Two faces of the emperor Adriano

The emperor Publio Elio Adriano (117-138d. C.) he was the authentic unifier of the Roman Empire. Tireless traveler, made a show also of a difficult and unstable character started to the rancor and the pride. It did not leave very good memory between his contemporaries, and the August History describes it as a man simultaneously severely and happily, affably and rigorously, in addition to cruel and always inconstant.

Capable and intelligent, he reminds him to himself especially for his trips. Pero Adriano was also a man of unstable personality, simultaneously severe and happy, affable and cruel. Although his father was a Trajano cousin, and to that he was himself protected from this emperor, Adriano did not have it easy during his youth. Between other things, he was despised by his provincial accent and by his devout admiration for everything Hellene. Pero Adriano was provided with an excellent preparation. Born in Italic, remained orphan at the age of ten and Trajano, which was a cousin of his father and was occupying in that epoch important military and political charges in Rome, took him with him to Italy. Trajano entrusted his education to an excellent teacher, and then it made him fight in all kinds of political and military charges. Adriano also was next to Trajano in his last campaign, in Partia.

It was the last time that Adriano saw his alive mentor. The covey stopped in Cyprus and on August 7 of the year 117 Adriano was informed that had been adopted by Trajano; only two days later, on August 9, he announced to himself that the sovereign one had died. On August 11, the Syrian troops proclaimed Adriano an emperor. Nevertheless, the Senate did not show a disposition so favorable as the one that the Asian Greeks had offered him. Many people were suspecting that in Adriano's elevation there had an important role his wife, Plotina, wife of Trajano. It was said that it was Plotina who prepared the Trajano testament, when this one was in the death bed, to designate Adriano as heir of the Empire.

And so, Adriano was not lacking enemies that they were considering it a careerist. During the first year of his order, Adriano dealt with stabilizing the situation in East. It was then, and after a conspiracy in Rome that it was gliding to demolish him, when his presence realized the precarious of his power and of how necessary age in the capital of the empire. Adriano practised like ordinary consul during two following years and was involved in all the tasks of the government: he was present at the pertinent meetings, made the senators participants of his decisions and gained him his confidence with his visits of courteousness and his exquisite personal dealing. And to gain him the favor of the people, Adriano was coming to the spa like one more citizen to converse and joke with the swimmers. Adriano, then, loved to gain the appreciation of Rome.

The emperor entrusted to Apolodoro of Damascus the construction of a big temple dedicated to Venus and Rome. It was inaugurated in the year 121, although the works extended for many other years. Since then the temple turned into a symbol of the imperial power. Other works that Adriano attacked in Rome were showing it like the big guardian of the respect to the traditions: the Pantheon raised by Agripa and that it ordered to reconstruct; the reforms realized in Saepta Iulia, the forum of August and the temple of Bona Dea; the temples raised in honor of Trajano and Plotina in the imperial forum … Even his most personal architectural project, his mausoleum, which was erected to image and resemblance of of August, was thinking about how to show him like the real spiritual heir and politician of the founder of the Empire. At the end of his life, Adriano decided to move back to Berries after having left the reins of the Empire to Antonino Pío, whom little had adopted earlier. When he died, the Senate suffered by the executions of his members, he wanted to destroy his memory.

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The actors' strike that it put in check to the Franco period

In February, 1975, the actors led a historical mobilization that it put against the ropes to the vertical trade union of the diet, until some strikers were deposited in prison, accused of belonging falsely to the FRAP and ETA

«The actors have got up against a social mechanism that was condemning them to the double daily function, to the political passivity, to the submission of the company and to the eternal fear to remain without work». This declaration of the leading article of February, 1975 of the magazine «the First plane» was summing up very well the actors' strike that, only nine months before Franco's death, it put against the ropes to a diet and the vertical trade union that was governing, by force, the life of all the workers.
That strike, of which now 35 years are fulfilled, was something more than the first mobilization of the world of the spectacle in 40 years of dictatorship. It turned into the whole social modality of last years of the dictatorship, since it agglutinated many workers out of the union: ballet dancers, painters, the directors, film makers, producers, singers or personnel of the circus, of the rooms of art, of the tablaos and, especially, of Spanish Television, the only television of then, controlled by the Government.

When channel TVE had to replace of urgency his habitual programming, the Government began worrying. That one was already a serious problem. «The Spanish Television – was telling ABC – had to be suspended the recording of a work of Diego Fabri, before the attitude of the actors, and the shooting of “A black's gentleman”, of Haberdasher, was, apparently, interrupted by a producers' Commission that they invited to the presents so that they were joining the unemployment».

In 15 of the theaters of Madrid, to midday of February 4, there could be read: "For non-attendance of the actors, it complains to inform that the today meeting remains pendent». In the meeting of the night there were already 21, the practical totality of the cultural offer of Madrid. Blurred all of them because the Labor Ordinance of Theater, Circus and Varieties of 1972, «an incomplete Ordinance and, in certain way, archaic – was telling actor Juan Diego, one of the ringleaders of that mobilization – that there was broken for almost totality of the managerial part».

The actors were asking, between other things, for a better salary, for the payment on the part of the businessmen of the diets and the traveling expenses, the cashing of the essays, the only daily function, extraordinary pays or the enclosed cashing of salaries when the spectacle should suspend.

The actors chose for the negotiations a group of representatives, the famous «Commission of the eleven», formed by Juan Margallo, Vicente Cuesta, Jesus Sastre, Luis Prendes, Pedro del Río, Alberto Alonso, Jaime Blanch, José Maria Escuer, José Maria Rodero or Gloria Berrocal, who reflected perfectly, for ABC, the indignation of his union: "The oppressive situation of unemployment in which our sector is, together with the nonperformance of the Labor Rules on the part of the companies, as well as the violation of the agreements taken in previous assemblies on the part of the same ones, takes us to an untenable situation».

This commission had the value to there skip the forced intermediation and official representation of the National Trade union of the Spectacle – presided in that moment by the ABC ex-columnist, Jaime Campmany – so that the actors in strike only were recognizing the above mentioned commission.

The act of major tension took place on February 8, when the Police popped in in the Fine arts theater, in the middle of an assembly, taking arrested several members of the profession, as Tina Sanz, José Carlos Plaza, Antonio Malonda y Yolanda Monreal, who joined prison accused of belonging to the Antifascist Revolutionary Front and Patriot (FRAP) and of being related to ETA and committing an outrage of the street of the Mail.

In that group of arrested also there were figures like Dew Durcal, Enriqueta Carballeira, Pedro Mari Sánchez, Flora Maria Álvaro, for whom there helped to go out of the cell a Lola Flores who also had suspended his performance under the excuse of an aphonia.

Finally, the actors had to stop the strike in exchange for the liberation of the imprisoned ones, since they were going to be processed by terrorism. Also, there they fell down considerable economic fines – from the half million pesetas up to the 200.000 for Roció Durcal – that paid, jointly, between all. The actors had to accept finally that the «Commission of the eleven» was not present in the negociones, although there was gained the option to break them if they were thinking that the trade union was not just. The whole achievement for an epoch that was coming to his end.

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Aquiles, the hero of Troy

The king of the mirmidones, protagonist of the 'Iliad' of Homero, did not go so far as to see the fall of Troy; an arrow of the troyano Paris finished with his life. His partners resorted to the famous stunt of the wooden horse to take the city.

His duel with the troyano Héctor is the culminating episode of the 'Iliad' of Homero. Hurt fatally by an arrow in the heel, Aquiles could not see how the Greeks were taking Troy and were limiting it to ashes. The 'Iliad', the big poem on the war of Troy, reports to us only some episodes of the struggle of aqueos and troyanos in a few days of the tenth and last year of the siege. Aquiles is the protagonist of the epic plot, but this one covers only one small part of his intervention in the war: his annoyance with the Greek chief Agamenón, that the slave Briseida forced him to deliver; his denial to fight with other chiefs aqueos; and the definitive meeting with Héctor, the son of the king troyano, in a duel that will finish with the death of this one.

Homero stops without counting Aquiles's death and the end of the war. It finishes his poem after the crying for Héctor without giving us the final panorama: the conquest of Troy for the Greeks. After Aquiles, the best of the aqueos, was giving death to Héctor, the best hero of Troy, the city remained very depressed. But he received new fortitudes on having received the help of the Amazons, first of all, and, finally, of Memnón and his Ethiopians. Aquiles did not think at all that it was stopping it when it advanced towards the walls, anxiously for be throwing to the assault. But now it was going to face a more dangerous enemy: the god Apollo, the divine protector of the troyanos. Apollo moved back and from a distance he sent swift the arrow that kneeled in the most vulnerable point of the body of the hero: the heel. Being drained by the wound Aquiles collapsed, feeling how his tragic destination was fulfilled. He remained stretched before the doors of Troy. Perhaps he was the god of the silver arch who sent the fatal arrow, or perhaps the troyano was Paris, skillful archer, and Apollo intervened directing the arrow to the fragile ankle of the hero.

In fact, we find one and another version in diverse ancient texts. Although the death had taken many of his children and to his best warriors, Príamo was resisting in the tenth year of the siege. It seemed necessary to resort to the pitfall, since the force was not achieving the final victory. And again it took control of Ulises's astuteness, inspired by the goddess Atenea. The king of Ítaca proposed the ingenious plan of constructing a gigantic wooden horse in whose hollow belly emboscarían the boldest warriors, who then would go out and would open the doors of the wall to the others.

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They find a 4.000-year ago-old Pharaonic mortuary camera

A mission of French archaeologists has discovered the mortuary camera of the faraona Behenu, of the dynasty VI (2374-2192 B.C.), in the monumental Saqara area, 25 kilometers to the south of Cairo, he announced today the Supreme Council of Antiquities.
According to a note of this institution, the mortuary camera was found during the works of cleanliness of the pyramid of Behenu, in the area of The Shawaf, in the south of Saqara and to the west of the pyramid of king Pepi I, who can be the husband of this faraona.
Also, there found texts belonging to the typical real pyramids of the dynasties V and VI (2465-2150 B.C.) in two of the internal walls of the mortuary camera with contents on the ancient Egyptian religions.

To protect the difuntoEstos texts had the target to protect to the deceased buried in the pyramid and to help him to rise to the skies, as tells the General Secretary of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawas, that he signs the note of the Advice. The chief of the mission of French archaeologists, Philippe Collombert, to the one who quotes the note, said that during the excavations inside the mortuary camera there was also the sarcofagus of the queen Behenu.
The sarcofagus preserved in the good state, is of granite and it contains several qualifications of the faraona, although he does not say anything on the identity of his husband, still a mystery.

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The inventions of the Middle Age

Despite the topic that presents the medieval epoch like a «dark age» and of scientific delay, from the XIIth century one lived in Europe through an authentic technological revolution that gave birth to innovations as the firearms or the mechanical clock.

From the year Thousand, the daily life of the Europeans began changing thanks to inventions like the clock, the gunpowder, the glasses or the mill, examples of the skill of the medieval makers. In the XIIIth century, Roger Bacon went so far as to define the "scientific method" as a cycle of four phases: observation, hypothesis, experimentation and cross-check. Being based on this method it developed studies of optics that led him, between other things, to design the first glasses and to prepare cameras obscure projects, the precedent of the camera.

Bacon felt a big admiration for his French contemporary Pierre de Maricourt, who carried out important investigations in the field of the magnetism. One century later, Nicolás de Oresme demonstrated that that was the Earth the one that was moving and not the stars on her, as till then it was thought. In the same century, the Frenchman Jean Burilan interpreted, by means of mathematical studies, the movement of the bullets. These examples show that, against the traditional vision of the Middle age as an epoch of delay and ignorance, in the medieval centuries the sciences never gave in. It is true that from the Vth century, with the fall of the Roman Empire and the Germanic invasions, a lot of knowledge of the ancient world got lost.

In accordance with the new mentality of the nations, everything unknown or not included it happened to provoke fear and to collaborate with the magic and the witchcraft, with the prohibited thing, with the demoniacal thing. The science was, this way, being left aside. But from the year Thousand everything changed and, in a way parallel to the economic deployment of the continent, the interest in the knowledge was reborn and, especially, for the practical application of the knowledge. Thanks to the contacts with the Islamic world, there took place the development of the rudder, the role and the compass, or the numbers indoarábigos, that progressively replaced the Romans, facilitating this way the advance of the calculation. What really defines the men of the Middle Age there are no discoveries nor advance them in the field of the theoretical knowledge, but the aptitude to apply these knowledges - developed by themselves or transmitted by other cultures - to the practical needs of the society in which they were living.

The answer to the new times was the European mechanical clock, documented concerning 1300, which replaced the previous hydraulic system with engines that were activated by means of weight hung by cylinders and by means of cogwheels, rollers and levers. On the other hand, the uses of the mills were variadísimos. The pólders, for example, surfaces of ground gained the sea in the Netherlands, arose from the construction of dikes and the drainage of the water by means of bombs activated by windmills. In parallel, the notable development of the metallurgy during the Middle age propitiated numerous technological innovations in addition to the mechanical clock: musical instruments, irons to print role, machines for the dressmaking of textiles, implements of farming, weapon of war and even automatons.

From the Xth century, and thanks to the heyday of the commerce and of the peregrinations, big cities arose in the marine ports, in the intersections of ways and in other mercantile enclaves. In them there were taking place drugs and cosmetics, garments and shoes, jewels and objects of gold and silver. But the novel thing there was the appearance of authentic industries of ceramics, glass, leather and, especially, textile matter. At present, almost there has been exiled that lugubrious and dark image of the medieval epoch. The modern historians have verified also that in this period the culture did not give in, but it evolved.

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They find a new stretch of the Big Wall in the center of China

A new stretch of the Big Wall China, of more ancient that they survive, it has been found in the Chinese central Henan province, informed today the official agency Xinhua.

The stretch measures approximately 137 kilometers, of which 30 are in the good state, and the structure dates of the age of the Fighting States, about the IInd century B.C., stood out the spokesman of the Bureau of Cultural heritage of the province.

The structure would have been constructed by the Kingdom of Chu, one of those that a few years later it would be unified by others of the region to create the first close empire of China, during the dynasty Qin.

The target of his construcciónLa Big Wall in strict sense formed in these years, by order of the First Chinese Emperor, Qin Shihuang, joining the stretches that diverse kingdoms and tribes of the area had constructed from the VIIth century B.C. to defend themselves from the nearby peoples, principally the nomads of the north of Asia.

Some of the most ancient stretches are in the provinces of Henan and Hubei, hundreds of kilometers more on the south that the most famous and visited of the monument, in Peking and other areas next to the current Mongolia.

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