I think I’m getting addicted to green tea. This morning I woke up with a headache. So I went downstairs and made a mug of green tea. After I had consumed a mug and started another, my headache quickly dissapated. I suppose it could have been that I was dehydrated… but I like to think I’m getting addicted to green tea. It sounds cooler. I’ve been drinking a ton of it lately. Like a minimun of five cups a day… and not dinky little mugs either, those big thermal cup things.
While I’m on the subject of green tea, you might wanna check out my green tea health benefits website. I updated it recently with a more indepth benefits article.
On to Livy. He was a Roman historian who lived somewhere around 59 BC – AD 17. He lived during the reign of Augustus Caesar (hope you know who that is). So why am I telling you this?
First of all, Livy was writing down the history of Rome. So In the first book (ancient histories are divided into books instead of chapters for reasons I won’t go into) there were five-ish kings. The first King was Romulus. He was intelligent, just, and a great general. It was refreshing. So after Romulus was getting old, I started bracing myself for the next king, because I was expecting come stupid oppressive tyrant to take over and ruin everything Romulus built up.
But wouldn’t you know it, the next king is this great just guy who builds up Rome and makes her all religious and helps spread peace… it was great. Two good kings in a row. So then I started bracing myself for the next king.
Yeah yeah, you get the idea. This process repeated four times. Four good kings. Of course, after the fourth king there was this dictator who forced his way to the throne and ruled by fear and killed people he didn’t like… you know, the usual bad-king stuff.
It was quite refreshing to read about good kings for once, and four in a row for that matter. When I looked back and was impressed with that record, I realized sadly that it should not be the case that four good kings in a row is incredible. Bad rulers can undo so much good. A bad ruler can undo all the good that two good predecessors built with their entire reigns. And then, most rulers are bad. Or at least the majority with absolute power are.