[WikiEN-l] An Off-Topic Comment

Fri Jul 18 05:31:24 UTC 2003

While this isn't one of the usual topics we discuss on this
mailling list -- trolls, server problems, concerns of copyright
infringements -- I'd like to share something I stumbled across while
doing research for a Wikipedia article.  Because this helps explain
the real reason I keep reading & keep contributing articles when
sometimes I'm doubtful that anyone reads, let alone notices my contributions.

Theophanes was a Byzantine chronicler who compiled from earlier sources,
sometimes not entirely competently, a history of the world to his
time. Many of the events he recorded were of tyrannical emperors
determined to force their religious point of view upon a restive
populace by any means necessary -- including deportation, impoverishment,
& bloodshed. Other events were described the clumsy, violent manner
warfare is always carried out between hostile populations: on one
side Moslem troops attempting to subdue the world for Allah, on the
other the Imperial troops of the One True Roman Emperor (who happened
to speak Greek as his native language), with the chronic repetition
of various groups engaged in revolt against one or the other overlord.

Amidst the record of this continued darkness, suffering and death,
Theophanes includes the tale of the time (February, 764 to be exact)
when the frozen Black Sea broke up & sent forth icebergs thru the
Sea of Marmora. And as he describes this wondrous phenomena, Theophanes
inserts the remark that this is true because he had witnessed this, & with
about 30 playmates climbed onto one of the icebergs to explore and play.
And while he & his childhood friends are preoccupied in this, he remarks
how the adults watched how these mountains of ice, taller than the walls
of the greatest city in Europe, drifted past, occasionally banging into
the seawalls of Constantinople, returning home to fret over this unusual event.

I can't quite explain how, but in the paragraph that Theophanes' translator
describes this event (sorry, I don't read Greek, either Ancient or Medieval),
I found myself suddenly drawn back to a time over 1200 years ago in a
place I have never been, which became more real for me than any television
or movie recreation of history could ever be. All because a writer,
otherwise devoid of personality, happened to share with posterity a vibrant
childhood memory.

And so I will keep on reading, ostensively because I want to correct
mistakes & fill in omissions in Wikipedia, but in the actual hope I will
encounter another surpise like this from a time & place far away.

Geoff