A bridge between two eras

Many people ask me if Berenice is me. I had plenty of time to reflect on this matter and the simplest answer is “no”; Berenice is a fictional character, as are most of the characters created exclusively for the book; but this statement doesn’t prevent me from having a great identification with her, especially when it comes to our common love of adventure and discovery.

But lately, a parallel between Berenice of Cappadocia and me, between her time and mine has been present in a remarkable and unexpected way: the discovery of a virus that until then was absent in humans. In my research on the Roman period of the 3rd and 4th centuries, I found the very interesting

The fate of Rome: climate, disease and the end of an empire (2017 Princeton University Press), by the historian Kyle Harper. In his book, the researcher details how the force of nature imposed its will on Rome, the great city that, according to the poet Claudius Claudianus: “Sprung from humble beginnings, has stretched to either pole, and from one small place extended its power so as to be coterminous with the sun’s light.” This eloquent speech was offered during the visit of the Honorable Emperor to Rome, which was no longer the capital of the Empire, but which still held that pride of bankrupted aristocracy that always accompanied those who were once powerful;

The crowd present at the festivities was experiencing one of those moments when everyone believes that everything is as it should be and that nothing can change that; a common feeling in human beings, that nothing should change when everything is going well. Wild animals, brought from all lands dominated by the Empire, were placed in the arena of the Flavian Amphitheatre, to offer the public a massacre that, in the words of Kyle Harper, showed that "the Romans had tamed the forces of wild nature". Faced with such a splendid spectacle, it’s probably that nobody among the populace remembered the difficulties of the past or concerns about the future.

But the wheel of fortune has been spinning since the beginning of time and we, living today, have the privilege of the knowledge of the past events, and we know that Rome has also fallen. Which makes the following excerpt uncomfortably identifiable: “At scales that the Romans themselves could not have understood and scarcely imagined— from the microscopic to the global— the fall of their empire was the triumph of nature over human ambitions. The fate of Rome was played out by emperors and barbarians, senators and generals, soldiers and slaves. But it was equally decided by bacteria and viruses, volcanoes and solar cycles.Only in recent years have we come into possession of the scientific tools that allow us to glimpse, often fleetingly, the grand drama of environmental change in which the Romans were unwitting actors.”

Without over-detailing all these factors (because I know that being quarantined studying history is not in your plans 😁😁😁), one of them is nowadays closest to us than the others: the assault of new diseases. In the 3th century, one of them was later coined as the Cyprian plague. And this is the event that shortens the bridge between Berenice's time and mine.

In the year 249 AD, people started to get sick, with terrible symptoms (apparently much worse than those of COVID-19), and no one knew from where that new disease came from. At its peak, there were 5,000 deaths daily. There is no consensus among historians as to which virus is responsible for the chaos — among the candidates we find smallpox, a type of Ebola or a flu virus. But everyone agrees that it was a new virus for humankind.

It didn't take long for panic to take over the population. Nobody ran after toilet paper, because it didn't exist at the time, but I can imagine the fear of human contact, the attempts to get comfortable isolation for the fortunate families and the atmosphere of “run for your life”. That's because reports from documents from the period describe panic, unpreparedness, finger points to scapegoats (pagans blaming the god of Christians and vice versa), concern for the economy and productivity.

Berenice did not live this period, but the education she received from her parents is probably a result of the Cyprian plague. It was perhaps thanks to this new Rome, which emerged when the crisis passed, that she was able to travel and discover her world. The old order that used to put the heirs of the aristocracy in power, now saw soldiers made emperors. This new reality showed that anything was possible. It was perhaps the stories she heard from the elders, who maybe told her how uncertain everything was and how everyone had to readjust during the crisis of the new virus that she developed in herself the belief that if everything is impermanent, then it is worth trying and live her life on her own terms.

Rome's economic and demographic recovery was slow, but it gave the empire another century and a half of lifespan before its end. Eventually Rome recovered from Cyprian plague and new social standards emerged. Cities that were once powerful, have diminished and lost their prestige to make way for other centers of importance.

Knowing all of this made me feel calmer, relieved my anxiety. As I told a friend this morning, I wonder about the future, but in two very different ways: on the one hand, I'm afraid of being infected by the virus, or even worse, that someone I love get it. But this is a fear that accompanies every living being every day, so ... On the other hand, I’m very optimistic about the possible historical aftermath of this catastrophe, which — fortunately — concerns only us, humans. The proof of this is that the nature around us remains unmoved, at its own pace. Ask your pet if it’s worried about COVID-19!

I’m convinced that we will change things after this crisis. This virus, whatever the reasons it’s spreading the way it is, forces us to question more seriously about our way of life and what future we want for ourselves. Now it is our turn to write a new chapter in the history of mankind. For those interested in the book, and who wants indeed to spend the confinement studying history, here are the references: The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire. HARPER, Kyle, Princeton University, 2017. ISBN: 9780691166834

Volare oh, oh!

It's been 51 days that we've been confined. An indecipherable time, in which good days follow bad days and the mood is even more fluctuating. When, like Alice in the book, I give myself good advices and saying "live one day at a time" or "it shall pass", beside the "patience" mantra repeatedly over and over, I even get to take a deep breath and wait that each day happens as it should. Not just because I’m aware that my situation is far from being the most difficult: I have a roof over my head, my children under the same roof, a loving companion and a table that does not know starvation (not to mention two cats, who comfort me through their unshakable calmness).

But there is a factor that is getting heavy each day, and when I look for an image to describe it, all that comes to me are "tied wings". It’s been 51 days seeing the same landscape and if, at the beginning, it was good to hear the symphony of spring birds again, to watch the leaves of the trees rise after the long winter, to see the flower buds open and to suffer from pollen (ah, rhinitis, you can’t forget me even now!), in these last days these things got a little still. The leaves have already become known, the birdsong is calming and the flowers begin to wilt.

I live in a small commonhold, but it has a quite large green space — with the birds, trees and flowers I just mentioned above — and I can move around it freely (always respecting the nasty social distancing gestures), but a few days ago this hasn’t been enough for me. I want more, I'm hungry for more! I feel like taking my feet and walking straight ahead until they get tired, any direction I choose. I joke that I'm living in a Swedish prison and going down to take a small walk is the same as sunbathing.

You see, I know I'm unfairly complaining . I’ve never been in prison. The closest I got to being stuck was in a hospital bed (and that’s bad enough), but I insist: I know I have a relatively privileged life. Of course, I’m lightyears away from being part of some economically privileged caste. My probabilities of having a more than six digits in my bank account is one in 19 068 840 but it decreases to 1 in ∞, since I don’t play lottery, but often I think about those who has less than me, those who live in under dictatorships or where poverty is extreme. Nope, I know I have no reason to complain (which does not prevent me from taking a critical look at public policies or our society, but that’s not the topic of this text). What happens to me is a genetic problem. In my family we have the nomadism gene. Since we were little we moved of house or city with a certain frequency and in adult life I kept this itinerant spirit . So far I can count since my birth, 21 movings and among them 7 different cities and 2 countries.

At my parents' house, when we couldn't move away, we changed the layout of the furniture and the house was never the same from one year to the next. So many comings and goings obviously didn’t bring only joy. It was hard to change schools and leave all my friends behind and try to reinsert myself in groups that existed before. But the taste for the new, for the discovery, for new landscapes and new faces remained in me, implanted and absorbed as part of myself. I’m part of that group that, when thinking about what I would I do if I had a lot of money, responds without hesitation: I would travel!

On weekends it’s not unusual for us to get together in the car and take a stroll in the neighboring villages. And when it comes to a day at the beach? Oh, my, this is on the top list! Each new place enchants me by its diversity of culture, people, nature and history. And these images accumulate in my mental repertoire, helping me, in difficult times, to keep hope and serenity until the storm passes. Everywhere I went — and every penny saved allowed me to go far places, from Portugal to Japan — what I noticed, every time was the same: under the varnish of our specific cultures, we humans are all alike, . And understanding that makes me love life and people even more (I confess that some people I love from afar, and for some, truth is that I can't, but these are very few).

Then I'm back to the 51 days. I haven't seen my friends or the rest of the family who live nearby, other landscapes, other people in “live broadcast” for almost two months now… and this is becoming heavy to bear. Okay, we all agree to some degree that social distancing is the bitter medicine that will help the world avoid a humanitarian catastrophe. I, who have convictions that allow me to face death with resignation - a natural process; when I think that we can avoid death if there’s a hospital room and a ventilator to assist the sick ones until their body regains control, I come to an obvious conclusion: of course I can give up my comfort and of course I can silence my restless nature to contribute modestly to the common wellbeing.

Nonethless ... it's not easy. Perhaps because all this effort to maintain life is driving us away from life itself. Close to the heart, but away from the eyes, the hands, the hugs and the sonority of the sharing laughters, which is never faithful through the screen of our electronic devices.

But I already have a plan: when this is all over — because it will be over, this is an inexorable truth. Nothing is permanent!— I'll take my feet and walk. And I'm going to visit my friends and I’m going to see those at my reach right now. And as soon as the dark clouds and lightning have calmed down, I will spread wide my illusory wings and I will fly again, in search of food for the soul. Until then, it is very likely that I will end up moving — again — the furniture in the living room! But it doesn’t matter, since this is all I can do for now. As for you, who got to this conversation, what is your nature: bird or tree? Whatever it is, I'm sure you will enjoy listening to this song and traveling with me a little while

Giving life to 1700-year-old characters

No, Berenice is not a vampire that you risk to cross on a dark, drunken night after involuntarily leaving your favorite pub, because it's four o'clock in the morning and it' s closed. That would be more like an eighties Stephen King's story. My characters are people who lived in the early Late Antiquity, just a few centuries before the beginning of the Middle Ages. They lived a thousand and seven hundred years ago.

But how do you bring such ancient people to life?

When one speaks of the Roman Empire, probably the picture that comes to many of us is that of old senators, dressed in white togas, secretly confabulating in the halls of Curia Iulia against Julius Caesar or another Emperor of the time. Outside the building, a mass of miserable people protesting clear and loud, until the Emperor throws pieces of bread and announces that there will be a spectacle at the Amphitheatrum Flavium (aka Coliseum), causing the crowd to calm down like in a magic trick.

Perhaps we can even imagine them speaking English or, if there is an effort of accuracy, all "speakum withum wordus quid terminum withum 'um'".

The thing about this imagery is that it allows us to switch the scenery several times. Curia Iulia becomes Henry VIII's St. James Palace, or Louis XVI's Versailles Palace, but also the contemporary White House or the Palacio do Planalto. Everything is very much the same, and our identification ends up being diluted in the message that "history repeats itself".

Throughout the writing process of Berenice of Cappadocia, I really wanted to bring the characters to life, eliminating any caricature with which we are used to thinking "the people of the past".

One important lesson I had during the Faculty of History is that a man of the Middle Ages did not identify himself in this sense. Nobody in that long period thought "Oh, I live in the Dark Ages, how harsh it is!" And I'm not even deal with the “Middle Ages equal obscurantism” question. This is not a blog about History. That may sound obvious when we put things in these terms, but in general culture, we tend to look at people of the past like a spectrum, an opaque image of lives long gone. And there is nothing more wrong than that!

Those interested in the Humanities — History, Philosophy, Sociology, Anthropology, etc. — are used to considering the human being as a whole. A species that was built in time, that continues this process today and for as long as it exists. Thus, as a unique species, even if there are space-time distinctions between individuals (the "when and where" each one exists and has existed), our modus operandi continues to be the same. This means that since its origin, the Homo Sapiens loves, hates, rejoices or is saddened basically for the same reason: the challenges arising from its social, gregarious nature.

I often say that, under the cultural varnish, we all become anxious in the same way when our loved ones get sick, or full of hope when we know we are loved by the one we love. What changes is the way we express those feelings.

So, when I thought about all the events that happen in Berenice's life, and the way she reacted to them, I described it from the point of view of a contemporary young woman.

Berenice is unaware that the world she knows is collapsing. Neither does she imagine that we are following her story a thousand and seven hundred years after she lived, through the screen of our electronic devices. Not even through one of the things she loves most, which is the written history! For her, the world in which she lives is contemporary and certainly, being a teenager, she gets excited about the novelties surrounding her, wrinkling her nose to the primitive way of life of her ancestors.

This perspective strengthens the bonds between me and the shepherdess of Cappadocia. I wanted to tell her story not because I find Late Antiquity romantic — when I hear someone saying they would have liked to live in this or that time, I always ask "are you sure? — but because for me it represents the portrait of humanity, a proof of our unity, our similarity as members of the same group.

Basically, my hope is that through the narrative of Berenice from Cappadocia: the no hero's journey I might, in a modest but sincere way, contribute to the understanding that among us, humans, there is nothing that separates us, because we are all made of the same essence.

Who knows?..