This is an article written by Femi Fani
Kayode. Read on…
In 44 BC the respected Roman seer and
soothsayer Spurinna warned the great
Consul and ruler of the Roman Empire
Julius Caesar about the “ides of March”. He
counselled him not to go out on that day
because he had perceived that something
terrible would happen. According to the
Roman calender the ides of March was the
15th of March.
Caesar treated the prophecy and the
warning with riducule and contempt, as is
often the case with most men of power,
and he chose to ignore it.
According to the Greek historian and
essayist Plutarch, on the morning of March
15th, whilst on his way to the Theater at
Pompei, Julius Caesar saw Spurinna again
and disdainfully whispered into his ear
that the ides of March had come, thereby
mocking the old man and his prophecy.
The soothsayer smiled and responded by
calmly saying,
“Ay Caesar, the ides of March has indeed
come but it has not yet ended”.
Later on that same day on his return to
Rome and as he entered the great hall and
hallowed chambers of the Senate, the great
Julius Caesar was stabbed to death by no
less than 60 of his most trusted colleagues
in the Senate, including Marcus Brutus, his
young protegee who hailed from a noble
and respected Roman family, who he had
supported all his life and who he had
virtually adopted as his own son.
History records that such was the courage,
strength and fortitude of Caesar that even
after dozens of vicious and deep fatal stabs
were inflicted all over his ageing body and
even as his blood flowed all over the floor
of the Senate, he still stood up proud,
refusing to bend his knee, refusing to plead
for his life and refusing to fall. What a man
he was!
It was only after the last of the
conspirators, his very own Marcus Brutus,
walked up to him slowly, looked him in the
eye and plunged his long and sharp dagger
deep into the old mans heart that Caesar
gave up, yelled in pain and whispered the
famous latin words, “Et tu Brute?” meaning
“and you too Brutus?”? He ended it by
saying “then Caesar falls” after which he
fell down and gave up the ghost.
The truth is that he died more of a broken
heart as a result of the betrayal of those
that he trusted and loved, like Marcus
Brutus, than he did from the physical stab
wounds that were inflicted on him by the
other Senators and his political enemies.
When he saw, felt and suffered Brutus’
betrayal and treachery he gave up hope
and lost his will to continue to live.
What a royal tragedy this was! What a
waste of human life and greatness! What a
gruesome and complicated mess!
What a way for the most powerful man on
earth of his time to end his days.
What a way for a gallant and noble son of
Rome, a man of valour and a great and
irresistible warrior, clothed by the Living
God in magnificence, and glory to go down
and leave the earthly plain.
This was a valiant and courageous man
who had achieved greatness and who was
bestowed with awesome power and
unprecedented glory by the God of Heaven
and the Lord of Hosts.
This was a man who went to the British
Isles, who conquered and bound their
ruling spirit Brittania and who proudly
proclaimed those famous Latin words,
“veni, vedi, vici”, meaning “I came, I saw, I
conquered”.
This was a man who turned Egypt into a
vassal state, who overwhelmed the Greeks,
who conquered Europe, who mastered the
Middle East, who ruled the entire civilised
world and who bedded and tamed the
great African Queen Cleopatra.
Yet this was also a man who was also
deeply flawed: an unforgiving man who
could not reign in his immeasurable and
profound sense of narcissism, who could
not control his obsession with power and
desire to dominate others and who could
not shed his sense of pride, self-importance
and vanity.
This was an arrogant man who listened to
no-one, who took pleasure in being
worshipped, who loved to be revered, who
relentlessly persecuted his enemies, who
showed cruelty to his detractors, who
scorned his three wives, who had contempt
for his clerics, who mocked the sacred
prophecies and who defied the Living God
and the Ancient of Days.
Predictably and sadly it all eventually
caught up with him and, in the end, he was
taken dispatched from this world in the
most agonising and pitiful way, wallowing
in a pool of his own blood, slaughtered,
not by his traditional and known enemies,
but rather by his own political associates,
loved ones and erstwhile friends.
If Caesar had listened to his youngest wife,
the beautiful Calpurnia, that ill-fated
morning and not stepped out he would not
have been murdered and Roman, nay
world, history would have been very
different.
If he had listened to Spurinna, the great
seer and soothsayer, who the God of
Heaven had used to speak to him and if he
had shown humility and heeded the seer’s
warning about the ides of March, Caesar
would have lived to finish the work that he
started and to fulfil his vision.
If he had not become the victim of his own
vanity and obsessions and if he had not
turned from being a great and much-loved
war general and hero into a beastly and
dictatorial bully he would not have turned
the hearts of the Senate against all that he
stood for, he would not have provoked the
wrath of God and he would not have
kindled and stoked the bitterness, hatred
and enmity of even his most trusted loved
ones and men like Marcus Brutus.
If he had not sought to destroy all his
enemies with a bitter vengeance and if he
had not killed, incarcerated, jailed and
tortured the innocent and those that had
done no wrong he would have attracted
the mercies of God and the Lord would
have protected him from his relentless and
implacable enemies.
If he had not abused power, brought
sorrow, hardship and pain to the people,
played God and sought to impose his
wicked will over the nation he would have
lived longer and he would have died
peacefully in his bed many years later as a
fulfilled and happy old man.
If he had not allowed himself to be
transformed from being a great warrior
and war hero who feared and honored
God, who believed in justice, equity,
fairness and the rule of law, who upheld
the sanctity and integrity of the republic
and who defended the constitution and the
sacredness of the Senate into a mean-
spirited, power-hungry, obsessive and
brutal tyrant he would have lived for much
longer.
If he had not attempted to transform
himself from being an accommodating
Consul and the humble leader of the
Republic of Rome into a life-long dictator
and all-powerful emperor who could
tolerate no criticism, who would brook no
opposition and who would kill, brutalise
and demonize his enemies, lock up and
humiliate his critics and seek to destroy the
destiny and very essence of his nation, he
would have lived for much longer.
If he had not used his brutal army to
murder young and defenceless activists,
opposition figures and protestors or his
secret police to torture innocent people and
lock them up all over the country without
any recourse to the law or respect for their
civil liberties, human rights or the courts,
he would have lived for much longer.
If he had not attacked and sought to
blackmail, humiliate and intimidate the
Judiciary and if he had not attempted to
politicise, manipulate and corrupt the
administration of justice in his nation he
would have lived for much longer.
If he had not treated the opposition with
disdain and contempt and if he had not
sought to decimate and destroy their ranks
by foul means and the dishonorable
dispatch, planting and deployment of a
bunch of merciless, crooked and
treacherous blacklegs, traitors, moles,
gangsters, saboteurs and murderers in
their ranks he would have lived for much
longer.
I could go on and on. When men play God
all manner of tragedies stalk them and they
never end well. That is the lesson of history
and that is what we are seeing unfolding in
Nigeria today.
Persecution and the abuse of power always
attracts a heavy price for those who
indulge in it: this is especially so when they
hate God’s children and His anointed and
they persecute the Church and His clerics.
(TO BE CONTINUED).
Alabatvnews.
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