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...honorific triumphs of ancient Rome were among the Roman Empire's most important rites. Victorious generals and emperors would process from the Field of Mars past shrines, and crowds of roaring plebeians toward Rome's great Temple of Jupiter. Toga-clad senators and the families of prominent patricians followed ahead of conquering ranks of legionaries. Bulls were sacrificed, laurel wreaths donned. Chariots bore the plundered loot of subjugated tribes, and captured barbarians were yanked along in chains. Some of the slaves had instructions to mutter "Memento mori" (Remember you are mortal) to their captors - an ironic note in a propaganda...
...legacy of these Roman rites lingered for centuries in Europe. Every Easter in medieval Venice - the seat of what was then a powerful Mediterranean empire - regiments of soldiers, dignitaries and the clergy would file past the city's famous Basilica de San Marco toward the docks to watch Venice's ruler, the Doge, board a vessel, sail into the harbor and drop a gold ring into the waters. This very public act symbolized Venice's divine marriage to the Adriatic Sea, the key to its Doge's wealth and power...
...same became largely true for other totalitarian states, including the Soviet Union, with its phalanxes of tanks and high-tech missiles streaming past the Kremlin every May Day. Elaborately choreographed events known as Mass Games, involving countless dancers and volunteers, are a particular legacy of communism: they still go on with regularity in North Korea, where tens of thousands train for months and act out with mechanical precision surreal tableaux lauding the isolated rogue state's shadowy leadership...
...These days, most countries, including many democracies, hold triumphal marches, boasting military hardware and commemorating past sacrifices. But, as Orwell noted many years ago, "beyond a certain point, military display is only possible in countries where the common people dare not laugh at the army." In Beijing, tensions have run high and security has been tight in the run-up to Oct. 1. The government places great stock in the value of this sort of national spectacle, and the public has been barred access to streets where the parade takes place. While the events are meant to herald China...
...Aftershocks continued to jolt the region a day after the quake, with one measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale striking Thursday morning. With thousands of islands strewn across a volatile fault zone, Indonesia is often shaken by earthquakes. But the past few years have proven particularly deadly. The 2004 Boxing Day tsunami and earthquake claimed 130,000 lives in Aceh, the northwestern tip of Sumatra that is not far from Padang on the western side of the island. In 2006, an earthquake hit the metropolis of Yogyakarta on the island of Java, killing more than 5,000 people...