The Heelers Diaries

the fantasy world of ireland's greatest living poet

My Photo
Name:
Location: Kilcullen (Phone 087 7790766), County Kildare, Ireland

Thursday, April 19, 2007

history

When Hannibal invaded Italy a couple of millennia ago, the Romans were anxious to get an army into the field to take him on as soon as possible.
One of their leaders a certain Fabius Maximus counselled against the policy.
The people ignored him.
A legion was dispatched to Lake Trasimene.
Hannibal wiped the floor with them.
The Romans now called on Fabius to be their leader.
He instituted a policy of constant harrassment of the enemy's supply lines but no direct confrontation.
After a year of this the Romans got impatient again.
They dispatched another legion to the plains of Cannae.
Hannibal erased it from the surface of the earth.
Once more Fabius was called upon.
And now his policy of delay, delay, delay, became the order of the day.
Hannibal's armies grew weak with hunger, then sickened where they lay.
Their legend withered and died with them.
Fabius died heaped with honours by the city he had saved. He is known to history as the Cunctator, the Latin word meaning delayer.

For seven years I have postponed any direct confrontation with the editor of the Lootheramawn Cecil Sneeran or his acolyte Morticia Plath.
I am the Cunctator.
They are the Cuncts.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home