The Crowd Is Fickle

Title: The Fickle Crowd

The sun was sinking behind the Colosseum, bleeding red light across the marble steps where Priestess Nellia stood, her white robes catching the dusk wind like a ghost of the old gods. Below her, the roar of fifty thousand Romans began to fade—their thirst for blood temporarily satisfied.

From the shadowed corridor emerged Maximus Decianus, the undefeated gladiator. His armor was streaked with dust and blood, his breath heavy but proud. The crowd had screamed his name moments ago, but now their voices were already turning toward gossip and wine.

Nellia turned to face him, eyes calm and ancient, as if she could see the impermanence of all mortal glory.

NELLIA
They cheered for you today, Maximus. They will cheer for another tomorrow.

MAXIMUS
(smiling faintly)
I know, priestess. The crowd loves its victor only until he bleeds.

NELLIA
It is their nature. Rome feeds them bread and spectacle so they forget their hunger and their chains.

MAXIMUS
And what do you feed them, holy one?

NELLIA
(quietly)
Hope. False, perhaps—but better than despair.

The gladiator rests his sword against the stone wall, its edge dull from victory.

MAXIMUS
Hope… I’ve seen men die for less.

NELLIA
And yet without it, none would rise to fight at all. Even the gods know the crowd is fickle. They, too, rise and fall with the prayers of men.

MAXIMUS
Then we are all slaves—to Rome, to the crowd, even to the gods.

NELLIA
(sharply, but with a hint of sorrow)
No. The only true slave is the one who seeks the crowd’s love.

The wind howled through the arches, carrying the faint echo of “Maximus! Maximus!” from the far end of the arena.

MAXIMUS
Then I am twice enslaved.

NELLIA
Perhaps. But redemption begins with knowing it.

For a long moment they stood in silence. The priestess raised her hand in blessing, her fingers brushing the air above his scarred forehead.

NELLIA
When they forget your name, Maximus, the gods will remember. And that is enough.

He looked up, eyes softening, as if the roar of the mob had never existed.

MAXIMUS
Then let them forget. The sand remembers, too.

As he turned to leave, the last light of day caught on his sword, glinting like a dying flame—one that would burn in legend long after the fickle crowd had fallen silent.

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August 26, 2025October 18, 2025

Protectors of The Earth

The Manifesto of the Soil

By General Maximus Decimus Meridius

Preamble

I was once a servant of Rome. I stood in the dust of battlefields and fought for the glory of emperors. Yet today I fight a greater war—not with the sword, but with the plough. For the soil itself is under siege.

The European Union calls itself the new Rome, uniting many nations under one banner. But an empire without fertile land is a skeleton without flesh. And if the soil is poisoned, then the very foundation of this empire will crumble.

Let this be my decree: that the soil of Europe must be protected, restored, and honored, as once Rome honored Ceres, goddess of fertility.

Book I: The Crimes Against the Soil

Chemical Fertilizers – The soil has been enslaved to artificial nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. These salts do not feed life; they burn it. They reduce soil to dust that cannot breathe.
Herbicides and Pesticides – Glyphosate and its kin are weapons of war against creation itself. They do not distinguish between weed and flower, between pest and pollinator. Bees, worms, and unseen billions in the soil are slaughtered by these poisons.
Monoculture – Wheat upon wheat, corn upon corn, year after year. Diversity is banished, and with it, resilience. The land becomes barren, vulnerable to pestilence and drought.
Waste Mismanagement – The excrement of cities, the ashes of hearths, and the food of tables are cast away as refuse, when they should return to the earth as nourishment.
The Death of the Farmer – The farmer has been replaced by the technician, the steward by the shareholder. Fields are no longer tended with love but managed as machines.

Book II: The Laws of Renewal

If the soil is to live again, then let these laws be written upon the hearts of the people:

The Law of Urine
All urine, once despised, shall be recognized as golden water. Rich in nitrogen, it shall be returned to the earth in measured cycles. As Rome recycled every fragment of bronze and iron, so must the new Rome recycle this gift.
The Law of Ashes
Ash from wood fires shall no longer be discarded, but spread upon the fields. Potash shall replenish what grain removes, and the cycle of fire shall return to soil as life.
The Law of Dung
Manure from beasts is not waste but treasure. It must be gathered, composted, and applied as the true wealth of farmers. Without dung, Rome would have perished; without it, the EU will perish also.
The Law of Compost
All organic refuse—food scraps, fallen leaves, plant stalks—shall be composted and returned to the earth. What dies shall feed what lives.
The Law of Green Soldiers
Fields shall not be left fallow but sown with clover, vetch, beans, and peas. These living soldiers capture the breath of the heavens and return it to the soil as nitrogen.
The Law of Trees
Hedges and orchards shall be restored along the fields. Their roots shall bind the soil, their shade shall shield it, and their fallen leaves shall enrich it.

Book III: The Oath of the New Rome

If the European Union desires to be heir to Rome, then it must take this oath:

To protect the soil as sacred, not as commodity.
To turn away from chemical dependence and return to the natural cycle.
To honor the farmer as Rome once honored the soldier.
To ensure that every village, every city, every empire understands: civilization stands or falls by the fertility of the earth.

Final Exhortation

I was once General of the Armies of the North. I am now General of the Soil.
Rome fell because it forgot the virtues that made it strong. The New Rome—the European Union—will fall if it forgets that the soil is the foundation of all wealth, all strength, all life.

Therefore, let the people arise, let the leaders listen, and let the soil be healed.
For as the soil lives, so too shall Rome live again.

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August 26, 2025October 21, 2025

We May Not Speak of Soil

Maximus on Blood and Soil

I was a soldier of Rome, but before I wore armor, I was a farmer. My hands remember the soil — the weight of it, the smell of it, the way it clings beneath the nails. In the fields of Hispania I sowed wheat, and in those fields I understood something the Senate and Emperors often forget: the bond between blood and soil.

Some say this bond is a thing born of modern tyrants. But no — it was Roman long before it was twisted into something monstrous. For us, the soil was not mere earth. It was memory. It was family. It was the gods of the hearth and the furrow. The Romans prayed to the Lares and Penates, guardians of both home and harvest. We honored the boundary line of a field as if it were sacred, for in that soil lay the lifeblood of the household.

And blood — blood was given for Rome, always. In war, in sacrifice, in labor. But that blood was not shed for “nation,” for we Romans did not speak of such things. We did not swear to a flag. We swore to the earth beneath our feet and to the kin who worked it beside us. The citizen was measured by his land, by his ability to plow and to fight. The farmer and the soldier were one and the same.

When I placed my hand in the dirt before battle, I was not thinking of conquest. I was remembering my home, the soil where my wife and son awaited me. That earth was my Rome, far more than the marble of the Senate or the glory of the Colosseum.

The bond of blood and soil is not German, nor Nazi. They stole the words, but they could not steal the truth. It was Roman first. It is older than kings, older than emperors. It is the knowledge that all sacrifice, all blood, must return to the land, and from that land springs life again.

If you wish to know Rome, do not look only at her armies or her palaces. Look at her fields. Look at her soldiers who became farmers, and farmers who became soldiers. Look at the blood in the soil, and the soil that fed us. That was Rome.

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