At this point I have to explain why. Yes, I have to explain why I wrote pages and pages about this whole subject, why I find the work of Pseudo Romanus extremely interesting and why I am here again writing a new long rant:
-I consider the history of the evolution of the Latin Language absolutely essential to understanding the phenomena that led to the end of the Ancient World and the Birth of Europe as we know it today, we cannot understand anything about what happened if we avoid to consider the evolution of the Latin Language between the III and VII-VIII century.
-Pseudo Romanus offers for free to this community a unique utility, Pseudo Romanus gives us the keys to get into the tumultuous world of the Late Empire, restoring the voice of the heroes of Catalaunian Fields! He did everything, not writing a tedious and ponderous text on the subject, he has chosen the innovative tool of the gaming experience, he has chosen to modify the sounds of the beautiful Mod of julianus heraclius to offer us a new precious tool, to understand one of the most complex and fascinating aspects of the Civilization and History of Rome.
-Friendship. Yes friendship is the name, because while, in that infamous thread, I was trying to explain the close relationship between Romance Languages and Latin, while I was trying to articulate the self-evident fact that the Romance Languages are actually the Spoken-Latin of the XXI century AD, I was alone.
I admit that the intellectual solitude does not frighten me, indeed I consider it as an acceptable and even desirable condition, but being alone in such an important debate, on a matter fundamental to the understanding of the Roman world and the understanding of our civilization's history, it was really depressing and a bad experience; well, just in then, it appeared Pseudo Romanusa nd with the kindness and clarity characterizing his person and hiswriting style, he helped me to clarify the concept that my bad English was not able to express. So a friend, one of the true ones, so I can easily state that my personal respect and my friendship for him will never cease.
Having always loved the history of Rome, of course I've always also loved the history of Rome's victories, especially those latest victories, which took place during Late Antiquity, when all seemed lost and it was difficult even finding good reasons to fight on. So, I love the characters as Flavius Stilicho, or the Magister Militum Flavius Aetius and I love the memory of Catalaunian Field and those last tragic victories, but these victories were short lived, maybe they slowed down the course of the events, but they didn't change the final outcome.
There is, however, a victory that was not ephemeral, a total victory, one of those victories remaining carved through the centuries, a victory so shining and so definitive that nearly wiped out forever even the memory of the defeated, but strangely, little is known about it. Do you wish to know the General who won the last battle of Rome? Do you want to know using what weapons this victory was achieved? Do you want to know where this victorious battle was fought? And when it happened? Follow me!
It will be a very short trip through time, in fact occasionally SBH, a man of great talent, great intellect and immense generosity, is so nice with me to let me use his personal time-machine, so, my friends, wear your reenacting gear, your belts, your tunics, sandals, Pannonian hats, coats, take your arms and armor and jump on board with me! don't worry, it'll be very short.
" Done! Now, you can get off the ground, thank you.
Where we are, you ask me? Well, I don't know exactly, in Gaul for sure, just North West of the Loire at the end of V century, Rome has fallen, of course.
Don't worry about the weather, unfortunately the machine is not able to choose the seasons and now we are in the middle of October in the Year of our Lord 480 and it's raining; so, let's move quickly without attracting too much the attention of the few living beings we could met on our road; don't let the agricultural landscape deceive you, with all those rather dense woodlands, soon we'll find a settlement; beware of the mud when we reach the trail, the roads are unfortunately no longer maintained as in the time of Hadrian!
Here, look! through the mist, right in front of you, you can see the smoke, that's where we are going.
Well, do you see those three huts in the ocean of mud near the woods? Drawing Closer! Don't worry, being the mid of the morning, all men are at work in the fields and in the woods of some Frank minor lord, perhaps miles away from home, if they come home, they will do so, late in the evening.
Try to smile and don't care about those filthy and smelly kids, playing in the mud and running towards you, they are just little kids; let us draw near the larger hovel, be careful where you put your beautiful new reenactor's shoes! there is mud and dirt everywhere! Let's go! ... and please, don't talk! Your language is too Germanic for this poor people, we don't want to scare them! Don't we?
Now that we are inside, we have just to listen, we are here just for this, remember guys!
The penumbra is lit only by the poor lighting of a hearth in the back of the hut, everything else is enveloped in darkness, but there is really little to see, the house is very poor, some agricultural tool, a few sacks of grain almost empty and few miserable rags here and there, nothing, really nothing interesting; but it's better to move now, slowly forward, without looking aggressive, try to smile, we are asking just for a shelter from rain; yes, I know, the smell is almost unbearable! Try to remember that these people haven't even the slightest knowledge of hygiene, remember guys, we are in V century, in a hut of poor Gallo Roman peasants, so, shut up and go on!
Look, there's a woman!
She was scared but soon realizes that we don't want to harm her, maybe she believed that we were a few stragglers fleeing some damn war, now she's looking calmer and offers us a pitcher of beer, I suppose; if I were you boys, I would not drink more than a sip, who knows what actually is this drink!
Here, look! Now she has calmed down and resumes what she was doing before we came along; do you see? She breastfeeds! She breastfeeds her baby, shut up and listen! ..
Do you ask me why I have brought you here? Do you ask me what we're doing here in this dirty hut? But, haven't you yet understood? Haven't you yet figured it out the truth? You have just met the General who won the last battle of Rome!
He is precisely this poor beggar in front of you, this poor Gallo-Roman woman, so dirty and in rags that you hardly distinguish the color of her hair and skin! Yes my dear friends, she's the last 'Victorious General' of Rome!
She has destroyed hundreds of thousands of Germanic warriors along with their warlike civilization!
Do you wonder how she did it? But, haven't you read Peter Heather? Don't you know that they were the women who taught the language to their children, while men were taking care of work and war?
She, or rather, she and thousands of women like her, who didn't know reading or writing a single Latin word, who didn't know the name of Cicero, Horace and Sallust, who knew only the sounds of the words describing the miserable material world in which they lived , she and them, they have destroyed the enemy, here in Gaul! So much so, the proud warriors from the other side of the Rhine, one day will have to humbly learn her language, the language of the poor peasants, the language of the 'Vulgus', forgetting their own! In this miserable hovel, in this miserable ocean of muck and mud, with an army of miserable beggars, Rome has won his last battle! The final fight to survive!
Now seek the flowers adorning the laurel of victory, and the weapons which got this victory in the name of Rome, let us look for flowers in this midden: hush! Listen, please!
'Amor meo bello, charo amor de 'la mama, manduga meo tresor, qui de 'lo coelo 'le Senior te protege, filio meo charo!'
[My dear beautiful love, dear love of the mom, eat my treasure, may Lord protect you from the sky, my dear son]
Have you heard? These words are the flowers adorning the laurel of Victory, gentlemen!
Those poor and ancient Latin words are the weapons in the last Victory Trophy of Rome, these poor syllables, slurred in a language you all recognize as Roman, are the deadly arrows that this poor illiterate woman, and thousands others like her, are launching right into the future!
The words that will pass through time and will adorn the pages of Moliere andPascal, Guy de Montpassant and Balzac, Hugo, and Camus, Cervantes and Garcia Lorca, Luís de Camões and Fernando Pessoa, Dante Alighieri and Petrarca, the words of Boccaccio and Manzoni. Not yet written words, they are just sounds, ancient sounds, coming from a distant land, lost somewhere there, in the South. Sounds and words slowly mixing with the pre-Roman ethnic substrate, of the regions of an Empire so vast that it had forgotten its very origins. Sounds having so deep and ancient roots, that now they cannot be torn away anymore, they have become part of the things of life, they are the life!
Nobody could prevent this woman to look up and see the 'Coelus', no one could erase from her lips the word 'Amor', 'Filius', 'Panis', 'Vita'.
Rome won this last battle! Rome won it once for all and forever!
These are not the noble words of Lucretius andVirgil, they are the sounds of the everyday life of this army of poor beggar. Bow down then, dear friends, in front of this woman, this ragged Victorious General of Rome, she won the most important battle that Rome has ever fought, the battle to survive! She is the real 'Alma Mater' of the Roman Civilization! "
What can I say more? Very little. In fact, my knowledge is limited, I can only tell you that Pseudo Romanus provides us with a majestic journey through time, he makes us rediscover the sounds of a language still alive and constantly changing, Pseudo Romanus takes for us a picture of it, in a precise moment of its fascinating history, just before it regionalised, being forever fixed on the written page, becoming the Corpus of Romance Philology.
So, through the lens of the Mod, we are witnessing the slow and complex transition from the Latin language, concise and organized in long subordinate clauses, almost like a bunch of grapes, to the Spoken Latin, the Vulgar Latin, which eliminated the endings and cases, uses the pronouns , the adverbs, and the prepositions such as articles, to replace the cases, and by doing so, it creates a new morphology and a new syntax, so now we have no more: 'hominis' but 'de ille homo', then the Italian 'dell'uomo', the Spanish 'del hombre ', the French 'de l'homme' to indicate the Genitive case of the word 'Homo, hominis' (= man).Together with the linguistic structures, they are also changing the meanings of certain words, such as 'senior', Italian 'signore', French 'seigneur', Spanish 'señor', tends to substitute the meaning of the Latin 'dominus', but how many other examples I could add? Too many, for this space and for my skills, unfortunately I don't have the preparation of PR, so I cannot do a review of his work that can serve an audience of academics, I can only state that I am enthusiastic and amused by his work, by its monumental vastness and complexity, by its creative courage, by the patience and deep preparation in linguistic matters necessary to do what Pseudo Romanus did.
So, although I fear that the adventure of PR won't have a huge public/popular success and his struggle to rediscover and to offer us 'The Missing Ring', actually will be a 'battle against the windmills', being not able to help him in other ways, I declare him my utter loyalty, and humbly, I ask him if I may have the honor of riding at his side, in the role of his loyal 'Sancho', faithful beyond any hesitation, beyond any doubt and against any luck.