Saturday, February 11, 2006

Page 4.32

caligulate...

Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus (August 31, 12 – January 24, 41), most commonly known as Caligula, was the third Roman Emperor and a member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, ruling from 37 to 41. Caligula represents a turning point in the early history of the Principate. Known for his extreme extravagance, eccentricity, depravity and cruelty, he is remembered as a despot. He was assassinated in 41 by several of his own guards.

Unfortunately, Caligula's reign is the most poorly documented of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. The literary sources for these four years are meager, frequently anecdotal, and universally hostile. As a result, not only are many of the events of the reign unclear, but Caligula himself appears more as a caricature than a real person; a crazed megalomaniac given to capricious cruelty and hare-brained schemes. Caligula is often accused of having incestuous relationships with his sisters, most notably his younger sister Drusilla, but there is no credible evidence to support such claims either.

[St Patrick's father supposedly maintained lighthouse at Boulogne built by Caligula]
-Source: Fweet


Boulogne Tour d'Ordre Light...

The Tour d'Ordre -- a name believed to be a corruption of the Latin expression "turris ardens" ("fire tower") -- was built in the year 40 A.D. on orders of the Emperor Caligula, one of a number of pharos built at various points of the Roman Empire. It served as an aid to navigation for vessels crossing the English Channel. After the fall of the empire ca. 500 A.D., maritime trade declined and this lighthouse fell into disrepair along with many others. The Tour d'Ordre was restored as an aid to navigation for a brief period during the reign of Charlemagne, ca. 810. The fire at the top of the tower reportedly could be seen at Dover, on the other side of the English Channel. The tower disappeared in 1644 when the cliff on which it stood collapsed.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hello Elizabeth,

Lovely and original project, keep up the good work!

If I may, a small note about the link you have to my website on 4.32. If you wish, you can replace the link:
http://www.fweet.org/cgi-bin/fw_grep.cgi?srch=%5E004®ex=1&beauty=1&hilight=1&escope=1
which displays the entire page, with:
http://www.fweet.org/cgi-bin/fw_grep.cgi?srch=%5E004%28%5C.%7C%5C.%5BFLR%5D%2932®ex=1&beauty=1&hilight=1&showtxt=1&escope=1
which displays only the line in question (and with the FW text to boot).
You can achieve the same result by typing "4" and "32" in the "Line" shorthand on the search engine page (checking the "Show FW Text" option to enable display of the FW text too, if you wish).

Good luck! Just 621 pages to go, ;^).

Ta,
Raphael

7:38 PM  
Blogger Elizabeth said...

Thank you for your kind words,

I’ve happily made the change, and I appreciated your suggestion. It made far more sense.

I’m new to this blogging format so I’m a little fuzzy on the protocol. (It will work itself out in time.) As for now, I’ve been treating these notes as if they were just being recorded for myself...funny to imagine that others out there in the world might be stumbling into them. Amazing, really.

Your site is wonderful, by the way. I can’t say that enough.

Take Care,

Elizabeth

8:27 AM  

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