Good Omens

On the evening of September 1, 31 BC, Octavian, the future emperor Augustus, settled down for the night amidst his troops at Nicopolis, a small place on the northern side of the entrance to the Ambracian Gulf, just across a narrow strait from Actium, where his sometime partner and now enemy Marc Antony was camped.

Emerging from his quarters on the morning of the 2^nd, Octavian chanced to see a peasant passing, driving a donkey.   Asking the man his name, Octavian was surprised to hear Eutyches (Good Fortune) and that the donkey was named Nikon  (Victory). 

Word of these omens soon spread, greatly cheering Octavian’s soldiers and sailors, and perhaps helping to win the naval battle of Actium that same day.

The cynical among us will, of course, point out how odd that a stranger could get so close to so important a commander’s person, in the midst of an enormous army, but it would wrong to suggest that Octavian had set up the encounter.

It was probably the work of his good friend and generalissimo Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa.

"Have I Got a Deal For You!"

During the Second World War, the Soviets arranged for men imprisoned in the GULAG to “remit” their sentences through service in penal battalions at the front.

• Sentences of five years or less could be remitted by one month in a penal unit;
• Sentences of between five and seven years, by two months;
• Sentences of seven to ten years, by three months.

Men with longer sentences were not permitted to remit them by service in penal units because they were almost all imprisoned for political offenses.  So in effect, remission of sentence by voluntary service in a penal – or shtraf – unit was open mostly to persons sent to the GULAG for criminal offenses.

Considering that the death rate in some GULAG camps seems to have approached 100 percent, service at the front in shtraf battalion, which overall seem to have had a 50-percent casualty rate, may not have been such a bad idea; especially since, if a man was wounded, he was usually released from further service in a penal unit. 

Bellyaches and Battles Lost

Napoleon was careless about food.   He disliked regular meals, so much so that even formal dinners rarely lasted more then 45 minutes, from first course to rising, and he never dawdled over coffee or drinks afterwards, such occasions apparently taking up too much of his time, and thus wasting energy.  Much preferring to eat whenever he felt hungry, Napoleon’s entourage always included a cook, culinary equipment, and foodstuffs, with standing orders to be ready to supply roast chicken, cutlets, coffee, and so forth at any time of the day or night to satisfy the imperial appetite.  Even so, when on campaign, Napoleon would often go many hours without eating, and then over-eat or eat poorly, which often led to indigestion.  In fact, some have suggested that Napoleon’s characteristic “hand in vest” pose was an indication of chronic indigestion.

There is some evidence that Napoleon’s casual attitude toward food may have had an adverse effect on some of his campaigns, particularly as he grew older and stouter, and suffered from ulcers and constipation.  At Borodino (Sept. 7, 1812) and Leipzig (October 16-18, 1813) he was definitely suffering from indigestion, which certainly could not have improved his ability to think clearly and act decisively.  His failure to undertake an effective pursuit on August 27, 1813, after the Battle of Dresden was apparently the result of an acute attack of indigestion brought about by a hasty meal of mutton with onions and garlic, though the meat may have been tainted, as several people reported he suffered from vomiting and chills that night after returning from the field.  There are other occasions when he was known to have had severe indigestion, such as the night of April 12-13, 1814, when his discomfort was such that his valet summoned a physician.

Napoleon died of a stomach cancer – repeated charges of arsenic poisoning have been just as repeatedly proven wrong – and it is possible that his bouts of indigestion, and his ulcers, may have been a contributing factor.