Ancient History – ARKS, ADAM AND AXARQUIA

AND OTHER INTERESTING THINGS ABOUT MY WIFE’S NAME

Many winters ago, Dido and I found ourselves sheltering from a -10°c Prague night in a cozy, smokey jazz club just off Wenceslas Square. The place was full and we had to share a table with a Viennese couple who fortunately turned out to be more interesting than the hapless wannabe Charlie Parker murdering his sax on the stage.

The fact that the couple were a similar age to ourselves, and both handsome and charming, with perfect English was pleasant enough, but it was when we exchanged names that we all almost fell off our seats. We introduced ourselves first with the customary, “I’m Dido”, “and I’m Adam”, to which they replied through wide-eyed grins, “and I’m Eve”, and after a short dramatic pause, “and I’m Aeneas…”

*A Phoenician ivory of a noblewoman looking over a balcony from Sidon, very close in date to the historical Queen Elissa / Dido*

Not only was this a delightful and highly amusing coincidence (it was the only time we ever joked with another couple about the concept of partner swapping – purely in the interests of onomastic correction of course!!) it was also the diametric opposite to the normal response of people upon first hearing Dido’s name.

For one glorious instance no explanations were required, nor any brief lessons in classical mythology and ancient history, nor having to smile away the increasingly tedious “Ah! Like the singer?” (actually born Florian Cloud de Bounevialle Armstrong eleven years after “my” Dido). Instead, just an interesting exchange about why Aeneas, and why Dido: The former, it transpired, because his father was a classics professor in Vienna who specialized in the Roman poet Virgil, and the latter; because her parents had been expecting a boy (long before the days of ultrasound), they had no girl’s name prepared. As they were listening to Henry Purcell’s opera, Dido and Aeneas when her mum’s water broke, the name seemed apposite.

I repeat this story here because it is sweet and pleasant to recollect, but also to hopefully encourage all our friends and acquaintance, past, present and future, who may be ignorant of the facts behind the name to take five minutes and click on this link to learn about Dido (mythic and historic). It’s not only informative, it’s also genuinely fascinating with contemporary resonance (like much myth and history).

For instance, how many of the people reading this, including my Spanish readers. know that the city of Malaga was founded by Queen Dido’s Phoenician compatriots (and probable subjects) about 2,800 years ago as Málaka (the same time as the founding of Carthage itself). Phoenician was a Semitic sister language of ancient Hebrew, with many close similarities (see this earlier post). Málaka could mean a place where fish was preserved in salt , or it could have something to do with “sailors”. However, given that the Phoenician for queen, is Malgah/Malkah, a more likely meaning is the Queen’s city. And if so, the most likely queen to have a new colony dedicated to her by Phoenician settlers would be their-then queen and sponsor, Dido (more properly, Elissa in her Phoenician form).

In other words, it is quite possible, that my wife Dido, has a home in the province titled for her ancient namesake, and I at least, find that possibility pretty damn cool.

*Modern day Malaga, some 2800 years after its founding by Phoenicians, who knew a good harbour when they saw one.*

only in gibraltar…

I remember my history teacher at secondary school explaining to me that the reason British soldiers wore red tunics in battle for over three centuries (starting during the English Civil War and ending with the Zulu War) was for two reasons; the first being to mask blood from wounds, and the second, because the sight of massed ranks of red-coated soldiers instilled awe and fear in the enemy.

Whatever the merits of either of these theories (and I think the revolutionary American armies would have had a their own distinctive opinion concerning the latter), the emergence of accurate, long-range rifles towards the end of the 19th century turned British redcoats from swaggering symbols of imperial might into haplass sitting ducks for snipers everywhere – from the Hindu Cush to the high velt.

Fortunately for the makers of the film Zulu, and little Adams throughout 1960’s UK, the red tunic was still in use by the British Army at the outset of the Zulu war of 1879. For, if the redcoat was nothing else, it was highly photogenic, especially against the majestic backdrop of the Drakensburg Mountains of Natal. Several historical inaccuracies notwithstanding (e.g. the British troops engaged belonged to the 2nd Warwickshires and not the Welsh Borderers, with most of the men hailing from Birmingham rather than South Wales, and the Zulu force being led by a young renegade prince, acting against the orders of King Cetshwayo), the film Zulu fired the imaginations of a generation of children. In my case, together with Rudolf Maté’s worthy-but-wooden 1963 offering of The 300 Spartans, Zulu began and shaped the entire course of my lifelong self-education in history, ancient and less-so.

All of which brings me to the slightly surreal photo which heads this piece – members of Gibraltar’s Reenactment Society, in uniforms of the Zulu War period, taking a lunchbreak in our local Burger King, here in Gibraltar. Every Saturday, throughout the Spring and Summer, this little band of enthusiasts, entertains (and in some cases perplexes) locals and tourists alike with a march or two up and down Main Street, to and from Casemates Square. Their uniforms cover most of the British imperial era, from the scarlet of the American and Napoleonic wars all the way to the khaki and green of WWII. And, although I’ve seen them on their well-earned breaks many times, normally with a refreshing pint in hand, and perhaps a slice of pizza, this scene struck me as particularly curious. So much so, a third practicality for the redcoat tunic occured to me that probably never occurred to men like Cornwallis and Wellington, that being a mask for ketchup stains as well as blood!