Marcus Clintonius Americus was born
toward the end of the 1st century BC. The exact year and place of birth are
unknown. He became a favored member of Caesar Augustus’s inner circle, who gave
him the cognomen ‘Arbiter’ as he so valued his judgment on many things of
concern to Rome’s first “emperor.”
According to legend, he gained immortality and still roams the
Earth today due to the imaginative devices of one Asklepios, a brilliant Greek
scientist.
Asklepios believed that all mortals have within them an
immortal life spirit that departed the body at the moment of death, which he called the “asphyx.” He thought that if it were possible to capture the asphyx,
immediately after it had “shed its mortal coil,” and before it could depart to
the hereafter—wherever that might be—the physical body could not complete the
death process. Hence: immortality. He dedicated his life to achieving this
goal, and legend has it that he succeeded, choosing Clintonius to partner with
him in the execution of the experiments. Each in turn subjected the other to a
life-terminating trauma, and using the apparatus that Asklepios designed,
trapped their respective asphyx's.
What happened in the intervening millennia is unknown, but
Clintonius claims to be searching for Asklepios, who holds the key to releasing
his asphyx and thus allowing Clintonius to die—which after two thousand years
he now craves more than anything.
At some point in his (relatively) recent past, Clintonius
jettisoned his cognomen, bestowed by Augustus, in favor of “Americus”—apparently
to signify his “conquering” of the New World. It’s assumed this was done
sometime in the last 300 years.
Or—Clintonius is actually the dominant personality of a man
suffering from dissociative identity disorder.
Wherever the truth may lie, Clintonius has written two books
and blogs on 3rd-rail.net, hence the
book series name: Notes from the 3rd Rail.
Though occasionally reverting to his “native” Latin, his writing is
contemporary, reflecting his complete adaptation to the modern,
English-speaking world. And as might be expected from someone who has lived for
two millennia, he bemoans what he perceives as the signs of (another)
collapsing civilization: ours. He consistently presents conservative judgments
on what he views as the sure signs of the decline and fall of western
civilization.
