Part 1

Midway upon my life’s journey

I found myself in a pub in south London

So ordered a drink

I sat next to a man

His face was obliterated

By many eter scars

I assumed each

Scar

Told it’s own story.

And as we sat with

Our ale

I asked:

“Oh comrade

I see your many scars,

And may I ask, What are their stories?”

He sat

As though h were stuck in memory

And answered

“I Have been here since

The people in between those two rivers

Created Cuneiform

I saw the rise of

Sumer, that great civilization

And it’s fall

It fell to the first empire,

The Akkadians

And their emperor Sargon

And I saw their fall

To the Amorites

Those barbarians

And if you followed

The west wind

Zephyr

You would find the

Egyptians

With the pharaoh

And they sent those

Pharos to the afterlife

In their massive Piramids

And north of them

Was their greatest foe

And later ally

Those Hittites

Who built both Hattusa

And a confederation

And if you followed

The trade south

You would find Phoenicia

At this point

They matter not

For they have not yet founded Carthage

East of them

Was the great Minoans

With their many palaces

And they also

Had a labyrinth

And many beautiful bulls

And once those palaces fell

A new power would

Reign in that island of Crete

Those of the Miceneans

Whom i care little for

As i spent little time there

All I did was fight in a war

That great war on the fields of Ilios

With their mighty walls

But I namely remember

How it’s culture

Affected the sons of those men.

And many people’s

Of the Sea

And barbarized our people

They came unto our shores

And destroyed our crops

And killed our people

And after the

Collapse of this

Bronze Age

A new age sprung up

The people of Phoenicia

Traded into the successors of the Miceneans

And changed their sylabury

Into the first true

Alphabet

And those successors

Wrote of that war

Which I had participated in

And those same phoenicians

Founded a city

To rival even Thebes

The one know as

Carthage

With many a trade routes

And one greek,

Of the polis of macedon

Conquered the empire of persia

He was by the name of Alexander

And after his death, his many generals

Split his empire

At the same time

On the west of the sea

A city named Rome

Founded by the

Survivors of Ilios

And those latins

And the other combatant

Was great and rich

It was great Carthage

They got into the first one

When sicilian pirates

Called both into a fort

And they wared

The romans won

After plagiarizing ships

And out of vengeance

The general Hamilcar

Oathed his sons

This oath of blood

Was to never be a

Friend to Rome

After the army of carthage

Conquerd spain

They went to war

And the sun of Hamilcar

Hannibal crossed the alps

With his many elephants

And he surrounded the romans

And ransacked the

Italyan pennusual

And once the romans beat him

They fought carthage once again

And rubbed salt into the ground

And I saw the

Elder Gracchi

Make a name for his family

And his first son

Asked for a crown

And was killed

And his second son

Was killed for land reform

By a man disposed by his brother

That state of itlhy expanded into Greece

And north africa

Though they never reached Gaul

Until the time of

The first man of the senate

Julius Caesar

He Created a triumvirate

With Pompey and

Crassus

He then brought his army

Across the rubicon

And he went to war

With his former ally

Pompey magnus

And Pompey and the senate

Fled to greece

But caesar chased them

And Pompey fled to Egypt

But was betrayed by the

Boy King Ptolemy the 13th

And in return

Ceaser deposed him and

Placed his sister on the throne

And caesar was in love

With the sister he placed on the throne

Cleopatra

And then

He got his

Fore triumphs

One for Gaul,

One for Egypt,

One for Pontus,

One for Numidia

And once he returned to Rome

He was killed in the teater of Pompey

By Brutus And Cassius

And Once they left

Agustus killed them

With Antony

And Antony Became Egyption

And he married Cleopatra

And warred with Agustus

And he lost

And was killed by Agustus

Who became Emperor

And he Created many

Poems

And Art

North of this empire

Was a civilization

Of SeaFarers

And those of the mediterranean

Called them Barbarians

But they conducted trade.”

At this point in our evening

The Pub was closing

And I replied to this man

“You’re story is amazing

But terribly long

Shall we meet tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

Replied the man

And I could barely wait.