Cappax Imperii – Part 1

The Romans were masters at coining catchphrases.

Take Cappax Imperii for instance. This expression designated a man capable of acting as imperator-emperor.

Back then, 2,000 years ago to be precise, being Imperator meant to rule over the Roman Empire from a position of supreme military and political command.

What qualities made a man the Emperor?

Some historians say it mattered less to have the right traits than it was to have the right ‘blue’ blood coursing through your veins. To them, I could say that in the beginning this might have been so. But as the years passed, turning into decades, and adding up to centuries, it became apparent that inheriting and retaining supreme power in Rome, were two different things.

Back then, blood counted more than now. But then as now, to become a supreme leader or just a leader, one was and still is supposed to exhibit the following character traits.

1. A person is leader material when it inspires others by personal example. Great emperors/men risk life and limb in the interest of res publica/state.
2. Personal fitness shows the populace/voters that their leader is physically, psycho emotionally and mentally fit to assume the purple/position of leadership.
3. A natural born leader is not afraid to hurt other people’s feelings or stand up for his beliefs, even if it alienates a part of the public.
4. A leader leads. He/she doesn’t follow. Leaders are not Followers. The qualities making the former do not the latter make.
5. A leader is not a puppet operating according to an external script. A leader makes his own script and sticks to it.
6. A leader always respects the decorum owed his position: you do not name horses consuls, immolate Rome and play the lyre while it burns, and you do not consume your own boogers in public, or descend underneath the government council’s table and proceed to bite people‘s ankles off like a canine.
7. A leader keeps his cool in all situations and looks people in the eye as if his life depended on it. Not his position, but his life – depended on it.
8. A leader doesn’t need to be an intellectual: one is not called to office by the virtue of one’s professional calling. You do not have to be a consummate mathematician, emeritus historian, or eminent lawyer, best actor, or best architect in the land. That is not to say that being an intellectual bars one from running from office. Farthest from my mind. Intellectualism just doesn’t guarantee leadership. If it did, it’d be easier for us to choose our leaders.
9. A leader must know how to lead men into battle. Therefore they should at least have experience running a Party, an Outfit, a Company, a Business, an organization comprising of a large enough amount of souls. He or she must do so successfully, flawlessly, and meet all its objectives. This would confirm the singularity of his merits to people. That is why in Switzerland, military service serves as a revelator of people’s traits. It validates which people are leadership material. This is how a Swiss Militia colonel will become the CEO of a bank in civilian life, for instance, by virtue of his military rank alone. His impeccable military service is the ironclad guarantee the trustees of the bank look for when scouting for talent.
10. A leader, a great Leader, must have the emotional intelligence of a Titan or a god if he/she wants to rule over the passions of Men. Only by managing the intricate relations between the three Grand Principles of the Modes of Persuasion (Logos, Pathos, Ethos), can a Leader become and remain in charge of people.

All other considerations are moot and beside the point.

An important question arises especially now in these egalitarian times:

Do men or women make better leaders?

Personally, I think sex doesn’t make a difference since stupidity and intelligence are evenly shared by the two genders.

For every historical female leader like Indira Gandhi, Benazir Bhutto, Margaret Thatcher, Giorgia Meloni and Danielle Smith, there are a bunch of corrupt sycophants like Imelda Marcos, Sheikh Hasina, Michelle Bachelet, Von Der Leyen, Nicola Sturgeon, Sanna Marin, Kaja Kallas, Angela Merkel, and so many others.

Unfit political appointees masquerading as leaders

Nicusor Dan is an unfit politician, whose own household is dirty, chaotic, and unorganized. Furthermore, he is emotionally outside the normal spectrum of psycho-social health. In the past, instead of confronting his demons or just the people with whom he disagrees, he used to lock himself away in his mayoral office, ignoring the world outside.

Case in point: the man is a known abuser of the court system given his penchant for suing everyone for everything using City Hall money. I think the legal term is vexatious litigation. It is basically what happens when people sue others frequently without a valid legal basis. It used to be called harassment, you know.

Nicusor Dan is a vexatious litigator.

Dan was also observed in the Parliament of Romania rolling his own mucus into balls, which he proceeded to consume. He would later reveal that this is his go-to stress-management technique. Yeah, you heard it right: his coping strategies are those of a 3-year old. In Romania’s defense, he would not be the first or last activist turned politician or even professional politico who was not right in the head while in office or who lost his wits while discharging the function of prime-minister of the country.

If you want to know more about Romania’s fetish for deranged politicians, you should read this blog post.

Romania – a Beautiful Land Inhabited by Special People

Although an independent political candidate for the Presidency, he was and will continue to be in cahoots, in league with all the political parties and factions that governed Romania in the past 10 years. Case in point: two weeks ago, Mayor Dan signed off on the Villa of former President Johannis, worth $7,000,000.

In the last four years, as mayor of Bucharest, Nicusor Dan blocked ALL building for all the real estate projects in Romania’s capital city. This exploded the prices sky-high. All of his cronies made bank. That he continues to be poor matters not. There are politicians in Romania and elsewhere who do not profit off of the machinations and corrupt deals meant to enrich their backers.

Face it, people: some are in it for Power. Money is not their Poison. Nicusor Dan is one of them.

Ion Iliescu, the Red Plague communist, was one of these power-mad mortals or ‘immortals’ since geriatrics around him drop life flies, but he almost made it to the 100 years-old milestone.

Iliescu was never accused to have stolen 1 red cent. He did destroy the future of Romania with his Leftist corrupt policies that made everyone around him filthy rich, while annihilating people’s savings, opportunities, and future. But he was never in it for the $.

Iliescu aside, nowadays not all leaders are Cappax imperii. In fact, I’d say that the pinkie of the last Emperor of Brazil, Dom Pedro II a.k.a. Pedro de Alcântara João Carlos Leopoldo Salvador Bibiano Francisco Xavier de Paula Leocádio Miguel Gabriel Rafael Gonzaga (1825-1891), his pinkie was more of a leader than the vast majority of today’s crop of jokesters, called ‘leaders’.

Zelensky’s Case

I was listening the other day to the PBD Podcast’s episode analyzing the Trump-Putin Alaska Summit on ending the war in the Ukraine (Fall 2025). And a thing jumped at me. The host said that following Zelensky’s White House Oval Office outburst when POTUS told him to his face to get lost, he went on a European Tour of Rebuilding Confidence, whereby his western allies propped him up with military and financial aid and promises of more aid to come.

The thing that stuck with me was how Starmer, the Premier of the United Kingdom, sent off Zelensky with a bill for the British military aid, which basically translated in “No more credit here, buddy! This is the bill! Pay it up!”.

And this reminded me of another high-placed man who was once in Zelensky’s shoes, who had to go hat in hand on a fool’s errand, to try and save his crumbling empire. That man was the Basileus of Byzantium, Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos. In 1399, Manuel embarked on a European tour that would see him visit Italy, France, and England.

To put things into context, back then Byzantium had almost vanished under the Ottoman onslaught, to the point where Manuel II had briefly considered ceding the throne to Charles VI of France (the Mad King), before taking the offer of his French friend, Jean II Le Maingre dit Boucicault. The latter had just saved Constantinople from the Turk manu militari. But then went and invited the Basileus to go on a diplomatic tour to Western courts to gather support for his imperiled country under the assault of the Semilune.

As the 14th century drew to a close, Boucicault and Manuel boarded Venetian galleys in the Golden Horn and travelled to Peloponnese, where he put his family in the care of his brother, the Despot of Morea, Theodore I Palaiologos. Thereafter they sailed on to Venice, where the Doge lavished him with promises, empty promises. The Venetians were in no mood for charity and were already making lucrative deals with the Turks to offset those made by the Sultan with their archrivals, the Genovese.

Boucicault then proceeded to Paris, while the Emperor carried on to Padua, nice city BTW, where His Imperial Majesty was greeted with great pomp, if nothing else, by the sons of Francesco da Carrara. The Emperor visited the Cathedral of Saint Anthony of Padua just like so many other pilgrims before and after him.

Do you want to tread on hallow ground where many titans had gone before? Go to a famous cathedral.

Afterwards, looking for support and money for his embattled Constantinople, Manuel II met Gian Galeazzo Visconti, the Duke of Milan, in Pavia. The Duke, cunning as a fox, proclaimed he’d support Byzantium as soon as other sovereigns came to his aid, pledging his joining the war effort and going on a crusade to Constantinople on the condition that others do so first.

Taking his leave, the disappointed monarch took his Milanese escort to France, where he met the French King, Charles VI.

Btw, the French already embroiled in a tripartite war with England and Burgundy (100 Years’ War of 1337-1453), had already had dispatched men, arms, and money to the East, in what became known historically as the debacle of Nicopolis. There, a Western Crusader Army managed to get totally routed by Ottoman Sultan Bayazet, in 1396.

The French King was mad as a hatter but his illness afforded him long periods of extreme lucidity. Luckily for Manuel II who was at his wits end, this was one of those intervals. Even more importantly, his visit paid off nicely since the French were already in a giving mood and were just about to commit one more. Unluckily, it just so happened that the King’s madness descended upon him once more.

Manuel saw his cause was doomed and decided to venture even further west. “Onto England”, he ejaculated, going to meet King Henry IV Bolingbroke. By then, a mere 12 months had passed since he’d left Constantinople and he was now treading English soil. In Albion, Henry had just dethroned his cousin, Richard II (Richard of Bordeaux), and was well-disposed towards the Basileus, since his visit legitimized his reign internally and internationally.

Incidentally, Henry of Bolingbroke had fled England in the late 1390s, after crossing swords with King Richard II, going into exile in Paris. Whence the Basileus had just come. Funny how Paris was then a nexus of intrigue, cloak and dagger style, eh!

When the impoverished and desperate Basileus, who had not traversed Christendom to enjoy religious manuscripts in Paris, or to shoot a longbow in England, or play hide the salami with the ladies of ill repute in Italy, when Emperor Manuel pleaded with the English monarch for cash and longbowmen, King Henry said why the heck not and promised him men-at-arms, archers, money, and ships, which the chronicle states “will transport the army wherever needed”.

To put it in terms we’d understand, the English had just committed to providing the medieval equivalent of heavy weapons, boots on the ground, vessels, and financial aid to the last remnant of the Byzantine Empire. Quite a diplomatic stroke, eh!

After this notable but ultimately empty success, Manuel II returned to Paris, where he spent the next two years debating theology with the local eggheads at the University, writing, and inspiring local artists.

In the end though, the Basileus realized one thing. The European powers were mired in conflict themselves, and would never commit the resources for a major crusade or military push into the East. Luckily for him, the Mongol Horde managed to help him by rising against the Ottoman, destroying Bayezid’ army in 1402 at the Battle of Ankara. The Timurid victory consecrated the relief of Constantinople, making Manuel’s prolonged stay in Western Europe unnecessary.

In 1403, he started back home, passing via Genoa, and carrying some assistance from both Charles VI of France as well as the duplicitous Doge of Venice, who were both relieved they did not have to make do on their earlier promises. Passing through the Peloponnese, the Emperor reunited with his family, and went home.

His emissaries too had scoured the world in search of allies and help. Some of them had secured Ethiopian financial assistance in the form of salt, which at the time was at least in that part of the world, the equivalent of hard cash or gold. But that was before the pirates cut them all to pieces and absconded with the treasure. Sic transit gloria mundi…

But what was the point of this foray into history? Very easy answer.

The history of Manuel II shows us how the Ukrainian War will end. As America is clearly disengaging from the debacle, accepting Russia’s hegemony in Eastern Europe, so will Western Europe understand the writing on the wall.

In the end, Zelensky, this mere emulator of a leader, this actor pretending to be a statesman, will be left with a fat invoice for the cost of the war, which if he is smart enough he will bequeath to the Ukrainian people. Chances are he will disappear from history as fast if not faster than he entered the world stage. And Ukraine will be exploited by Russia and America, in a state of condominium. That is if they are lucky. Chances are UKR will remain a canker on Europe. Its people destitute, its culture annihilated, and its future pawned for many generations to come.

The world today and in general has always been ruled by a few strong leaders. Zelensky was never one. Manuel II was not a strong leader either but in contrast to the Ukrainian minion, the Greek Emperor had a strong sense of diplomacy and knew how to navigate the halls of Western power. Am pretty damn sure he’d never thrown the kind of tantrum the Kyiv jokester threw in the Oval Office. For one, such an attitude would never take off the ground in the face of the high and mighty of the time. For another, you have to be high on crack-cocaine to believe you can shout yourself into the good graces of POTUS or any medieval potentate.

When the rig is up, it is up. But some people just don’t get it.

Compare and contrast, ladies and gents, our past leaders and captains of industry, with the like of this Snorter-in-Chief of Snow White.