[Justinian] sent…. Julian… with sacral letters to Arethas [Kaleb], the king of the Ethiopians. [The king] received him with great joy, since Arethas longed after the Roman Emperor's friendship.

Arethas accepted the Emperor's sacral letters and tenderly kissed the seal which had the Emperor's image. He also accepted Julian's gifts and greatly rejoiced.

When he read the letter, he found that it was urgent for him to arm himself against the Persian king, devastate Persian territory near him, and in the future no longer make covenants with the Persian.

In the sight of the envoy, King Arethas immediately began to campaign: he set war in motion against the Persians and sent out his Saracens. He himself also went off against Persian territory and pillaged all of it in that area.

Theophanes, Chronographia A.M. 6029

Whether or not Ethiopia is acting in its own interests in this affair in Somalia, as some have insisted to me, or at the behest (surreptitiously or otherwise) of the United States is irrelevant. Their interests for now coincide tidily with ours.

They have learned well those lessons which the West has forgotten. Hit hard and with overwhelming force. Put the boot heel down and disregard P.C. ROE’s that make the faint-of-heart feel good but that get good soldiers killed unnecessarily. This is war, after-all. Of course, it helps when you don’t have a fifth-column media around doing its saboteur best. The hardest tests follow- occupation and reconstruction amidst a threatened insurgency. Hopefully, Ethiopia and the OAU have kept their eyes and ears open these past few years. Do their generals read history?

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L'État, c'est moi as allegedly (i.e., apocryphally) uttered by the Sun King usually stands for the exercise of supreme executive power known as absolutism. The man is the law- moreover, the interests of the man are above that of the state.

But I would proffer a slightly different take: the interests of the man ARE the interests of the state. To Stilicho’s critics, then and now, I suggest the counter argument l'etat, c'est moi. In advancing his own interests, he advanced those of his topsy-turvy state.

Caesar could just as well have declared l'etat, c'est moi instead of the reputed alea jacta est as he crossed the Rubicon.

So too can Prime Minister Meles shout l'etat, c'est moi to the heavens as his troops go streaming over the Somali border.

There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all. ... The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic. ... There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.

Theodore Roosevelt, October 12, 1915

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Who Was Stilicho?

Half Roman, half-Vandal, Stilicho was one of the most powerful military leaders in the waning years of the western Roman Empire. In the late 4^th and early 5^th centuries AD, he served as “generalissimo” of all imperial forces. Having being appointed by the late emperor, Theodosius, as guardian to the child-heir, Honorius, he became defender of the realm and de facto head of state. Stilicho was married into the imperial family and two of his own daughters became back-to-back future Mrs. Honorii. Critics- then and now- claimed his ultimate goal was the elevation of his own son to the throne (since he himself was presumably barred by his mixed background). His enemies were enraged at a “barbarian” being elevated so high and their opposition emboldened by his heretical, Arian beliefs.

Regardless, Stilicho may have been the son of a Vandal chief, but he was no barbarian. Indeed, he was in many ways more Roman (especially in duty to the state) than most Romans of pure blood. From the evidence, we know that he never considered himself anything but Roman. No Vandal-Roman, he. In a time when we have increasing regionalization and tribalization among the Roman nobility itself, Stilicho looked first toward Rome, even though he himself was not native to it.

In the end, Rome- in the form of an insecure and weak-willed emperor- demanded his death. His last imperial order, like all others before, he obeyed with honor and quietly submitted himself to his own destruction though it was well within his power to quash. Duty to the end- like a true Roman.