads and nailed them over the doors of their huts, as Diodorus states:
In exactly the same way as hunters do with their skulls of the animals they have slain…they preserved the heads of their most high-ranking victims in cedar oil, keeping them carefully in wooden boxes.
Diodorus Siculus, History.
By: John Patrick Parle
In terms of a starting point, the Celts probably had their birthplace in the Alsace-Lorraine region of eastern France in the years between 1500-1000 B.C. This is roughly the time when Moses and King David were said to be active in Judea. The Celts of this period were a Bronze Age people, although before long they became the first people north of the Mediterranean civilizations to use iron, giving the Celts a superior position in weapons and tools in their geographic region.
Between 800-400 B.C., a period called the Hallstatt Celtic civilization, the various Celtic tribes began to dominate what is now France (called Gaul then), southern Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia, western Hungary, and excursions into Great Britain. This period corresponds to the high point of Greek civilization, from Homer to the building of the Parthenon.
From about 400-100 B.C., a period called the La Tene Celtic civilization, the Celtic tribes expanded their dominance into Ireland, northern Italy, parts of Spain, parts of Belgium, Bosnia in the Balkans, and had some presence in southern Scandinavia. This time period is when the Romans began to be a powerhouse in the Mediterranean world.
A couple of Celtic military campaigns are worthy of note. In 390 B.C., invading Celtic armies sacked Rome and held it for seven days. These Celts later marauded down the Italian peninsula as far as Sicily, but were driven back.
The Celts also invaded the region around Greece in circa 285 B.C. They raided Thrace (now in Bulgaria), Macedonia, Illyria, and Thessaly (in northern Greece). A coalition of Greeks finally drove the Celts back after the latter had sacked Delphi (in the center of Greece) in 279 B.C.
At about this time, three tribes of Celts crossed the Dardanelles into Asia Minor (modern Turkey) and established the region of Galatia. St. Paul’s epistle to the Galatians was a letter to the descendants of these Celtic peoples.
(Note the similarity of area names derived from the Gaelic root word: Gaul in modern France, Galicia in Spain, Galatia in present-day Turkey–all dominated at one time by Celtic peoples
Witches Of The Craft® 