PART 75: The Owl, the Dragon, and the Wolf (1927-1934)

PART SEVENTY-FIVE: The Owl, the Dragon, and the Wolf (July 9, 1927 – January 1, 1934)

Philomon Anatolikos (FILE PHOTO), Commissioner of the European Baseball League and Chairman of the International Olympic Committee (Ret.)

Evgenia Exteberria, first Tribune of the Byzantine Commune, Minister of the Intelligence Secretariat

Philomon,

It’s been quite some time since I’ve written to you. Sorry about that– we’ve been busy with the Great War. Both of them. All right, it’s been more than a while. Still got baseball in your iron grip, huh? The Ninth Olympics just won’t be the same without you, you know. Okay, pleasantries done.

I’m writing to you because you’re one of the only people from the old days who’s still around— remember all those decades ago, back in the Salon of Noor Sallajer? The Revolution? The First International? Granted, you were a capitalist pig and we were the vanguard of the glorious worker’s movement, but details, details! I can’t think of many people I’ve known the whole way from there to here. Ever Meryem— who’s doing well, she just got a commission to paint a gallant young naval officer named Iouliana Erdemir— wasn’t with me until after the Athens Commune was declared.

I’ve been thinking about the past a lot lately. About the First International. About some of the things that happened there. You’ll probably think I’m crazy if I tried to explain it, though. I… I don’t really feel like talking about that yet. I’d rather just talk about current events with somebody who’s been through the wringer. We… we lost a lot of what was left of the first generation in the Great War. Dead, or discredited into obscurity.

You, Philomon, never had an ounce of credibility in the Commune. That’s why I like you.

What do you think of the Red Rose Pact? The early signs are very encouraging.

The British were all over it, of course. Their socialists scoot further and further to the left without ever breaking with what came before. Envy ’em, really. Our socialists needed a revolution to give ’em enough backbone to stop being Julians and Junonians with red flags. Revolutions are often necessary, but it’s always a roll of the dice. Meanwhile, Great Britain will probably go on and succeed in building communism with a Habsburg still on their throne.

I’m glad that Tribune Drymonakos saw that imposing a punitive peace on the former Ayiti Federation would be extremely counterproductive. They’ve repaid our generation for embracing– and don’t look at me, this is actually what it is called— Marxism-Exteberrianism. Which just just alphabet soup for “A Communal Republic”, which in turn is just a nice way of saying “Go Away, Müllerists.” Anyway, the Jaragua Commune will make a fine member of the Red Rose Pact.

If the Jaragua Commune maintains power— and my sources indicate that it’s quite popular among a working class deeply alienated by the old Sailor’s Union— that hugely alters the balance of power. China can pummel any other Great Power into the ground at will— but if socialism dominates the Near West and the Far West? Well, that’s when people start talking about historical inevitability.

Evgenia,

I still have business contacts— oh, don’t look at me like that, Evgenia, just because ‘business’ is a four-letter word in Byzantium doesn’t mean we don’t have to compete with it in the export market— and everyone in the business community in China is absolutely fucking livid. They’re talking about historical inevitability, too. The historical inevitability of them getting their asses kicked for the rest of the 20th century unless they do something drastic and pronto.

A depressing fact, I’ve learned, is that many a principled capitalist defender of the free market and economic liberty will devolve into a raving Pangalist if you put their feet to the fire. The Red Rose Pact put a lot of Chinese magnates’ feet straight into an industrial furnace. They don’t like it. Their shoes are very fancy and expensive.

After that, it only takes one Goethe for everything to go to shit. And Zhang Zhulin is like Goethe times ten. He’s not a fucking idiot, for starters. And he’s moving a lot of silver around. Taking on lots of new staff. Flying all over China, meeting his fellow plutocrats. Something awful is happening. I can feel it in my crotchety old man bones.

LATER: Shit, forgot to send this letter. Now my inside scoop is probably less impressive, since presumably you have eyes and the ‘Business Plot’ is on the front page of every newspaper in Eurasia. But this is what I was getting at. Everybody’s calling it a “plot”– not a coup, not a revolution. On paper, China looks the same as it always has. Zhu Xiaoying still sits on her throne. She dismissed whatever poor fucker was serving as chancellor and dissolved the legislature. Control passes to– I am not making this up– the “Jacobin Party”, a name with nice mainline liberal pedigree. The new chancellor is, I don’t know, some guy. Who cares. The Ming Empire endures. The Empress still enjoys the people’s mandate. Zhang Zhulin hasn’t even got a title. He’s not even in Beijing. He’s in Shanghai, which is definitely not in any way the capital of China.

Zhang Zhulin, President of Shanghai-Pudong Heavy Industries and definitely not the Pangalist dictator of China

And of course, everybody— everybody— knows what the score is. He’s not fooling anybody. But people get way less mad when you shuffle some papers around, when all the gunshots happen behind the walls of the Forbidden City, in the basements of leftist organizations, in whatever hole in the ground the last three union members in China were hiding in, then when you preside over a violent revolution, behead the beloved Kaiserin (who is survived by an island full of pissed-off Habsburg relatives), smash all the symbols of the new state and proudly proclaim yourself the dictator of an anarchic government. Like a certain nincompoop tried, back in the old days.

The result is still the same— China is a military industrial complex with a country. And the Red Rose Pact is on the business end of it. Congratulations!

P.A.

Ah, what blessed times we live in! What a golden age of liberty! Are the victories I have brought this nation not unparalleled since the days of Noor Sallajer herself? For when since those glorious, moon-drenched years has the Republic been led by a president of such valor, such vision? In the time I have been privileged to sit in the House of the Golden Horn and steer the great ship of state, I have gained the ability to see the unspeakable forms lurking in the future, and how to navigate those treacherous rocks and shoals, those ominous fog-wreathed icebergs and menacing reefs and deliver the Byzantine people into a paradise of perfect liberty!

Philomon,

I suppose the Chinese aren’t the only capitalists to feel provoked by the signing of the Red Rose Pact. There’s rumblings from your old friends in Germany— Krupp and that whole lot.

(OOC: This event had the wrong localization, and I didn’t notice until like weeks after I’d played this update. So please accept this artist’s rendition of what it should have looked like)

Now, things aren’t so dire there as they are China— the liberals– the real liberals– are still hanging on. But it’s cause for concern. The current ruling party of the North German Federation are liberals in the Julian mold. Ideological enemies, and still on our naughty list for not hating the fascists enough, but we can deal with Julians. We can’t deal with some new Goethe.

I’ve been having bad dreams, lately.

We must build a state of pure reason. The laws which organize our society must be as precise and unerring as the laws governing the motions of the stars and planets in our sky. There is no room for sentiment, for feeling, for human error, for intuition— these will fatally compromise your judgement. Love will destroy you.

Evgenia,

Here’s a funny joke: What happens when somebody named Valeria sits down and designs the worst political ideology possible? The French say, “good idea.”

Valerie

You have to feel sorry for that poor bastard Louis VIII de Valois-Vexin, King of the French. He thinks that maybe finally history will stop shitting all over his country and he can just preside over a nice, well-behaved constitutional monarchy— with, hey, socialists, which is a good in with Byzantium and Great Britain…

And some raving lunatics come along and try to burn the whole fucking country down. They’re all like, hey! Now that we’re strong again, we should try conquering Germany again! Newsflash, idiots: the reason France is strong again is because it stopped going to war with the rest of Europe every five years. Fuck’s sake.

You communists aren’t helping, frankly. The French like to feel important. They don’t like hearing that they’re following in the glorious footsteps of Byzantium and Great Britain.

Yes, strangely enough they aren’t huge fans of the French edition of the Athens Gazette. They have their own papers. Their own terrible, terrible papers.

I’m sure this will all blow over soon, though. So what if the French elections were called a bit early? I’m sure that absolutely nothing will interfere with the right of the French people to exercise their mandate. And I’m sure the French army forces standing around while the blackshirts glare at everyone are just catching their breath.

Okay, yeah, France is fucked.

P.A.

God put me on Earth and placed me on the throne of the Roman Empire for a reason. Providence did not allow my ancestors to spend generations rebuilding the strength of this empire for its own sake— it was paving the way to the great task of re-uniting a sundered Christendom. Absolutely any price is worth paying to carry out the task God has laid out for me. If the skies of all Christendom are darkened with cleansing fire, if the blood of knights soaks the soil of Jerusalem, if the sons and daughters of Rome are led to early deaths in the most remote corners of the Earth, if the bodies of Christian and infidel alike befoul the waters of the Nile— so be it. If the fulfilment of this holy mission forever saps the strength of Rome, if all the empire is laid waste for the cause of true religion— it will be worth it. It will all be worth it. It will all be worth it.

Philomon,

I still think that— somehow— the government doesn’t take fascism seriously yet. The entire rise fo Valeria is a Black Chamber plot, you know. Whenever I press the issue, all I get is a sea of patronizing young faces. So I’ve let it rest, lest I be forced out of the Intelligence Secretariat for having gone senile.

I don’t want to wind up like poor Prime Minister Griffith did in Great Britain.

The government says it’s taking proactive action against fascism— we’ve deployed a detachment of the New Red Army to Nuevo Xi’an to save the communist government there from going the way of their old mother country back in Iberia.

And– well, that’s important. We don’t want Nuevo Xi’an to become the Ireland of South Avalon.

But it’s a drop in the bucket compared to what’s happening further abroad.

P.S. Just heard about the German election results— before it hit any of the papers. (So, old news by the time you get this letter)

I never thought I’d be so happy to see a bunch of Julians win an election. Good grief.

Hey, Philomon.

Oh, I guess you weren’t expecting to hear from me? I’m Iouliana Erdemir. I’ve an Ekklesia candidate for the Athens Commune, and I was feeling a bit lost at sea. Meryem said you were an old friend of Evgenia’s, and that I should consider writing to you. She also cackled like a witch as she did so, so perhaps her advice was not in earnest. Still! I think it might be a test of my rhetoric skills if I try to convince you— after like sixty years of being your weird Hermes self– that Communism is, in fact, the best.

First: We know pretty much everything, ever, at this point.

Second: What, isn’t that enough? Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get in my flying car so I can get back to my house on the moon before summer. Ta ta!

Your obedient servant,
Iouliana Erdemir

P.S. Well, shit.

Evgenia, Iouliana,

I’m just writing to both of you at the same time now, because, what, do you think I can just write letters all day? Fuck off.

You know, one of the few things I liked about the communist revolution was that it finally made the stupid liberals’ dumb Temperance League for idiots shut up.

The only thing worse than being hung over is being yelled at while hung over.

Stay in your fucking lane, socialists. Yell at unemployed people instead.

Heard there was a Communist coup in Hungary. I actually felt happy when I read about it, since it wasn’t fascists.

The Chinese are pulling up stakes from the world community. Sport is always the first to go, trust me.

Then comes the head-cracking.

Congratulations on winning a seat in the Ekklesia. I’m sure it was a real uphill battle getting elected as the Athens Commune candidate in fucking Athens.

P.A.

Philomon,

I’m sorry about Ms. Erdemir. Meryem put her up to it, as she might have mentioned. I envy her youthful high spirits, anyway. I’m glad we still have our share of young radicals— that the Commune hasn’t ossified along with its founders.

And she makes me laugh. Not much does, these days. Valerie has denounced leading members of the socialist party as traitors, so the ones who managed to get re-elected have all been drummed out of the Estates General. And the king just stood by and let it happen. Coward. You can’t trust monarchs when their head’s on the line. I’m not sure how the British manage.

Zhang Zhulin has denounced the World’s Fair as socialist propaganda. Which… well, it is. But we’re right and he’s not.

My agents have told me that Irish communists have succeeded in overthrowing the fascists yet again.

I’m trying to encourage the Ekklesia to try to do something to stabilize the situation there. Ireland didn’t deserve all of this. Nowhere does.

14

Evgenia! Philomon!

Exciting news! I got some legislation passed— we’re going to send New Red Army troops to Ireland to fight the fascists!

It’s not exactly overthrowing Valerie, but it’s a start.

At least part of Eurasia won’t continue heading to hell in a handbasket.

The king is finally standing up to Valerie. Murdering duly elected socialists, that’s fine, but– dare Valeria interfere with his precious Gallican Church? Sound the alarm bells!

The fascists just shot all the clergy who they thought liked the king better than Valerie, though.

I guess China ran out of socialists to arrest, since they’ve moved down the list to minority cultures who remember when east Asia had more than, like, three countries in it.

A doddering old conservative party member in the Chinese parliament was apparently operating under the mistaken idea that he was still serving in an actual legislative body. That was the end of him.

At least with China gone, there were plenty of medals up for grabs at the Olympics. S… silver linings?

I especially enjoyed watching our fencing team compete. Um, not for any particular reason, of course! It’s just that they were rather striking, even if the British (our worthiest opponents, surely!) got the gold medal in the end. If you see them, Philomon, please convey my well-wishes. I particularly wish the team captain well. She cut a particularly striking figure as she gallantly stood her ground against a veritable modern Boudicca. Perhaps, Evgenia, you understand my meaning…

The North Germans have had a deathbed conversion to anti-fascism. I wonder how sincere it is— maybe they’re just spooked because France is dive-bombing into Valeria crazytown. Which, well, that’s bad. It’s especially bad for Germany, which mostly sits on land the French fascists think ought to still be part of France. But fascism is inherently bad. You can’t oppose it out of sheer realpolitik!

Peace has returned to Ireland.

(And my old Navy pals tell me they’ve learned a thing or two in this whole mess.)

I think everyone’s making a bigger deal about it than it really is, because Valerie’s shadow looms over all the Occident. The fact that I’ve spearheaded something– anything— that won a convincing victory over fascism, that brought liberty and relief to a people who’ve suffered so much for the Idea of Rome– well, it’s a real morale booster. I’m sure it’ll all blow over in a month, though, and I’ll just be another fresh face in the Ekklesia.

Your obedient servant,
Iouliana Erdemir

A ruler must live for her people and her people alone. Okay, okay, that sounds grandiose, but what I mean is that you need to provide an example to ’em, even if it runs against your nature. If the people need a warrior empress, then you pick up a sword and ride straight into battle, no matter how scared shitless are, no matter how much that sword shakes in your hand. They’re counting on you. You need to prove you’re better than those fucking asshole doukes, right? You aren’t just Queen Asshole who has the fanciest hat and the most gold— you’re a symbol. An icon. When your people need you, you’ll be there for them. Even… even if you don’t want to be, if all you can think of when you were a little girl and old Iouliana the Historian sat you on her knee by the fire and read you stories about her father.

Iouliana Erdemir, sixth Tribune of the Byzantine Commune
Inaugurated January 18, 1930

The Athens Commune

Iouliana,

I feel compelled to offer you some advice. We are entering perhaps one of the most dangerous phases of the Commune’s entire history. Perhaps even Byzantium’s? We aren’t exactly in Deluge territory, but there are storm-clouds on the horizon a lot of the Ekklesia just won’t see. The Irenicists are still in the middle of their victory lap from winning the Second War. Labour is thinking about how to go back from coalition partner to government. But the Byzantine people, in their wisdom, have elected a tribune who realizes that there’s a fight on the horizon.

Our utopia is more brittle than your predecessor realized. Think about the latest attempt among Sicilian nationalists to restore the di Chios monarchy (which has been vacant for over 120 years).

This little uprisings have been increasingly frequent. The usual takeaway is 1.) Well, at least they aren’t fascists, and 2.) the New Red Army will just make mincemeat of ’em anyway. But… it’s government soldiers fighting rebels in the old seat of Juno Koca’s provisional republic, back in those heady days of the 1702 revolution. It’s a reminder that, however more civilized, tolerant, and, yes, good we are compared to many other polities, both contemporary and historical, our state is still held together through coercive violence. I don’t know what the answer to this is. If I did, I would have done it back in 1884. As it is, the ghosts of the Romans who built the empire we’ve inherited will continue to haunt us.

But also— consider this. Thousands of people were willing to put their lives on the line to revolt against the Commune, for something as stupid as restoring a long extinct Occitan-Norman-German dynasty to power. They don’t actually care about the honor of the di Chios dynasty, of course— it’s just an expression of a formless discontent. Imagine if that wily chameleon Valeria shows up and finally comes up with a version of history the Sicilians like better.

She can show up in the most unexpected places.

And when she does, her neighbors know it.

Evgenia, Iouliana, any other random acquaintances you’re apparently also sharing these letters with. Hi, Meryem! Are you reading this, too? Whatever.

Yes, I’m the one who suggested that the Olympics be hosted in a capitalist nation. I still have pull on the IOC, considering I founded the fucking thing.

What? It got China to show up this time.

Have you heard about the British fascists? They started calling themselves the “British Socialist Worker’s Party” and tried to make their own little unions. Unfortunately for whatever their dumb leader is calling herself (may I be the first to suggest “Valeria Pendragon”), the British aren’t fucking morons, so the organization was outlawed into the ground. I’m kind of taken with the whole notion of just naming your political party the exact opposite of what it actually is. Maybe at the next HERMES party congress (look, we still have a chance! We had twenty people attend last year, and I had to put the leaf in my table to make room for ’em all!) I’ll suggest that we tell everyone “HERMES” stands for “Hey Everyone, Really More European Socialists”.

P.A.

Hey, Philomon (also CC: Evgenia),

It didn’t stick in Great Britain— thank Allah— but I think the fascists are on to something when they realize the power of names, the power of calling a thing something that it’s not until it becomes that thing.

The Kingdom of the French is no more. After centuries, the Capet dynasty is no more. King Louis was spirited out of the country by British special forces, where he’s now an honored guest of his sister monarch, Victoria V von Habsburg, Queen of the British. It’d be kind of hilarious under any other circumstances.

Valeria Imperatrix

When Valeria declared the restoration of the Gallic Empire, her speech included the following passage. I’m including it here because, well, I think it needs to be seen.

quote:

THE HISTORY OF ROME

When the vengeful and traitorous Greeks sacked proud Ilium, putting her people to the sword and the city to the torch. Only Aeneas and a few followers survived. They went west, forsaking the cursed Orient forever. It was in the domain of the Latins that Aeneas finally found a refuge, a place he could call home. In return for Latinus’ hospitality, Aeneas gave the Latins victory over Turnus.

Much later, Aeneas’ descendants Romulus and Remus were found on the banks of the Tiber, where they were nursed by a she-wolf. Romulus was brave, virtuous, and selfless. Remus was cowardly and duplicitous. Romulus had a bold vision of an eternal city built on seven hills, and gathered together his supporters to build what would one day become Rome. Remus, sick with jealousy, conspired to sabotage the new city’s walls, allowing its enemies to leap over Rome’s boundaries. When his plot was exposed, Remus fled east, to live among the Greeks who had massacred his forebears.

Now, if you’re like me, when you read this, you were probably thinking, “Wait, that’s not what happened with Romulus and Remus.” But when you get to that point, you’ve become Livy trying to come up with more plausible explanations for a founding myth that was clearly entirely fictitious in the first place. Of course Romulus and Remus didn’t do this, since they never existed. That’s the point. They’re a national founding myth, and they can do whatever you want them to have done.

Try to keep this in mind for the rest of the story.

quote:

Rome prospered, first under its seven kings, then under the Senate and the Republic. Greece grew ever more decadent and depraved. The Romans strove to bring civilization to all the Mediterranean— the rest of Italy, North Africa, Iberia. They even sought to bring western virtue and martial vigor to Greece and Anatolia. And, indeed, these regions became some of the most important provinces of Rome. But it was a poisoned chalice, for the decadent oriental luxuries of Greece began to infect the ruling classes of Rome.

The civic virtues of the Roman Republic began to terminally decline, as the magnates of the Senate put aside the good of the nation in favor of their own crass self-advancement. The likes of Cincinnatus and Brutus gave way to Crassus and Clodius. The fasces was coming unbound.

Julius Caesar realized that the disintegrating Republic needed, badly, to be reunified. Like his forebear Aeneas, whose divine blood still coursed in his veins, he turned west— to the rugged land of Gaul, whose martial virtue was such that the legions themselves took inspiration from their weapons and tactics as they built an empire. By uniting Gaul and Rome, Caesar made both immeasurably stronger— he brought law, order, and peace to Gaul, while the Gauls brought an infusion strength and valor to Rome. With most of Europe united under his aegis, Caesar began making preparations to attack the Far East— before being betrayed by the cowardly Senate, who loved the Republic more than they loved Rome.

Caesar’s heirs fought amongst themselves. Antony, once a proud son of Rome, was corrupted by the Hellenistic depravity of the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra. Octavian, however, remembered well the lessons of his adoptive father. Antony and Cleopatra fell, the Egyptians were freed from Ptolemaic tyranny, and Octavian was master of the world.

Conquest was not enough, however. He was no short-sighted warmonger, intent only on fleeting glories, like that Greek hero Alexander. He needed to build a system that would outlast him. To this end, he devised the Roman Empire, and for centuries it endured as the most glorious accomplishment of humanity.

Yet in time the emperors forgot themselves. The empire broke apart. The Far East was ruled by the Palmyrene Empire. In the central empire, Gallienus was left to contemplate his father’s failures. But in the west, Postumus sought to revive Rome’s virtues in the crucible in which Caesar forged them. Thus began the first Imperium Galliarum. Here, the virtues of the principate would be renewed— a new senate, new consuls, new legions, a new Rome.

Postumus was betrayed from within his own ranks and murdered, and it fell to the Roman Emperor Aurelian to reunite the empire instead. Aurelian did admirable work, but the empire he rebuilt was fatally flawed, the seeds of the future oriental despotism of the Byzantines were planted in his reign, and blossomed into the dominate in the reign of Diocletian and his tetrarchs.

The remaining centuries of Roman history are essentially a long, drawn-out decline— the west fell to anarchic barbarism. The essentially Greek character of the east resulted in decadence. Which isn’t to say that the Late Empire didn’t have its moments of brilliance! Constantine and Theodosius united the empire in the worship of one God. Justinian worked all his life to restore order to the west. The history of the empire had not been forgotten. Whenever the emperors and empresses of Rome turned their gaze West, glory followed.

The crowning achievement of these late imperial reigns was the glorious reign of the Living Saint, Valeria II. She completed the work of the Komnenoi in their reconquest of Italy, defending Christendom from threats to the east, and finally repaired the schism that had ruptured the true church, reuniting east and west once more. Yet her castle was built on a foundation of sand— even as she punished the heretic and civilized the barbarian, the cowardly Greeks of the Senate wondered if they even were Romans, or if they were something else called a “Byzantine.”

I need not tell you which side won that debate, and the result was a succession of increasingly degenerate governments squatting on the territory of Valeria’s Rome: Yaroslav’s Kiev-Byzantium, the Radziwill’s Commonwealth, Noor Sallajer’s Byzantine Republic, Exteberria’s Byzantine Commune. Europe descended into anarchy; China and Avalon were ascendant.

No more— it is time for us to once more revive the Idea of Rome in the very land in which it was perfected, in which Postumus tried to preserve it. Let the Second Imperium Galliarum be proclaimed.

You are perhaps struck by the mysterious absence of any actual French people in this history.

Your obedient servant,
Iouliana Erdemir
The House of the Golden Horn

Evgenia, Iouliana,

Valeria’s decided to take out her aggression on the NGF. So I guess we’re in for a horrific Great War-like slog of a land war. The heart of Europe, riven with trenches and piles of corpses. Didn’t they learn anything from the Second Great War? You’ll never get anywhere just ramming armies into one another. You need naval supremacy.

“I’m Valeria, and I’m here to reunite Europe. For my first move, I’m going to blow it the fuck up and get everyone killed in a decades-long war.”

P.A.

JUNE 15, 1931

JULY 1, 1931

AUGUST 7, 1931

AUGUST 20, 1931

Evgenia, Iouliana,

What the fuck? What the fuck? What the fuck?

Two months! The war was over in two months!! Two European Great Powers got in a land war and the Imperium won in two months. Their tanks just blasted right through the NGF’s fortifications. Guerre éclair, they’re calling it. The Lightning War.

God help us all.

I really have to admire those German liberals, though— they’re still fighting fascist Poland’s opportunistic invasion in the east. If I were them, I’d have just rolled over and fucking died right there.

We just have to hope they don’t take the easy way out.

But the army’s fighting fascist rebels in the west even when they’re fighting fascist soldiers in the east. If… if they make it, I take back every mean comment I’ve ever made about the NGF. Mean it.

P.A.

Philomon,

Well, you’ve got your wish.

Philomon, Evgenia,

It was strange writing the same old speech about how are young athletes are the flower of socialism, hope for the future, etc…

…when it seems self-evident that the world has gone mad, and that— unless we do something, the future will be much worse than the past. Progress and improvement is not inevitable. Just ask a Roman who lived through the Deluge. Utopia is something you need to work for, or it will turn to dust in your hands.

In desperation, a French socialist assassinated Valeria Imperatrix at a fascist party rally. She managed to shoot the Imperatrix right in the head; Valeria died instantly, in front of a crowd of thousands.