The Fourth Circle

Rome 1908

Rome 1908

‘First comes your degree…’

General Aldo Rossi was heading for trouble and he knew it. When his nephew got an idea stuck in his head, you couldn’t get it out it even with winch.

‘Then we’ll see…’

He added.

The Commandant of the Special Cases Branch of the Military Intelligence of the Ministry of War of the Kingdom of Italy, started pacing to and fro before his desk with one palm gripping the other behind his back.

‘Then, there is your postgraduate degree’.

He looked at Mario hopefully.

‘Didn’t you say in the past that you would pursue graduate studies?’

Mario picked his words carefully to avoid offending his uncle.

‘I got top marks in my postgraduate thesis. It was also voted as the most original by my fellow students. It was published in the University journal’.

‘Ah!’ The general stopped pacing to and fro and stood facing him.

‘Well done, well done!’

‘Historic Geology and Paleethnology’.

Mario got him out of the difficult spot.

‘Yes…I remember…of course…But what’s the relationship between Geology and Ethnology?’

‘They are all connected and interact’.

‘They interact…Right…And what was the subject of your thesis? So that we are also kept in the know, for history’s sake.

‘It had to do with a constellation, a geological catastrophe and an unholy alliance’.

‘An alliance…Right…’

He rubbed his chin.

‘Why don’t you take a seat and tell us all about it. Sit down, sit down.

He encouraged Mario with a theatrical movement of his hand. He made himself comfortable in his chair.

‘I’m all ears. Summarily’.

The general insisted.

‘Summarily then…The only thing on earth that invented himself is man. He built him up with his two hands, he stood him on his two legs and evolved him into a sentient being in the social group. Man walked all over earth and survived because he had always carried the precious burden of social experience. He kept that experience transformed into speech, legend, myth, tradition, religion, art, writing. Every race enriched this experience leaving their own seal on it, developing their own identity and leaving their trace in historical time. In his arduous journey, man had the starry sky as his guide. A steady, everlasting beacon, the North Star in the Tail of the Dragon. The Great Serpent that embraces protectively the Ursa was deified by every ancient people. In Egypt, the sacred serpent that swallows his own tail became the symbol of royal power and godly wisdom.

Egypt would not beg for a few drops of rain to water its earth. The god of the Nile would take care of that. There, along its banks, the gold of Egypt grew. Papyrus. Its processing was a well-kept, mortal secret behind the walls of the Pharaonic palaces and its trade protected. Based on the royal trade monopoly of Pa pu ro, Egypt would be the first Mediterranean country to organize socially around the monopoly of wealth by the most powerful. ‘In my land, gold is more than its sand’, the Pharaohs of Egypt used to remind the other hegemons of the Mediterranean.

Next to Pharaoh Si Ra, the caste of religious priesthoods mushroomed, the ‘House of Life’ that very often turned into ‘House of Death’ for the unwanted ‘Sons of the Sun God’. The conflicts among the deities of the Egyptian Pantheon are nothing but reflections of the raging antagonisms among the Egyptian priesthoods for the control of trade. If we search into the Homeric sources, we shall fish out some quite interesting and useful food for thought. Before revealing his true identity to Evmaios, Ulysses introduces himself, in fact quite proudly so, as a pirate in the service of the kingdom of Egypt. A respectable personality in every respect. In those faraway times, sea routes harbored many dangers. Trade was a mission that only in the hands of specialists did it have any chance of successful completion. And only royal houses had the capacity to finance trading missions.

Other ships brought the gold of Egypt to the great trading centers of the time. Of Byblos and Tyros. The ‘superior in trade’ seafaring ships of the sons of Canaan. The Phoenicians. The whole Mediterranean recognized the ‘ships of Tharsis’, with their ‘phoenis’ sails that sailed all the way to the homonymous city at the south shores of the Iberian Peninsula. Made out of shittim wood, cedar from the Mesopotamian mountains to withstand long sea travel and sails made of scarlet, an emblem of their domination in the sea. The name Canaanite became a synonym for merchant that actually meant ‘pirate’. He who ventures out, dares to, he who pursues. A warrior.

Hebrew mythology is revealing. Amidst a terrorizing scene, God dictates his Testament to Abraham ‘Unto your seed I shall give this land from the river of Egypt to the river Euphrates’. It is describing the Fertile Crescent. The area extending from the Persian Gulf, Mesopotamia, earth Canaan, all the way to Nile Delta. It is the land of Tigris and Euphrates and the white-watered Jordan River. The Promised Land. What incomprehensible reason could possibly have urged Abraham to abandon the fertile land of the rivers that never run dry and lead his flocks to the hostile lands of Egypt?

The discordance does not pass unnoticed. Neither will the ones that followed. His wife, the ravishing Sara, will become the wife of the Pharaoh. ‘And Abraham was treated well because of her, and Pharaoh gave him much money and he became rich in beasts, in silver and in gold’.

Another Biblical personality reaches the highest status of the Egyptian hierarchy. Joseph the Handsome. Pharaoh himself appoints him lord and from his hand he will receive the seal-bearing signet ring. He does not stop there. He gets him on an honorary chariot and gives him a tour of his dominions. ‘I am the Pharaoh but without your consent, no one will be able to raise his hand or foot across all the land of Egypt’. He hands him over the symbols of power. Should we entertain the theory of a sequence between same-s*x Pharaohs? Succession of a father by his son?

Moses draws particular attention. His name means ‘he who has been salvaged from the water’. He will be raised like a prince at the palace of the Pharaoh and the myth has him to be the one to lead the Sons of Israel to the Promised Land, which is none other than earth Canaan. Who is Moses?

In 1820 in Luxor, Egypt, an ancient papyrus was discovered, the so-called Canon of Turin. During the process of its restoration, its back side proved to be more interesting than its front. The unknown writer, noted the word ‘foreigner’ next to the names of some Pharaohs. Who are the Foreign Pharaohs? How did they come to conquer mighty Egypt? The certain thing is that those were not shepherds who got there to graze their flocks. An explanation can be offered only we combine two conditions. Egypt was weakened from the strife among the priesthoods and that the invaders were a battle-hardened people who wielded the super-weapon of the time. Power in the sea. They are the merchant-pirates of Canaan.

In the Mernepta stele, Pharaoh of Egypt, it is literally mentioned that in earth Canaan, there is a people named Is ra el. ‘Ra’ stands for the Sun god. ‘El’ means Divine Light’. And ‘Al’, ‘El’ and ‘Fa’. They all mean Divine Light. Now we are getting somewhere. The Sons of Israel are the Sons of the Son god. Si Ra Fa-raoh of Egypt…

A terrible event would change the world around the Mediterranean leaving none of its ancient people unaffected. It found its way into religion, into its myths and legends. The explosion of the Strongyli island. Half of the island was submerged. The volcanic ash reached all the way to Egypt and the seashores of Asia Minor. The Nile bled. ‘Plagues upon the Pharaoh and his house…and fire mingled with hail smote throughout all the land of Egypt all that was in the field, both man and beast; and the hail smote every herb of the field’. The historic event is not absent even in St John’s Apocalypse ‘And there was a great earthquake. Every mountain and island was moved out of their places’.

If the Ten Plagues of the Pharoah was the curse of God on Egypt, the explosion of the volcano of Strongyli was a god-sent gift for the Egyptian Priesthoods. They pointed the Foreign Kings as the reason for the catastrophe. They dropped their internal strife, they became allies and ousted them out.

The Exodus from Egypt. But in which direction? ‘And the Lord commanded the sea to move violently by a southerly wind. There were cries and lightning and smoke as if from a kiln on Mount Sinai. Whoever touched the foot of the mountain was to be put to death’. In the arc of southeastern Mediterranean, absolute Armageddon is raging. In a poem of the time written on papyrus, his author notes: ‘The river is red. Indeed, no one sails to Byblos. What must we do to provide ourselves with cedar wood for our mummies?’ The only way out is a flight to the northeast. The ports through which the sons of Canaan were trading ‘every kind of wealth’. The port of Tharsis in the Iberian Peninsula.

‘And you shall make an ark of shittim wood and thou shalt overlay it with pure gold and scarlet’. How fitting is this description for the Phoenician ships with cedar masts and red sails. ‘And the children of Israel shall go through the midst of the sea’. The seafaring ships of Tharsis set sail for the Iberian coasts. ‘And captive Jerusalem, that which is in Sepharad, shall conquer the cities of the south’. Sepharad, the biblical name of Spain. In their new home, they will coin their name. Iber. Hebrew. It means, he who has crossed over… ‘Ships of Tharsis shall carry the sons of Zion from afar…’

The priesthoods on both sides made sure these fugitives would drown. As regards the Hebrew ones, down to the bottom of the Red Sea. The chosen people could in no way be tainted by the miasma of racial mix with the Egyptians. As regards the Egyptian ones, they committed them to oblivion. They wiped out every sign suggestive of their passage through the history of Egypt.

Moses, salvaged from the water, the people of Foreign Kings, is still travelling upon the ships of Tharsis across the seas of the world. Canaanite. Hebrew. Merchant. Pirate…

A short pause ensued for a few minutes. The general blinked his eyes as if he was coming out of a vision and shifted in his armchair. The kid had what it takes. He wanted him in his team. The problem was how to bring Renata around. He was heading for trouble and he knew it…