90. Napoleon

A new man came.
Napoleon!
A new Caesar.
Napoleon!
To some a great leader.
Napoleon!
To others the scourge of Europe.
Napoleon!
Born of Corsica.
Napoleon!
Joining the army of France.
Napoleon!
Rising through the ranks.
Napoleon!
To shed the short robes for long ones.
Napoleon!
Napoleon!
Napoleon!
From the terrors of the burning revolutions
With fire in his eyes
The deep, calculating general
Moved out and declared war on Europe.
Eastward!
Eastward!
East he marched
Taking land from Austria
With the dream of Rome in his heart.
He went through Spain and Portugal.
To the ends of the European world!
Napoleon found it hard to resist Russia’s calling
So he crossed the border.
The icy blast of the Russian winter drove him back.
He lost the fight.
He was dethroned and forced into exile.
He escaped and rebuilt his army.
Waterloo was his final defeat.
Napoleon only lived on as a person three more times
But his name and memory will last forever.
He joined the graveyard of dead empires and powerful rulers.
Crossing Hades’ mighty river.

89. The Revolution

Russia built its empire.

Revolution rumors flowed in Europe.

Newton,

Hobbes,

Locke,

Milton,

Many others looked at the world, thinking of it in different ways.

The American colonies got rich.

New agriculture increased food production.

Music reached its height as Mozart played.

Beethoven, Hayden and many others.

New ideas.

New art.

New thoughts

Caused the flames to rise.

From the ancient past

Athens with its small flame.

The flame of freedom.

It split and spread into Rome.

Stayed hidden in the Dark Ages.

Resurrected and grew.

It reached across the sea to the colonies of the New World.

Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, Adams,

Many other disciples of freedom

Fanned the flames of descent.

The flames of revolution.

The fires grew

To the drumbeat of war.

Swiftly, the fire spread

Through Europe

Into the other colonies.

They took their destiny from their brutish king.

Breaking the chains of taxation

Making themselves representatives.

The eagle flew from the nest.

Others wanted the chance to fly.

The fires of freedom spread across the world

Burning out of control.

It spread through the minds and hearts of people

Many got burned

Meeting the scorching blade of the guillotine.

A French republic was formed

But, as with the first European Republic,

It didn’t last.

67. Rome’s Decedant Decline

Rome wasn’t finished here on earth.

Emperors partied in decadence

Playing fiddles while the city burned.

Her crown became the center for

Distracting people with bread and circus

As lions ate Jew and Christian alike.

Slaves fought each other

While free food was passed out to on looking spectators.

Horses were made state officials.

Emperors believed themselves gods

Relating to Jupiter

Demanding tribute and sacrifice.

They drank wine

But got drunk on power.

Civil wars

Economic crises

All kinds of trials and tribulations

Threatened the sleeping lady Rome.

She was divided into provinces

As she lay on her throne.

Yet she slept there peacefully

Unaware of her keeper.

Blinded only by wealth and games

As emperors became corrupt or mad with power.

The empire fell into decline.

63. The Steps to Empire

With Carthage defeated

Rome was now an unstoppable force on the world stage.

She grew rich and fat with decadence

But still retained her Republican machine.

Soon people started getting greedy.

They became too ambitious

For the Republic to survive.

The Gracchi of Rome Came to power

Under the guise of helping the lower class.

Men who fight and die for Italy

Enjoy nothing but air and light.

The first of the Gracchi broke tradition

On tribunal entrance

They killed him for it

Rolling up their togas

Taking out their clubs.

Murder found a place in politics.

The second did the same

Bringing horse riders

To judge corruption.

“No man who rides a horse will ever judge me!”

Said the senators to the Gracchi.

“Take all measures necessary to defend the republic.”

The second of the Gracchi died.

Rome faced more problems.

Her blue gown of republic

Slowly withered

Eaten by factions of moths.

Ripped by large thorny dictators.

Marius seized power by force

But gave it up when the war was over.

Sulla took advantage of civil and foreign war

Forsaking tradition

He staged a coup

Giving birth to the proconsulate

But retired

Because of a prophecy of death.

Generals came

Seeking power and might

Ruling the people as their king

But, as Pompey said to Sulla,

People worship the rising, not the setting sun.

Pompey’s sun rose

After Spartacus died

And the pirates left the sea.

He sent his woman, Rome,

To eat Anatolia and Syria.

As a present to his powerful wife,

He gave her Jerusalem’s treasures.

55. The End of the Alexandrian Empire

On his death bed

Macedon’s lion lay.

His feet failed him

Being made of clay.

With his commander at his side

He was asked who the new king is.

“Where does he reside?”

Alexander, with dying feverish breath

Reaching up to his faithful general

“I give my kingdom to the most powerful,”

He said

Slowly sinking to his bed.

The empire soon crumbled

Under the fevers of war.

Bactria,

Parthia,

Seleucids,

The non-Greeks of Helen,

The Independents

Antigonids,

Egypt, where his lighthouse lay,

Thrace,

Macedonia, his old kingdom.

Yahweh saw his people in Greek hands

Celebrating like those of other Greek lands.

“Do you not remember me?”

He asked.

Then the revolt of candles started.

For eight days the menorah burned.

Antiochus fell from his lofty perch.

The lion's once great empire

Shattered under the fighting

Successor kings.

36. Prologue II

O sweet muse,
You have shown me so much.
The creation of the cosmos,
How the galaxy started to spin,
I met the Forge Master
He showed me how he shaped the molten earth.
You showed the rise of oceans
Gave me the recipe for life.
Because of you I saw the glorious animal explosion,
The triumphant rise of plants and fish.
How fun it was to watch the reptiles build their saurian empire and conquer.
How humbling it was to see their decline.
I then saw the rise of the mammalian empire.
I heard the primitive drums at the dawn of man
As they walked across the continents
Building blessed and cursed ancient jewels
Along ancient waterways.
Now, gentle muse,
Guide me further into history.
Lay me to rest at Homer’s feet
Where he will tell of his wondrous tribe of marble men
And guide me into the deep, dark future.
O, my muse, you have shown me so much.
Yet there is still much more to see.

26. The Mammalian Empire

Come!
There’s work to be done!
With the last dinosaur uprising quelled
We are free!
Grow!
Diversify!
Spread!
Mammals rule this world now!
They went out
Filled the habitats.
Elephants in Africa
With rhinos and monkeys.
Mammals found their way back to the sea
Becoming whales and seals and walruses.
Brontotherium.
Megatherium.
Uintatherium.
Rhinos as weird looking as their names.
Sloths roamed the forests as big as elephants
Grazing on the tops of trees.
Saber-toothed cats.
Rodents with horns.
Horses grew to their normal size.
As time went on the mammals had their extinctions as well.
Out of destruction comes creation.
New creatures replaced the old.
They have their own empire now
 But they want it to be permanent

Who will do this?
The primates.
They will bring something new to the world.
A blessing.
A curse.
They will shape things in new and powerful ways.
A revolution is coming.

25. A Small Saurian Uprising

In the aftermath

Scurrying among the feet of Tyrannosaurus and Brachiosaurus

As they’ve done for millions of years

Were the new kings of the Earth.

They walked the windswept deserts

They flew the dusty, volcanic black skies

Feeding, as scavengers, on the carcasses of their overlords.

The only living remnants of their mighty empire were the small lizards and birds

Scurrying and hopping among the dead bodies.

Over the millennia

The grasses and plants came back.

The skies became blue and clear.

Once again the trees grew to towering heights.

The dust from the old empire cleared

Revealing a new world.

The sun shone through a new canopy to a new forest floor.

Mammals took their place as the rightful heirs of the world.

They filled in old niches.

Lived with the birds and lizards.

For a long time things were peaceful.

The mammals and birds were equals

But the birds had a problem with this.

As the ancient heirs to the dinosaur throne they wanted to rule.

Evolution became the solution to their problem.

The birds grew gigantic

They developed powerful legs and huge jaws.

With these weapons, they took many parts of the world.

They terrorized the small horses.

The rebellion started.

Titanis in the north, Argentavis in the south.

The leaders of the rebellious terror birds.

They ruled their lands with iron wings.

Chomping down on the little animals and making life miserable.

They slowly moved up north

Crossing the land bridge.

Then they met resistance.

Finally, death came for them as well.

No one knew what it was that stopped them.

Now the giant birds live peacefully as docile Cassowaries, Emus, and Ostriches.

.

21. The Triassic: The Rise of a New Empire

On strong back legs of Plateosaurs and Ceolurosaurs

The dinosaurs built their powerful empire.

They were the noble ancestors of great kings.

Claiming the land as their own.

Walking through mighty forests of

The Post Permian aftermath.

Surveying their kingdom with strong eyes,

Sharp teeth

And swift foot.

They knew

One day

They will be great.

The small Ceolophysis

Who ran among the ferns

Dreamt of that day

When others would tremble at his descendants’ mighty roar

And fear the name of the tyrant king.

He knew the prosauropods

Towering over him

Eating the tops of trees

Would meet their match

In the new Eden that is to come.

20. The Dawn of an Empire

New leaps forward came.

They modified their scales.

Skin was invented.

They hunted their ancient rivals.

They looked back at their ancestors

Still confined to the oceans, lakes and rivers.

They found that they could never go back.

They had to push on as reptiles now

They needed to build a new empire of their own.

These new empire builders found a changed world.

There was one landmass

Pangea.

There was one ocean.

Panthalassa.

Reptiles now had the run of the land.

They played with their designs.

Some created great sails.

Others grew big,

Competed for dominance.

Then things changed.

A new schism happened.

Reptile split with mammal.

Then the die-off.

The sail-backed Pelycosaurs,

Along with the trilobites before

Live in mammalian museums now

Locked in stone

As mementos of the past.