Titus Livius, as you might remember, was a Latin historian, whose only surviving work is a huge history of Rome " Ab Urbe Condita" which means "From the town foundation", where he describe the complete history of  the city of Rome and its empire, from its foundation to the death of Augustus.

But  giving a few unnecessary biographic notes of  information on Titus Livius  is not my purpose at all.

What intrigues me today is mentioning a specific little episode which Titus Livius wrote about, among so many others, because it might be rather thought-provoking, if we try to see it in a larger context. This is one of the peculiar values of history; it helps us to see contemporary happenings much clearer if we compare them with the experience of the past.

Someone said: “If you don't know history, then you don't know anything. You are a leaf that doesn't know it is part of a tree. ”  And I could not agree more.

Let's go back to Titus Livius. He wrote, in his monumental book, that one of the main military battles in the history of Rome happened by chance.

 In 168 BC, during the third Macedonian War, there was a fundamental battle in the plain of Pydna, which marked the final destruction of Alexander’s empire and introduced Roman authority over the Near East. At first the leading members of the two armies hesitated to declare the attack. They were reluctant to do the first move and preferred to study the adversary.

The decision at their place was taken, paradoxically, by an unconscious Roman donkey, which ran away from the Roman camp and started galloping by pure chance toward the Macedonian lines. A few Roman soldiers decided to chase and catch it. But the Macedonians thought it was the beginning of the attack, they gave the alarm and soon the general battle started.

Very probably the battle would have started in all cases, but we cannot be quite sure of that…

The History is full of many "rebel donkeys" which play the role of the uncontrolled and unpredictable variable in a series of events. Maybe we would keep that in mind, for the little we can…

I like legends. All the legends. There is something enlightening and fascinating and they are an important part of our cultural backgrounds, even when we ignore them.
Many people feels the need to believe in their legends , as if knowing that what they described was a part of reality could make them worthier.
I don't want to be dragged into this kind of polemic, it would be for nothing.
People who claim that their beliefs are based on reality, while others' beliefs are based on legends are exactly the same people who call superstitions the moral principles and the beliefs of others.
I prefer to see legends as a projection of our past and a sign of our intellectual development.
Symbols are important if we realize they are symbols of something, not the thing itself.
There are ancient story which I find more appealing and fascinating than others.
The story, or the legend, of that Nepalese prince, born in the sixth century B.C., whose father had made him living a totally secluded and protected merry life, is one of my favourite.
The young prince, who we might like imagining handsome and inclined to reveries, ignored reality, prisoner in his parallel universe of beauty until the day he left his palace and discovered the existence of suffering and the miserable human condition.
He was deeply touched by these sights, and decided to leave his kingdom to lead an ascetic life, and determine a way to relieve the universal suffering that he now understood to be one of the defining traits of humanity.
For several years he made all efforts, endured pain, fasted nearly to starvation, and refused even water to find a spiritual answer, deleting nearly totally the role of the material body
Whatever he tried, he could not reach the level of satisfaction he was looking for, until one day when a young girl offered him a bowl of rice.
As he accepted it, he suddenly realized that corporeal austerity was not the means to achieve inner liberation, and that living under harsh physical constraints was not helping him achieve spiritual release.
From then on, however, he encouraged people to follow a path of balance instead of one characterized by extremism. He called this path the Middle Way.
Of course you have already guessed the name of the prince, who inspired also a great novel by Herman Hesse about the spiritual journey of self-discovery.
I don't mean to speak about religions.
I love the legend of Siddhartha Gautama.