This document encloses words attributed to Nero when in a dreamlike trance he imagines his ascent to the summit of Olympus having spurned his mother's demand that he follow her on the plain below. There follows a brief recall of the ominous rople of the Crimean peninsular in world history and finally a note on the fact that the Tish b'Av fastday recieved a mention from a leading Georgian politician in 2008 when his country and Russia were embroiled in a military confrontation. What does all this add up to?

1. Top Dog on Olympus
“Nero the god! I had a dream. There I was at the foot of Mount Olympus. Mother was
with me as usual. As we reached a cross-roads, Agrippina said: "Come Nero, here we
turn left" But I said: "No, mama, 'WE' do not. I'm gonna turn right!" And that's what I
did. She shouted after me: "Become emperor, Nero, though you slay me".
The path led upwards toward the snowy heights, past the lush vernal pastures of the
lower slopes, past vineyards and groves of olive trees, through forests of oaks, birches,
willows, elms, yews and poplars and all holy trees, past the crags where the chamois
chewed stunted grass, and the last brave wind-blasted pine tossed and raged in
defiance of the elements, I ascended, till there was no other thing under heaven but
burning, blinding snow, a conflagration no less fierce than that which now I see. I
looked down at the world of men, and what should I see but -- ants!
The air was thin and pure - then the prize! The summit appeared from behind a cloud-
rift. Treacherous thoughts welled up from within me: "High climbers play with death –
death by freezing, death that lurks in the shadow of a measureless abyss. Was I not
trespassing on holy ground? ‘Remember Icarus, remember Prometheus,’ sighed voices
in the wind, but then a louder voice from within me bade me fear no counsel fit for the
craven.
And so to the summit. And what should I see when reached the Olympian heights,’
other than .....fierce Jupiter? Mighty Zeus? I'll tell you what I saw! There seated on an
ivory throne, a frail old man, whose long white beard fluttered in the wind. His
expression was more torpor than aught else. That was it! He looked rather like... some
doddering old patriarch that was Consul before Caesar's time. As I approached, he tried
to look grave and austere, pathetically shaking his hoary senile head. His trembling
hand reached down – I saw a quiver full of arrows and a pile of thunderbolts at his
side.’[ Now was my chance! I seized him by the scruff of the neck, and flung him down
the mountain-side. The last I saw of him was as he reeled head over heels into a
ravine.
Then I shouted in triumph to the four winds. ‘THE OLD GOD IS DEAD. Now I'm Top
Dog. I got de thunderbolts’. Only a dream? Perhaps. Dreams pass, but not what they
portend.”

2. Does the Crimea carry ominous implications, even a
warning message?
The name the Greeks gave to the Black Sea had an altogether positive ring,
meaning as it did ‘hospitable’ and ‘beneficial to strangers.’ In classical times
flattering appellations could betoken suppressed fears yielding to a bid to
appease an irate spirit or god. Thus Pluto, the god of the Underworld, was
dubbed ‘the Rich One.’
To the Romans the waters north of Anatolia were known as Mar Nero, the
basis of their modern name. By the way, the emperor Nero intended to
capture the entire northern coastline of the Black Sea from the domain of
the Caucasus to the site of present-day Odessa, an ambition that persists
into present times.
Since Roman times the peninsular has been occupied by multifarious
owners, the Goths, the Tatars, the Byzantine emperors, to name but a few.
In 1346 it was the Tatars who occupied most of the peninsular while Italians,
mainly Genoise, were in possession of a city-fortress by the name of Caffa.
Hostilities broke out between the Tatars and the occupants of Caffa, leading
to a siege. The attackers, themselves afflicted by the first effects of the
Black Death, catapulted the corpses of victims of the Bubonic plague into
Caffa, where the disease spread among its inhabitants. As Caffa lay on the
coast, the Italians had the opportunity of reaching European ports such a
Constantinople and Genoa, whence the Black Death invaded all Europe.
Tisha B’Av, a connection between the destruction of the
Jewish Temple, the beginning of WW1 and the conflict
between Russia and Georgia in 2008?
"This isn’t some local fight between the separatist of South Ossetia and
Abkhazia, this is a war between Russia and Georgia” Head of Georgian
Parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, Lasha Zhvania, said in
August 2008, adding “This is our Tisha B’Av.”

3. The reference to a major fast day in the Jewish religious calendar was
prompted by the fact that the fast commemorating the destruction of the
Jewish Temple by the Romans in the year 70 of the Common Era fell during
the second week of August when the standoff between Russia and Georgia
over the status of South Ossetia was at crisis point. It is a widely held
opinion among Jewish thinkers that the Tisha B’Av fast day has marked
tragic events not only within the confines of Jewish history but in world
history too. The First World War broke out on the 1st of August in 1914,
which happened to coincide with the coming of Tisha B’Av.
Let us not forget that the present conflict between Russia and the West
began in 2008, not in 2014 or 2022.