New World, New History

Considering these events, Atticus became a world-wide legend. This statement, however, may not be so figurative. Most legends, as is the case with Atticus, are so satisfying, that to scrutinize it for details and falsehoods would seem almost cynical. Be this as it may, those who tell such stories must know if they are speaking of truth or myth.

I was once taught at a young age that the way to solve any problem is to break it down into its individual parts, and examine which part, like a link in a chain, was too weak that the chain collapsed. We should, then, examine each distinguished character trait of this Atticus. One may, of course, note the absurd levels of perfection attributed to this Alicorn. Such greatness speaks to the idea that he would seem to have no faults at all! The great task of having no faults, I believe, has naught to be achieved by any man (I assume the same case is true for Native Equestrians). Therefore, let us begin the scrutinization of his complete and wholeness in virtue.

In the Second Punic War, there was an enemy (Carthaginian) general who was extremely successful at his trade. So successful, mind you, that he actually fought his way to the gates of Rome itself. This general, named Hannibal, has gone down in history as the best general known to man, given what he had to work with. He even only slept and ate when his body absolutely needed it - resulting many times in him sleeping on the dirt amongst his soldiers. With such heroic qualities, there might be some admiration towards this man. Sadly, though, he held nothing at all sacred. He abused and ignored oaths taken in the name of the gods, and even was known to loot temples for the little value they contained. For every good quality in Hannibal, as Livy points out, there was a terribly worse quality. I have held that, without some divine intervention, there is no perfection. And even as Hannibal much represents some sort of a Ying-Yang situation, I also don’t think that this is entirely true. What seems the most likely is that, as Plutarch makes clear, men are ever-moving on the scale of virtues, and never remain still. To view and examine this movement is the excitement of philosophers, and the torment of Historians. Atticus, though, does not move. He remains perfectly still as the epitome of genius and height of military prowess. As far as I can tell, there is no justification of this.

Atticus, so perfect as he was, has even been said to be a god. An omni-present and all-knowing guru of absolutely everything. At one point in Celestia’s recantation of Atticus’ life, though, she mentions something which has been noted by no other historian. She spoke of an event which almost toppled the empire, between the first and second great uprisings. This perfect Alicorn, just as he was, became a different pony. The story went that “Atticus”, in a sense, un-banished himself from the gilded town. His arrival was in a time where, oddly enough, no pony at all trusted him. I did interrupt to ask the Sun-Princess why they seemed to hold anathema towards their hero. To this she said simply, “Nopony’s perfect.” I took from this that he had made some mistakes, much to his discredit, and was simply making another error by imposing himself upon the Capitol of the Empire. What she said next, though, confused me.

In her retelling of this story of Atticus - specifically the portion of the story revolving around Atticus’ entering the Capitol of the Empire - she mentioned a guard. No other pony did she mention besides this old guard-pony at the city gates and Atticus. I wrote this off as odd, but not of importance. After she had finished the entrance and the small demonstration raised by this guard, she changed his name. Celestia seemed to simply transfer the honor of the name Atticus to the guard-pony, and renamed the old Atticus as “the Tyrant.” What seems to have occurred, much to my surprise, is that this guard-pony became Atticus. The tyrant was quickly stopped, and only two lives were lost - ironically two of the worst senators at that time (Crassus and Aeschylus).

Just as I mentioned in my first book, some authors choose not to re-tell something which has already been told by another. While this is normally done for the sake of respecting the one who has already recorded those events, the result of this, is that there is only one telling of a historical event. As anyone (or any-pony) could see, you cannot have one single source of a historical truth. Because only Celestia mentioned this uprising, I felt as though it would be wrong to list it as a “great” uprising, but thought her bluntly changing the names was of significance.

If one were to, as I have, note the dates and how incredibly long this Alicorn’s life lasted, there would be confusion. Confusion, however, has never remained for long in the minds of teachers, speakers, and writers (historians especially). These men, or ponies in this case, will often successfully avoid jumping to the, “first conclusion” or to their “assumptions.” They do, however, jump to the farthest conclusion. In other words, they would come to the most complicated and most difficult to refute conclusion which they could, though often still completely wrong. My sources upon Atticus seem to differentiate on possible explanations for this phenomenon. Acies and Luna (I think I should mention that Luna often enjoys Acies’ work) agree that Atticus was a family name, and that if someone was “Atticus”, they were actually, “an Atticus”. While this would make sense with most of the storyline of Atticus, thanks to Celstia’s addendum, it does not. I understood from Celestia that this guard-pony had no relation to this tyrant. How could “the tyrant” simply lose the name “Atticus” to a random pony, were it a token family name?

Princess Twilight, and Scribere both seem to think that Atticus was a tad more fiction than fact. They agree that there was once a truly great “Atticus”, who was present during the first uprising. This Atticus being who every subsequent "Atticus" is named after subsequently. They think that after he had died, there were some ponies holding his memory and holding similar values as him for the sake of his cause. Again, because of Princess Celestia’s addition to the story, we find a flaw in the theory. “The tyrant”, was at one point called “Atticus”. He was truly called Atticus by all those who knew him. If those who were called “Atticus” were simply ponies who agreed with the virtues of the first Atticus, then why was it accepted that this pre-tyrant was called Atticus at all? What I’ve taken from the story which Celestia told, is that even before the tyrant invaded the Capitol of the Empire, he was becoming progressively more evil. If, as Scribere and Twilight hold, the only tie to the name "Atticus" for a pony was the personal values of that pony, then the tyrant would have lost the name "Atticus" long before he invaded the Capitol. This tyrant seems to only lose his name when another pony is willing to fight against him for his crimes. Thereafter the righteous one, the guard-pony, was named "Atticus."

While Celestia never commented upon who "Atticus" truly was, I believe that this name was simply a title. As for the transfer of this title from one pony to another, the selection of who receives the title was decided by who deserves it. While many titles in Terraria were decided by whose son or daughter you were, this title was passed to those with the values of that first Atticus. In this regard, Twilight and Scribere are correct that the name held the importance of good values. Their critical error was almost unnoticeable. The mistake lied in the trivial difference between being named "Just" versus being described with the adjective "just." In their theory, there was a group of ponies who held the first Atticus' values, and kept his memory by their leader's name/title. Whatever, thereafter, this leader decided to do, "Atticus" decided to do. If, as the pair states, the act of 'being Atticus' revolves around being described as Atticus-like in virtue, then why was his title kept despite his immoral behavior prior to invading the Capitol?

My theory is as follows. If one were to think of the name "Atticus" as receiving the keys to the gates of a wealthy city, all else would fall to place. These great keys would be given to the most suitable recipient/manager available. Just as the ancient political office of "Key-Holder" or "Keeper of the Keys", didn't simply go away with the death of the Key-Holder, so too does the title never go away. This title was never given to the son of the previous Key-Holder, but instead to the next suitable manager of the keys. If one Key-Holder became un-trustworthy at one point, though, he was not immediately replaced. The current king would have to search through those whom he trusted, and select the next best Key-Holder. This does, in fact, make sense with Celestia's addendum to the life of Atticus. When the tyrant was still "Atticus", wherever he was outside of the Capitol, there were simply none proven good enough to take his place with the title. When, however, the tyrant entered into the Capitol and was opposed by that simple-guard-pony, there was another who was better suited for the glorious name.