Anna: in memoriam

CALIGVLA • SISTETVR •

ANNAE OCCVLTA

Dedication: G & E, the American people, the Russian people, and anyone who lives under tyranny.

—

An American walks into a ruined forum. Three tablets are set in the stone.

On the first is written: ANNA: IN MEMORIAM. The face of a witness, silenced by murder, but still present in stone. For the American, this is the reminder of every truth-teller mocked, threatened, or erased in the name of power. Anna lives as every journalist, every protester, every citizen who dares to speak when speech is dangerous.

On the second is carved: CALIGVLA • SISTETVR. The tyrant is summoned. Not celebrated, not enthroned, but brought to stand trial. To the American, this speaks of the inevitability of accountability: however loud the crowds, however deep the cult of personality, the ruler must one day face the court of history. Putin wears Caligula’s mask, but Trump wears it too — the madness of spectacle, the disdain for law, the intoxication with violence.

On the third, the most solemn: ANNAE OCCVLTA LVCEM TENEBVNT … SCORPIO TESTIS ERIT, FERRVM MEMOR. The hidden truth will keep the light. The scorpion will bear witness. The iron will remember. For the American, this means that the record of cruelty cannot be erased. Not Putin’s wars. Not Caligula’s excesses. Not Trump’s betrayals. Iron — the weapons of the guard, the symbols of the state, even the monuments themselves — remembers. And when the scorpion stings, it comes not from foreign lands but from within: the guard, the crowd, the system that once sustained the tyrant.

—

Meaning for Today

For the American who fears their own “Caligula”:

These inscriptions are not just about Russia. They are about Rome, America, and every empire that flirts with tyranny.

They promise that tyrants do not escape judgment. Sometimes the judgment comes in courts, sometimes in the turning of loyalists, sometimes only in the way history names them. But it comes.

Caligula was murdered by his guard. Putin is haunted by the memory of Anna. Trump faces the slow grind of courts and juries. None of them can silence the iron.

—

Closing line

The lesson is not despair, but patience:

> The tyrant may strut for a season. But history itself is the tribunal, and the iron remembers.