Alien Space Gods Of Ancient Greece and Rome (40 page)

On
1st January 49 BC
the Senate dominated by Pompey ordered Caesar to resign his command and return to
Rome
as a private citizen, where it was rumoured he would be tried in a court ringed with armed men, a sentence of death. Caesar followed his destiny; convinced he was the Son of Venus, inspired by the Gods, he rode with his battalions for
Rome
. At the River Rubicon, the frontier between
Gaul
and
Italy
, Caesar hesitated.

'As he stood in two minds, an apparition of superhuman size and beauty was seen sitting on the river bank playing a reed pipe. A party of shepherds gathered around to listen and, when some of Caesar's men broke ranks to do the same, the apparition snatched a trumpet from one of them, ran down to the river, blew a thunderous blast and crossed over. Caesar exclaimed, "Let us accept this as a sign from the Gods and follow where they beckon in vengeance on our double- dealing enemies. The die is cast".'

Gaius Suetonius nearly two centuries later seemed impressed by this wondrous apparition, whose decisive encouragement to Caesar was to change the destiny of Rome; he probably accepted the Superman as Castor or Pollux who had intervened at Lake Regillus long before. 'The Twelve Caesars' glows with scandalous anecdotes about the Emperors, particularly Julius Caesar, the most fascinating personage in all Antiquity; the colourful account by Suetonius makes us mourn the loss of his 'Lives of Famous Whores' which would have titillated us today. Modern historians dismiss celestial interventions as superstitions but Suetonius, Secretary to Hadrian before dismissal for his notorious indiscretion with Sabina, the Emperor's wife, in one of the happiest periods in Roman times, had no doubts; Caesar believing himself descended from the Gods, was quite convinced. His exalted soul would surely long to question the apparition, he must have made determined efforts to find him. Caesar's awe would increase on learning the trumpeter had vanished.

Spacemen surveilling troubled Earth would concentrate their attention on Julius Caesar, this dynamic personality dominating
Rome
. Pliny's report of the rain of wool in Central Italy in 49 BC arouses our speculation as to whether it was actually 'Angel's Hair', white filaments, probably ionized particles usually associated with UFOs, possibly that 'manna from heaven’ feeding the Israelites in the Wilderness and the 'heavenly ambrosia beloved by the Greeks.

Surprised at Caesar's swift approach, Pompey fled to
Greece
where he massed a formidable force totaling 57,000 men. Caesar paused to crush opposition in
Spain
, and then in 48 BC pursued Pompey in August to
Pharsalus
in
Thessaly
. Victory for Pompey mustering twice Caesar's strength seemed assured; his army spent the eve of battle feasting. This conflict possibly attracted the Spacemen. Plutarch comments: "Furthermore during the morning watch a great light shone out above the camp of Caesar, which was perfectly quiet and a flaming torch rose from it and darted down above the camp of Pompey. Caesar himself says he saw this as he was visiting the Watches.'

When the sun rose Caesar breakfasted on corn-meal and cabbage then led his men to classic victory winning him mastery of the world and also the sumptuous dinner cooks had prepared for Pompey's celebration banquet. The celestial prodigies may have just been thunder and lightning not Spaceships, but Dio Cassius intrigues us by adding that the result of the battle was announced in Syria hundreds of miles away by 'two young men' who vanished. Shades of Castor and Pollux, who in 498 BC brought news of
Lake
Regillus
to
Rome
, not forgetting that happy trumpeter by the Rubicon!

Pompey fled to
Egypt
where he was murdered by Theodotus of Chios on orders from King Ptolemy as he was stepping ashore to meet his wife, a great Roman weary for death. Caesar shed sincere tears on beholding Pompey's severed head; learning that Ptolemy was planning to murder him too, he promptly declared war on Egypt, although caught off his guard and without supplies his genius soon won. The first sweet fruit of victory was the King's exiled sister, Cleopatra, who was smuggled to him within a bedcover, the most glamorous smuggled goods in all history, this 'Serpent of Old Nile', a shrewd, seductive twenty, completely captivated that bald, old rake, aged fifty-three.

Alexandria rebelled, Caesar left his dalliance for an hour and set fire to his own fleet to prevent it falling into enemy hands; the flames spread to the famous Library founded by the first Ptolemy in 283 BC burning most of its 700,000 papyri, the few which survived were finally destroyed by the Caliph Omar in AD 651. The writing of these hundreds of thousands of scrolls by the greatest scholars of the Ancient World proves the vast erudition existing then, their almost total destruction means an immense chasm distorting our conception of Antiquity. After the birth of their son, Caesarion, Caesar left for
Rome
accompanied by Cleopatra, who somewhat snubbed by the Roman matrons soon returned to
Egypt
to await the love-lorn
Antony
. On the way home in 47 BC Caesar paused in
Syria
to defeat Pharnaces, son of the famous Mithridates of Pontus, in the great battle of Zela. With historic brevity Caesar announced his victory to
Rome
in three words. 'Venil Vedi! Vicil' 'I came! I saw! I conquered!’

For decades
Rome
had been ravaged by Civil Wars. Dictators had bludgeoned their climb to bloody power only to be dragged down to death; invincible abroad; at home the Republic was rotten. Caesar shrewdly saw the only solution was return to the ancient Monarchy with himself, Son of the Gods, as King; neither the Senate nor the people, so servile to future Emperors, were ready. During the next two years sincere patriots and malcontents alike became alarmed at Caesar's growing arrogance and ambition; 'the lean and hungry' Cassius fomented a conspiracy of citizens with an open and deadly hatred of Caesar's pretensions to royal power, he seduced the support of the 'noble' Brutus, whom Caesar loved as a son. The conspirators decided to kill Caesar with daggers as he addressed the Senate on the Ides of March, 15 March 44 BC.

Spacemen following Caesar's career amid the stormy politics of
Rome
would possibly form some of the prodigies haunting this memorable year 44 BC. Plutarch in 'Caesar', LXIII, records:

'But destiny it would seem, is not so much unexpected as it is unavoidable, since they say that amazing signs and apparitions were seen. Now as for lights in the heavens, crashing sounds, all about by night, and birds of omen coming down into the Forum, it is perhaps not worth while to mention these precursors of so great an event, but Strabo, the philosopher, says that multitudes of men on fire were seen rushing up.’

Strabo then twenty years old probably spoke to eyewitnesses of these remarkable events; though known today for his famous work on Geography, he actually wrote a history in forty-three books, unfortunately lost; such erudition suggests a keen, analytical mind evaluating cogent facts. His reference to 'multitudes of men on fire' confounds scholars ignorant of UFO phenomena yet they do evoke that fiery Space Thing which scared Scoutmaster D. S. Desvergers in 1952 at West Palm Beach, Florida, also those alarming 'little men' frightening peasants in South America. Livy mentions apparitions of men in shining garments seen in the Amiternum district in 218 BC. The description 'men on fire' approximates Biblical accounts of Angels glowing with light, who impressed the prophets.

The Brothers Grimm quote in
'Deutsche Mythologie'
, Volume I, an old story in the
Brunswick
dialect, 'Der feurige Mann' relating to AD 1129. Freely translated it tells:

'In this year (AD 1125) a fiery man was haunting the mountains like an apparition. It was just on
midnight
. The man went from one birch- tree to another and set it ablaze. The Watchman said he was like a glowing fire. He did that for three nights then no more. George Miltenburger living in a so-called hop-field, Railbach, in the district of Freienstein, explained, "On the first appearance I saw a man burning all over with fire. One could count all the ribs on his stomach. He continued bus way from one landmark to another until after
midnight
he suddenly vanished. Many people were struck by him with fear and terror because through his nose and mouth he belched forth fire and in dashing speed flew hither and thither in all directions.’

Was this fiery apparition an Extraterrestrial like those 'men on fire' haunting
Rome
?

On the last evening of his life Julius Caesar was dining with Marcus Lepidus when the conversation turned on the question of which death was best, before anyone else could answer Caesar cried out 'That which is unexpected!' That night Caesar dreamed he was soaring above the clouds and then shaking hands with Jupiter; his wife, Calpurnia, dreamed her husband's murdered body lay in her arms. Caesar awoke obsessed with fear and suspicion, when the seers warned him that all the omens were unfavourable, he yielded to the entreaties of his wife and resolved to send Mark Antony and dismiss the Senate. Finally Brutus, who was so treated by Caesar that he was named in his will as second heir, ridiculed the seers, told Calpurnia to have better dreams and led the hesitant Caesar to the Senate House.

On his way Caesar was warned again by a seer to beware of those fatal Ides of March, someone handed him a note containing details of the plot on his life; he put it aside intending to read it later. As soon as he took his scat the conspirators crowded around as if to pay their respects, then Casca struck the first blow in the neck, all the " others hacked him with their daggers like a wild beast, as Brutus stabbed him in the groin Caesar turned and reproached him in Greek 'You, too, my Son!" then sprawled in blood at the foot of Pompey's statue. So died one of the greatest men in all history, murdered by his friends!

Within three years nearly all the assassins met violent deaths in shipwreck, battle or self-slain by the very daggers with which they had treacherously murdered Caeser.

The Senate voted Caesar divine honours, his heir was his 18 year old nephew, Caius Octavian, almost completely unknown. The disappointed Mark Antony gave the customary funeral oration, seeing the mob astounded by Caesar's generosity in bequeathing every Roman seventy-five drachmas, he displayed Caesar's bloody corpse rent with twenty-three dagger-wounds and in masterly denunciation demanded vengeance on his murderers. It was said that as Caesar's body lay on its ivory couch awaiting cremation two Divine Forms (Castor and Pollux) appeared and set fire to the couch with torches.

After the funeral the mob hunted the murderers. In 43 BC the uneasy triumvirate of Octavian,
Antony
and Lepidus massacred three hundred Senators indicted for the murder of Caesar and seized their possessions. Among those who perished was Cicero, probably the greatest writer, in Latin Rome produced. A rival drama convulsed the skies. During all that year the sun grew pale, its light and heat diminished, fruits withered away in the chill atmosphere. Dio Cassius reports that at times the sunlight was even extinguished, a flash darted across the sky from east to west and a new star appeared; sometimes the sun manifested as three circles, one of which was surmounted by a fiery crown of sheaves, phenomena which may suggest UFOs. A great comet shone in splendour for seven nights. Ovid, who was born this year, later expressed popular belief that at Jupiter's command Venus had snatched up Caesar's soul from his murdered body and transformed it as a star, so that he could ever look down from his lofty throne upon the people of
Rome
.