Was Brutus wrong to strike his friend and lord?
Did Caesar’s smile conceal a tyrant’s sword,
Or was it Fate, who doomed the old Republic,
To die beneath the weight of men and time?
Our fingers trace the pattern on this cloth,
Each thread a tale of virtue turned to vice,
Each accent gilded, bright yet purposeless.
In days when Antonines held Rome in peace,
The golden age depended on one man.
The laws still spoke of senates and of votes,
But truth lay in the will of one whose heart
Might favor stoic justice or his whims.
The empire stopped its outward march and set
Its boundaries on the ocean and the Rhine;
A long calm seeped a poison through her veins,
Reducing minds and quenching martial flame.
Augustus hid a monarch in the garb
Of consul, tribune, citizen and friend.
So long as virtue passed from hand to hand
The masquerade endured; but when that chain
Was severed by a son unfit to rule,
The guard that once protected Rome for pay
Would auction off the diadem for gold.
Armed bands and haughty captains shaped the law,
Their swords the ballots of a restless mob.
Marcus, trained to bind his flesh to mind,
Embraced the stoic’s patience and restraint.
Yet love for blood betrayed him when he named
Commodus his heir; a child of vice
Who dressed in lion’s skin and boasted strength.
The Praetors laughed and sold imperial grace,
And Severus fed his soldiers with the spoils,
A prophecy fulfilled by fratricide:
Caracalla’s dagger found his brother’s heart,
And civil war grew common as the plague.
The century turned and emperors rose and fell
Like sparks above a dying funeral pyre.
Aurelian bound the eastern queen Zenobia,
Restored the frontiers, sacked Palmyra’s walls
But ruled by sword and knew no civil check.
Diocletian split the world in fourfold might,
Multiplied councils, taxes and new names,
And from Nicomedia kept Rome at bay.
His abdication taught that thrones could pass
Without a coup; yet jostling for the crown
Awoke ambitions Constantine would wield.
The cross appeared upon the banners now.
Why did a humble sect inflame the earth?
Inflexible zeal, hope of a life to come
And structured ranks that mirrored civic forms
Spread faith from slave to senator and king.
Persecutions tried to quench the flame,
But martyrdom and patience fanned it higher.
On Galerius’s deathbed tolerance was born,
And Constantine embraced the church to bind
His subjects’ hearts; he tempered harsher codes,
Refounding ancient Byzant on the sea.
Yet virtue waned; suspicion tainted love,
And he would **** his son and faithless wife.
Julian in Gaul revived a fairer age,
Demanding proof before a man was ******
But the world had turned; barbarians pressed on
From Rhine and Danube, Goths and Huns and Vandals.
Alaric laughed as senators begged bread,
Promised their lives and took the city’s gold.
Africa, rich and fertile granary,
Was left exposed to Vandal sails and spears.
Attila’s horsemen swept like summer storms,
Pitting Rome and Goth against each other
Until on plains of Gaul his course was checked.
But rot within wore deeper than the sword;
Finances bled, taxpayers fled to woods
And Rome relied on barbarian arms.
When Romulus Augustus laid down the crown,
A foreign captain ruled the sons of Rome.
Theodoric then forged a gentler rule,
Combining Gothic vigor, Roman law.
Yet pious fear soon turned his justice harsh
And Boethius died for whispered plots.
Justinian dreamed of reunited lands,
But plague and endless war consumed his realm.
Gregory, monk and prefect of a ruined town,
Fed hungry mouths and bargained with the Lombards,
Planting seeds of papal sovereignty.
While bishops quarreled over nature’s modes
And emperors forbade the icons’ kiss,
The faithful turned from Caesar’s fading light
To saints and relics, monks and shepherd kings.
Muhammad rose from noble Koreish stock
And from the Caaba’s shade received a law
That bound both creed and contract to one word.
The Romans of the East, now Greek in tongue,
Held out behind great walls but lost their lands.
In Italy wild Normans, bold and shrewd,
Arrived as mercenaries and built a realm.
Seljuk horsemen seized Anatolian fields
And pilgrim blood cried out for holy war.
The schism deepened; Latin spurned the Greek,
And Venice turned crusaders toward their kin,
Sacking the queen of cities under cross.
Thus is the tapestry we choose to read:
A woven fall of courage, faith and greed.
No single blade can sever all these strands;
The loom itself was warped by hands of men.
What shall we say of Brutus, Caesar, gods?
Perhaps the fault lies not in stars or swords,
But in the weaver’s heart that seeks to twist
The fragile threads of freedom into chains.
Dec 26, 2025
Dec 26, 2025 at 1:41 AM UTC
Was Brutus wrong to strike his friend and lord?
Did Caesar’s smile conceal a tyrant’s sword,
Or was it Fate, who doomed the old Republic,
To die beneath the weight of men and time?
Our fingers trace the pattern on this cloth,
Each thread a tale of virtue turned to vice,
Each accent gilded, bright yet purposeless.
In days when Antonines held Rome in peace,
The golden age depended on one man.
The laws still spoke of senates and of votes,
But truth lay in the will of one whose heart
Might favor stoic justice or his whims.
The empire stopped its outward march and set
Its boundaries on the ocean and the Rhine;
A long calm seeped a poison through her veins,
Reducing minds and quenching martial flame.
Augustus hid a monarch in the garb
Of consul, tribune, citizen and friend.
So long as virtue passed from hand to hand
The masquerade endured; but when that chain
Was severed by a son unfit to rule,
The guard that once protected Rome for pay
Would auction off the diadem for gold.
Armed bands and haughty captains shaped the law,
Their swords the ballots of a restless mob.
Marcus, trained to bind his flesh to mind,
Embraced the stoic’s patience and restraint.
Yet love for blood betrayed him when he named
Commodus his heir; a child of vice
Who dressed in lion’s skin and boasted strength.
The Praetors laughed and sold imperial grace,
And Severus fed his soldiers with the spoils,
A prophecy fulfilled by fratricide:
Caracalla’s dagger found his brother’s heart,
And civil war grew common as the plague.
The century turned and emperors rose and fell
Like sparks above a dying funeral pyre.
Aurelian bound the eastern queen Zenobia,
Restored the frontiers, sacked Palmyra’s walls
But ruled by sword and knew no civil check.
Diocletian split the world in fourfold might,
Multiplied councils, taxes and new names,
And from Nicomedia kept Rome at bay.
His abdication taught that thrones could pass
Without a coup; yet jostling for the crown
Awoke ambitions Constantine would wield.
The cross appeared upon the banners now.
Why did a humble sect inflame the earth?
Inflexible zeal, hope of a life to come
And structured ranks that mirrored civic forms
Spread faith from slave to senator and king.
Persecutions tried to quench the flame,
But martyrdom and patience fanned it higher.
On Galerius’s deathbed tolerance was born,
And Constantine embraced the church to bind
His subjects’ hearts; he tempered harsher codes,
Refounding ancient Byzant on the sea.
Yet virtue waned; suspicion tainted love,
And he would **** his son and faithless wife.
Julian in Gaul revived a fairer age,
Demanding proof before a man was ******
But the world had turned; barbarians pressed on
From Rhine and Danube, Goths and Huns and Vandals.
Alaric laughed as senators begged bread,
Promised their lives and took the city’s gold.
Africa, rich and fertile granary,
Was left exposed to Vandal sails and spears.
Attila’s horsemen swept like summer storms,
Pitting Rome and Goth against each other
Until on plains of Gaul his course was checked.
But rot within wore deeper than the sword;
Finances bled, taxpayers fled to woods
And Rome relied on barbarian arms.
When Romulus Augustus laid down the crown,
A foreign captain ruled the sons of Rome.
Theodoric then forged a gentler rule,
Combining Gothic vigor, Roman law.
Yet pious fear soon turned his justice harsh
And Boethius died for whispered plots.
Justinian dreamed of reunited lands,
But plague and endless war consumed his realm.
Gregory, monk and prefect of a ruined town,
Fed hungry mouths and bargained with the Lombards,
Planting seeds of papal sovereignty.
While bishops quarreled over nature’s modes
And emperors forbade the icons’ kiss,
The faithful turned from Caesar’s fading light
To saints and relics, monks and shepherd kings.
Muhammad rose from noble Koreish stock
And from the Caaba’s shade received a law
That bound both creed and contract to one word.
The Romans of the East, now Greek in tongue,
Held out behind great walls but lost their lands.
In Italy wild Normans, bold and shrewd,
Arrived as mercenaries and built a realm.
Seljuk horsemen seized Anatolian fields
And pilgrim blood cried out for holy war.
The schism deepened; Latin spurned the Greek,
And Venice turned crusaders toward their kin,
Sacking the queen of cities under cross.
Thus is the tapestry we choose to read:
A woven fall of courage, faith and greed.
No single blade can sever all these strands;
The loom itself was warped by hands of men.
What shall we say of Brutus, Caesar, gods?
Perhaps the fault lies not in stars or swords,
But in the weaver’s heart that seeks to twist
The fragile threads of freedom into chains.
This began in response to a joking comment a professor of mine made, "..And for your final, you will have to write a poem summarizing Gibbon's Decline and Fall..." in iambic pentameter"
Request permission to use this poem