"Page0050" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bloom Howard - The Lucifer Principle (htm))

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It wouldn't be that easy.  There were rival claimants to the seat of

imperial authority.  First in line were two of Augustus' old friends and

confidants.  But more important, there were Augustus' three

grandchildren by the previous wife.  One by one, according to Graves,

the rivals died off.  Some collapsed mysteriously.  Others came down

with lingering diseases.  Yet others suffered inconsequential wounds,

but were given the wrong medical treatment.  Surely Livia's expertise

in poisons and her network of murderous helpers--much like the

cooperatively cannibalistic crones in Effie the gorilla's clique--had

nothing to do with these deaths.

Finally, only Livia's children were left, as Graves put it, "to carry

on the line... Livia's line."24  Livia, like Effie, had eliminated her

children's rivals and guaranteed her offspring a spot on the top of the

heap.  At least she had the good taste not to eat her victims.

One Empress in China roughly 1,700 years ago took Livia's

ambition several giant steps further.  To insure her children power

over the Empire, she eliminated every single individual in a rival

extended family.  In all probability, this minor act of manslaughter was

not limited to a mere handful of human obstacles.  Chinese noble

families of the period usually had hundreds or even thousands of

members.25

Livia, Effie and the Chinese Empress were as bloodthirsty as any

male.  And the motivation that drove them was distinctly

maternal--the desire to give every advantage to their young.

Women are violent.  In fact, females are as much a part of the

apparatus that triggers male violence as the men themselves.  Nobel

Prize-winning ethologist Konrad Lorenz described a common behavior

in several species of ducks.  The female  runs out to the edge of her

husband's territory and tries to provoke another duck, then runs back

to her male, stands next to him, and looks back over her shoulder at the

enraged rival in the hope that her mate will jump into the fray.26  Many

are the human females who have tried to stir up a similar fight.27

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It wouldn't be that easy.  There were rival claimants to the seat of

imperial authority.  First in line were two of Augustus' old friends and

confidants.  But more important, there were Augustus' three

grandchildren by the previous wife.  One by one, according to Graves,

the rivals died off.  Some collapsed mysteriously.  Others came down

with lingering diseases.  Yet others suffered inconsequential wounds,

but were given the wrong medical treatment.  Surely Livia's expertise

in poisons and her network of murderous helpers--much like the

cooperatively cannibalistic crones in Effie the gorilla's clique--had

nothing to do with these deaths.

Finally, only Livia's children were left, as Graves put it, "to carry

on the line... Livia's line."24  Livia, like Effie, had eliminated her

children's rivals and guaranteed her offspring a spot on the top of the

heap.  At least she had the good taste not to eat her victims.

One Empress in China roughly 1,700 years ago took Livia's

ambition several giant steps further.  To insure her children power

over the Empire, she eliminated every single individual in a rival

extended family.  In all probability, this minor act of manslaughter was

not limited to a mere handful of human obstacles.  Chinese noble

families of the period usually had hundreds or even thousands of

members.25

Livia, Effie and the Chinese Empress were as bloodthirsty as any

male.  And the motivation that drove them was distinctly

maternal--the desire to give every advantage to their young.

Women are violent.  In fact, females are as much a part of the

apparatus that triggers male violence as the men themselves.  Nobel

Prize-winning ethologist Konrad Lorenz described a common behavior

in several species of ducks.  The female  runs out to the edge of her

husband's territory and tries to provoke another duck, then runs back

to her male, stands next to him, and looks back over her shoulder at the

enraged rival in the hope that her mate will jump into the fray.26  Many

are the human females who have tried to stir up a similar fight.27