A Place of Brightness: emperor trajan

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

The Number of the Beast - 666: A New Interpretation

I present here a video version of my research, in which I demonstrate, using ancient Roman sources, that my favorite emperor--Trajan--was the original man referred to as the "Beast of the Apocalypse" and how his name is encoded in the number 666.

He's still my favorite emperor. In fact, the reason no one has theorized this before is that even early Christians respected him. Watch and judge for yourself.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

The Bibliotheca Ulpia

I adore the Emperor Trajan. Counted among the "Five Good Emperors," he succeeded in pressing Rome's boundaries to what are acknowledged as their furthest extent.

When I was in Iraq in 2004, I thought about the fact that I was in several places that I know Emperor Trajan also stood during his final campaign before he died in AD 117.

But what makes me adore him all the more is that when he wanted to make a lasting monument to his greatness, granted he made a massive column celebrating his victory over Dacia. But he placed that column in the courtyard of two facing buildings--a library--the Bibliotheca Ulpia.

At its height, the Bibliotheca Ulpia was a rival in size and scope with the more famous library in Alexandria. Like the library in Alexandria, we don't know exactly when it ceased to be a functional deposit of human knowledge.

But the fact that Emperor Trajan wanted a library as his legacy speaks volumes about the man.

In my novel In Saecula Saeculorum, a group of four high school students are sent back in time on a mission to retrieve information the future world hopes may reside in the Bibliotheca Ulpia. Without this information, the world will come to an end in the year 2013. The students will have to grapple with the reality that an ancient library was not a place where you get a card and check things out. It was, instead, a place where you had exactly one chance to convince the guardians that you were a scholar worthy of entrance. And if they don't pull this off, the world will end. That's quite a lot of pressure for a couple of eighteen-year-olds!

In Saecula Saeculorum, the 4th Novel in the Valquist Series

In this fourth novel of the Valquist Series, Andrew Valquist is retired (?) from the National Security Agency and teaching Latin at a Classical Academy in the Washington DC area. But in the world of espionage, looks can be deceiving. He's not necessarily happy with the role he has played in all this, but the school was actually a joint NSA/MI-6 Project in which four young people have been unwittingly prepared for a mission to travel back in time to ancient Rome to retrieve information from a library that may save the modern world from certain destruction. They know they have to at least try to save humanity, but can they also save each other?

Next Stop: Spanish, the 3rd Novel in the Valquist Series

This third novel in the Valquist Series can be read as an espionage action-adventure in its own right, but also you can use it as a way to either brush up on your Spanish or learn functional Spanish for the first time! John Valquist needs to learn Spanish. But he's in luck, since his uncle Andrew is a language expert and a former (?) spy who is taking him on a vacation to Spain so he can study the language. In Next Stop: Spanish, you have the chance to see and study the words John studies, and then watch him add more and more Spanish into his dialogue as the story progresses. During this vacation, they get pulled into espionage intrigue (why do these things always happen to the Valquist family?). In the dramatic conclusion, John will need to put together everything he has learned to save his uncle!

Amor Vincit Omnia: the 2nd Novel in the Valquist Series

In this second novel of the Valquist Series, Keith Massey takes you into the halls of the National Security Agency, where he himself worked for four years after 9/11 and an Arabic linguist. You follow our hero Andrew Valquist, as he starts work as a new recruit at the NSA. Little does he know that on his first on the job, he's about to fly off on an unexpected overseas assignment. He'll be even more surprised when he learns that his background in ancient Latin will be crucial to the mission!