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Fire ant is the common name for several species of ants in the genus Solenopsis. They are, however, only a minority in the genus, which includes over 200 species of Solenopsis worldwide. Solenopsis are stinging ants and most of their common names reflect this, for example, ginger ants and tropical fire ants. Many species also are called red ants because of their light brown color, though species of ants in many other genera are similarly named for similar reasons. Examples include Myrmica rubra and Pogonomyrmex barbatus.[2]

None of these names applies in all countries nor to all species of Solenopsis, nor only to Solenopsis species; for example the colloquial names for several species of weaver ants in the genus Oecophylla in Southeast Asia include "fire ants" because of their red color and painful sting; the two genera, however, are not closely related. Also, Wasmannia auropunctata is commonly called the "little fire ant".[3]

Contents

1 Appearance
2 Behavior
3 Roles
3.1 Queen
3.2 Males (drones)
3.3 Other roles
4 Invasive species
5 Symptoms and treatment
6 Predators
7 Species
8 See also
9 References
10 Further reading
11 External links

Appearance
Fire ant mound
Detail of the head (Solenopsis geminata)

The bodies of mature fire ants, like the bodies of all typical mature insects, are divided into three sections: the head, the thorax, and the abdomen, with three pairs of legs and a pair of antennae. Fire ants of those species invasive in the United States can be distinguished from other ants locally present, by their copper brown head and body with a darker abdomen. The worker ants are blackish to reddish, and their size varies from 2 to 6 mm (0.079 to 0.236 in). In an established nest these different sizes of ants all are present at the same time.[4]

Solenopsis spp. ants can be identified by three body features�a pedicel with two nodes, an unarmed propodeum, and antennae with 10 segments plus a two-segmented club.[5] Many ants bite, and formicine ants can cause irritation by spraying formic acid; myrmecine ants like fire ants have a dedicated venom-injecting sting, which injects an alkaloid venom, as well as mandibles for biting.[6]
Behavior
A fire ant worker, queen, and male (clockwise from bottom left)

A typical fire ant colony produces large mounds in open areas, and feeds mostly on young plants and seeds. Fire ants often attack small animals and can kill them. Unlike many other ants, which bite and then spray acid on the wound, fire ants bite only to get a grip and then sting (from the abdomen) and inject a toxic alkaloid venom called Solenopsin, a compound from the class of piperidines. For humans, this is a painful sting, a sensation similar to what one feels when burned by fire (hence the name) and the after effects of the sting can be deadly to sensitive people.[7] Fire ants are more aggressive than most native species and so have pushed many species away from their local habitat. One such species that Solenopsis ants parasitically take advantage of are bees, such as Euglossa imperialis, a non-social orchid bee species, from which the ants would enter the cells from below the nest and rob the cell's contents.[8] These ants are renowned for their ability to survive extreme conditions. They do not hibernate, but can survive cold conditions, although this is costly to fire ant populations as observed during several winters in Tennessee, where 80 to 90% of colonies died due to several consecutive days of extremely low temperatures.[9]

Fire ants nest in the soil, often near moist areas, such as river banks, pond shores, watered lawns, and highway shoulders. Usually, the nest will not be visible, as it will be built under objects such as timber, logs, rocks, or bricks. If there is no cover for nesting, dome-shaped mounds will be constructed, but these are usually only found in open spaces, such as fields, parks and lawns. These mounds can reach heights of 40 cm (16 in),[4] but can be even higher on heavier soils, standing at 1.0m in height and 1.5m in diameter.[10] Colonies are founded by small groups of queens or single queens. Even if only one queen survives, within a month or so, the colony can expand to thousands of individuals. Some colonies may be polygynous (having multiple queens per nest).[11]
Roles
Solenopsis winged reproductive females, queens and workers
Queen

Fire ant queens, the reproductive females in their colony, also are generally the largest. Their primary function is reproduction; fire ant queens may live up to 7 years and can produce up to 1,600 eggs per day, and colonies will have as many as 250,000 workers.[10][12] The estimated potential life span is around 5.83 to 6.77 years.[13] Young, virgin fire ant queens have wings (as do male fire ants), but they rip them off after mating.
Males (drones)

Males mate with the queen. They die immediately after mating.
Other roles

There are other types of roles in an ant colony like the workers and the soldier ants. The soldier ants are known for their larger and more powerful mandibles while the worker takes care of regular tasks (the main tasks in a colony are caring for the eggs/larvae/pupae, cleaning the nest, and foraging for food).[10] However, Solenopsis daguerrei colonies contain no workers, as they are considered social parasites.[14]
Invasive species
For more details on invasive species, see Red imported fire ant.
Sign for the Fire Ant Festival in Ashburn, Georgia

Although most fire ant species do not bother people and are not invasive, Solenopsis invicta, known in the United States as the red imported fire ant (or RIFA) is an invasive pest in many areas of the world, notably the United States, Australia, China and Taiwan.[15] The RIFA was believed to have been accidentally introduced to these countries via shipping crates, particularly with Australia when they were first found in Brisbane in 2001.[16] These ants have now since been spotted in Sydney for the first time.[17] They were believed to be in the Philippines, but they are most likely to be misidentified for Solenopsis geminata ants.[18]

In the US the FDA estimates that more than US$5 billion is spent annually on medical treatment, damage, and control in RIFA-infested areas. Furthermore, the ants cause approximately $750 million in damage annually to agricultural assets, including veterinarian bills and livestock loss, as well as crop loss.[19] Over 40 million people live in RIFA-infested areas in the southeastern United States.[20] about 60% of people living in fire ant-infested areas are stung each year.[21] RIFA are currently found in humid southeastern USA states including parts of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida.

Since September 2004 Taiwan has been seriously affected by the red fire ant. The US, Taiwan and Australia all have ongoing national programs to control or eradicate the species, but, except for Australia, none have been especially effective. In Australia, there is an intensive program costing A$175 million, although the fire ant had remained despite efforts.[22] By July 2013 multiple sites west of Brisbane were confirmed, including the Lockyer Valley, Muirlea and Goodna.[23] According to a study published in 2009, it only took seventy years for the lizards in parts of the United States to adapt to the ant's presence � they now have longer legs and new behaviors that aid them in escaping from the danger.[24]
Symptoms and treatment
A human leg three days after brief contact with a fire ant colony

The venom of fire ants is composed of alkaloids derived from piperidine (see Solenopsis saevissima). Some people are allergic to the venom, and as with many allergies, may experience anaphylaxis, which requires emergency treatment. Management of an emergency visit due to anaphylaxis is recommended with the use of adrenaline.[25] The sting swells into a bump, which can cause much pain and irritation, especially when several stings are in the same place. The bump often forms into a white pustule, which can become infected if scratched, but if left alone will usually flatten within a few days. The pustules are obtrusive and uncomfortable while active and, if they become infected, can cause scarring.[26]

First aid for fire ant stings includes external treatments and oral medicines. There are also many home remedies of varying efficacy, including immediate application of urine or aloe vera gel, the latter of which is also often included in over-the-counter creams that also include medically tested and verified treatments.[7] External, topical treatments include the anesthetic benzocaine, the antihistamine diphenhydramine, and the corticosteroid hydrocortisone.[7] Antihistamines or topical corticosteroids may help reduce the itching and will generally benefit local sting reactions.[27] Oral medicine include antihistamines.[28] Severe allergic reactions to fire ant stings, including severe chest pain, nausea, severe sweating, loss of breath, serious swelling, and slurred speech,[29] can be fatal if not treated.[30]
Predators
Dionaea muscipula trap
A species of Drosera with its sticky leaves that trap many ants
Pseudacteon curvatus, phorid fly parasitoid of fire ants

Phorid flies, or Phoridae, are a large family of small, hump-backed flies somewhat smaller than vinegar flies; two species in this family (Pseudacteon tricuspis and Pseudacteon curvatus) are parasitoids of the red imported fire ant in its native range in South America. Some 110 species of the genus Pseudacteon, or ant-decapitating flies, have been described. Members of Pseudacteon reproduce by laying eggs in the thorax of the ant. The first instar larvae migrates to the head, then develops by feeding on the hemolymph, muscle tissue, and nervous tissue. After about two weeks, they cause the ant's head to fall off by releasing an enzyme that dissolves the membrane attaching the ant's head to its body. The fly pupates in the detached head capsule, emerging two weeks later.[31]

Pseudacteon flies appear to be important ecological constraints on Solenopsis species and they have been introduced throughout the southern United States, starting with Travis, Brazos, and Dallas counties in Texas, as well as south central Alabama, where the ants first entered North America.[32]

The Venus flytrap, a carnivorous plant, is native to North and South Carolina in the United States. About 33% of the prey of the Venus flytrap are ants of various species.[33] They lure their prey with a sweet sap. Once the prey has entered the trap and within about 3 seconds has touched two or three "trigger hairs", bristles on the surface of the trap, the leaf closes around the prey, confining it behind the "teeth" on its perimeter, and digests it. The majority of ants that were captured included non-native RIFAs, and three other species of ants.[33] Other carnivorous plants, such as sundews (Drosera) and various kinds of pitcher plants also trap many ants.
Species
Main article: List of Solenopsis species

The genus contains over 200 species.[1] They include:

Solenopsis daguerrei (Santschi, 1930)
Solenopsis fugax (Latreille, 1798)
Solenopsis invicta Buren, 1972
Solenopsis molesta (Say, 1836)
Solenopsis richteri Forel, 1909
Solenopsis saevissima (Smith, 1855)
Solenopsis silvestrii Emery, 1906
Solenopsis solenopsidis (Kusnezov, 1953)
Solenopsis xyloni McCook, 1879

See also

Ant stings
Ant venom
Ants of medical importance
Bullet ant

References

Bolton, B. (2014). "Solenopsis". AntCat. Retrieved 20 July 2014.
Reins, Dusty. "Species: Pogonomyrmex barbatus - Red Harvester Ant". Wildcat Bluff Nature Center. Retrieved 30 December 2014.
"Wasmannia auropunctata". Hawaiian Ecosystems at Risk project (HEAR). Retrieved 9 July 2015.
"Fire ant identification". Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (Queensland Government). 30 July 2013. Retrieved 30 December 2014.
"Red Imported Fire Ant - UC Statewide IPM Program". University of California Agriculture & Natural Resources. 25 April 2014. Retrieved 30 December 2014.
Yi, GB; McClendon, D; Desaiah, D; Goddard, J; Lister, A; Moffitt, J; Meer, RK; deShazo, R; Lee, KS; Rockhold, RW (2002). "Fire ant venom alkaloid, isosolenopsin A, a potent and selective inhibitor of neuronal nitric oxide synthase.". International journal of toxicology. 22 (2): 81�6. doi:10.1080/10915810305090. PMID 12745988.
Drees, Bastiaan M. (December 2002). "Medical Problems and Treatment Considerations for the Red Imported Fire Ant" (PDF). Texas A&M University (Texas Imported Fire Ant Research and Management Project). Retrieved 30 December 2014.
Roberts, R. B., and Calaway H. Dodson. "Nesting biology of two communal bees, Euglossa imperialis and Euglossa ignita (Hymenoptera: Apidae), including description of larvae." Annals of the Entomological Society of America 60.5 (1967): 1007-1014.
Walter R. Tschinkel (2006). The Fire Ants. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. p. 89. ISBN 0-674-02207-6.
Lockley, Timothy C. "Imported Fire Ants". University of Minnesota (IPM World Textbook). Retrieved 30 December 2014.
Kintz-Early, Janet; Parris, Leslie; Zettler, Jennifer; Bast, Josh (September 2003). "Evidence of polygynous red imported fire ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in South Carolina". Florida Entomologist. 86 (3): 381�382. doi:10.1653/0015-4040(2003)086[0381:EOPRIF]2.0.CO;2. Retrieved 30 December 2014.
Vinson, S.B.; Sorenson, A.A. (1986). Imported Fire Ants: Life History and Impact. P. O. Box 12847, Austin, Texas 78711.: The Texas Department of Agriculture.
Tschinkel, Walter R. (1987). "Fire Ant Queen Longevity and Age: Estimation by Sperm Depletion" (PDF). Annals of the Entomological Society of America. Tallahassee, Florida 32306: Department of Biological Science, Florida State University. 80 (2): 263�266. doi:10.1093/aesa/80.2.263. Retrieved 30 December 2014.
Briano, Juan A.; Calcaterra, Luis A.; Wojcik, D.P.; Williams, D.F.; Banks, W.A.; Patterson, R.S. (1997). "Abundance of the Parasitic Ant Solenopsis daguerrei (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in South America, a Potential Candidate for the Biological Control of the Red Imported Fire Ant in the United States". Environmental Entomology. 26 (5): 1143�1148. doi:10.1093/ee/26.5.1143. Retrieved 30 December 2014.
Ascunce, M. S.; Yang, C.-C.; Oakey, J.; Calcaterra, L.; Wu, W.-J.; Shih, C.-J.; Goudet, J.; Ross, K. G.; Shoemaker, D. (24 February 2011). "Global Invasion History of the Fire Ant Solenopsis invicta". Science. 331 (6020): 1066�1068. doi:10.1126/science.1198734.
Murphy, Damien (13 December 2014). "Red fire ants will make thongs a thing of the past". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 30 December 2014.
"'Aggressive' red ants found at Sydney port". The Australian. Australian Associated Press. 8 December 2014. Retrieved 30 December 2014.
Wetterer, James K. (2013). "Exotic spread of Solenopsis invicta (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) beyond North America". Sociobiology. 60: 53�63. doi:10.13102/sociobiology.v60i1.50-55.
McDonald, Maggie (February 2006). "Reds Under Your Feet (interview with Robert Vander Meer)". New Scientist. 189 (2538): 50.
Solley, GO; Vanderwoude, C; Knight, GK (3 June 2002). "Anaphylaxis due to Red Imported Fire Ant sting.". The Medical journal of Australia. 176 (11): 521�3. PMID 12064982. Retrieved 30 December 2014.
Oi, David H. (25 June 2008). "Public health significance of Urban Pests". World Health Organization Technical Report. Pharaoh ants and fire ants. pp. 175�208. Retrieved 30 December 2014.
Condon, Matthew (27 July 2013). "Queensland launched a war against the fire ant invasion, but 12 years later, they're still on the march". The Courier Mail. Retrieved 30 December 2014.
McCarthy, John; Williams, Brian (25 July 2013). "Mayors warn fire ants are dominating in south east Queensland as infestations double". The Courier Mail. Retrieved 30 December 2014.
Bryner, Jeanna (26 January 2009). "Lizards' Dance Avoids Deadly Ants". Live Science. Retrieved 30 December 2014.
Lee, Jason; Betschel, Stephen (2013). "A case of the first documented fire ant anaphylaxis in Canada". Allergy, Asthma & Clinical Immunology. 9 (1): 25. doi:10.1186/1710-1492-9-25.
deShazo RD, Butcher BT, Banks WA (1990). "Reactions to the stings of the imported fire ant". N. Engl. J. Med. 323 (7): 462�6. doi:10.1056/NEJM199008163230707. PMID 2197555.
Talcott, Patricia A.; Peterson, Michael E. (2013). Small animal toxicology (3rd ed.). St. Louis, Mo.: Elsevier. pp. 584�585. ISBN 978-1455707171. Retrieved 30 December 2014.
"Fire Ant Bites". American Osteopathic College of Dermatology. Retrieved 30 December 2014.
"Insects and Scorpions". Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. 22 October 2008. Retrieved 11 April 2008.
Prahlow, JA; Barnard, JJ (June 1998). "Fatal anaphylaxis due to fire ant stings.". The American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology. 19 (2): 137�42. doi:10.1097/00000433-199806000-00007. PMID 9662108.
Ehrenberg, Rachel (18 September 2009). "Venom attracts decapitating flies". Science News. Retrieved 30 December 2014.
Porter, Sanford D.; Graham, L. C. �Fudd�; Johnson, Seth J.; Thead, Larry G.; Briano, Juan A. (June 2011). "The Large Decapitating Fly (Diptera: Phoridae): Successfully Established on Fire Ant Populations in Alabama". Florida Entomologist. 94 (2): 208�213. doi:10.1653/024.094.0213.

Ellison, DM; Gotelli, NJ (2009). "Energetics and the evolution of carnivorous plants�Darwin's 'Most Wonderful plants in the world'" (PDF). Experiment Botany. 60 (1): 19�42. doi:10.1093/jxb/ern179. PMID 19213724.

Further reading

Bert H�lldobler and Edward O. Wilson (1990). The Ants. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. ISBN 3-540-52092-9.

Now there's a copy and paste job you won't see every day.

1 Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres, quarum unam incolunt Belgae, aliam Aquitani, tertiam qui ipsorum lingua Celtae, nostra Galli appellantur. 2 Hi omnes lingua, institutis, legibus inter se differunt. Gallos ab Aquitanis Garumna flumen, a Belgis Matrona et Sequana dividit. 3 Horum omnium fortissimi sunt Belgae, propterea quod a cultu atque humanitate provinciae longissime absunt, minimeque ad eos mercatores saepe commeant atque ea quae ad effeminandos animos pertinent important, 4 proximique sunt Germanis, qui trans Rhenum incolunt, quibuscum continenter bellum gerunt. Qua de causa Helvetii quoque reliquos Gallos virtute praecedunt, quod fere cotidianis proeliis cum Germanis contendunt, cum aut suis finibus eos prohibent aut ipsi in eorum finibus bellum gerunt. 5 [Eorum una, pars, quam Gallos obtinere dictum est, initium capit a flumine Rhodano, continetur Garumna flumine, Oceano, finibus Belgarum, attingit etiam ab Sequanis et Helvetiis flumen Rhenum, vergit ad septentriones. 6 Belgae ab extremis Galliae finibus oriuntur, pertinent ad inferiorem partem fluminis Rheni, spectant in septentrionem et orientem solem. 7 Aquitania a Garumna flumine ad Pyrenaeos montes et eam partem Oceani quae est ad Hispaniam pertinet; spectat inter occasum solis et septentriones.]

2 Apud Helvetios longe nobilissimus fuit et ditissimus Orgetorix. Is M. Messala, [et P.] M. Pisone consulibus regni cupiditate inductus coniurationem nobilitatis fecit et civitati persuasit ut de finibus suis cum omnibus copiis exirent: 2 perfacile esse, cum virtute omnibus praestarent, totius Galliae imperio potiri. 3 Id hoc facilius iis persuasit, quod undique loci natura Helvetii continentur: una ex parte flumine Rheno latissimo atque altissimo, qui agrum Helvetium a Germanis dividit; altera ex parte monte Iura altissimo, qui est inter Sequanos et Helvetios; tertia lacu Lemanno et flumine Rhodano, qui provinciam nostram ab Helvetiis dividit. 4 His rebus fiebat ut et minus late vagarentur et minus facile finitimis bellum inferre possent; 5 qua ex parte homines bellandi cupidi magno dolore adficiebantur. 6 Pro multitudine autem hominum et pro gloria belli atque fortitudinis angustos se fines habere arbitrabantur, qui in longitudinem milia passuum CCXL, in latitudinem CLXXX patebant.

3 His rebus adducti et auctoritate Orgetorigis permoti constituerunt ea quae ad proficiscendum pertinerent comparare, iumentorum et carrorum quam maximum numerum coemere, sementes quam maximas facere, ut in itinere copia frumenti suppeteret, cum proximis civitatibus pacem et amicitiam confirmare. 2 Ad eas res conficiendas biennium sibi satis esse duxerunt; in tertium annum profectionem lege confirmant. 3 Ad eas res conficiendas Orgetorix deligitur. Is sibi legationem ad civitates suscipit. In eo itinere persuadet Castico, Catamantaloedis filio, Sequano, cuius pater regnum in Sequanis multos annos obtinuerat et a senatu populi Romani amicus appellatus erat, ut regnum in civitate sua occuparet, quod pater ante habuerit; 4 itemque Dumnorigi Haeduo, fratri Diviciaci, qui eo tempore principatum in civitate obtinebat ac maxime plebi acceptus erat, ut idem conaretur persuadet eique filiam suam in matrimonium dat. 5 Perfacile factu esse illis probat conata perficere, propterea quod ipse suae civitatis imperium obtenturus esset: 6 non esse dubium quin totius Galliae plurimum Helvetii possent; se suis copiis suoque exercitu illis regna conciliaturum confirmat. 7 Hac oratione adducti inter se fidem et ius iurandum dant et regno occupato per tres potentissimos ac firmissimos populos totius Galliae sese potiri posse sperant.

4 Ea res est Helvetiis per indicium enuntiata. Moribus suis Orgetoricem ex vinculis causam dicere coegerunt; damnatum poenam sequi oportebat, ut igni cremaretur. 2 Die constituta causae dictionis Orgetorix ad iudicium omnem suam familiam, ad hominum milia decem, undique coegit, et omnes clientes obaeratosque suos, quorum magnum numerum habebat, eodem conduxit; per eos ne causam diceret se eripuit. 3 Cum civitas ob eam rem incitata armis ius suum exequi conaretur multitudinemque hominum ex agris magistratus cogerent, Orgetorix mortuus est; 4 neque abest suspicio, ut Helvetii arbitrantur, quin ipse sibi mortem consciverit.

5 Post eius mortem nihilo minus Helvetii id quod constituerant facere conantur, ut e finibus suis exeant. 2 Ubi iam se ad eam rem paratos esse arbitrati sunt, oppida sua omnia, numero ad duodecim, vicos ad quadringentos, reliqua privata aedificia incendunt; 3 frumentum omne, praeter quod secum portaturi erant, comburunt, ut domum reditionis spe sublata paratiores ad omnia pericula subeunda essent; trium mensum molita cibaria sibi quemque domo efferre iubent. Persuadent Rauracis et Tulingis et Latobrigis finitimis, uti eodem usi consilio oppidis suis vicisque exustis una cum iis proficiscantur, Boiosque, qui trans Rhenum incoluerant et in agrum Noricum transierant Noreiamque oppugnabant, receptos ad se socios sibi adsciscunt.

6 Erant omnino itinera duo, quibus itineribus domo exire possent: unum per Sequanos, angustum et difficile, inter montem Iuram et flumen Rhodanum, vix qua singuli carri ducerentur, mons autem altissimus impendebat, ut facile perpauci prohibere possent; 2 alterum per provinciam nostram, multo facilius atque expeditius, propterea quod inter fines Helvetiorum et Allobrogum, qui nuper pacati erant, Rhodanus fluit isque non nullis locis vado transitur. 3 Extremum oppidum Allobrogum est proximumque Helvetiorum finibus Genava. Ex eo oppido pons ad Helvetios pertinet. Allobrogibus sese vel persuasuros, quod nondum bono animo in populum Romanum viderentur, existimabant vel vi coacturos ut per suos fines eos ire paterentur. Omnibus rebus ad profectionem comparatis diem dicunt, qua die ad ripam Rhodani omnes conveniant. Is dies erat a. d. V. Kal. Apr. L. Pisone, A. Gabinio consulibus.

7 Caesari cum id nuntiatum esset, eos per provincia nostram iter facere conari, maturat ab urbe proficisci et quam maximis potest itineribus in Galliam ulteriorem contendit et ad Genavam pervenit. 2 Provinciae toti quam maximum potest militum numerum imperat (erat omnino in Gallia ulteriore legio una), pontem, qui erat ad Genavam, iubet rescindi. 3 Ubi de eius aventu Helvetii certiores facti sunt, legatos ad eum mittunt nobilissimos civitatis, cuius legationis Nammeius et Verucloetius principem locum obtinebant, qui dicerent sibi esse in animo sine ullo maleficio iter per provinciam facere, propterea quod aliud iter haberent nullum: rogare ut eius voluntate id sibi facere liceat. Caesar, quod memoria tenebat L. Cassium consulem occisum exercitumque eius ab Helvetiis pulsum et sub iugum missum, concedendum non putabat; 4 neque homines inimico animo, data facultate per provinciam itineris faciundi, temperaturos ab iniuria et maleficio existimabat. 5 Tamen, ut spatium intercedere posset dum milites quos imperaverat convenirent, legatis respondit diem se ad deliberandum sumpturum: si quid vellent, ad Id. April. reverterentur.

8 Interea ea legione quam secum habebat militibusque, qui ex provincia convenerant, a lacu Lemanno, qui in flumen Rhodanum influit, ad montem Iuram, qui fines Sequanorum ab Helvetiis dividit, milia passuum XVIIII murum in altitudinem pedum sedecim fossamque perducit. 2 Eo opere perfecto praesidia disponit, castella communit, quo facilius, si se invito transire conentur, prohibere possit. 3 Ubi ea dies quam constituerat cum legatis venit et legati ad eum reverterunt, negat se more et exemplo populi Romani posse iter ulli per provinciam dare et, si vim lacere conentur, prohibiturum ostendit. 4 Helvetii ea spe deiecti navibus iunctis ratibusque compluribus factis, alii vadis Rhodani, qua minima altitudo fluminis erat, non numquam interdiu, saepius noctu si perrumpere possent conati, operis munitione et militum concursu et telis repulsi, hoc conatu destiterunt.

9 Relinquebatur una per Sequanos via, qua Sequanis invitis propter angustias ire non poterant. 2 His cum sua sponte persuadere non possent, legatos ad Dumnorigem Haeduum mittunt, ut eo deprecatore a Sequanis impetrarent. 3 Dumnorix gratia et largitione apud Sequanos plurimum poterat et Helvetiis erat amicus, quod ex ea civitate Orgetorigis filiam in matrimonium duxerat, et cupiditate regni adductus novis rebus studebat et quam plurimas civitates suo beneficio habere obstrictas volebat. 4 Itaque rem suscipit et a Sequanis impetrat ut per fines suos Helvetios ire patiantur, obsidesque uti inter sese dent perficit: Sequani, ne itinere Helvetios prohibeant, Helvetii, ut sine maleficio et iniuria transeant.

10 Caesari renuntiatur Helvetiis esse in animo per agrum Sequanorum et Haeduorum iter in Santonum fines facere, qui non longe a Tolosatium finibus absunt, quae civitas est in provincia. 2 Id si fieret, intellegebat magno cum periculo provinciae futurum ut homines bellicosos, populi Romani inimicos, locis patentibus maximeque frumentariis finitimos haberet. 3 Ob eas causas ei munitioni quam fecerat T. Labienum legatum praeficit; ipse in Italiam magnis itineribus contendit duasque ibi legiones conscribit et tres, quae circum Aquileiam hiemabant, ex hibernis educit et, qua proximum iter in ulteriorem Galliam per Alpes erat, cum his quinque legionibus ire contendit. 4 Ibi Ceutrones et Graioceli et Caturiges locis superioribus occupatis itinere exercitum prohibere conantur. Compluribus his proeliis pulsis ab Ocelo, quod est <oppidum> citerioris provinciae extremum, in fines Vocontiorum ulterioris provinciae die septimo pervenit; inde in Allobrogum fines, ab Allobrogibus in Segusiavos exercitum ducit. Hi sunt extra provinciam trans Rhodanum primi.

11 Helvetii iam per angustias et fines Sequanorum suas copias traduxerant et in Haeduorum fines pervenerant eorumque agros populabantur. 2 Haedui, cum se suaque ab iis defendere non possent, legatos ad Caesarem mittunt rogatum auxilium: 3 ita se omni tempore de populo Romano meritos esse ut paene in conspectu exercitus nostri agri vastari, liberi [eorum] in servitutem abduci, oppida expugnari non debuerint. Eodem tempore <quo> Haedui Ambarri, necessarii et consanguinei Haeduorum, Caesarem certiorem faciunt sese depopulatis agris non facile ab oppidis vim hostium prohibere. 4 Item Allobroges, qui trans Rhodanum vicos possessionesque habebant, fuga se ad Caesarem recipiunt et demonstrant sibi praeter agri solum nihil esse reliqui. 5 Quibus rebus adductus Caesar non expectandum sibi statuit dum, omnibus, fortunis sociorum consumptis, in Santonos Helvetii pervenirent.

12 Flumen est Arar, quod per fines Haeduorum et Sequanorum in Rhodanum influit, incredibili lenitate, ita ut oculis in utram partem fluat iudicari non possit. Id Helvetii ratibus ac lintribus iunctis transibant. 2 Ubi per exploratores Caesar certior factus est tres iam partes copiarum Helvetios id flumen traduxisse, quartam vero partem citra flumen Ararim reliquam esse, de tertia vigilia cum legionibus tribus e castris profectus ad eam partem pervenit quae nondum flumen transierat. 3 Eos impeditos et inopinantes adgressus magnam partem eorum concidit; reliqui sese fugae mandarunt atque in proximas silvas abdiderunt. 4 Is pagus appellabatur Tigurinus; nam omnis civitas Helvetia in quattuor pagos divisa est. 5 Hic pagus unus, cum domo exisset, patrum nostrorum memoria L. Cassium consulem interfecerat et eius exercitum sub iugum miserat. 6 Ita sive casu sive consilio deorum immortalium quae pars civitatis Helvetiae insignem calamitatem populo Romano intulerat, ea princeps poenam persolvit. 7 Qua in re Caesar non solum publicas, sed etiam privatas iniurias ultus est, quod eius soceri L. Pisonis avum, L. Pisonem legatum, Tigurini eodem proelio quo Cassium interfecerant.

13 Hoc proelio facto, reliquas copias Helvetiorum ut consequi posset, pontem in Arari faciendum curat atque ita exercitum traducit. 2 Helvetii repentino eius adventu commoti cum id quod ipsi diebus XX aegerrime confecerant, ut flumen transirent, illum uno die fecisse intellegerent, legatos ad eum mittunt; cuius legationis Divico princeps fuit, qui bello Cassiano dux Helvetiorum fuerat. 3 Is ita cum Caesare egit: si pacem populus Romanus cum Helvetiis faceret, in eam partem ituros atque ibi futuros Helvetios ubi eos Caesar constituisset atque esse voluisset; 4 sin bello persequi perseveraret, reminisceretur et veteris incommodi populi Romani et pristinae virtutis Helvetiorum. Quod improviso unum pagum adortus esset, cum ii qui flumen transissent suis auxilium ferre non possent, ne ob eam rem aut suae magnopere virtuti tribueret aut ipsos despiceret. Se ita a patribus maioribusque suis didicisse, ut magis virtute contenderent quam dolo aut insidiis niterentur. 5 Quare ne committeret ut is locus ubi constitissent ex calamitate populi Romani et internecione exercitus nomen caperet aut memoriam proderet.

14 His Caesar ita respondit: eo sibi minus dubitationis dari, quod eas res quas legati Helvetii commemorassent memoria teneret, atque eo gravius ferre quo minus merito populi Romani accidissent; 2 qui si alicuius iniuriae sibi conscius fuisset, non fuisse difficile cavere; sed eo deceptum, quod neque commissum a se intellegeret quare timeret neque sine causa timendum putaret. 3 Quod si veteris contumeliae oblivisci vellet, num etiam recentium iniuriarum, quod eo invito iter per provinciam per vim temptassent, quod Haeduos, quod Ambarros, quod Allobrogas vexassent, memoriam deponere posse? 4 Quod sua victoria tam insolenter gloriarentur quodque tam diu se impune iniurias tulisse admirarentur, eodem pertinere. 5 Consuesse enim deos immortales, quo gravius homines ex commutatione rerum doleant, quos pro scelere eorum ulcisci velint, his secundiores interdum res et diuturniorem impunitatem concedere. 6 Cum ea ita sint, tamen, si obsides ab iis sibi dentur, uti ea quae polliceantur facturos intellegat, et si Haeduis de iniuriis quas ipsis sociisque eorum intulerint, item si Allobrogibus satis faciunt, sese cum iis pacem esse facturum. 7 Divico respondit: ita Helvetios a maioribus suis institutos esse uti obsides accipere, non dare, consuerint; eius rem populum Romanum esse testem. Hoc responso dato discessit.

15 Postero die castra ex eo loco movent. Idem facit Caesar equitatumque omnem, ad numerum quattuor milium, quem ex omni provincia et Haeduis atque eorum sociis coactum habebat, praemittit, qui videant quas in partes hostes iter faciant. Qui cupidius novissimum agmen insecuti alieno loco cum equitatu Helvetiorum proelium committunt; et pauci de nostris cadunt. 2 Quo proelio sublati Helvetii, quod quingentis equitibus tantam multitudinem equitum propulerant, audacius subsistere non numquam et novissimo agmine proelio nostros lacessere coeperunt. Caesar suos a proelio continebat, ac satis habebat in praesentia hostem rapinis, pabulationibus populationibusque prohibere. 3 Ita dies circiter XV iter fecerunt uti inter novissimum hostium agmen et nostrum primum non amplius quinis aut senis milibus passuum interesset.

16 Interim cotidie Caesar Haeduos frumentum, quod essent publice polliciti, flagitare. 2 Nam propter frigora [quod Gallia sub septentrionibus, ut ante dictum est, posita est,] non modo frumenta in agris matura non erant, sed ne pabuli quidem satis magna copia suppetebat; 3 eo autem frumento quod flumine Arari navibus subvexerat propterea uti minus poterat quod iter ab Arari Helvetii averterant, a quibus discedere nolebat. 4 Diem ex die ducere Haedui: conferri, comportari, adesse dicere. 5 Ubi se diutius duci intellexit et diem instare quo die frumentum militibus metiri oporteret, convocatis eorum principibus, quorum magnam copiam in castris habebat, in his Diviciaco et Lisco, qui summo magistratui praeerat, quem vergobretum appellant Haedui, qui creatur annuus et vitae necisque in suos habet potestatem, graviter eos accusat, 6 quod, cum neque emi neque ex agris sumi possit, tam necessario tempore, tam propinquis hostibus ab iis non sublevetur, praesertim cum magna ex parte eorum precibus adductus bellum susceperit[; multo etiam gravius quod sit destitutus queritur].

17 Tum demum Liscus oratione Caesaris adductus quod antea tacuerat proponit: esse non nullos, quorum auctoritas apud plebem plurimum valeat, qui privatim plus possint quam ipsi magistratus. 2 Hos seditiosa atque improba oratione multitudinem deterrere, ne frumentum conferant quod debeant: 3 praestare, si iam principatum Galliae obtinere non possint, Gallorum quam Romanorum imperia perferre, 4 neque dubitare [debeant] quin, si Helvetios superaverint Romani, una cum reliqua Gallia Haeduis libertatem sint erepturi. 5 Ab isdem nostra consilia quaeque in castris gerantur hostibus enuntiari; hos a se coerceri non posse. 6 Quin etiam, quod necessariam rem coactus Caesari enuntiarit, intellegere sese quanto id cum periculo fecerit, et ob eam causam quam diu potuerit tacuisse.

18 Caesar hac oratione Lisci Dumnorigem, Diviciaci fratrem, designari sentiebat, sed, quod pluribus praesentibus eas res iactari nolebat, celeriter concilium dimittit, Liscum retinet. 2 Quaerit ex solo ea quae in conventu dixerat. Dicit liberius atque audacius. Eadem secreto ab aliis quaerit; reperit esse vera: 3 ipsum esse Dumnorigem, summa audacia, magna apud plebem propter liberalitatem gratia, cupidum rerum novarum. Complures annos portoria reliquaque omnia Haeduorum vectigalia parvo pretio redempta habere, propterea quod illo licente contra liceri audeat nemo. 4 His rebus et suam rem familiarem auxisse et facultates ad largiendum magnas comparasse; 5 magnum numerum equitatus suo sumptu semper alere et circum se habere, 6 neque solum domi, sed etiam apud finitimas civitates largiter posse, atque huius potentiae causa matrem in Biturigibus homini illic nobilissimo ac potentissimo conlocasse; 7 ipsum ex Helvetiis uxorem habere, sororum ex matre et propinquas suas nuptum in alias civitates conlocasse. 8 Favere et cupere Helvetiis propter eam adfinitatem, odisse etiam suo nomine Caesarem et Romanos, quod eorum adventu potentia eius deminuta et Diviciacus frater in antiquum locum gratiae atque honoris sit restitutus. 9 Si quid accidat Romanis, summam in spem per Helvetios regni obtinendi venire; imperio populi Romani non modo de regno, sed etiam de ea quam habeat gratia desperare. 10 Reperiebat etiam in quaerendo Caesar, quod proelium equestre adversum paucis ante diebus esset factum, initium eius fugae factum a Dumnorige atque eius equitibus (nam equitatui, quem auxilio Caesari Haedui miserant, Dumnorix praeerat): eorum fuga reliquum esse equitatum perterritum.

19 Quibus rebus cognitis, cum ad has suspiciones certissimae res accederent, quod per fines Sequanorum Helvetios traduxisset, quod obsides inter eos dandos curasset, quod ea omnia non modo iniussu suo et civitatis sed etiam inscientibus ipsis fecisset, quod a magistratu Haeduorum accusaretur, satis esse causae arbitrabatur quare in eum aut ipse animadverteret aut civitatem animadvertere iuberet. 2 His omnibus rebus unum repugnabat, quod Diviciaci fratris summum in populum Romanum studium, summum in se voluntatem, egregiam fidem, iustitiam, temperantiam cognoverat; nam ne eius supplicio Diviciaci animum offenderet verebatur. 3 Itaque prius quam quicquam conaretur, Diviciacum ad se vocari iubet et, cotidianis interpretibus remotis, per C. Valerium Troucillum, principem Galliae provinciae, familiarem suum, cui summam omnium rerum fidem habebat, cum eo conloquitur; 4 simul commonefacit quae ipso praesente in concilio [Gallorum] de Dumnorige sint dicta, et ostendit quae separatim quisque de eo apud se dixerit. 5 Petit atque hortatur ut sine eius offensione animi vel ipse de eo causa cognita statuat vel civitatem statuere iubeat.

20 Diviciacus multis cum lacrimis Caesarem complexus obsecrare coepit ne quid gravius in fratrem statueret: 2 scire se illa esse vera, nec quemquam ex eo plus quam se doloris capere, propterea quod, cum ipse gratia plurimum domi atque in reliqua Gallia, ille minimum propter adulescentiam posset, per se crevisset; 3 quibus opibus ac nervis non solum ad minuendam gratiam, sed paene ad perniciem suam uteretur. Sese tamen et amore fraterno et existimatione vulgi commoveri. 4 Quod si quid ei a Caesare gravius accidisset, cum ipse eum locum amicitiae apud eum teneret, neminem existimaturum non sua voluntate factum; qua ex re futurum uti totius Galliae animi a se averterentur. 5 Haec cum pluribus verbis flens a Caesare peteret, Caesar eius dextram prendit; consolatus rogat finem orandi faciat; tanti eius apud se gratiam esse ostendit uti et rei publicae iniuriam et suum dolorem eius voluntati ac precibus condonet. Dumnorigem ad se vocat, fratrem adhibet; quae in eo reprehendat ostendit; quae ipse intellegat, quae civitas queratur proponit; monet ut in reliquum tempus omnes suspiciones vitet; praeterita se Diviciaco fratri condonare dicit. Dumnorigi custodes ponit, ut quae agat, quibuscum loquatur scire possit.

21 Eodem die ab exploratoribus certior factus hostes sub monte consedisse milia passuum ab ipsius castris octo, qualis esset natura montis et qualis in circuitu ascensus qui cognoscerent misit. 2 Renuntiatum est facilem esse. De tertia vigilia T. Labienum, legatum pro praetore, cum duabus legionibus et iis ducibus qui iter cognoverant summum iugum montis ascendere iubet; quid sui consilii sit ostendit. 3 Ipse de quarta vigilia eodem itinere quo hostes ierant ad eos contendit equitatumque omnem ante se mittit. 4 P. Considius, qui rei militaris peritissimus habebatur et in exercitu L. Sullae et postea in M. Crassi fuerat, cum exploratoribus praemittitur.

22 Prima luce, cum summus mons a [Lucio] Labieno teneretur, ipse ab hostium castris non longius mille et quingentis passibus abesset neque, ut postea ex captivis comperit, aut ipsius adventus aut Labieni cognitus esset, 2 Considius equo admisso ad eum accurrit, dicit montem, quem a Labieno occupari voluerit, ab hostibus teneri: id se a Gallicis armis atque insignibus cognovisse. 3 Caesar suas copias in proximum collem subducit, aciem instruit. Labienus, ut erat ei praeceptum a Caesare ne proelium committeret, nisi ipsius copiae prope hostium castra visae essent, ut undique uno tempore in hostes impetus fieret, monte occupato nostros expectabat proelioque abstinebat. 4 Multo denique die per exploratores Caesar cognovit et montem a suis teneri et Helvetios castra, movisse et Considium timore perterritum quod non vidisset pro viso sibi renuntiavisse. Eo die quo consuerat intervallo hostes sequitur et milia passuum tria ab eorum castris castra ponit.

23 Postridie eius diei, quod omnino biduum supererat, cum exercitui frumentum metiri oporteret, et quod a Bibracte, oppido Haeduorum longe maximo et copiosissimo, non amplius milibus passuum XVIII aberat, rei frumentariae prospiciendum existimavit; <itaque> iter ab Helvetiis avertit ac Bibracte ire contendit. 2 Ea res per fugitivos L. Aemilii, decurionis equitum Gallorum, hostibus nuntiatur. 3 Helvetii, seu quod timore perterritos Romanos discedere a se existimarent, eo magis quod pridie superioribus locis occupatis proelium non commisissent, sive eo quod re frumentaria intercludi posse confiderent, commutato consilio atque itinere converso nostros a novissimo agmine insequi ac lacessere coeperunt.

24 Postquam id animum advertit, copias suas Caesar in proximum collem subduxit equitatumque, qui sustineret hostium petum, misit. 2 Ipse interim in colle medio triplicem aciem instruxit legionum quattuor veteranarum; in summo iugo duas legiones quas in Gallia citeriore proxime conscripserat et omnia auxilia conlocavit, 3 ita ut supra se totum montem hominibus compleret; impedimenta sarcinasque in unum locum conterri et eum ab iis qui in superiore acie constiterant muniri iussit. 4 Helvetii cum omnibus suis carris secuti impedimenta in unum locum contulerunt; ipsi concertissima acie, reiecto nostro equitatu, phalange facta sub primam nostram aciem successerunt.

25 Caesar primum suo, deinde omnium ex conspectu remotis equis, ut aequato omnium periculo spem fugae tolleret, cohortatus suos proelium commisit. 2 Milites loco superiore pilis missis facile hostium phalangem perfregerunt. Ea disiecta gladiis destrictis in eos impetum fecerunt. 3 Gallis magno ad pugnam erat impedimento quod pluribus eorum scutis uno ictu pilorum transfixis et conligatis, cum ferrum se inflexisset, neque evellere neque sinistra impedita satis commode pugnare poterant, 4 multi ut diu iactato bracchio praeoptarent scutum manu emittere et nudo corpore pugnare. 5 Tandem vulneribus defessi et pedem referre et, quod mons suberit circiter mille passuum <spatio>, eo se recipere coeperunt. 6 Capto monte et succedentibus nostris, Boi et Tulingi, qui hominum milibus circiter XV agmen hostium claudebant et novissimis praesidio erant, ex itinere nostros <ab> latere aperto adgressi circumvenire, et id conspicati Helvetii, qui in montem sese receperant, rursus instare et proelium redintegrare coeperunt. 7 Romani [conversa] signa bipertito intulerunt: prima et secunda acies, ut victis ac submotis resisteret, tertia, ut venientes sustineret.

26 Ita ancipiti proelio diu atque acriter pugnatum est. Diutius cum sustinere nostrorum impetus non possent, alteri se, ut coeperant, in montem receperunt, alteri ad impedimenta et carros suos se contulerunt. 2 Nam hoc toto proelio, cum ab hora septima ad vesperum pugnatum sit, aversum hostem videre nemo potuit. 3 Ad multam noctem etiam ad impedimenta pugnatum est, propterea quod pro vallo carros obiecerunt et e loco superiore in nostros venientes tela coiciebant et non nulli inter carros rotasque mataras ac tragulas subiciebant nostrosque vulnerabant. 4 Diu cum esset pugnatum, impedimentis castrisque nostri potiti sunt. Ibi Orgetorigis filia atque unus e filiis captus est. 5 Ex eo proelio circiter hominum milia CXXX superfuerunt eaque tota nocte continenter ierunt [nullam partem noctis itinere intermisso]; in fines Lingonum die quarto pervenerunt, cum et propter vulnera militum et propter sepulturam occisorum nostri [triduum morati] eos sequi non potuissent. 6 Caesar ad Lingonas litteras nuntiosque misit, ne eos frumento neve alia re iuvarent: qui si iuvissent, se eodem loco quo Helvetios habiturum. Ipse triduo intermisso cum omnibus copiis eos sequi coepit.

27 Helvetii omnium rerum inopia adducti legatos de deditione ad eum miserunt. 2 Qui cum eum in itinere convenissent seque ad pedes proiecissent suppliciterque locuti flentes pacem petissent, atque eos in eo loco quo tum essent suum adventum expectare iussisset, paruerunt. 3 Eo postquam Caesar pervenit, obsides, arma, servos qui ad eos perfugissent, poposcit. 4 Dum ea conquiruntur et conferuntur, [nocte intermissa] circiter hominum milia VI eius pagi qui Verbigenus appellatur, sive timore perterriti, ne armis traditis supplicio adficerentur, sive spe salutis inducti, quod in tanta multitudine dediticiorum suam fugam aut occultari aut omnino ignorari posse existimarent, prima nocte e castris Helvetiorum egressi ad Rhenum finesque Germanorum contenderunt.

28 Quod ubi Caesar resciit, quorum per fines ierant his uti conquirerent et reducerent, si sibi purgati esse vellent, imperavit; reductos in hostium numero habuit; 2 reliquos omnes obsidibus, armis, perfugis traditis in deditionem accepit. 3 Helvetios, Tulingos, Latobrigos in fines suos, unde erant profecti, reverti iussit, et, quod omnibus frugibus amissis domi nihil erat quo famem tolerarent, Allobrogibus imperavit ut iis frumenti copiam facerent; ipsos oppida vicosque, quos incenderant, restituere iussit. Id ea maxime ratione fecit, quod noluit eum locum unde Helvetii discesserant vacare, ne propter bonitatem agrorum Germani, qui trans Rhenum incolunt, <ex> suis finibus in Helvetiorum fines transirent et finitimi Galliae provinciae Allobrogibusque essent. 4 Boios petentibus Haeduis, quod egregia virtute erant cogniti, ut in finibus suis conlocarent, concessit; quibus illi agros dederunt quosque postea in parem iuris libertatisque condicionem atque ipsi erant receperunt.

29 In castris Hevetiorum tabulae repertae sunt litteris Graecis confectae et ad Caesarem relatae, quibus in tabulis nominatim ratio confecta erat, qui numerus domo exisset eorum qui arma ferre possent, et item separatim, <quot> pueri, senes mulieresque. 2 [Quarum omnium rerum] summa erat capitum Helvetiorum milium CCLXIII, Tulingorum milium XXXVI, Latobrigorum XIIII, Rauracorum XXIII, Boiorum XXXII; ex his qui arma ferre possent ad milia nonaginta duo. 3 Summa omnium fuerunt ad milia CCCLXVIII. Eorum qui domum redierunt censu habito, ut Caesar imperaverat, repertus est numerus milium C et X.

30 Bello Helvetiorum confecto totius fere Galliae legati, principes civitatum, ad Caesarem gratulatum convenerunt: 2 intellegere sese, tametsi pro veteribus Helvetiorum iniuriis populi Romani ab his poenas bello repetisset, tamen eam rem non minus ex usu [terrae] Galliae quam populi Romani accidisse, 3 propterea quod eo consilio florentissimis rebus domos suas Helvetii reliquissent uti toti Galliae bellum inferrent imperioque potirentur, locumque domicilio ex magna copia deligerent quem ex omni Gallia oportunissimum ac fructuosissimum iudicassent, reliquasque civitates stipendiarias haberent. 4 Petierunt uti sibi concilium totius Galliae in diem certam indicere idque Caesaris facere voluntate liceret: sese habere quasdam res quas ex communi consensu ab eo petere vellent. 5 Ea re permissa diem concilio constituerunt et iure iurando ne quis enuntiaret, nisi quibus communi consilio mandatum esset, inter se sanxerunt.

31 Eo concilio dimisso, idem princeps civitatum qui ante fuerant ad Caesarem reverterunt petieruntque uti sibi secreto in occulto de sua omniumque salute cum eo agere liceret. 2 Ea re impetrata sese omnes flentes Caesari ad pedes proiecerunt: non minus se id contendere et laborare ne ea quae dixissent enuntiarentur quam uti ea quae vellent impetrarent, propterea quod, si enuntiatum esset, summum in cruciatum se venturos viderent. 3 Locutus est pro his Diviciacus Haeduus: Galliae totius factiones esse duas; harum alterius principatum tenere Haeduos, alterius Arvernos. 4 Hi cum tantopere de potentatu inter se multos annos contenderent, factum esse uti ab Arvernis Sequanisque Germani mercede arcesserentur. 5 Horum primo circiter milia XV Rhenum transisse; postea quam agros et cultum et copias Gallorum homines feri ac barbari adamassent, traductos plures; nunc esse in Gallia ad C et XX milium numerum. 6 Cum his Haeduos eorumque clientes semel atque iterum armis contendisse; magnam calamitatem pulsos accepisse, omnem nobilitatem, omnem senatum, omnem equitatum amisisse. 7 Quibus proeliis calamitatibusque fractos, qui et sua virtute et populi Romani hospitio atque amicitia plurimum ante in Gallia potuissent, coactos esse Sequanis obsides dare nobilissimos civitatis et iure iurando civitatem obstringere sese neque obsides repetituros neque auxilium a populo Romano imploraturos neque recusaturos quo minus perpetuo sub illorum dicione atque imperio essent. 8 Unum se esse ex omni civitate Haeduorum qui adduci non potuerit ut iuraret aut liberos suos obsides daret. 9 Ob eam rem se ex civitate profugisse et Romam ad senatum venisse auxilium postulatum, quod solus neque iure iurando neque obsidibus teneretur. 10 Sed peius victoribus Sequanis quam Haeduis victis accidisse, propterea quod Ariovistus, rex Germanorum, in eorum finibus consedisset tertiamque partem agri Sequani, qui esset optimus totius Galliae, occupavisset et nunc de altera parte tertia Sequanos decedere iuberet, propterea quod paucis mensibus ante Harudum milia hominum XXIIII ad eum venissent, quibus locus ac sedes pararentur. 11 Futurum esse paucis annis uti omnes ex Galliae finibus pellerentur atque omnes Germani Rhenum transirent; neque enim conferendum esse Gallicum cum Germanorum agro neque hanc consuetudinem victus cum illa comparandam. 12 Ariovistum autem, ut semel Gallorum copias proelio vicerit, quod proelium factum sit ad Magetobrigam, superbe et crudeliter imperare, obsides nobilissimi cuiusque liberos poscere et in eos omnia exempla cruciatusque edere, si qua res non ad nutum aut ad voluntatem eius facta sit. 13 Hominem esse barbarum, iracundum, temerarium: non posse eius imperia, diutius sustineri. 14 Nisi quid in Caesare populoque Romano sit auxilii, omnibus Gallis idem esse faciendum quod Helvetii fecerint, ut domo emigrent, aliud domicilium, alias sedes, remotas a Germanis, petant fortunamque, quaecumque accidat, experiantur. Haec si enuntiata Ariovisto sint, non dubitare quin de omnibus obsidibus qui apud eum sint gravissimum supplicium sumat. 15 Caesarem vel auctoritate sua atque exercitus vel recenti victoria vel nomine populi Romani deterrere posse ne maior multitudo Germanorum Rhenum traducatur, Galliamque omnem ab Ariovisti iniuria posse defendere.

32 Hac oratione ab Diviciaco habita omnes qui aderant magno fletu auxilium a Caesare petere coeperunt. 2 Animadvertit Caesar unos ex omnibus Sequanos nihil earum rerum facere quas ceteri facerent sed tristes capite demisso terram intueri. Eius rei quae causa esset miratus ex ipsis quaesiit. 3 Nihil Sequani respondere, sed in eadem tristitia taciti permanere. Cum ab his saepius quaereret neque ullam omnino vocem exprimere posset, idem Diviacus Haeduus respondit: 4 hoc esse miseriorem et graviorem fortunam Sequanorum quam reliquorum, quod soli ne in occulto quidem queri neque auxilium implorare auderent absentisque Ariovisti crudelitatem, 5 velut si cora adesset, horrerent, propterea quod reliquis tamen fugae facultas daretur, Sequanis vero, qui intra fines suos Ariovistum recepissent, quorum oppida omnia in potestate eius essent, omnes cruciatus essent perferendi.

33 His rebus cognitis Caesar Gallorum animos verbis confirmavit pollicitusque est sibi eam rem curae futuram; magnam se habere spem et beneficio suo et auctoritate adductum Ariovistum finem iniuriis facturum. Hac oratione habita, concilium dimisit. 2 Et secundum ea multae res eum hortabantur quare sibi eam rem cogitandam et suscipiendam putaret, in primis quod Haeduos, fratres consanguineosque saepe numero a senatu appellatos, in servitute atque [in] dicione videbat Germanorum teneri eorumque obsides esse apud Ariovistum ac Sequanos intellegebat; quod in tanto imperio populi Romani turpissimum sibi et rei publicae esse arbitrabatur. 3 Paulatim autem Germanos consuescere Rhenum transire et in Galliam magnam eorum multitudinem venire populo Romano periculosum videbat, neque sibi homines feros ac barbaros temperaturos existimabat quin, cum omnem Galliam occupavissent, ut ante Cimbri Teutonique fecissent, in provinciam exirent atque inde in Italiam contenderent [, praesertim cum Sequanos a provincia nostra Rhodanus divideret]; quibus rebus quam maturrime occurrendum putabat. 4 Ipse autem Ariovistus tantos sibi spiritus, tantam arrogantiam sumpserat, ut ferendus non videretur.

34 Quam ob rem placuit ei ut ad Ariovistum legatos mitteret, qui ab eo postularent uti aliquem locum medium utrisque conloquio deligeret: velle sese de re publica et summis utriusque rebus cum eo agere. 2 Ei legationi Ariovistus respondit: si quid ipsi a Caesare opus esset, sese ad eum venturum fuisse; si quid ille se velit, illum ad se venire oportere. 3 Praeterea se neque sine exercitu in eas partes Galliae venire audere quas Caesar possideret, neque exercitum sine magno commeatu atque molimento in unum locum contrahere posse. 4 Sibi autem mirum videri quid in sua Gallia, quam bello vicisset, aut Caesari aut omnino populo Romano negotii esset.

35 His responsis ad Caesarem relatis, iterum ad eum Caesar legatos cum his mandatis mittit: 2 quoniam tanto suo populique Romani beneficio adtectus, cum in consulatu suo rex atque amicus a senatu appellatus esset, hanc sibi populoque Romano gratiam referret ut in conloquium venire invitatus gravaretur neque de communi re dicendum sibi et cognoscendum putaret, haec esse quae ab eo postularet: 3 primum ne quam multitudinem hominum amplius trans Rhenum in Galliam traduceret; deinde obsides quos haberet ab Haeduis redderet Sequanisque permitteret ut quos illi haberent voluntate eius reddere illis liceret; neve Haeduos iniuria lacesseret neve his sociisque eorum bellum inferret. 4 Si [id] ita fecisset, sibi populoque Romano perpetuam gratiam atque amicitiam cum eo futuram; si non impetraret, sese, quoniam M. Messala, M. Pisone consulibus senatus censuisset uti quicumque Galliam provinciam obtineret, quod commodo rei publicae lacere posset, Haeduos ceterosque amicos populi Romani defenderet, se Haeduorum iniurias non neglecturum.

36 Ad haec Ariovistus respondit: ius esse belli ut qui vicissent iis quos vicissent quem ad modum vellent imperarent. Item populum Romanum victis non ad alterius praescriptum, sed ad suum arbitrium imperare consuesse. 2 Si ipse populo Romano non praescriberet quem ad modum suo iure uteretur, non oportere se a populo Romano in suo iure impediri. 3 Haeduos sibi, quoniam belli fortunam temptassent et armis congressi ac superati essent, stipendiarios esse factos. 4 Magnam Caesarem iniuriam facere, qui suo adventu vectigalia sibi deteriora faceret. 5 Haeduis se obsides redditurum non esse neque his neque eorum sociis iniuria bellum inlaturum, si in eo manerent quod convenisset stipendiumque quotannis penderent; si id non fecissent, longe iis fraternum nomen populi Romani afuturum. 6 Quod sibi Caesar denuntiaret se Haeduorum iniurias non neglecturum, neminem secum sine sua pernicie contendisse. 7 Cum vellet, congrederetur: intellecturum quid invicti Germani, exercitatissimi in armis, qui inter annos XIIII tectum non subissent, virtute possent.

37 Haec eodem tempore Caesari mandata referebantur et legati ab Haeduis et a Treveris veniebant: 2 Haedui questum quod Harudes, qui nuper in Galliam transportati essent, fines eorum popularentur: sese ne obsidibus quidem datis pacem Ariovisti redimere potuisse; 3 Treveri autem, pagos centum Sueborum ad ripas Rheni consedisse, qui Rhemum transire conarentur; his praeesse Nasuam et Cimberium fratres. Quibus rebus Caesar vehementer commotus maturandum sibi existimavit, ne, si nova manus Sueborum cum veteribus copiis Ariovisti sese coniunxisset, minus facile resisti posset. 4 Itaque re frumentaria quam celerrime potuit comparata magnis itineribus ad Ariovistum contendit.

38 Cum tridui viam processisset, nuntiatum est ei Ariovistum cum suis omnibus copiis ad occupandum Vesontionem, quod est oppidum maximum Sequanorum, contendere [triduique viam a suis finibus processisse]. Id ne accideret, magnopere sibi praecavendum Caesar existimabat. Namque omnium rerum quae ad bellum usui erant summa erat in eo oppido facultas, 2 idque natura loci sic muniebatur ut magnam ad ducendum bellum daret facultatem, propterea quod flumen [alduas] Dubis ut circino circumductum paene totum oppidum cingit, 3 reliquum spatium, quod est non amplius pedum MDC, qua flumen intermittit, mons continet magna altitudine, ita ut radices eius montis ex utraque parte ripae fluminis contingant, 4 hunc murus circumdatus arcem efficit et cum oppido coniungit. 5 Huc Caesar magnis nocturnis diurnisque itineribus contendit occupatoque oppido ibi praesidium conlocat.

39 Dum paucos dies ad Vesontionem rei frumentariae commeatusque causa moratur, ex percontatione nostrorum vocibusque Gallorum ac mercatorum, qui ingenti magnitudine corporum Germanos, incredibili virtute atque exercitatione in armis esse praedicabant (saepe numero sese cum his congressos ne vultum quidem atque aciem oculorum dicebant ferre potuisse), tantus subito timor omnem exercitum occupavit ut non mediocriter omnium mentes animosque perturbaret. 2 Hic primum ortus est a tribunis militum, praefectis, reliquisque qui ex urbe amicitiae causa Caesarem secuti non magnum in re militari usum habebant: 3 quorum alius alia causa inlata, quam sibi ad proficiscendum necessariam esse diceret, petebat ut eius voluntate discedere liceret; non nulli pudore adducti, ut timoris suspicionem vitarent, remanebant. 4 Hi neque vultum fingere neque interdum lacrimas tenere poterant: abditi in tabernaculis aut suum fatum querebantur aut cum familiaribus suis commune periculum miserabantur. Vulgo totis castris testamenta obsignabantur. 5 Horum vocibus ac timore paulatim etiam ii qui magnum in castris usum habebant, milites centurionesque quique equitatui praeerant, perturbabantur. 6 Qui se ex his minus timidos existimari volebant, non se hostem vereri, sed angustias itineris et magnitudinem silvarum quae intercederent inter ipsos atque Ariovistum, aut rem frumentariam, ut satis commode supportari posset, timere dicebant. 7 Non nulli etiam Caesari nuntiabant, cum castra moveri ac signa ferri iussisset, non fore dicto audientes milites neque propter timorem signa laturos.

40 Haec cum animadvertisset, convocato consilio omniumque ordinum ad id consilium adhibitis centurionibus, vehementer eos incusavit: primum, quod aut quam in partem aut quo consilio ducerentur sibi quaerendum aut cogitandum putarent. 2 Ariovistum se consule cupidissime populi Romani amicitiam adpetisse; cur hunc tam temere quisquam ab officio discessurum iudicaret? 3 Sibi quidem persuaderi cognitis suis poslulatis atque aequitate condicionum perspecta eum neque suam neque populi Romani gratiam epudiaturum. 4 Quod si furore atque amentia impulsum bellum intulisset, quid tandem vererentur? Aut cur de sua virtute aut de ipsius diligentia desperarent? 5 Factum eius hostis periculum patrum nostrorum emoria Cimbris et Teutonis a C. Mario pulsis [cum non minorem laudem exercitus quam ipse imperator meritus videbatur]; factum etiam nuper in Italia servili tumultu, quos tamen aliquid usus ac disciplina, quam a nobis accepissent, sublevarint. 6 Ex quo iudicari posse quantum haberet in se boni constantia, propterea quod quos aliquam diu inermes sine causa timuissent hos postea armatos ac victores superassent. 7 Denique hos esse eosdem Germanos quibuscum saepe numero Helvetii congressi non solum in suis sed etiam in illorum finibus plerumque superarint, qui tamen pares esse nostro exercitui non potuerint. 8 Si quos adversum proelium et fuga Gallorum commoveret, hos, si quaererent, reperire posse diuturnitate belli defatigatis Gallis Ariovistum, cum multos menses castris se ac paludibus tenuisset neque sui potestatem fecisset, desperantes iam de pugna et dispersos subito adortum magis ratione et consilio quam virtute vicisse. 9 Cui rationi contra homines barbaros atque imperitos locus fuisset, hac ne ipsum quidem sperare nostros exercitus capi posse. 10 Qui suum timorem in rei frumentariae simulationem angustiasque itineris conferrent, facere arroganter, cum aut de officio imperatoris desperare aut praescribere viderentur. 11 Haec sibi esse curae; frumentum Sequanos, Leucos, Lingones subministrare, iamque esse in agris frumenta matura; de itinere ipsos brevi tempore iudicaturos. 12 Quod non fore dicto audientes neque signa laturi dicantur, nihil se ea re commoveri: scire enim, quibuscumque exercitus dicto audiens non fuerit, aut male re gesta fortunam defuisse aut aliquo facinore comperto avaritiam esse convictam. 13 Suam innocentiam perpetua vita, felicitatem Helvetiorum bello esse perspectam. 14 Itaque se quod in longiorem diem conlaturus fuisset repraesentaturum et proxima nocte de quarta, vigilia castra moturum, ut quam primum intellegere posset utrum apud eos pudor atque officium an timor plus valeret. 15 Quod si praeterea nemo sequatur, tamen se cum sola decima legione iturum, de qua non dubitet, sibique eam praetoriam cohortem futuram. Huic legioni Caesar et indulserat praecipue et propter virtutem confidebat maxime.

41 Hac oratione habita mirum in modum conversae sunt omnium mentes summaque alacritas et cupiditas belli gerendi innata est, 2 princepsque X. legio per tribunos militum ei gratias egit quod de se optimum iudicium fecisset, seque esse ad bellum gerendum paratissimam confirmavit. 3 Deinde reliquae legiones cum tribunis militum et primorum ordinum centurionibus egerunt uti Caesari satis facerent: se neque umquam dubitasse neque timuisse neque de summa belli suum iudicium sed imperatoris esse existimavisse. 4 Eorum satisfactione accepta et itinere exquisito per Diviciacum, quod ex Gallis ei maximam fidem habebat, ut milium amplius quinquaginta circuitu locis apertis exercitum duceret, de quarta vigilia, ut dixerat, profectus est. 5 Septimo die, cum iter non intermitteret, ab exploratoribus certior factus est Ariovisti copias a nostris milia passuum IIII et XX abesse.

42 Cognito Caesaris adventu Ariovistus legatos ad eum mittit: quod antea de conloquio postulasset, id per se fieri licere, quoniam propius accessisset seque id sine periculo facere posse existimaret. 2 Non respuit condicionem Caesar iamque eum ad sanitatem reverti arbitrabatur, cum id quod antea petenti denegasset ultro polliceretur, 3 magnamque in spem veniebat pro suis tantis populique Romani in eum beneficiis cognitis suis postulatis fore uti pertinacia desisteret. 4 Dies conloquio dictus est ex eo die quintus. 5 Interim saepe cum legati ultro citroque inter eos mitterentur, Ariovistus postulavit ne quem peditem ad conloquium Caesar adduceret: vereri se ne per insidias ab eo circumveniretur; uterque cum equitatu veniret: alia ratione sese non esse venturum. 6 Caesar, quod neque conloquium interposita causa tolli volebat neque salutem suam Gallorum equitatui committere audebat, commodissimum esse statuit omnibus equis Gallis equitibus detractis eo legionarios milites legionis X., cui quam maxime confidebat, imponere, ut praesidium quam amicissimum, si quid opus facto esset, haberet. 7 Quod cum fieret, non inridicule quidam ex militibus X. legionis dixit: plus quam pollicitus esset Caesarem facere; pollicitum se in cohortis praetoriae loco X. legionem habiturum ad equum rescribere.

43 Planities erat magna et in ea tumulus terrenus satis grandis. Hic locus aequum fere spatium a castris Ariovisti et Caesaris aberat. Eo, ut erat dictum, ad conloquium venerunt. 2 Legionem Caesar, quam equis devexerat, passibus CC ab eo tumulo constituit. Item equites Ariovisti pari intervallo constiterunt. 3 Ariovistus ex equis ut conloquerentur et praeter se denos ad conloquium adducerent postulavit. 4 Ubi eo ventum est, Caesar initio orationis sua senatusque in eum beneficia commemoravit, quod rex appellatus esset a senatu, quod amicus, quod munera amplissime missa; quam rem et paucis contigisse et pro magnis hominum officiis consuesse tribui docebat; 5 illum, cum neque aditum neque causam postulandi iustam haberet, beneficio ac liberalitate sua ac senatus ea praemia consecutum. 6 Docebat etiam quam veteres quamque iustae causae necessitudinis ipsis cum Haeduis intercederent, 7 quae senatus consulta quotiens quamque honorifica in eos facta essent, ut omni tempore totius Galliae principatum Haedui tenuissent, prius etiam quam nostram amicitiam adpetissent. 8 Populi Romani hanc esse consuetudinem, ut socios atque amicos non modo sui nihil deperdere, sed gratia, dignitate, honore auctiores velit esse; quod vero ad amicitiam populi Romani attulissent, id iis eripi quis pati posset? 9 Postulavit deinde eadem quae legatis in mandatis dederat: ne aut Haeduis aut eorum sociis bellum inferret, obsides redderet, si nullam partem Germanorum domum remittere posset, at ne quos amplius Rhenum transire pateretur.

44 Ariovistus ad postulata Caesaris pauca respondit, de suis virtutibus multa praedicavit: 2 transisse Rhenum sese non sua sponte, sed rogatum et arcessitum a Gallis; non sine magna spe magnisque praemiis domum propinquosque reliquisse; sedes habere in Gallia ab ipsis concessas, obsides ipsorum voluntate datos; stipendium capere iure belli, quod victores victis imponere consuerint. 3 Non sese Gallis sed Gallos sibi bellum intulisse: omnes Galliae civitates ad se oppugnandum venisse ac contra se castra habuisse; eas omnes copias a se uno proelio pulsas ac superatas esse. 4 Si iterum experiri velint, se iterum paratum esse decertare; si pace uti velint, iniquum esse de stipendio recusare, quod sua voluntate ad id tempus pependerint. 5 Amicitiam populi Romani sibi ornamento et praesidio, non detrimento esse oportere, atque se hac spe petisse. Si per populum Romanum stipendium remittatur et dediticii subtrahantur, non minus libenter sese recusaturum populi Romani amicitiam quam adpetierit. 6 Quod multitudinem Germanorum in Galliam traducat, id se sui muniendi, non Galliae oppugnandae causa facere; eius rei testimonium esse quod nisi rogatus non venerit et quod bellum non intulerit sed defenderit. 7 Se prius in Galliam venisse quam populum Romanum. Numquam ante hoc tempus exercitum populi Romani Galliae provinciae finibus egressum. 8 Quid sibi vellet? Cur in suas possessiones veniret? Provinciam suam hanc esse Galliam, sicut illam nostram. Ut ipsi concedi non oporteret, si in nostros fines impetum faceret, sic item nos esse iniquos, quod in suo iure se interpellaremus. 9 Quod fratres a senatu Haeduos appellatos diceret, non se tam barbarum neque tam imperitum esse rerum ut non sciret neque bello Allobrogum proximo Haeduos Romanis auxilium tulisse neque ipsos in iis contentionibus quas Haedui secum et cum Sequanis habuissent auxilio populi Romani usos esse. 10 Debere se suspicari simulata Caesarem amicitia, quod exercitum in Gallia habeat, sui opprimendi causa habere. 11 Qui nisi decedat atque exercitum deducat ex his regionibus, sese illum non pro amico sed pro hoste habiturum. 12 Quod si eum interfecerit, multis sese nobilibus principibusque populi Romani gratum esse facturum (id se ab ipsis per eorum nuntios compertum habere), quorum omnium gratiam atque amicitiam eius morte redimere posset. 13 Quod si decessisset et liberam possessionem Galliae sibi tradidisset, magno se illum praemio remuneraturum et quaecumque bella geri vellet sine ullo eius labore et periculo confecturum.

Multa a Caesare in eam sententiam dicta sunt quare negotio desistere non posset: neque suam neque populi Romani consuetudinem pati ut optime meritos socios desereret, neque se iudicare Galliam potius esse Ariovisti quam populi Romani. 14 Bello superatos esse Arvernos et Rutenos a Q. Fabio Maximo, quibus populus Romanus ignovisset neque in provinciam redegisset neque stipendium posuisset. 15 Quod si antiquissimum quodque tempus spectari oporteret, populi Romani iustissimum esse in Gallia imperium; si iudicium senatus observari oporteret, liberam debere esse Galliam, quam bello victam suis legibus uti voluisset.

45 Dum haec in conloquio geruntur, Caesari nuntiatum est equites Ariovisti propius tumulum accedere et ad nostros adequitare, lapides telaque in nostros coicere. 2 Caesar loquendi finem fecit seque ad suos recepit suisque imperavit ne quod omnino telum in hostes reicerent. 3 Nam etsi sine ullo periculo legionis delectae cum equitatu proelium fore videbat, tamen committendum non putabat ut, pulsis hostibus, dici posset eos ab se per fidem in conloquio circumventos. 4 Postea quam in vulgus militum elatum est qua arrogantia in conloquio Ariovistus usus omni Gallia Romanis interdixisset, impetumque in nostros eius equites fecissent, eaque res conloquium ut diremisset, multo maior alacritas studiumque pugnandi maius exercitui iniectum est.

46 Biduo post Ariovistus ad Caesarem legatos misit: velle se de iis rebus quae inter eos egi coeptae neque perfectae essent agere cum eo: uti aut iterum conloquio diem constitueret aut, si id minus vellet, ex suis legatis aliquem ad se mitteret. 2 Conloquendi Caesari causa visa non est, et eo magis quod pridie eius diei Germani retineri non potuerant quin tela in nostros coicerent. 3 Legatum ex suis sese magno cum periculo ad eum missurum et hominibus feris obiecturum existimabat. 4 Commodissimum visum est C. Valerium Procillum, C. Valerii Caburi filium, summa virtute et humanitate adulescentem, cuius pater a C. Valerio Flacco civitate donatus erat, et propter fidem et propter linguae Gallicae scientiam, qua multa iam Ariovistus longinqua consuetudine utebatur, et quod in eo peccandi Germanis causa non esset, ad eum mittere, et una M. Metium, qui hospitio Ariovisti utebatur. 5 His mandavit quae diceret Ariovistus cognogcerent et ad se referrent. Quos cum apud se in castris Ariovistus conspexisset, exercitu suo praesente conclamavit: quid ad se venirent? an speculandi causa? Conantes dicere prohibuit et in catenas coniecit.

47 Eodem die castra promovit et milibus passuum VI a Caesaris castris sub monte consedit. 2 Postridie eius diei praeter castra Caesaris suas copias traduxit et milibus passuum duobus ultra eum castra fecit eo consilio uti frumento commeatuque qui ex Sequanis et Haeduis supportaretur Caesarem intercluderet. 3 Ex eo die dies continuos V Caesar pro castris suas copias produxit et aciem instructam habuit, ut, si vellet Ariovistus proelio contendere, ei potestas non deesset. 4 Ariovistus his omnibus diebus exercitum castris continuit, equestri proelio cotidie contendit. Genus hoc erat pugnae, quo se Germani exercuerant: 5 equitum milia erant VI, totidem numero pedites velocissimi ac fortissimi, quos ex omni copia singuli singulos suae salutis causa delegerant: 6 cum his in proeliis versabantur, ad eos se equites recipiebant; hi, si quid erat durius, concurrebant, si qui graviore vulnere accepto equo deciderat, circumsistebant; 7 si quo erat longius prodeundum aut celerius recipiendum, tanta erat horum exercitatione celeritas ut iubis sublevati equorum cursum adaequarent.

48 Ubi eum castris se tenere Caesar intellexit, ne diutius commeatu prohiberetur, ultra eum locum, quo in loco Germani consederant, circiter passus DC ab his, castris idoneum locum delegit acieque triplici instructa ad eum locum venit. 2 Primam et secundam aciem in armis esse, tertiam castra munire iussit. 3 [Hic locus ab hoste circiter passus DC, uti dictum est, aberat.] Eo circiter hominum XVI milia expedita cum omni equitatu Ariovistus misit, quae copiae nostros terrerent et munitione prohiberent. 4 Nihilo setius Caesar, ut ante constituerat, duas acies hostem propulsare, tertiam opus perficere iussit. Munitis castris duas ibi legiones reliquit et partem auxiliorum, quattuor reliquas legiones in castra maiora reduxit.

49 Proximo die instituto suo Caesar ex castris utrisque copias suas eduxit paulumque a maioribus castris progressus aciem instruxit hostibusque pugnandi potestatem fecit. 2 Ubi ne tum quidem eos prodire intellexit, circiter meridiem exercitum in castra reduxit. Tum demum Ariovistus partem suarum copiarum, quae castra minora oppugnaret, misit. Acriter utrimque usque ad vesperum pugnatum est. Solis occasu suas copias Ariovistus multis et inlatis et acceptis vulneribus in castra reduxit. 3 Cum ex captivis quaereret Caesar quam ob rem Ariovistus proelio non decertaret, hanc reperiebat causam, quod apud Germanos ea consuetudo esset ut matres familiae eorum sortibus et vaticinationibus declararent utrum proelium committi ex usu esset necne; eas ita dicere: 4 non esse fas Germanos superare, si ante novam lunam proelio contendissent.

50 Postridie eius diei Caesar praesidio utrisque castris quod satis esse visum est reliquit, alarios omnes in conspectu hostium pro castris minoribus constituit, quod minus multitudine militum legionariorum pro hostium numero valebat, ut ad speciem alariis uteretur; ipse triplici instructa acie usque ad castra hostium accessit. 2 Tum demum necessario Germani suas copias castris eduxerunt generatimque constituerunt paribus intervallis, Harudes, Marcomanos, Tribocos, Vangiones, Nemetes, Sedusios, Suebos, omnemque aciem suam raedis et carris circumdederunt, ne qua spes in fuga relinqueretur. 3 Eo mulieres imposuerunt, quae ad proelium proficiscentes milites passis manibus flentes implorabant ne se in servitutem Romanis traderent.

51 Caesar singulis legionibus singulos legatos et quaestorem praefecit, uti eos testes suae quisque virtutis haberet; 2 ipse a dextro cornu, quod eam partem minime firmam hostium esse animadverterat, proelium commisit. 3 Ita nostri acriter in hostes signo dato impetum fecerunt itaque hostes repente celeriterque procurrerunt, ut spatium pila in hostes coiciendi non daretur. 4 Relictis pilis comminus gladiis pugnatum est. At Germani celeriter ex consuetudine sua phalange facta impetus gladiorum exceperunt. 5 Reperti sunt complures nostri qui in phalanga insilirent et scuta manibus revellerent et desuper vulnerarent. 6 Cum hostium acies a sinistro cornu pulsa atque in fugam coniecta esset, a dextro cornu vehementer multitudine suorum nostram aciem premebant. 7 Id cum animadvertisset P. Crassus adulescens, qui equitatui praeerat, quod expeditior erat quam ii qui inter aciem versabantur, tertiam aciem laborantibus nostris subsidio misit.

52 Ita proelium restitutum est, atque omnes hostes terga verterunt nec prius fugere destiterunt quam ad flumen Rhenum milia passuum ex eo loco circiter L pervenerunt. 2 Ibi perpauci aut viribus confisi tranare contenderunt aut lintribus inventis sibi salutem reppererunt. 3 In his fuit Ariovistus, qui naviculam deligatam ad ripam nactus ea profugit; reliquos omnes consecuti equites nostri interfecerunt. 4 Duae fuerunt Ariovisti uxores, una Sueba natione, quam domo secum eduxerat, altera Norica, regis Voccionis soror, quam in Gallia duxerat a fratre missam: utraque in ea fuga periit; duae filiae: harum altera occisa, altera capta est. 5 C. Valerius Procillus, cum a custodibus in fuga trinis catenis vinctus traheretur, in ipsum Caesarem hostes equitatu insequentem incidit. 6 Quae quidem res Caesari non minorem quam ipsa victoria voluptatem attulit, quod hominem honestissimum provinciae Galliae, suum familiarem et hospitem, ereptum ex manibus hostium sibi restitutum videbat neque eius calamitate de tanta voluptate et gratulatione quicquam fortuna deminuerat. 7 Is se praesente de se ter sortibus consultum dicebat, utrum igni statim necaretur an in aliud tempus reservaretur: sortium beneficio se esse incolumem. 8 Item M. Metius repertus et ad eum reductus est.

53 Hoc proelio trans Rhenum nuntiato, Suebi, qui ad ripas Rheni venerant, domum reverti coeperunt; quos ubi qui proximi Rhenum incolunt perterritos senserunt, insecuti magnum ex iis numerum occiderunt. 2 Caesar una aestate duobus maximis bellis confectis maturius paulo quam tempus anni postulabat in hiberna in Sequanos exercitum deduxit; hibernis Labienum praeposuit; 3 ipse in citeriorem Galliam ad conventus agendos profectus est.

---------- Post added at 03:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:36 PM ----------

Discuss your thoughts on Caesar's adventure.
Additionally, was it wise for the Helvetians to depart even though Orgetorix's conspiracy had already been unveiled? Why would they continue their plan for migration even though they had been manipulated?

The bar which been risen has yet to be bettered.

Filibuster time?! :)

Additionally, was it wise for the Helvetians to depart even though Orgetorix's conspiracy had already been unveiled? Why would they continue their plan for migration even though they had been manipulated?

Because they're dumb assholes, that's why.

I don't know what the Helvetians' problem is.

This place continues to amuse me every day

The Helvetian's don't have a problem any more. The fuckers are all dead.

Indeed! A question for today's young minds is: if the Helvetians were still around today, would they still be dumb assholes?
Maybe they were reincarnated into the French.

Or French eBay sellers…

What A Surpise Another Thread Turned Into Pointless Shit.

Man, would you look at these low Quality Shitposts...

What A Surpise Another Thread Turned Into Pointless Shit.

We at ACME CO. would like to inform you that as the 12th poster in the Blizzard - Mark McKenzie (Limited Edition Intrada CD Sealed) thread you have been selected as the winning entrant in the ACME CO. Surplus Clearinghouse Sweepstakes.

Just click this link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ) to claim your prize.

Man, would you look at these low Quality Shitposts...



Thank god RayMan is here again to point out how superior he is to everyone having fun

---------- Post added at 02:23 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:22 PM ----------


What A Surpise Another Thread Turned Into Pointless Shit.

Mr. Gold, this is a thread made by some guy spamming the forums with advertisements for his ebay auctions. It was pointless shit when it was made. You should join the fun.

We at ACME CO. would like to inform you that as the 12th poster in the Blizzard - Mark McKenzie (Limited Edition Intrada CD Sealed) thread you have been selected as the winning entrant in the ACME CO. Surplus Clearinghouse Sweepstakes.

Just click this link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ) to claim your prize.

:laugh:

---------- Post added at 03:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:24 PM ----------


Mr. Gold, this is a thread made by some guy spamming the forums with advertisements for his ebay auctions. It was pointless shit when it was made. You should join the fun.

Was about to post a reply of almost exact point. It looks as though you've got it covered. Carry on.

I am sorry for not considering copy pasting a Wikipedia Article the absolute pinnacle of Humour.

No no, I'm not currently criticizing you for the fact that you have no sense of humor, right now I'm criticizing you for being a douchebag.

Get in Line.

No I'm good here, it's the internet so we really don't need a line.

The Safeword is "Blueberry Cupcake"

This is not fun its more pointless shit. But whatever you think you are funny that is all that matters to you.


As for me i would rather rip my eyes out. Cook them with my left ear and eat them.

Holy Shit, Rumpel turns absolutely savage :laugh:

Yes. Sick of the shit. Take it or leave it. I could not give a shit anymore.

This is not fun its more pointless shit. But whatever you think you are funny that is all that matters to you.


As for me i would rather rip my eyes out. Cook them with my left ear and eat them.

Manta rays are large rays belonging to the genus Manta. The larger species, M. birostris, reaches 7 m (23 ft 0 in) in width while the smaller, M. alfredi, reaches 5.5 m (18 ft 1 in). Both have triangular pectoral fins, horn-shaped cephalic fins and large, forward-facing mouths. They are classified among the Elasmobranchii (sharks and rays) and are placed in the family Myliobatidae (eagle rays).

Mantas are found in temperate, subtropical and tropical waters. Both species are pelagic; M. birostris migrates across open oceans, singly or in groups, while M. alfredi tends to be resident and coastal. They are filter feeders and eat large quantities of zooplankton, which they swallow with their open mouths as they swim. Gestation lasts over a year, producing live pups. Mantas may visit cleaning stations for the removal of parasites. Like whales, they breach, for unknown reasons.

Both species are listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Anthropogenic threats include pollution, entanglement in fishing nets, and direct harvesting for their gill rakers for use in Chinese medicine. Their slow reproductive rate exacerbates these threats. They are protected in international waters by the Convention on Migratory Species of Wild Animals, but are more vulnerable closer to shore. Areas where mantas congregate are popular with tourists. Only a few aquariums are large enough to house them. In general, these large fish are seldom seen and difficult to study.

Contents

1 Taxonomy and etymology
1.1 Fossil record
2 Biology
2.1 Appearance and anatomy
2.2 Lifecycle
2.3 Behavior and ecology
3 Distribution and habitat
4 Conservation issues
4.1 Threats
4.2 Status
5 Relation to humans
5.1 Aquariums
5.2 Tourism
6 See also
7 References
8 External links

Taxonomy and etymology







Hexatrygon






Plesiobatis






Urobatis






Pteroplatytrygon






Potamotrygon




Elipesurus





Dasyatis








Gymnura




Aetoplatea







Myliobatis








Aetobatus




Aetomylaeus







Rhinoptera






Mobula




Manta











Phylogeny of stingrays (Myliobatiformes)[2]

The name "manta" is Portuguese and Spanish for mantle (cloak or blanket), a type of blanket-shaped trap traditionally used to catch rays.[3] Mantas are known as "devilfish" because of their horn-shaped cephalic fins, which are imagined to give them an "evil" appearance.[4]

Manta rays are members of Chondrichthyes, fish with tough cartilage rather than bone in their skeletons.[5] Mantas are among the Elasmobranchii (sharks and rays), in the superorder Batoidea (rays and skates) and the order Myliobatiformes (stingrays and relatives).[2] The genus Manta is part of the eagle ray family Myliobatidae, where it is grouped in the subfamily Mobulinae along with the devil rays.[6]

Mantas evolved from bottom-dwelling stingrays, eventually developing more wing-like pectoral fins.[7] M. birostris still has a vestigial remnant of a sting barb in the form of a caudal spine.[8] The mouths of most rays lie on the underside of the head, while in mantas they are right at the front.[9] Manta rays and devil rays are the only ray species that have evolved into filter feeders.[2]

The scientific naming of mantas has had a convoluted history, during which several names were used for both the genus (Ceratoptera, Brachioptilon Daemomanta and Diabolicthys) and species (such as vampyrus, americana, johnii and hamiltoni). All were eventually treated as synonyms of the single species Manta birostris.[10][11][12] The genus name Manta was first published in 1829 by Dr Edward Nathaniel Bancroft of Jamaica.[10] The specific name birostris is ascribed to Johann Julius Walbaum (1792) by some authorities and to Johann August Donndorff (1798) by others.[12] The name alfredi was first used by Australian zoologist Gerard Krefft, who named the manta after Prince Alfred.[11][13]
Ventral view
Manta alfredi with mouth closed, cephalic fins rolled and ventral surface showing distinctive markings

Authorities were still not in agreement and some argued that the black color morph was a different species from the mostly white morph. This proposal was discounted by a 2001 study of the mitochondrial DNA of both.[14] A 2009 study analyzed the differences in morphology, including color, meristic variation, spine, dermal denticles (tooth-like scales) and teeth of different populations. Two distinct species emerged: the smaller M. alfredi found in the Indo-Pacific and tropical east Atlantic, and the larger M. birostris found throughout tropical, subtropical and warm temperate oceans.[8] The former is more coastal[15] while the latter is more ocean-going and migratory.[16]

A third possible species, preliminarily called Manta sp. cf. birostris, reaches at least 6 m (20 ft) in width, and inhabits the tropical west Atlantic, including the Caribbean. It and M. birostris occur in sympatry.[8] A 2010 study on mantas around Japan confirmed the morphological and genetic differences between M. birostris and M. alfredi.[17]
Fossil record

While some small teeth have been found, few fossilized skeletons of manta rays have been discovered. Their cartilaginous skeletons do not preserve well as they lack the calcification of the bony fish. Only three sedimentary beds bearing manta ray fossils are known, one from the Oligocene in South Carolina and two from the Miocene and Pliocene in North Carolina.[1] Remains of an extinct species have been found in the Chandler Bridge Formation of South Carolina. These were originally described as Manta fragilis but were later reclassified as Paramobula fragilis.[18]
Biology
Appearance and anatomy
Side view of M. birostris

Manta rays have broad heads, triangular pectoral fins, and horn-shaped cephalic fins located on either side of their mouths.[11] They have horizontally flattened bodies with eyes on the sides of their heads behind the cephalic fins, and gill slits on their ventral surfaces.[11][19] Their tails lack skeletal support and are shorter than their disc-like bodies.[19] The dorsal fins are small and at the base of the tail. The largest mantas can reach 1,350 kg (2,980 lb).[11] In both species the width is approximately 2.2 times the length of the body; M. birostris reaches at least 7 m (23 ft) in width while M. alfredi reaches about 5.5 m (18 ft).[20] Dorsally, mantas are typically black or dark in color with pale markings on their "shoulders". Ventrally, they are usually white or pale with distinctive dark markings by which individual mantas can be recognized.[8] All-black color morphs are known to exist.[19] The skin is covered in mucus which protects it from infection.[21]:2
M.alfredi with cephalic fins rolled up (Yap, Micronesia)

The two species of manta differ in color patterns, dermal denticles, and dentition. M. birostris has more angular shoulder markings, larger ventral dark spots on the abdominal region, charcoal-colored ventral outlines on the pectoral fins and a dark colored mouth. The shoulder markings of M. alfredi are more rounded, while its ventral spots are located near the posterior end and between the gill slits, and the mouth is white or pale colored. The denticles have multiple cusps and overlap in M. birostris, while those of M. alfredi are evenly spaced and lack cusps. Both species have small square shaped teeth on the lower jaw but M. birostris also has enlarged teeth on the upper jaw. Unlike M. alfredi, M. birostris has a caudal spine near its dorsal fin.[8]

Mantas move through the water by the wing-like movements of their pectoral fins, which drive water backwards. Their large mouths are rectangular, and face forward as opposed to other ray and skate species with downward-facing mouths. The spiracles typical of rays are vestigial, and mantas must swim continuously to keep oxygenated water passing over their gills.[21]:2�3 The cephalic fins are usually spiralled, but flatten during foraging. The fish's gill arches have pallets of pinkish-brown spongy tissue that collect food particles.[11] Mantas track down prey using visual and olfactory senses.[22] They have one of the highest brain-to-body mass ratios of all fish.[23] Their brains have retia mirabilia which may serve to keep them warm.[24] M. alfredi has been shown to dive to depths of over 400 m,[25] while their relative Mobula tarapacana, which has a similar structure, dives to nearly 2000 m;[26] the retia mirabilia probably serve to prevent their brains from being chilled during such dives into colder subsurface waters.[27]
Lifecycle
Manta alfredi group in the Maldives

Mating takes place at different times of the year in different parts of the manta's range. Courtship is difficult to observe in this fast-swimming fish, although mating "trains" with multiple individuals swimming closely behind each other are sometimes seen in shallow water. The mating sequence may be triggered by a full moon and seems to be initiated by a male following closely behind a female while she travels at around 10 km (6.2 mi) per hour. He makes repeated efforts to grasp her pectoral fin with his mouth, which may take twenty or thirty minutes. Once he has a tight grip, he turns upside-down and presses his ventral side against hers. He then inserts one of his claspers into her cloaca where they remain for sixty to ninety seconds.[28] The clasper forms a tube which channels sperm from the genital papilla; a siphon propels the seminal fluid into the oviduct.[29] The male continues to grip the female's pectoral fin with his teeth for a further few minutes as both continue to swim, often followed by up to twenty other males. The pair then part.[28] For some reason the male almost always grasps the left pectoral fin, and females often have scars that illustrate this.[21]:8�9

The fertilized eggs develop within the female's oviduct. At first they are enclosed in an egg case while the developing embryos absorb the yolk. After hatching, the pups remain in the oviduct and receive additional nutrition from milky secretions.[30] With no umbilical cord or placenta, the unborn pup relies on buccal pumping to obtain oxygen.[31] Brood size is usually one or occasionally two. The gestation period is thought to be twelve to thirteen months. When fully developed, the pup resembles a miniature adult and is expelled from the oviduct with no further parental care. In wild populations, an interval of two years between births may be normal, but a few individuals become pregnant in consecutive years, demonstrating an annual ovulatory cycle.[30] The Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium has had some success in breeding M. alfredi, with one female giving birth in three successive years. In one of these pregnancies, the gestation period was 372 days and at birth the pup had a width of 192 cm (76 in) and weight of 70 kg (150 lb).[32] In southern Africa M. birostris males mature at 4 m (13 ft) while females reach maturity slightly over that.[33]:57 In Indonesia, M. birostris males appear to mature at 3.75 m (12 ft) while female mature at around 4 m (13 ft).[34] In southern Africa M. alfredi matures at widths of 3 m (10 ft) for males and 3.9 m (13 ft) for females.[33]:42 In the Maldives, male M. alfredi mature at a width of 2.5 m (8 ft 2 in) while females mature at 3 m (9.8 ft).[15] In Hawaii, M. alfredi mature at a width of 2.8 m (9 ft 2 in) for males and 3.4 m (11 ft) for females.[35] Female mantas appear to mature at 8�10 years.[15][16] Manta rays may live for as long as 50 years.[20]
Behavior and ecology
Manta foraging
Manta alfredi foraging with mouth opened wide and cephalic fins spread

Swimming behavior in mantas differs across habitats: when travelling over deep water, they swim at a constant rate in a straight line, while further inshore they usually bask or swim idly around. Mantas may travel alone or in groups of up to 50. They may associate with other fish species as well as sea birds and marine mammals.[19] Mantas sometimes breach, leaping partially or entirely out of the water. Individuals in a group may make aerial jumps one after the other.[11] These leaps come in three forms: forward leaps where the fish lands head first, similar jumps with a tail first re-entry or somersaults.[11] The reason for breaching is not known; possible explanations include mating rituals, birthing, communication, or the removal of parasites and commensal remoras (suckerfish).[21]:15
Manta alfredi at a coral reef cleaning station with fish picking off parasites

As filter feeders, manta rays consume large quantities of zooplankton in the form of shrimp, krill and planktonic crabs. An individual manta eats about 13% of its body weight each week. When foraging, it slowly swims around its prey, herding it into a tight "ball" and then speeds through the bunched organisms with a wide-open mouth.[19] If a ball is particularly dense, a manta may somersault through it.[21]:13 While feeding, mantas flatten their cephalic fins to channel food into their mouths and the small particles are collected by the tissue between the gill arches.[11] As many as fifty individual fish may gather at a single, plankton-rich feeding site.[11] Mantas are themselves preyed upon by large sharks and by killer whales. They may also be bitten by cookiecutter sharks,[21]:17 and harbor parasitic copepods.[21]:14

Mantas visit cleaning stations on coral reefs for the removal of external parasites. The ray adopts a near-stationary position close to the coral surface for several minutes while the cleaner fish consume the attached organisms. Such visits most frequently occur when the tide is high.[36] In Hawaii, wrasses provide the cleaning; some species feed around the manta's mouth and gill slits while others address the rest of the body surface.[21] In Mozambique, sergeant major fish clean the mouth while butterflyfishes concentrate on bite wounds.[33]:160 M. alfredi visits cleaning stations more often than M. birostris.[33]:233 Individual mantas may revisit the same cleaning station or feeding area repeatedly[37] and appear to have cognitive maps of their environment.[22]
Distribution and habitat

Mantas are found in tropical and subtropical waters in all the world's major oceans and also venture into temperate seas. The furthest from the equator they have been recorded is North Carolina in the United States (31�N) to the north, and the North Island of New Zealand (36�S) to the south. They prefer water temperatures above 68 �F (20 �C)[19] and M. alfredi is predominantly found in tropical areas.[8] Both species are pelagic. M. birostris lives mostly in the open ocean, travelling with the currents and migrating to areas where upwellings of nutrient-rich water increase prey concentrations.[38]

Fish that have been fitted with radio transmitters have travelled as far as 1,000 km (620 mi) from where they were caught and descended to depths of at least 1,000 m (3,300 ft).[39] M. alfredi is a more resident and coastal species. Seasonal migrations do occur, but they are shorter than those of M. birostris.[15] Mantas are common around coasts from spring to fall, but travel further offshore during the winter. They keep close to the surface and in shallow water in daytime, while at night they swim at greater depths.[19]
Conservation issues
Threats
Frontal picture of M. birostris while filter feeding

The greatest threat to manta rays is overfishing. M. birostris is not evenly distributed over the oceans, but is concentrated in areas that provide the food resources it requires, while M. alfredi is even more localized. Their distributions are thus fragmented, with little evidence of intermingling of subpopulations. Because of their long lifespans and low reproductive rate, overfishing can severely reduce local populations with little likelihood that individuals from elsewhere will replace them.[16]

Both commercial and artisanal fisheries have targeted mantas for their meat and products. They are typically caught with nets, trawls and harpoons.[16] Mantas were once captured by fisheries in California and Australia for their liver oil and skin; the latter were used as abrasives.[11] Their flesh is edible and is consumed in some countries, but is unattractive compared to other fish.[40] Demand for their gill rakers, the cartilaginous structures protecting the gills, has recently entered Chinese medicine.[41] To fill the growing demand in Asia for gill rakers, targeted fisheries have developed in Philippines, Indonesia, Mozambique, Madagascar, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Brazil and Tanzania.[40] Each year, thousands of manta rays, primarily M. birostris, are caught and killed purely for their gill rakers. A fisheries study in Sri Lanka and India estimated that over 1000 were being sold in the country's fish markets each year.[42] By comparison, M. birostris populations at most of the key aggregation sites around the world are estimated to have significantly fewer than 1000 individuals.[43] Targeted fisheries for manta rays in the Gulf of California, the west coast of Mexico, India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and the Philippines have reduced populations in these areas dramatically.[16]

Manta rays are subject to other anthropogenic threats. Because mantas must swim constantly to flush oxygen-rich water over their gills, they are vulnerable to entanglement and subsequent suffocation. Mantas cannot swim backwards and, because of their protruding cephalic fins, are prone to entanglement in fishing lines, nets, and even loose mooring lines. When snared, mantas often attempt to free themselves by somersaulting, tangling themselves further. Loose, trailing line can wrap around and cut its way into its flesh, resulting in irreversible injury. Similarly, mantas become entangled in gill nets designed for smaller fish.[44] Some mantas are injured by collision with boats, especially in areas where they congregate and are easily observed. Other threats or factors that may affect manta numbers are climate change, tourism, pollution from oil spills, and the ingestion of microplastics.[16]
Status
Manta birostris at Hin Daeng, near Phi Phi Islands, Thailand

In 2011, mantas became strictly protected in international waters because of their inclusion in the Convention on Migratory Species of Wild Animals. The CMS is an international treaty organization concerned with conserving migratory species and habitats on a global scale. Although individual nations were already protecting manta rays, the fish often migrate through unregulated waters, putting them at increased risk from overfishing.[45] The IUCN declared M. birostris to be 'Vulnerable with an elevated risk of extinction' in November 2011.[46]

In the same year, M. alfredi was also classified as 'Vulnerable' with local populations of fewer than 1000 individuals and little or no interchange between subpopulations.[15] The Manta Trust is a UK-based charity dedicated to research and conservation efforts for manta rays. The organization's website is also an information resource for manta conservation and biology.[47]

Besides these international initiatives, some countries are taking their own actions. New Zealand has banned the taking of manta rays since the introduction of the Wildlife Act in 1953. In June 1995, the Maldives banned the export of all ray species and their body parts, effectively putting a stop to manta fishing as there had not previously been a fishery for local consumption. The government reinforced this in 2009 with the introduction of two marine protected areas. In the Philippines, the taking of mantas was banned in 1998, but this was overturned in 1999 under pressure from local fishermen. Fish stocks were surveyed in 2002, and the ban was reintroduced. The taking or killing of mantas in Mexican waters was prohibited in 2007. This ban may not be strictly enforced, but laws are being more rigidly applied at Isla Holbox, an island off the Yucat�n Peninsula, where manta rays are used to attract tourists.

In 2009, Hawaii became the first of the United States to introduce a ban on the killing or capturing of manta rays. Previously, there was no fishery for mantas in the state, but migratory fish that pass the islands are now protected. In 2010, Ecuador introduced a law prohibiting all fishing for manta and other rays, their retention as bycatch, and their sale.[16]
Relation to humans
Photo of manta-shaped ceramic vessel with painting of another on its surface
Ceramic manta ray made by Moche people, 200 AD. Larco Museum Lima, Peru

The ancient Peruvian Moche people worshipped the sea and its animals. Their art often depicts manta rays.[48] Historically, mantas were feared for their size and power. Sailors believed that they ate fish and could sink boats by pulling on the anchors. This attitude changed around 1978 when divers around the Gulf of California found them to be placid and that they could interact with the animals. Several divers photographed themselves with mantas, including Jaws author Peter Benchley.[49]
Aquariums
Manta alfredi at Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium

Due to their size, it is rare for mantas to be kept in captivity and few aquariums currently display them. One notable individual is "Nandi", a manta ray which was accidentally caught in shark nets off Durban, South Africa, in 2007. Rehabilitated and outgrowing her aquarium at uShaka Marine World, Nandi was moved to the larger Georgia Aquarium in August 2008, where she resides in its 23,848-m3 (6,300,000-US gal) "Ocean Voyager" exhibit.[50] A second manta ray joined that aquarium's collection in September 2009,[51] and a third was added in 2010.[52]

The Atlantis resort on Paradise Island, Bahamas, hosted a manta named "Zeus" which was used as a research subject for three years until it was released in 2008.[53] The Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium also houses manta rays in the "Kuroshio Sea" tank, one of the largest aquarium tanks in the world. The first manta ray birth in captivity took place there in 2007. Although this pup did not survive, the aquarium has since seen the birth of three more manta rays in 2008, 2009, and 2010.[54]
Tourism
Manta and scuba diver
Manta alfredi and scuba diver

Sites at which manta rays congregate attract tourists, and manta viewing generates substantial annual revenue for local communities.[21]:19 Tourist sites exist in the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands, Spain, the Fiji Islands, Thailand, Indonesia, Hawaii, Western Australia[55] and the Maldives.[56] Mantas are popular because of their enormous size and because they are easily habituated to humans. Scuba divers may get a chance to watch mantas visiting cleaning stations and night dives enable viewers to see mantas feeding on plankton attracted by the lights.[57]
File:MVI 0941.webmPlay media
Manta alfredi during a dive at Hawaii

Ray tourism benefits locals and visitors by raising awareness of natural resource management and educating them about the animals.[55] It can also provide funds for research and conservation.[56] Constant unregulated interactions with tourists can negatively affect the fish by disrupting ecological relationships and increasing disease transmission.[55] At Bora Bora, an excessive number of swimmers, boaters and jet skiers caused the local manta ray population to abandon the area.[21]:19

In 2014, Indonesia has brought in a fishing and export ban as it has realized that manta ray tourism is more economically beneficial than allowing the fish to be killed. A dead manta is worth $40 to $500 while manta ray tourism can bring in $1 million during the life of a single manta ray. Indonesia has 2.2 million square miles of ocean and this is now the world's largest sanctuary for manta rays.[58]
See also

List of threatened rays
Manta Matcher - The Wildbook for Manta Rays

References

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Thorrold, S. R.; Afonso, P.; Fontes, J.; Braun, C. D.; Santos, R. S.; Skomal, G. B.; Berumen, M. L. (2014-07-01). "Extreme diving behaviour in devil rays links surface waters and the deep ocean". Nature Communications. 5 (4274): 4274. Bibcode:2014NatCo...5E4274T. doi:10.1038/ncomms5274.
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Deakos, M. (2010). "Paired-laser photogrammetry as a simple and accurate system for measuring the body size of free-ranging manta rays Manta alfredi". Aquatic Biology. 10: 1�10. doi:10.3354/ab00258.
Jaine, Fabrice R. A.; Couturier, Lydie I. E.; Weeks, Scarla J.; Townsend, Kathy A.; Bennett, Michael B.; Fiora, Kym; Richardson, Anthony J. (2012). Sakamoto, Kentaro Q, ed. "When giants turn up: sighting trends, environmental influences and habitat use of the manta ray Manta alfredi at a coral reef". PLoS ONE. 7 (10): e46170. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0046170. PMC 3463571free to read. PMID 23056255. open access publication - free to read
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Yep. You are an idiot.

Yep. You are an idiot.

Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (/ˈvɪtɡənˌstaɪn/;[6] German: [ˈvɪtgənˌʃtaɪn]; 26 April 1889 � 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language.[7] From 1929 to 1947, Wittgenstein taught at the University of Cambridge.[8] During his lifetime he published just one slim book, the 75-page Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921), one article, one book review and a children's dictionary.[9] His voluminous manuscripts were edited and published posthumously. Philosophical Investigations appeared as a book in 1953, and has since come to be recognised as one of the most important works of philosophy in the twentieth century.[10] His teacher Bertrand Russell described Wittgenstein as "the most perfect example I have ever known of genius as traditionally conceived; passionate, profound, intense, and dominating."[11]

Born in Vienna into one of Europe's richest families, he inherited a large fortune from his father in 1913. He gave some considerable sums to poor artists. In a period of severe personal depression after the First World War, he then gave away his entire fortune to his brothers and sisters.[12][13] Three of his brothers committed suicide, with Wittgenstein contemplating it too.[14] He left academia several times�serving as an officer on the front line during World War I, where he was decorated a number of times for his courage; teaching in schools in remote Austrian villages where he encountered controversy for hitting children when they made mistakes in mathematics; and working as a hospital porter during World War II in London where he told patients not to take the drugs they were prescribed while largely managing to keep secret the fact that he was one of the world's most famous philosophers.[15] He described philosophy as "the only work that gives me real satisfaction."[16]

His philosophy is often divided into an early period, exemplified by the Tractatus, and a later period, articulated in the Philosophical Investigations. The early Wittgenstein was concerned with the logical relationship between propositions and the world and believed that by providing an account of the logic underlying this relationship, he had solved all philosophical problems. The later Wittgenstein rejected many of the assumptions of the Tractatus, arguing that the meaning of words is best understood as their use within a given language-game.[17]

Contents

1 Background
1.1 The Wittgensteins
1.2 Early life
1.3 Family temperament and the brothers' suicides
2 1903�1906: Realschule in Linz
2.1 Realschule in Linz
2.2 Faith
2.3 Influence of Otto Weininger
2.4 Jewish background and Hitler
3 1906�1913: University
3.1 Engineering at Berlin and Manchester
3.2 Arrival at Cambridge
3.3 Cambridge Moral Sciences Club and Apostles
3.4 Sexual orientation and relationship with David Pinsent
4 1913�1920: World War I and the Tractatus
4.1 Work on Logik
4.2 Military service
4.3 Completion of the Tractatus
5 1920�1928: Teaching, the Tractatus, Haus Wittgenstein
5.1 Teacher training in Vienna
5.2 Teaching posts in Austria
5.3 Publication of the Tractatus
5.4 Visit from Frank Ramsey, Puchberg
5.5 Haidbauer incident, Otterthal
5.6 The Vienna Circle
5.7 Haus Wittgenstein
6 1929�1941: Fellowship at Cambridge
6.1 PhD and fellowship
6.2 Anschluss
6.3 Professor of philosophy
6.4 World War II and Guy's Hospital
7 1947�1951: Final years
7.1 Death
8 1953: Publication of the Philosophical Investigations
9 Legacy
9.1 Interpreters
10 Cultural references
11 Works
12 See also
13 Notes
14 References
15 Further reading
16 External links

Background
The Wittgensteins
Further information: Karl Wittgenstein
Karl Wittgenstein was one of the richest men in Europe.[18]

According to a family tree prepared in Jerusalem after World War II, Wittgenstein's paternal great-grandfather was Moses Meier, a Jewish land agent who lived with his wife, Brendel Simon, in Bad Laasphe in the Principality of Wittgenstein, Westphalia.[19] In July 1808, Napoleon issued a decree that everyone, including Jews, must adopt an inheritable family surname, and so Meier's son, also Moses, took the name of his employers, the Sayn-Wittgensteins, and became Moses Meier Wittgenstein.[20] His son, Hermann Christian Wittgenstein�who took the middle name "Christian" to distance himself from his Jewish background�married Fanny Figdor, also Jewish, who converted to Protestantism just before they married, and the couple founded a successful business trading in wool in Leipzig.[21] Ludwig's grandmother Fanny was a first cousin of the famous violinist Joseph Joachim.[22]

They had 11 children�among them Wittgenstein's father. Karl Otto Clemens Wittgenstein (1847�1913) became an industrial tycoon, and by the late 1880s was one of the richest men in Europe, with an effective monopoly on Austria's steel cartel.[18][23] Thanks to Karl, the Wittgensteins became the second wealthiest family in Austria-Hungary, behind only the Rothschilds.[23] As a result of his decision in 1898 to invest substantially in the Netherlands and in Switzerland as well as overseas, particularly in the US, the family was to an extent shielded from the hyperinflation that hit Austria in 1922.[24] However, their wealth diminished due to post-1918 hyperinflation and subsequently during the Great Depression, although even as late as 1938 they owned 13 mansions in Vienna alone.[25]
Early life
See also: Paul Wittgenstein
Ludwig's sister Margaret, painted by Gustav Klimt for her wedding portrait in 1905

Wittgenstein's mother was Leopoldine Maria Josefa Kalmus, known among friends as Poldi. Her father was a Bohemian Jew and her mother was Austrian-Slovene Catholic�she was Wittgenstein's maternal grandmother and only non-Jewish grandparent, whose ancestry was Austrian, and so by Jewish law Wittgenstein was not Jewish.[26][27][28][29] She was an aunt of the Nobel Prize laureate Friedrich Hayek on her maternal side. Wittgenstein was born at 8:30 pm on 26 April 1889 in the so-called "Wittgenstein Palace" at Alleegasse 16, now the Argentinierstrasse, near the Karlskirche.[30] Karl and Poldi had nine children in all. There were four girls: Hermine, Margaret (Gretl), Helene, and a fourth daughter Dora who died as a baby; and five boys: Johannes (Hans), Kurt, Rudolf (Rudi), Paul�who became a concert pianist despite losing an arm in World War I�and Ludwig, who was the youngest of the family.[31]

The children were baptized as Catholics, received formal Catholic instruction, and raised in an exceptionally intense environment.[32] The family was at the center of Vienna's cultural life; Bruno Walter described the life at the Wittgensteins' palace as an "all-pervading atmosphere of humanity and culture."[33] Karl was a leading patron of the arts, commissioning works by Auguste Rodin and financing the city's exhibition hall and art gallery, the Secession Building. Gustav Klimt painted Wittgenstein's sister for her wedding portrait, and Johannes Brahms and Gustav Mahler gave regular concerts in the family's numerous music rooms.[33][34]

For Wittgenstein, who highly valued precision and discipline, contemporary music was never considered acceptable at all. "Music," he said to his friend Drury in 1930, "came to a full stop with Brahms; and even in Brahms I can begin to hear the noise of machinery."[35] Wittgenstein himself had absolute pitch,[36] and his devotion to music remained vitally important to him throughout his life: he made frequent use of musical examples and metaphors in his philosophical writings, and was unusually adept at whistling lengthy and detailed musical passages.[37] He also learnt to play the clarinet in his thirties.[38] A fragment of music (three bars), composed by Wittgenstein, was discovered in one of his 1931 notebooks, by Michael Nedo, Director of the Wittgenstein Institute in Cambridge.[39]
Family temperament and the brothers' suicides
From left, Helene, Rudi, Hermine, Ludwig (the baby), Gretl, Paul, Hans, and Kurt, around 1890

Ray Monk writes that Karl's aim was to turn his sons into captains of industry; they were not sent to school lest they acquire bad habits, but were educated at home to prepare them for work in Karl's industrial empire.[40] Three of the five brothers would later commit suicide.[41] Psychiatrist Michael Fitzgerald argues that Karl was a harsh perfectionist who lacked empathy, and that Wittgenstein's mother was anxious and insecure, unable to stand up to her husband.[42] Johannes Brahms said of the family, whom he visited regularly: "They seemed to act towards one another as if they were at court."[23] The family appeared to have a strong streak of depression running through it. Anthony Gottlieb tells a story about Paul practicing on one of the pianos in the Wittgensteins' main family mansion, when he suddenly shouted at Ludwig in the next room: "I cannot play when you are in the house, as I feel your scepticism seeping towards me from under the door!"[43]
Ludwig (bottom-right), Paul, and their sisters, late 1890s

The family Palais housed seven grand pianos[44] and each of the siblings pursued music "with an enthusiasm that, at times, bordered on the pathological."[45] The eldest brother, Hans, was hailed as a musical prodigy. At the age of four, writes Alexander Waugh, Hans could identify the Doppler effect in a passing siren as a quarter-tone drop in pitch, and at five started crying "Wrong! Wrong!" when two brass bands in a carnival played the same tune in different keys. But he died in mysterious circumstances in May 1902, when he ran away to America and disappeared from a boat in Chesapeake Bay, most likely having committed suicide.[46]

Two years later, aged 22 and studying chemistry at the Berlin Academy, the third eldest brother, Rudi, committed suicide in a Berlin bar. He had asked the pianist to play Thomas Koschat's "Verlassen, verlassen, verlassen bin ich" ("Forsaken, forsaken, forsaken am I"),[47] before mixing himself a drink of milk and potassium cyanide. He had left several suicide notes, one to his parents that said he was grieving over the death of a friend, and another that referred to his "perverted disposition". It was reported at the time that he had sought advice from the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee, an organization that was campaigning against Paragraph 175 of the German Criminal Code, which prohibited homosexual sex. His father forbade the family from ever mentioning his name again.[48]
� I won't say 'See you tomorrow' because that would be like predicting the future, and I'm pretty sure I can't do that. �
� Wittgenstein, 1949[49]

The second eldest brother, Kurt, an officer and company director, shot himself on 27 October 1918 at the end of World War I, when the Austrian troops he was commanding refused to obey his orders and deserted en masse.[40] According to Gottlieb, Hermine had said Kurt seemed to carry "...the germ of disgust for life within himself."[50] Later Wittgenstein wrote: "I ought to have... become a star in the sky. Instead of which I have remained stuck on earth."[51]
1903�1906: Realschule in Linz
Realschule in Linz
The Realschule in Linz

Wittgenstein was taught by private tutors at home until he was fourteen years old. Subsequently, for three years, he attended a school. After the deaths of Hans and Rudi, Karl relented, and allowed Paul and Ludwig to be sent to school. Waugh writes that it was too late for Wittgenstein to pass his exams for the more academic Gymnasium in Wiener Neustadt; having had no formal schooling, he failed his entrance exam and only barely managed after extra tutoring to pass the exam for the more technically oriented k.u.k. Realschule in Linz, a small state school with 300 pupils.[52] In 1903, when he was 14, he began his three years of formal schooling there, lodging nearby in term time with the family of Dr. Josef Strigl, a teacher at the local gymnasium, the family giving him the nickname Luki.[53][54]

On starting at the Realschule, Wittgenstein had been moved forward a year.[55] Historian Brigitte Hamann writes that he stood out from the other boys: he spoke an unusually pure form of High German with a stutter, dressed elegantly, and was sensitive and unsociable.[56] Monk writes that the other boys made fun of him, singing after him: "Wittgenstein wandelt wehm�tig widriger Winde wegen Wienw�rts"[38] ("Wittgenstein strolls wistfully Vienna-wards due to adverse winds"). In his leaving certificate, he received a top mark (5) in religious studies; a 2 for conduct and English, 3 for French, geography, history, mathematics and physics, and 4 for German, chemistry, geometry and freehand drawing.[53] He had particular difficulty with spelling and failed his written German exam because of it. He wrote in 1931: "My bad spelling in youth, up to the age of about 18 or 19, is connected with the whole of the rest of my character (my weakness in study)."[53]
Faith

Wittgenstein was baptized as an infant by a Catholic priest and received formal instruction in Catholic doctrine as a child.[32] It was while he was at the Realschule that he decided he had lost his faith in God.[57] He nevertheless believed in the importance of the idea of confession. He wrote in his diaries about having made a major confession to his oldest sister, Hermine, while he was at the Realschule; Monk writes that it may have been about his loss of faith. He also discussed it with Gretl, his other sister, who directed him to Arthur Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Representation.[57] As a teenager, Wittgenstein adopted Schopenhauer's epistemological idealism. However, after his study of the philosophy of mathematics, he abandoned epistemological idealism for Gottlob Frege's conceptual realism.[58] In later years, Wittgenstein was highly dismissive of Schopenhauer, describing him as an ultimately "shallow" thinker: "Schopenhauer has quite a crude mind ... where real depth starts, his comes to an end."[59]

Wittgenstein's faith would undergo developmental transformations over time, much like his philosophical ideas; his relationship with Christianity and religion, in general, for which he professed a sincere and devoted reverence, would eventually flourish. Undoubtedly, amongst other Christian thinkers, Wittgenstein was influenced by St. Augustine, with whom he would occasionally converse in his Philosophical Investigations. Philosophically, Wittgenstein's thought shows fundamental alignment with religious discourse.[60] For example, Wittgenstein would become one of the century's fiercest critics of Scientism.[61]

With age, his deepening Christianity led to many religious elucidations and clarifications, as he untangled language problems in religion, attacking, for example, the temptation to think of God's existence as a matter of scientific evidence.[62] In 1947, finding it more difficult to work, he wrote, "I have had a letter from an old friend in Austria, a priest. In it he says that he hopes my work will go well, if it should be God's will. Now that is all I want: if it should be God's will."[63] In Wittgenstein's Culture and Value, it is found, "Is what I am doing [my work in philosophy] really worth the effort? Yes, but only if a light shines on it from above." His close friend Norman Malcolm would write, "Wittgenstein�s mature life was strongly marked by religious thought and feeling. I am inclined to think that he was more deeply religious than are many people who correctly regard themselves as religious believers."[64] At last, Wittgenstein writes, "Bach wrote on the title page of his Orgelbuechlein, �To the glory of the most high God, and that my neighbour may be benefited thereby.� That is what I would have liked to say about my work."[63]
Influence of Otto Weininger
Austrian philosopher Otto Weininger (1880�1903)

While a student at the Realschule, Wittgenstein was influenced by Austrian philosopher Otto Weininger's 1903 book Geschlecht und Charakter (Sex and Character). Weininger (1880�1903), who was also Jewish, argued that the concepts male and female exist only as Platonic forms, and that Jews tend to embody the platonic femininity. Whereas men are basically rational, women operate only at the level of their emotions and sexual organs. Jews, Weininger argued, are similar, saturated with femininity, with no sense of right and wrong, and no soul. Weininger argues that man must choose between his masculine and feminine sides, consciousness and unconsciousness, Platonic love and sexuality. Love and sexual desire stand in contradiction, and love between a woman and a man is therefore doomed to misery or immorality. The only life worth living is the spiritual one�to live as a woman or a Jew means one has no right to live at all; the choice is genius or death. Weininger committed suicide, shooting himself in 1903, shortly after publishing the book.[65] Many years later, as a professor at Cambridge, Wittgenstein distributed copies of Weininger's book to his bemused academic colleagues. He said that Weininger's arguments were wrong, but that it was the way they were wrong that was interesting.[66]
Jewish background and Hitler
Further information: History of the Jews in Austria

There is much debate about the extent to which Wittgenstein and his siblings, who were of 3/4 Jewish descent, saw themselves as Jews. The issue has arisen in particular regarding Wittgenstein's schooldays, because Adolf Hitler was at the same school for part of the same time.[67] Laurence Goldstein argues it is "overwhelmingly probable" the boys met each other: that Hitler would have disliked Wittgenstein, a "stammering, precocious, precious, aristocratic upstart ..."[68] Other commentators have dismissed as irresponsible and uninformed any suggestion that Wittgenstein's wealth and unusual personality may have fed Hitler's antisemitism, in part because there is no indication that Hitler would have seen Wittgenstein as Jewish.[69]

Wittgenstein and Hitler were born just six days apart, though Hitler had been held back a year, while Wittgenstein was moved forward by one, so they ended up two grades apart at the Realschule.[70] Monk estimates they were both at the school during the 1904�1905 school year, but says there is no evidence they had anything to do with each other.[71] Several commentators have argued that a school photograph of Hitler may show Wittgenstein in the lower left corner,[72] but Hamann says the photograph stems from 1900 or 1901, before Wittgenstein's time.[73]

In his own writings[74] Wittgenstein frequently referred to himself as Jewish, at times as part of an apparent self-flagellation. For example, while berating himself for being a "reproductive" as opposed to "productive" thinker, he attributed this to his own Jewish sense of identity, writing: "The saint is the only Jewish genius. Even the greatest Jewish thinker is no more than talented. (Myself for instance)."[75] While Wittgenstein would later claim that "[m]y thoughts are 100% Hebraic,"[76] as Hans Sluga has argued, if so, "His was a self-doubting Judaism, which had always the possibility of collapsing into a destructive self-hatred (as it did in Weininger's case) but which also held an immense promise of innovation and genius."[77]
1906�1913: University
Engineering at Berlin and Manchester
The old Technische Hochschule in Charlottenburg, Berlin

He began his studies in mechanical engineering at the Technische Hochschule in Charlottenburg, Berlin, on 23 October 1906, lodging with the family of professor Dr. Jolles. He attended for three semesters, and was awarded a diploma (Abgangzeugnis) on 5 May 1908. During his time at the Institute, Wittgenstein developed an interest in aeronautics.[78] He arrived at the Victoria University of Manchester in the spring of 1908 to do his doctorate, full of plans for aeronautical projects, including designing and flying his own plane. He conducted research into the behavior of kites in the upper atmosphere, experimenting at a meteorological observation site near Glossop.[79] He also worked on the design of a propeller with small jet engines on the end of its blades, something he patented in 1911, and which earned him a research studentship from the university in the autumn of 1908.[80]
Wittgenstein stayed at the Grouse Inn in 1908 while engaged in research near Glossop.[79]

It was at this time that he became interested in the foundations of mathematics, particularly after reading Bertrand Russell's The Principles of Mathematics (1903), and Gottlob Frege's The Foundations of Arithmetic, vol. 1 (1893) and vol. 2 (1903).[81] Wittgenstein's sister Hermine said he became obsessed with mathematics as a result, and was anyway losing interest in aeronautics.[80] He decided instead that he needed to study logic and the foundations of mathematics, describing himself as in a "constant, indescribable, almost pathological state of agitation."[80] In the summer of 1911 he visited Frege at the University of Jena to show him some philosophy of mathematics and logic he had written, and to ask whether it was worth pursuing.[82] He wrote: "I was shown into Frege's study. Frege was a small, neat man with a pointed beard who bounced around the room as he talked. He absolutely wiped the floor with me, and I felt very depressed; but at the end he said 'You must come again', so I cheered up. I had several discussions with him after that. Frege would never talk about anything but logic and mathematics, if I started on some other subject, he would say something polite and then plunge back into logic and mathematics."[83]
Arrival at Cambridge
The Wren Library, Trinity College, Cambridge

Wittgenstein wanted to study with Frege, but Frege suggested he attend the University of Cambridge to study under Russell, so on 18 October 1911 Wittgenstein arrived unannounced at Russell's rooms in Trinity College.[84] Russell was having tea with C. K. Ogden, when, according to Russell, "an unknown German appeared, speaking very little English but refusing to speak German. He turned out to be a man who had learned engineering at Charlottenburg, but during this course had acquired, by himself, a passion for the philosophy of mathematics & has now come to Cambridge on purpose to hear me."[82] He was soon not only attending Russell's lectures, but dominating them. The lectures were poorly attended and Russell often found himself lecturing only to C. D. Broad, E. H. Neville, and H. T. J. Norton.[82] Wittgenstein started following him after lectures back to his rooms to discuss more philosophy, until it was time for the evening meal in Hall. Russell grew irritated; he wrote to his lover Lady Ottoline Morrell: "My German friend threatens to be an infliction."[85]

Russell soon came to believe that Wittgenstein was a genius, especially after he had examined Wittgenstein's written work. He wrote in November 1911 that he had at first thought Wittgenstein might be a crank, but soon decided he was a genius: "Some of his early views made the decision difficult. He maintained, for example, at one time that all existential propositions are meaningless. This was in a lecture room, and I invited him to consider the proposition: 'There is no hippopotamus in this room at present.' When he refused to believe this, I looked under all the desks without finding one; but he remained unconvinced."[85] Three months after Wittgenstein's arrival Russell told Morrell: "I love him & feel he will solve the problems I am too old to solve ... He is the young man one hopes for."[86] The role-reversal between him and Wittgenstein was such that he wrote in 1916, after Wittgenstein had criticized his own work: "His criticism, 'tho I don't think he realized it at the time, was an event of first-rate importance in my life, and affected everything I have done since. I saw that he was right, and I saw that I could not hope ever again to do fundamental work in philosophy."[87]
Cambridge Moral Sciences Club and Apostles
Bertrand Russell, in 1907

In 1912 Wittgenstein joined the Cambridge Moral Sciences Club, an influential discussion group for philosophy dons and students, delivering his first paper there on 29 November that year, a four-minute talk defining philosophy as "all those primitive propositions which are assumed as true without proof by the various sciences."[88] He dominated the society and stopped attending entirely in the early 1930s after complaints that he gave no one else a chance to speak.[89]

The club became infamous within popular philosophy because of a meeting on 25 October 1946 at Richard Braithwaite's rooms in King's, where Karl Popper, another Viennese philosopher, had been invited as the guest speaker. Popper's paper was Are there philosophical problems?, in which he struck up a position against Wittgenstein's, contending that problems in philosophy are real, not just linguistic puzzles as Wittgenstein argued. Accounts vary as to what happened next, but Wittgenstein apparently started waving a hot poker, demanding that Popper give him an example of a moral rule. Popper offered one�"Not to threaten visiting speakers with pokers"�at which point Russell told Wittgenstein he had misunderstood and Wittgenstein left. Popper maintained that Wittgenstein 'stormed out', but it had become accepted practice for him to leave early (because of his aforementioned ability to dominate discussion). It was the only time the philosophers, three of the most eminent in the world, were ever in the same room together.[90] The minutes record that the meeting was "charged to an unusual degree with a spirit of controversy."[91]

John Maynard Keynes also invited him to join the Cambridge Apostles, an elite secret society formed in 1820, which both Russell and G. E. Moore had joined as students, but Wittgenstein did not enjoy it and attended infrequently. Russell had been worried that Wittgenstein would not appreciate the group's unseriousness, style of humour, or the fact that the members were in love with one another.[92] He was admitted in 1912 but resigned almost immediately because he could not tolerate the level of the discussion on the Hearth Rug; they took him back though in the 1920s when he returned to Cambridge. (He also had trouble tolerating the discussions in the Moral Sciences Club.)
Sexual orientation and relationship with David Pinsent

Wittgenstein had romantic relations with both men and women. He is generally believed to have fallen in love with at least three men: David Hume Pinsent in 1912, Francis Skinner in 1930, and Ben Richards in the late 1940s.[93] He later revealed that, as a teenager in Vienna, he had had an affair with a woman.[94] Additionally, in the 1920s Wittgenstein became infatuated with a young Swiss woman, Marguerite Respinger, modelling a sculpture of her and proposing marriage, albeit on condition that they did not have children.[95]

Wittgenstein's platonic relationship with David Pinsent (1891�1918) occurred during an intellectually formative period, and is well documented. Bertrand Russell introduced Wittgenstein to Pinsent in the summer of 1912. A mathematics undergraduate and descendant of David Hume, Pinsent soon became Wittgenstein's closest friend.[96] The men worked together on experiments in the psychology laboratory about the role of rhythm in the appreciation of music, and Wittgenstein delivered a paper on the subject to the British Psychological Association in Cambridge in 1912. They also travelled together, including to Iceland in September 1912�the expenses paid by Wittgenstein, including first class travel, the hiring of a private train, and new clothes and spending money for Pinsent�and later to Norway. Pinsent's diaries provide valuable insights into Wittgenstein's personality - sensitive, nervous and attuned to the tiniest slight or change in mood from Pinsent.[97] In his diaries Pinsent wrote about shopping for furniture with Wittgenstein in Cambridge when the latter was given rooms in Trinity; most of what they found in the stores was not minimalist enough for Wittgenstein's aesthetics: "I went and helped him interview a lot of furniture at various shops ... It was rather amusing: he is terribly fastidious and we led the shopman a frightful dance, Vittgenstein [sic] ejaculating "No�Beastly!" to 90 percent of what he shewed [archaic spelling] us!"[98]

He wrote in May 1912 that Wittgenstein had just begun to study the history of philosophy: "He expresses the most naive surprise that all the philosophers he once worshipped in ignorance are after all stupid and dishonest and make disgusting mistakes!"[98] The last time they saw each other was on 8 October 1913 at Lordswood House in Birmingham, then residence of the Pinsent family: "I got up at 6.15 to see Ludwig off. He had to go very early � back to Cambridge � as he has lots to do there. I saw him off from the house in a taxi at 7.0 � to catch a 7.30 am train from New St Station. It was sad parting from him."[99] Wittgenstein left to live in Norway.
1913�1920: World War I and the Tractatus
Work on Logik
Entries from October 1914 in Wittgenstein's diary, on display at the Wren Library, Trinity College, Cambridge

Karl Wittgenstein died on 20 January 1913, and after receiving his inheritance Wittgenstein became one of the wealthiest men in Europe.[100] He donated some of his money, at first anonymously, to Austrian artists and writers, including Rainer Maria Rilke and Georg Trakl. Wittgenstein came to feel that he could not get to the heart of his most fundamental questions while surrounded by other academics, and so in 1913 he retreated to the village of Skjolden in Norway, where he rented the second floor of a house for the winter. He later saw this as one of the most productive periods of his life, writing Logik (Notes on Logic), the predecessor of much of the Tractatus.[84] While in Norway, Wittgenstein learned Norwegian to converse with the local villagers, and Danish to read the works of the Danish philosopher S�ren Kierkegaard.[101]

At Wittgenstein's insistence, Moore, who was now a Cambridge don, visited him in Norway in 1914, reluctantly because Wittgenstein exhausted him. David Edmonds and John Eidinow write that Wittgenstein regarded Moore, an internationally-known philosopher, as an example of how far someone could get in life with "absolutely no intelligence whatever."[102] In Norway it was clear that Moore was expected to act as Wittgenstein's secretary, taking down his notes, with Wittgenstein falling into a rage when Moore got something wrong.[103] When he returned to Cambridge, Moore asked the university to consider accepting Logik as sufficient for a bachelor's degree, but they refused, saying it wasn't formatted properly: no footnotes, no preface. Wittgenstein was furious, writing to Moore in May 1914: "If I am not worth your making an exception for me even in some STUPID details then I may as well go to Hell directly; and if I am worth it and you don't do it then�by God�you might go there."[104] Moore was apparently distraught; he wrote in his diary that he felt sick and could not get the letter out of his head.[105] The two did not speak again until 1929.[103]
Military service
Austro-Hungarian supply line over the Vr�ič pass, on the Italian front, October 1917

On the outbreak of World War I, Wittgenstein immediately volunteered for the Austro-Hungarian Army, despite being eligible for a medical exemption.[106][107] He served first on a ship and then in an artillery workshop 'several miles from the action'.[108] He was wounded in an accidental explosion, and hospitalised to Krak�w.[109] In March 1916, he was posted to a fighting unit on the front line of the Russian front, as part of the Austrian 7th Army, where his unit was involved in some of the heaviest fighting, defending against the Brusilov Offensive.[110] Wittgenstein directed the fire of his own artillery from an observation post in no-man's land against Allied troops - one of the most dangerous jobs there was, since he was targeted by enemy snipers.[111] In action against British troops, he was decorated with the Military Merit with Swords on the Ribbon, and was commended by the army for "His exceptionally courageous behaviour, calmness, sang-froid, and heroism," that "won the total admiration of the troops."[112] In January 1917, he was sent as a member of a howitzer regiment to the Russian front, where he won several more medals for bravery including the Silver Medal for Valour, First Class.[110] In 1918, he was promoted to lieutenant and sent to the Italian front as part of an artillery regiment. For his part in the final Austrian offensive of June 1918, he was recommended for the Gold Medal for Valour, one of the highest honours in the Austrian army, but was instead awarded the Band of the Military Service Medal with Swords � it being decided that this particular action, although extraordinarily brave, had been insufficiently consequential to merit the highest honour.[113]

Throughout the war, he kept notebooks in which he frequently wrote philosophical reflections alongside personal remarks, including his contempt for the character of the other soldiers.[114] He discovered Leo Tolstoy's 1896 The Gospel in Brief at a bookshop in Tarn�w, and carried it everywhere, recommending it to anyone in distress, to the point where he became known to his fellow soldiers as "the man with the gospels."[115] In 1916 Wittgenstein read Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov so often that he knew whole passages of it by heart, particularly the speeches of the elder Zosima, who represented for him a powerful Christian ideal, a holy man "who could see directly into the souls of other people."[116] Iain King has suggested his writing changed substantially in 1916, when he started confronting much greater dangers.[117] Russell said he returned from the war a changed man, one with a deeply mystical and ascetic attitude.[118]
Completion of the Tractatus

In the summer of 1918 Wittgenstein took military leave and went to stay in one of his family's Vienna summer houses, Neuwaldegg. It was there in August 1918 that he completed the Tractatus, which he submitted with the title Der Satz (German: proposition, sentence, phrase, set, but also "leap") to the publishers Jahoda and Siegel.[119]

A series of events around this time left him deeply upset. On 13 August, his uncle Paul died. On 25 October, he learned that Jahoda and Siegel had decided not to publish the Tractatus, and on 27 October, his brother Kurt killed himself, the third of his brothers to commit suicide. It was around this time he received a letter from David Pinsent's mother to say that Pinsent had been killed in a plane crash on 8 May.[120] Wittgenstein was distraught to the point of being suicidal. He was sent back to the Italian front after his leave and, as a result of the defeat of the Austrian army, was captured by Allied forces on 3 November in Trentino. He subsequently spent nine months in an Italian prisoner of war camp.

He returned to his family in Vienna on 25 August 1919, by all accounts physically and mentally spent. He apparently talked incessantly about suicide, terrifying his sisters and brother Paul. He decided to do two things: to enroll in teacher training college as an elementary school teacher, and to get rid of his fortune. In 1914, it had been providing him with an income of 300,000 Kronen a year, but by 1919 was worth a great deal more, with a sizable portfolio of investments in the United States and the Netherlands. He divided it among his siblings, except for Margarete, insisting that it not be held in trust for him. His family saw him as ill, and acquiesced.[119]
1920�1928: Teaching, the Tractatus, Haus Wittgenstein
Teacher training in Vienna

In September 1919 he enrolled in the Lehrerbildungsanstalt (teacher training college) in the Kundmanngasse in Vienna. His sister Hermine said that Wittgenstein working as an elementary teacher was like using a precision instrument to open crates, but the family decided not to interfere.[121] Thomas Bernhard, more critically, wrote of this period in Wittgenstein's life: "the multi-millionaire as a village schoolmaster is surely a piece of perversity."[122]
Teaching posts in Austria

In the summer of 1920, Wittgenstein worked as a gardener for a monastery. At first he applied, under a false name, for a teaching post at Reichenau, was awarded the job, but he declined it when his identity was discovered. As a teacher, he wished to no longer be recognized as a member of the famous Wittgenstein family. In response, his brother Paul wrote:

"It is out of the question, really completely out of the question, that anybody bearing our name and whose elegant and gentle upbringing can be seen a thousand paces off, would not be identified as a member of our family... That one can neither simulate nor dissimulate anything including a refined education I need hardly tell you."[123]

In 1920, Wittgenstein was given his first job as a primary school teacher in Trattenbach, under his real name, in a remote village of a few hundred people. His first letters describe it as beautiful, but in October 1921, he wrote to Russell: "I am still at Trattenbach, surrounded, as ever, by odiousness and baseness. I know that human beings on the average are not worth much anywhere, but here they are much more good-for-nothing and irresponsible than elsewhere."[124] He was soon the object of gossip among the villagers, who found him eccentric at best. He did not get on well with the other teachers; when he found his lodgings too noisy, he made a bed for himself in the school kitchen. He was an enthusiastic teacher, offering late-night extra tuition to several of the students, something that did not endear him to the parents, though some of them came to adore him; his sister Hermine occasionally watched him teach and said the students "literally crawled over each other in their desire to be chosen for answers or demonstrations."[125]

To the less able, it seems that he became something of a tyrant. The first two hours of each day were devoted to mathematics, hours that Monk writes some of the pupils recalled years later with horror.[126] They reported that he caned the boys and boxed their ears, and also that he pulled the girls' hair;[127] This was not unusual at the time for boys, but for the villagers he went too far in doing it to the girls too; girls were not expected to understand algebra, much less have their ears boxed over it. The violence apart, Monk writes that he quickly became a village legend, shouting "Krautsalat!" ("coleslaw" - i.e. shredded cabbage) when the headmaster played the piano, and "Nonsense!" when a priest was answering children's questions.[128]
Publication of the Tractatus
� The whole modern conception of the world is founded on the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena.

Thus people today stop at the laws of nature, treating them as something inviolable, just as God and Fate were treated in past ages. And in fact both were right and both wrong; though the view of the ancients is clearer insofar as they have an acknowledged terminus, while the modern system tries to make it look as if everything were explained.
�
� Wittgenstein, Tractatus, 6.371-2

While Wittgenstein was living in isolation in rural Austria, the Tractatus was published to considerable interest, first in German in 1921 as Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung, part of Wilhelm Ostwald's journal Annalen der Naturphilosophie, though Wittgenstein was not happy with the result and called it a pirate edition. Russell had agreed to write an introduction to explain why it was important, because it was otherwise unlikely to have been published: it was difficult if not impossible to understand, and Wittgenstein was unknown in philosophy.[129] In a letter to Russell, Wittgenstein wrote "The main point is the theory of what can be expressed (gesagt) by prop[osition]s�i.e. by language�(and, which comes to the same thing, what can be thought) and what can not be expressed by pro[position]s, but only shown (gezeigt); which, I believe, is the cardinal problem of philosophy."[130] But Wittgenstein was not happy with Russell's help. He had lost faith in Russell, finding him glib and his philosophy mechanistic, and felt he had fundamentally misunderstood the Tractatus.[131]

An English translation was prepared in Cambridge by Frank Ramsey, a mathematics undergraduate at King's commissioned by C. K. Ogden. It was Moore who suggested Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus for the title, an allusion to Baruch Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. Initially there were difficulties in finding a publisher for the English edition too, because Wittgenstein was insisting it appear without Russell's introduction; Cambridge University Press turned it down for that reason. Finally in 1922 an agreement was reached with Wittgenstein that Kegan Paul would print a bilingual edition with Russell's introduction and the Ramsey-Ogden translation.[132] This is the translation that was approved by Wittgenstein, but it is problematic in a number of ways. Wittgenstein's English was poor at the time, and Ramsey was a teenager who had only recently learned German, so philosophers often prefer to use a 1961 translation by David Pears and Brian McGuinness.[133]

An aim of the Tractatus is to reveal the relationship between language and the world: what can be said about it, and what can only be shown. Wittgenstein argues that language has an underlying logical structure, a structure that provides the limits of what can be said meaningfully. The limits of language, for Wittgenstein, are the limits of philosophy. Much of philosophy involves attempts to say the unsayable: "What we can say at all can be said clearly," he argues. Anything beyond that�religion, ethics, aesthetics, the mystical�cannot be discussed. They are not in themselves nonsensical, but any statement about them must be.[134] He wrote in the preface: "The book will, therefore, draw a limit to thinking, or rather�not to thinking, but to the expression of thoughts; for, in order to draw a limit to thinking we should have to be able to think both sides of this limit (we should therefore have to be able to think what cannot be thought)."[135]

The book is 75 pages long�"As to the shortness of the book, I am awfully sorry for it ... If you were to squeeze me like a lemon you would get nothing more out of me," he told Ogden�and presents seven numbered propositions (1�7), with various sub-levels (1, 1.1, 1.11):[136]

Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist.

The world is everything that is the case.[137]

Was der Fall ist, die Tatsache, ist das Bestehen von Sachverhalten.

What is the case, the fact, is the existence of atomic facts.

Das logische Bild der Tatsachen ist der Gedanke.

The logical picture of the facts is the thought.

Der Gedanke ist der sinnvolle Satz.

The thought is the significant proposition.

Der Satz ist eine Wahrheitsfunktion der Elementars�tze.

Propositions are truth-functions of elementary propositions.

Die allgemeine Form der Wahrheitsfunktion ist: [ p � , ξ � , N ( ξ � ) ] {\displaystyle [{\bar {p}},{\bar {\xi }},N({\bar {\xi }})]} [\bar p,\bar\xi, N(\bar\xi)]. Dies ist die allgemeine Form des Satzes.

The general form of a truth-function is: [ p � , ξ � , N ( ξ � ) ] {\displaystyle [{\bar {p}},{\bar {\xi }},N({\bar {\xi }})]} [\bar p,\bar\xi, N(\bar\xi)]. This is the general form of proposition.

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, dar�ber mu� man schweigen.

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

Visit from Frank Ramsey, Puchberg
Frank P. Ramsey visited Wittgenstein in Puchberg am Schneeberg in September 1923.

In September 1922 he moved to a secondary school in a nearby village, Hassbach, but considered the people there just as bad�"These people are not human at all but loathsome worms," he wrote to a friend�and he left after a month. In November he began work at another primary school, this time in Puchberg in the Schneeberg mountains. There, he told Russell, the villagers were "one-quarter animal and three-quarters human."

Frank P. Ramsey visited him on 17 September 1923 to discuss the Tractatus; he had agreed to write a review of it for Mind.[138] He reported in a letter home that Wittgenstein was living frugally in one tiny whitewashed room that only had space for a bed, washstand, a small table, and one small hard chair. Ramsey shared an evening meal with him of coarse bread, butter, and cocoa. Wittgenstein's school hours were eight to twelve or one, and he had afternoons free.[139] After Ramsey returned to Cambridge a long campaign began among Wittgenstein's friends to persuade him to return to Cambridge and away from what they saw as a hostile environment for him. He was accepting no help even from his family.[138] Ramsey wrote to John Maynard Keynes:

"[Wittgenstein's family] are very rich and extremely anxious to give him money or do anything for him in any way, and he rejects all their advances; even Christmas presents or presents of invalid's food, when he is ill, he sends back. And this is not because they aren't on good terms but because he won't have any money he hasn't earned ... It is an awful pity."[138]

Haidbauer incident, Otterthal
Main article: Haidbauer incident

He moved schools again in September 1924, this time to Otterthal, near Trattenbach; the socialist headmaster, Josef Putre, was someone Wittgenstein had become friends with while at Trattenbach. While he was there, he wrote a 42-page pronunciation and spelling dictionary for the children, W�rterbuch f�r Volksschulen, published in Vienna in 1926 by H�lder-Pichler-Tempsky, the only book of his apart from the Tractatus that was published in his lifetime.[132] A first edition sold in 2005 for �75,000.[140]

An incident occurred in April 1926 and became known as Der Vorfall Haidbauer (the Haidbauer incident). Josef Haidbauer was an 11-year-old pupil whose father had died and whose mother worked as a local maid. He was a slow learner, and one day Wittgenstein hit him two or three times on the head, causing him to collapse. Wittgenstein carried him to the headmaster's office, then quickly left the school, bumping into a parent, Herr Piribauer, on the way out. Piribauer had been sent for by the children when they saw Haidbauer collapse; Wittgenstein had previously pulled Piribauer's daughter, Hermine, so hard by the ears that her ears had bled.[141] Piribauer said that when he met Wittgenstein in the hall that day: "I called him all the names under the sun. I told him he wasn't a teacher, he was an animal-trainer! And that I was going to fetch the police right away!"[141]

Piribauer tried to have Wittgenstein arrested, but the village's police station was empty, and when he tried again the next day he was told Wittgenstein had disappeared. On 28 April 1926, Wittgenstein handed in his resignation to Wilhelm Kundt, a local school inspector, who tried to persuade him to stay; however, Wittgenstein was adamant that his days as a schoolteacher were over.[141] Proceedings were initiated in May, and the judge ordered a psychiatric report; in August 1926 a letter to Wittgenstein from a friend, Ludwig H�nsel, indicates that hearings were ongoing, but nothing is known about the case after that. Alexander Waugh writes that Wittgenstein's family and their money may have had a hand in covering things up. Waugh writes that Haidbauer died shortly afterwards of haemophilia; Monk says he died when he was 14 of leukaemia.[142]

Ten years later, in 1936, as part of a series of "confessions" he engaged in that year, Wittgenstein appeared without warning at the village saying he wanted to confess personally and ask for pardon from the children he had hit. He visited at least four of the children, including Hermine Piribauer, who apparently replied only with a "Ja, ja," though other former students were more hospitable. Monk writes that the purpose of these confessions was not "to hurt his pride, as a form of punishment; it was to dismantle it�to remove a barrier, as it were, that stood in the way of honest and decent thought." Of the apologies, Wittgenstein wrote, "This brought me into more settled waters... and to greater seriousness."[143]
The Vienna Circle
See also: Vienna Circle

The Tractatus was now the subject of much debate amongst philosophers, and Wittgenstein was a figure of increasing international fame. In particular, a discussion group of philosophers, scientists and mathematicians, known as the Vienna Circle, had built up largely as a result of the inspiration they had been given by reading the Tractatus.[138] While it is commonly assumed that Wittgenstein was a part of the Vienna Circle, in reality, this was not actually the case. German philosopher Oswald Hanfling writes bluntly: "Wittgenstein was never a member of the Circle, though he was in Vienna during much of the time. Yet his influence on the Circle's thought was at least as important as that of any of its members."[144] From 1926, with the members of the Vienna Circle, Wittgenstein would take part in many discussions. However, during these discussions, it soon became evident that Wittgenstein held a different attitude towards philosophy than the members of the Circle whom his work had inspired. For example, during meetings of the Vienna Circle, he would express his disagreement with the group's misreading of his work by turning his back to them and reading poetry aloud.[145] In his autobiography, Rudolf Carnap describes Wittgenstein as the thinker who gave him the greatest inspiration. However, he also wrote that "there was a striking difference between Wittgenstein's attitude toward philosophical problems and that of Schlick and myself. Our attitude toward philosophical problems was not very different from that which scientists have toward their problems." As for Wittgenstein:

His point of view and his attitude toward people and problems, even theoretical problems, were much more similar to those of a creative artist than to those of a scientist; one might almost say, similar to those of a religious prophet or a seer... When finally, sometimes after a prolonged arduous effort, his answers came forth, his statement stood before us like a newly created piece of art or a divine revelation ... the impression he made on us was as if insight came to him as through divine inspiration, so that we could not help feeling that any sober rational comment or analysis of it would be a profanation.[146]

Haus Wittgenstein
Main article: Haus Wittgenstein
Wittgenstein worked on Haus Wittgenstein between 1926 and 1929.
� "I am not interested in erecting a building, but in [...] presenting to myself the foundations of all possible buildings." �
� Wittgenstein[147]

In 1926 Wittgenstein was again working as a gardener for a number of months, this time at the monastery of H�tteldorf, where he had also inquired about becoming a monk. His sister, Margaret, invited him to help with the design of her new townhouse in Vienna's Kundmanngasse. Wittgenstein, his friend Paul Engelmann, and a team of architects developed a spare modernist house. In particular, Wittgenstein focused on the windows, doors, and radiators, demanding that every detail be exactly as he specified. When the house was nearly finished Wittgenstein had an entire ceiling raised 30mm so that the room had the exact proportions he wanted. Monk writes that "This is not so marginal as it may at first appear, for it is precisely these details that lend what is otherwise a rather plain, even ugly house its distinctive beauty."[148]

It took him a year to design the door handles and another to design the radiators. Each window was covered by a metal screen that weighed 150 kg, moved by a pulley Wittgenstein designed. Bernhard Leitner, author of The Architecture of Ludwig Wittgenstein, said there is barely anything comparable in the history of interior design: "It is as ingenious as it is expensive. A metal curtain that could be lowered into the floor."[148]

The house was finished by December 1928 and the family gathered there at Christmas to celebrate its completion. Wittgenstein's sister Hermine wrote: "Even though I admired the house very much....It seemed indeed to be much more a dwelling for the gods."[147] Wittgenstein said "the house I built for Gretl is the product of a decidedly sensitive ear and good manners, and expression of great understanding... But primordial life, wild life striving to erupt into the open - that is lacking."[149] Monk comments that the same might be said of the technically excellent, but austere, terracotta sculpture Wittgenstein had modelled of Marguerite Respinger in 1926, and that, as Russell first noticed, this "wild life striving to be in the open" was precisely the substance of Wittgenstein's philosophical work.[149]
1929�1941: Fellowship at Cambridge
PhD and fellowship

At the urging of Ramsey and others, Wittgenstein returned to Cambridge in 1929. Keynes wrote in a letter to his wife: "Well, God has arrived. I met him on the 5.15 train."[150] Despite this fame, he could not initially work at Cambridge as he did not have a degree, so he applied as an advanced undergraduate. Russell noted that his previous residency was sufficient to fulfill eligibility requirements for a PhD, and urged him to offer the Tractatus as his thesis. It was examined in 1929 by Russell and Moore; at the end of the thesis defence, Wittgenstein clapped the two examiners on the shoulder and said, "Don't worry, I know you'll never understand it."[151] Moore wrote in the examiner's report: "I myself consider that this is a work of genius; but, even if I am completely mistaken and it is nothing of the sort, it is well above the standard required for the Ph.D. degree."[152] Wittgenstein was appointed as a lecturer and was made a fellow of Trinity College.
Anschluss
Further information: Anschluss, Nuremberg Laws, and Mischling Test

From 1936 to 1937, Wittgenstein lived again in Norway,[153] where he worked on the Philosophical Investigations. In the winter of 1936/7, he delivered a series of "confessions" to close friends, most of them about minor infractions like white lies, in an effort to cleanse himself. In 1938, he travelled to Ireland to visit Maurice O'Connor Drury, a friend who became a psychiatrist, and considered such training himself, with the intention of abandoning philosophy for it. The visit to Ireland was at the same time a response to the invitation of the then Irish Taoiseach, �amon de Valera, himself a mathematics teacher. De Valera hoped Wittgenstein's presence would contribute to an academy for advanced mathematics.

While he was in Ireland in March 1938, Germany annexed Austria in the Anschluss; the Viennese Wittgenstein was now a citizen of the enlarged Germany and a Jew under the 1935 Nuremberg racial laws, because three of his grandparents had been born as Jews. The Nuremberg Laws classified people as Jews (Volljuden) if they had three or four Jewish grandparents, and as mixed blood (Mischling) if they had one or two. It meant inter alia that the Wittgensteins were restricted in whom they could marry or have sex with, and where they could work.[154]

After the Anschluss, his brother Paul left almost immediately for England, and later the US. The Nazis discovered his relationship with Hilde Schania, a brewer's daughter with whom he had had two children but whom he had never married, though he did later. Because she was not Jewish, he was served with a summons for Rassenschande (racial defilement). He told no one he was leaving the country, except for Hilde who agreed to follow him. He left so suddenly and quietly that for a time people believed he was the fourth Wittgenstein brother to have committed suicide.[155]

Wittgenstein began to investigate acquiring British or Irish citizenship with the help of Keynes, and apparently had to confess to his friends in England that he had earlier misrepresented himself to them as having just one Jewish grandparent, when in fact he had three.[156]

A few days before the invasion of Poland, Hitler personally granted Mischling status to the Wittgenstein siblings. In 1939 there were 2,100 applications for this, and Hitler granted only 12.[157] Anthony Gottlieb writes that the pretext was that their paternal grandfather had been the bastard son of a German prince, which allowed the Reichsbank to claim the gold, foreign currency, and stocks held in Switzerland by a Wittgenstein trust. Gretl, an American citizen by marriage, started the negotiations over the racial status of their grandfather, and the family's large foreign currency reserves were used as a bargaining tool. Paul had escaped to Switzerland and then the US in July 1938, and disagreed with the negotiations, leading to a permanent split between the siblings. After the war, when Paul was performing in Vienna, he did not visit Hermine who was dying there, and he had no further contact with Ludwig or Gretl.[43]
Professor of philosophy

After G. E. Moore resigned the chair in philosophy in 1939, Wittgenstein was elected, and acquired British citizenship soon afterwards. In July 1939 he travelled to Vienna to assist Gretl and his other sisters, visiting Berlin for one day to meet an official of the Reichsbank. After this, he travelled to New York to persuade Paul, whose agreement was required, to back the scheme. The required Befreiung was granted in August 1939. The unknown amount signed over to the Nazis by the Wittgenstein family, a week or so before the outbreak of war, included amongst many other assets, 1700 kg of gold.[158] There is a report Wittgenstein visited Moscow a second time in 1939, travelling from Berlin, and again met the philosopher Sophia Janowskaya.[159]

Norman Malcolm, at the time a post-graduate research fellow at Cambridge, describes his first impressions of Wittgenstein in 1938:

"At a meeting of the Moral Science Club, after the paper for the evening was read and the discussion started, someone began to stammer a remark. He had extreme difficulty in expressing himself and his words were unintelligible to me. I whispered to my neighbour, 'Who's that?': he replied, 'Wittgenstein'. I was astonished because I had expected the famous author of the Tractatus to be an elderly man, whereas this man looked young � perhaps about 35. (His actual age was 49.) His face was lean and brown, his profile was aquiline and strikingly beautiful, his head was covered with a curly mass of brown hair. I observed the respectful attention that everyone in the room paid to him. After this unsuccessful beginning he did not speak for a time but was obviously struggling with his thoughts. His look was concentrated, he made striking gestures with his hands as if he was discoursing... Whether lecturing or conversing privately, Wittgenstein always spoke emphatically and with a distinctive intonation. He spoke excellent English, with the accent of an educated Englishman, although occasional Germanisms would appear in his constructions. His voice was resonant... His words came out, not fluently, but with great force. Anyone who heard him say anything knew that this was a singular person. His face was remarkably mobile and expressive when he talked. His eyes were deep and often fierce in their expression. His whole personality was commanding, even imperial."[160]

Describing Wittgenstein's lecture program, Malcolm continues:

"It is hardly correct to speak of these meetings as 'lectures', although this is what Wittgenstein called them. For one thing, he was carrying on original research in these meetings... Often the meetings consisted mainly of dialogue. Sometimes, however, when he was trying to draw a thought out of himself, he would prohibit, with a peremptory motion of the hand, any questions or remarks. There were frequent and prolonged periods of silence, with only an occasional mutter from Wittgenstein, and the stillest attention from the others. During these silences, Wittgenstein was extremely tense and active. His gaze was concentrated; his face was alive; his hands made arresting movements; his expression was stern. One knew that one was in the presence of extreme seriousness, absorption, and force of intellect... Wittgenstein was a frightening person at these classes."[161]

After work, the philosopher would often relax by watching Westerns, where he preferred to sit at the very front of the cinema, or reading detective stories especially the ones written by Norbert Davis.[162][163] Norman Malcolm wrote that Wittgenstein would rush to the cinema when class ended.[164]

By this time, Wittgenstein's view on the foundations of mathematics had changed considerably. In his early 20s, Wittgenstein had thought logic could provide a solid foundation, and he had even considered updating Russell and Whitehead's Principia Mathematica. Now he denied there were any mathematical facts to be discovered. He gave a series of lectures on mathematics, discussing this and other topics, documented in a book, with lectures by Wittgenstein and discussions between him and several students, including the young Alan Turing who described Wittgenstein as "a very peculiar man". The two had many discussions about the relationship between computational logic and everyday notions of truth.[165][166]
World War II and Guy's Hospital

Monk writes that Wittgenstein found it intolerable that a war was going on and he was teaching philosophy. He grew angry when any of his students wanted to become professional philosophers.[167]

In September 1941 he asked John Ryle, the brother of the philosopher Gilbert Ryle, if he could get a manual job at Guy's Hospital in London. John Ryle was professor of medicine at Cambridge and had been involved in helping Guy's prepare for the Blitz. Wittgenstein told Ryle he would die slowly if left at Cambridge, and he would rather die quickly. He started working at Guy's shortly afterwards as a dispensary porter, meaning that he delivered drugs from the pharmacy to the wards�where he apparently advised the patients not to take them.[168]

The hospital staff were not told he was one of the world's most famous philosophers, though some of the medical staff did recognize him�at least one had attended Moral Sciences Club meetings�but they were discreet. "Good God, don't tell anybody who I am!" Wittgenstein begged one of them.[169] Some of them nevertheless called him Professor Wittgenstein, and he was allowed to dine with the doctors. He wrote on 1 April 1942: "I no longer feel any hope for the future of my life. It is as though I had before me nothing more than a long stretch of living death. I cannot imagine any future for me other than a ghastly one. Friendless and joyless."[168]

He had developed a friendship with Keith Kirk, a working-class teenage friend of Francis Skinner, the mathematics undergraduate he had had a relationship with until Skinner's death in 1941 from polio. Skinner had given up academia, thanks at least in part to Wittgenstein's influence, and had been working as a mechanic in 1939, with Kirk as his apprentice. Kirk and Wittgenstein struck up a friendship, with Wittgenstein giving him lessons in physics to help him pass a City and Guilds exam. During his period of loneliness at Guy's he wrote in his diary: "For ten days I've heard nothing more from K, even though I pressed him a week ago for news. I think that he has perhaps broken with me. A tragic thought!"[37] Kirk had in fact got married, and they never saw one another again.[37]

While Wittgenstein was at Guy's he met Basil Reeve, a young doctor with an interest in philosophy, who, with R. T. Grant, was studying the effect of shock on air-raid casualties. When the blitz ended there were fewer casualties to study. In November 1942, Grant and Reeve moved to the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle upon Tyne, to study road traffic and industrial casualties. Grant offered Wittgenstein a position as a laboratory assistant at a wage of �4 per week, and he lived in Newcastle (at 28 Brandling Park, Jesmond[170]) from 29 April 1943 until February 1944.[171]
1947�1951: Final years
� Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present. Our life has no end in the way in which our visual field has no limits. �
� Wittgenstein, Tractatus, 6.431

He resigned the professorship at Cambridge in 1947 to concentrate on his writing, and in 1947 and 1948 travelled to Ireland, staying at Ross's Hotel in Dublin and at a farmhouse in Redcross, County Wicklow, where he began the manuscript volume MS 137, Band R. Seeking solitude he moved to Rosro, a holiday cottage in Connemara owned by Maurice O'Connor-Drury.[172][dead link]

He also accepted an invitation from Norman Malcolm, then professor at Cornell University, to stay with him and his wife for several months at Ithaca, New York. He made the trip in April 1949, although he told Malcolm he was too unwell to do philosophical work: "I haven't done any work since the beginning of March & I haven't had the strength of even trying to do any." A doctor in Dublin had diagnosed anaemia and prescribed iron and liver pills. The details of Wittgenstein's stay in America are recounted in Norman Malcolm's Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir. During his summer in America, Wittgenstein began his epistemological discussions, in particular his engagement with philosophical skepticism, that would eventually become the final fragments On Certainty.
The plaque at "Storey's End", 76 Storey's Way, Cambridge, where Wittgenstein died.

He returned to London, where he was diagnosed with an inoperable prostate cancer, which had spread to his bone marrow. He spent the next two months in Vienna, where his sister Hermine died on 11 February 1950; he went to see her every day, but she was hardly able to speak or recognize him. "Great loss for me and all of us," he wrote. "Greater than I would have thought." He moved around a lot after Hermine's death staying with various friends: to Cambridge in April 1950, where he stayed with G. H. von Wright; to London to stay with Rush Rhees; then to Oxford to see Elizabeth Anscombe, writing to Norman Malcolm that he was hardly doing any philosophy. He went to Norway in August with Ben Richards, then returned to Cambridge, where on 27 November he moved into Storey's End at 76 Storey's Way, the home of his doctor, Edward Bevan, and his wife Joan; he had told them he did not want to die in a hospital, so they said he could spend his last days in their home instead. Joan at first was afraid of Wittgenstein, but they soon became good friends.[172]

By the beginning of 1951, it was clear that he had little time left. He wrote a new will in Oxford on 29 January, naming Rhees as his executor, and Anscombe and von Wright his literary administrators, and wrote to Norman Malcolm that month to say, "My mind's completely dead. This isn't a complaint, for I don't really suffer from it. I know that life must have an end once and that mental life can cease before the rest does."[173] In February he returned to the Bevans' home to work on MS 175 and MS 176. These and other manuscripts were later published as Remarks on Colour and On Certainty.[172][dead link] He wrote to Malcolm on 16 April 13 days before his death: "An extraordinary thing happened to me. About a month ago I suddenly found myself in the right frame of mind for doing philosophy. I had been absolutely certain that I'd never again be able to do it. It's the first time after more than 2 years that the curtain in my brain has gone up.�Of course, so far I've only worked for about 5 weeks & it may be all over by tomorrow; but it bucks me up a lot now."[174]
Wittgenstein's grave at the Ascension Parish Burial Ground in Cambridge
Death

Wittgenstein began work on his final manuscript, MS 177, on 25 April 1951. It was his 62nd birthday on 26 April. He went for a walk the next afternoon, and wrote his last entry that day, 27 April. That evening, he became very ill; when his doctor told him he might live only a few days, he reportedly replied, "Good!" Joan stayed with him throughout that night, and just before losing consciousness for the last time on 28 April, he told her: "Tell them I've had a wonderful life." Norman Malcolm describes this as a "...strangely moving utterance."[174]

Four of Wittgenstein's former students arrived at his bedside�Ben Richards, Elizabeth Anscombe, Yorick Smythies, and Maurice O'Connor Drury. Anscombe and Smythies were Catholics; and, at the latter's request, a Dominican friar, Father Conrad Pepler, also attended. They were at first unsure what Wittgenstein would have wanted, but then remembered he had said he hoped his Catholic friends would pray for him, so they did, and he was pronounced dead shortly afterwards.

Wittgenstein was given a Catholic burial at Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground in Cambridge.[175] Drury later said he had been troubled ever since about whether that was the right thing to do.[176] In 2015 the ledger gravestone was refurbished by the British Wittgenstein Society.[177]

On his religious views, Wittgenstein was said to be greatly interested in Catholicism and was sympathetic to it. In his university years, he expressed belief in the Resurrection of Jesus.[178] However, he did not consider himself to be a Catholic. According to Norman Malcolm, Wittgenstein saw Catholicism as more of a way of life than as a set of beliefs he personally held, considering that he did not accept any religious faith.[179][180]

Wittgenstein was said to be agnostic, in a qualified sense, in the last years of his life.[181][182]
1953: Publication of the Philosophical Investigations
Main articles: Philosophical Investigations, Language-game, and Private language argument
Illustration of a "duckrabbit", discussed in the Philosophical Investigations, section XI, part II

The Blue Book, a set of notes dictated to his class at Cambridge in 1933�1934, contains the seeds of Wittgenstein's later thoughts on language, and is widely read as a turning-point in his philosophy of language.

Philosophical Investigations was published in two parts in 1953. Most of Part I was ready for printing in 1946, but Wittgenstein withdrew the manuscript from his publisher. The shorter Part II was added by his editors, Elizabeth Anscombe and Rush Rhees. Wittgenstein asks the reader to think of language as a multiplicity of language-games within which parts of language develop and function. He argues that philosophical problems are bewitchments that arise from philosophers' misguided attempts to consider the meaning of words independently of their context, usage, and grammar, what he called "language gone on holiday."[183]

According to Wittgenstein, philosophical problems arise when language is forced from its proper home into a metaphysical environment, where all the familiar and necessary landmarks and contextual clues are removed. He describes this metaphysical environment as like being on frictionless ice: where the conditions are apparently perfect for a philosophically and logically perfect language, all philosophical problems can be solved without the muddying effects of everyday contexts; but where, precisely because of the lack of friction, language can in fact do no work at all.[184] Wittgenstein argues that philosophers must leave the frictionless ice and return to the "rough ground" of ordinary language in use. Much of the Investigations consists of examples of how the first false steps can be avoided, so that philosophical problems are dissolved, rather than solved: "the clarity we are aiming at is indeed complete clarity. But this simply means that the philosophical problems should completely disappear."[185]
Legacy

Wittgenstein left a voluminous archive of unpublished papers, including 83 manuscripts, 46 typescripts and 11 dictations, amounting to an estimated 20,000 pages. Choosing among repeated drafts, revisions, corrections and loose notes editorial work has found nearly one third of the total suitable for print.[186] An Internet facility hosted by the University of Bergen allows access to images of almost all the material and to search the available transcriptions.[187] In 2011 two new boxes of Wittgenstein papers were found.[188]

Philosophical Investigations was the only nearly finished project and the book was published in 1953.

In 1999 a survey among American university and college teachers ranked the Investigations as the most important book of 20th-century philosophy, standing out as "the one crossover masterpiece in twentieth-century philosophy, appealing across diverse specializations and philosophical orientations."[189] The Investigations also ranked 54th on a list of most influential twentieth-century works in cognitive science prepared by the University of Minnesota's Center for Cognitive Sciences.[190]

Peter Hacker argues that Wittgenstein's influence on 20th-century analytical philosophy can be attributed to his early influence on the Vienna Circle and later influence on the Oxford "ordinary language" school and Cambridge philosophers.[191]

Wittgenstein's influence has been felt in nearly every field of the humanities and social sciences, yet there are diverging interpretations of his thought. In the words of his friend and colleague Georg Henrik von Wright:

He was of the opinion... that his ideas were generally misunderstood and distorted even by those who professed to be his disciples. He doubted he would be better understood in the future. He once said he felt as though he was writing for people who would think in a different way, breathe a different air of life, from that of present-day men.[58]

Interpreters

Since Wittgenstein's death, scholarly interpretations of his philosophy have differed. Scholars have differed on the continuity between "early" and "late" Wittgenstein (that is, the difference between his views expressed in the Tractatus and those in Philosophical Investigations), with some seeing the two as starkly disparate and others stressing the gradual transition between the two works through analysis of Wittgenstein's unpublished papers (the Nachlass).[192]

One significant debate in Wittgenstein scholarship concerns the work of interpreters who are referred to under the banner of the New Wittgenstein school such as Cora Diamond, Alice Crary, and James F. Conant. While the Tractatus, particularly in its conclusion, seems paradoxical and self-undermining, New Wittgenstein scholars advance a "therapeutic" understanding of Wittgenstein's work�"an understanding of Wittgenstein as aspiring, not to advance metaphysical theories, but rather to help us work ourselves out of confusions we become entangled in when philosophizing."[193] To support this goal, the New Wittgenstein scholars propose a reading of the Tractatus as "plain nonsense"�arguing it does not attempt to convey a substantive philosophical project but instead simply tries to push the reader to abandon philosophical speculation. The therapeutic approach traces its roots to the philosophical work of John Wisdom[194] and the review of The Blue Book written by Oets Kolk Bouwsma.[192][195]

The therapeutic approach is not without critics: Hans-Johann Glock argues that the "plain nonsense" reading of the Tractatus "...is at odds with the external evidence, writings and conversations in which Wittgenstein states that the Tractatus is committed to the idea of ineffable insight."[192]
Cultural references

Wittgenstein is the subject of the 1993 film Wittgenstein, by English director Derek Jarman, which is loosely based on his life story as well as his philosophical thinking. The adult Wittgenstein is played by the Welsh actor Karl Johnson.

Film director Ethan Coen wrote his 1979 senior dissertation, at Princeton University, on "Two Views of Wittgenstein's Later Philosophy",[196] which has led critics to attempt a reconstruction of Wittgenstein's influence on the narrative style of the Coen Brothers as filmic language-games.[197]

Philip Kerr's 'A Philosophical Investigation' employs Wittgensteinian themes in a crime novel; there is also a serial killer who thinks that he is the historical Wittgenstein.[citation needed]

Critic Terry Eagleton has described Wittgenstein as the philosopher of poets and composers, playwrights and novelists.[198]

For Wittgenstein's philosophy as therapy, see: Peterman, James F. Philosophy as Therapy, SUNY Press, 1992, p. 13,ff.
For the poetic and literary quality of his work, see: Perloff, Marjorie (1999), Wittgenstein's Ladder: Poetic Language and the Strangeness of the Ordinary, University of Chicago Press; and Gibson, John and Wolfgang Huemer (eds.) (2004), The Literary Wittgenstein, Routledge, p 2.
See also: Eagleton, Terry. "My Wittgenstein" in Stephen Regan (ed.). The Eagleton Reader, Wiley-Blackwell, 1997, pp. 337,ff

In 1987 Bruce Duffy wrote an acclaimed biographical novel, about Wittgenstein, Moore and Russell, entitled The World as I Found It.[citation needed]

James Burke's 1985 television series The Day the Universe Changed contains a story:

Someone apparently went up to the great philosopher Wittgenstein and said "What a lot of morons back in the Middle Ages must have been to have looked, every morning, at the dawn and to have thought what they were seeing was the Sun going around the Earth," when every school kid knows that the Earth goes around the Sun, to which Wittgenstein replied, "Yeah, but I wonder what it would have looked like if the Sun had been going around the Earth?"[199]

Wittgenstein's Mistress by David Markson is a highly stylized, experimental novel in the tradition of Samuel Beckett. Readers familiar with Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus will recognize stylistic similarities to that work. David Foster Wallace described it as "pretty much the high point of experimental fiction in this country" in an article for Salon entitled "Five direly underappreciated U.S. novels >1960." Wallace also wrote a long essay on the novel detailing its connections with Wittgenstein, entitled "The Empty Plenum: David Markson�s Wittgenstein�s Mistress" for the 1990 Review of Contemporary Fiction. (It was added as an afterword to the novel in 2012.)[citation needed]

Wittgenstein is extensively referenced in the work of the Australian poet, Gwen Harwood, who describes him as "favourite philosopher".[citation needed]

Another reference to Wittgenstein is in the 2015 film Ex Machina. Here, one of the main characters Nathan is the creator of a search engine called the Blue Book in reference to Wittgenstein's Blue and Brown books. In Nathans bedroom, there is also Gustav Klimmt's painting of Ludwig Wittgenstein's sister.[citation needed]
Works

A collection of Ludwig Wittgenstein's manuscripts is held by Trinity College, Cambridge.

Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung, Annalen der Naturphilosophie, 14 (1921)
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [TLP], translated by C.K. Ogden (1922)
Philosophische Untersuchungen (1953)
Philosophical Investigations [PI], translated by G.E.M. Anscombe (1953)
Bemerkungen �ber die Grundlagen der Mathematik, ed. by G.H. von Wright, R. Rhees, and G.E.M. Anscombe (1956), a selection of his work on the philosophy of logic and mathematics between 1937 and 1944.
Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, translated by G.E.M. Anscombe, rev. ed. (1978)
Bemerkungen �ber die Philosophie der Psychologie, ed. G.E.M. Anscombe and G.H. von Wright (1980)
Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, Vols. 1 and 2, translated by G.E.M. Anscombe, ed. G.E.M. Anscombe and G.H. von Wright (1980), a selection of which makes up Zettel.
The Blue and Brown Books (1958), notes dictated in English to Cambridge students in 1933�1935.
Philosophische Bemerkungen, ed. by Rush Rhees (1964)
Philosophical Remarks (1975)
Philosophical Grammar (1978)
Bemerkungen �ber die Farben, ed. by G.E.M. Anscombe (1977)
Remarks on Colour (1991), remarks on Goethe's Theory of Colours.
On Certainty, collection of aphorisms discussing the relation between knowledge and certainty, extremely influential in the philosophy of action.
Culture and Value, collection of personal remarks about various cultural issues, such as religion and music, as well as critique of S�ren Kierkegaard's philosophy.
Zettel, collection of Wittgenstein's thoughts in fragmentary/"diary entry" format as with On Certainty and Culture and Value.

Works online

Review of P. Coffey's Science of Logic (1913): a polemical book review, written in 1912 for the March 1913 issue of The Cambridge Review when Wittgenstein was an undergraduate studying with Russell. The review is the earliest public record of Wittgenstein's philosophical views.
Wittgenstein Source: 5 000 pages of the Wittgenstein Nachlass online
Works by Ludwig Wittgenstein at Project Gutenberg
Google Edition of Remarks on Colour
Some Remarks on Logical Form
Cambridge (1932�3) lecture notes
The Blue Book
Lecture on Ethics
On Certainty at the Wayback Machine (archived 10 December 2005)

See also

Philosophy portal

International Wittgenstein Symposium

Notes

Rodych, Victor (21 March 2011). "Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Mathematics: Wittgenstein's Intermediate Critique of Set Theory". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
"Wittgenstein As Engineer"
Patton, Lydia, 2009, "Signs, Toy Models, and the A Priori: from Helmholtz to Wittgenstein," Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, 40 (3): 281�289.
Nuno Venturinha, The Textual Genesis of Wittgenstein�s Philosophical Investigations, Routledge, 2013, p. 39.
P. M. S. Hacker, Wittgenstein's Place in Twentieth-Century Analytic Philosophy (1996), pp. 77 and 138.
"Wittgenstein". Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.
Dennett, Daniel (29 March 1999). "LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN: Philosopher (subscription required) � Time 100: Scientists and Thinkers issue". Time Magazine Online. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
Dennett, Daniel. "Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosopher", Time magazine, 29 March 1999.
For his publications during his lifetime, see Monk, R., How to read Wittgenstein. W.W. Norton & Company. 2005, p. 5.

For the number of words published in his lifetime, see Stern, David. "The Bergen Electronic Edition of Wittgenstein's Nachlass", European Journal of Philosophy. Vol 18, Issue 3, September 2010.

A poll among some 400 american university and college philosophy teachers ranked it at number one in 1999; see Lackey, Douglas "What Are the Modern Classics? The Baruch Poll of Great Philosophy in the Twentieth Century", Philosophical Forum. 30 (4), December 1999, pp. 329�346. For a summary of the poll, see here lindenbranch.weblogs.us. Retrieved 3 September 2010.
For the Russell quote, see McGuinness, Brian. Wittgenstein: A Life : Young Ludwig 1889�1921. University of California Press, 1988, p. 118.
When his father died in 1913 and Ludwig inherited a considerable fortune... Then, after the First World War, in which he fought as a volunteer in the Austro-Hungarian army, he gave away his entire fortune to his brothers and sisters and, plagued by depression, sought refuge in Lower Austria, where he worked as a primary school teacher. Goethe Institute
Duffy, Bruce. "The do-it-yourself life of Ludwig Wittgenstein", The New York Times, 13 November 1988, p. 4/10.

For his selling his furniture, see "Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractatus and Teaching" Archived 13 February 2010 at the Wayback Machine., Cambridge Wittgenstein archive. Retrieved 4 September 2010.

For the brothers' suicides, see Waugh, Alexander. "The Wittgensteins: Viennese whirl", The Daily Telegraph, 30 August 2008.

Also see Gottlieb, Anthony. "A Nervous Splendor", The New Yorker, 9 April 2009.

Monk, R., Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius. Free Press, 1990, pp. 232�233, 431.

For his commendation, see Waugh, A., The House of Wittgenstein: a Family at War. Random House of Canada, 2008, p. 114.

Malcolm, (Additional note) p. 84.
PDF
Bramann, Jorn K. and Moran, John. "Karl Wittgenstein, Business Tycoon and Art Patron", Frostburg State University. Retrieved 2 September 2010.
See Schloss Wittgenstein. Various sources spell Meier's name Maier and Meyer.
Bartley, pp. 199�200.
Monk, pp. 4�5.
Monk, p. 5.
Edmonds, Eidinow 2001, p. 63.
Monk, p. 7.
Edmonds, Eidinow 2001, p. 102.
Ranjit Chatterjee, Wittgenstein and Judaism: A Triumph of Concealment, 2005, p. 178.
A Nervous Splendor : The New Yorker
B. McGuinness, Wittgenstein: a life : young Ludwig 1889-1921.
Wittgenstein, Leopoldine (Schenker Documents Online)
For his mother's Roman Catholic background, see "Ludwig Wittgenstein: Background" Archived 18 December 2008 at the Wayback Machine., Wittgenstein archive, University of Cambridge. Retrieved 2 September 2010.

For his time and place of birth, see Edmonds, David and John Eidinow. Wittgenstein's Poker. Faber and Faber, 2001, p. 57.

Bartley, William Warren. Wittgenstein. Open Court, 1994, p. 16, first published 1973.
Norman Malcolm, Peter Winch, Wittgenstein: A Religious Point of View?, Cornell University Press, 1994.
Monk, p. 8.
McGuinness, p. 18.
Theodore Redpath, Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Student's Memoir, London: Duckworth, 1990, p. 112
Edmonds, Eidinow 2001.[page needed]
Monk, pp. 442�443.
Monk, pp.14�15.
"Three Bars by Wittgenstein" by Eric Heijerman, Muzikologija, 2005 (5): pp. 393�395.
Monk, p. 11ff.
Kenny, Anthony. "Give Him Genius or Give Him Death", The New York Times, 30 December 1990.

Also see "Ludwig Wittgenstein: Background", Wittgenstein archive, University of Cambridge. Retrieved 7 September 2010.

Fitzgerald, Michael. "Did Ludwig Wittgenstein have Asperger's syndrome?", European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, volume 9, number 1, pp. 61�65. doi:10.1007/s007870050117
Gottlieb, Anthony. "A Nervous Splendor", The New Yorker, 9 April 2009.
Waugh p.38.
Waugh p.10.
Waugh, pp. 24�26.

Also see Monk, p. 11ff.

For the Koschat song, see "Verlassen bin ich" on YouTube. Retrieved 11 September 2010.
Waugh, pp. 22�23.

For the primary source, see Hirschfield, Magnus. Jahrbuch f�r sexuelle Zwischenstufen, Vol VI, 1904, p. 724, citing an unnamed Berlin newspaper, cited in turn by Bartley, p. 36.
More details in Waugh, Alexander. "The Wittgensteins: Viennese whirl", The Daily Telegraph, 30 August 2008.
Also see Gottlieb, Anthony. "A Nervous Splendor", The New Yorker, 9 April 2009.

Drury, Recollections, p. 160; cf. The Danger of Words (1973) p. ix, xiv
Waugh, p. 128.
McGuinness, Brian. Wittgenstein: a life : young Ludwig 1889�1921. University of California Press, 1988, p. 156.
Waugh, p. 33.

McGuinness, Brian. Wittgenstein: a life : young Ludwig 1889-1921. University of California Press, 1988, p. 51ff.
K.u.k. stood for "Kaiserlich und k�niglich".
The successor institution to the Realschule in Linz is Bundesrealgymnasium Linz Fadingerstra�e (de).

McGuinness, p. 51.
Sandgruber, Roman. "Das Geld der Wittgenstein","Ober�sterreichische Nachrichten". 26 February 2011. Linz 2011. Retrieved 5 July 2016
McGuinness, Brian. Wittgenstein: a life : young Ludwig 1889-1921. University of California Press, 1988, p. 51ff.
Hamann, Brigitte and Thornton, Thomas. Hitler's Vienna: A Dictator's Apprenticeship. Oxford University Press, 2000 (first published 1996 in German), pp. 15�16, 79.
Monk, p. 18.
Malcolm, p. 6.
Culture and Value, 1933-4, p. 24
Bruce R. Ashford, "Wittgenstein's Theologians: A Survey of Ludwig Wittgenstein's Impact on Theology"
Monk, Ray (20 July 1999). "Wittgenstein's Forgotten Lesson". Prospect Magazine (July 1999). Prospect Magazine. Retrieved 24 August 2014.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, "Lectures on Religious Belief"
Rush Rhees, "Ludwig Wittgenstein: Personal Recollections"
Norman Malcolm, "Wittgenstein: A Religious Point of View"
Monk, pp. 19�26.
p216, Philosophical Tales, Cohen, M., Blackwell 2008
For the view that Wittgenstein saw himself as completely German, not Jewish, see McGuinness, Brian. "Wittgenstein and the Idea of Jewishness", and for an opposing view, see Stern, David. "Was Wittgenstein Jewish?", both in James Carl Klagge. Wittgenstein: Biography and Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp. 231ff and p. 237ff respectively.
Goldstein, Lawrence. Clear and Queer Thinking: Wittgenstein's Development and his Relevance to Modern Thought. Duckworth, 1999, p. 167ff. Also see "Clear and Queering Thinking", review in Mind, Oxford University Press, 2001.
McGinn, Marie. "Hi Ludwig", Times Literary Supplement, 26 May 2000.
Hitler started at the school on 17 September 1900, repeated the first year in 1901, and left in the autumn of 1905; see Kersaw, Ian. Hitler, 1889�1936. W. W. Norton & Company, 2000, p. 16ff.

McGuinness, Brian. Wittgenstein: a life : young Ludwig 1889-1921. University of California Press, 1988, p. 51ff.

Monk, p. 15.

Brigitte Hamann argues in Hitler's Vienna (1996) that Hitler was bound to have laid eyes on Wittgenstein, because the latter was so conspicuous, though she told Focus magazine they were in different classes, and she agrees with Monk that they would have had nothing to do with one another. See Hamann, Brigitte and Thornton, Thomas. Hitler's Vienna: A Dictator's Apprenticeship. Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 15�16, 79, and Thiede, Roger. "Phantom Wittgenstein", Focus magazine, 16 March 1998.

For examples, see Cornish, Kimberley. The Jew of Linz. Arrow, 1999.

Blum, Michael; Rollig, Stella; and Nyanga, Steven. "Monument to the birth of the 20th century", Revolver, 2005. Blum's material is also on display in an exhibition in the OK Centrum f�r Gegenwartskunst, Linz, and in the Galerija Nova, Zagreb, 2006. Retrieved 9 September 2010, and
Gibbons, Luke. "An extraordinary family saga", Irish Times, 29 November 2008.
For an opposing view, see Hamann, Brigitte and Thornton, Thomas. Hitler's Vienna: A Dictator's Apprenticeship. Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 15�16, 79.
See the full image at the Bundesarchiv. Retrieved 27 September 2015. The archives give the date of the image as circa 1901.

Thiede, Roger. "Phantom Wittgenstein", Focus magazine, 16 March 1998.

The German Federal Archives says the image was taken "circa 1901"; it identifies the class as 1B and the teacher as Oskar Langer. See the full image and description at the Bundesarchiv. Retrieved 6 September 2010. The archive gives the date as circa 1901, but wrongly calls it the Realschule in Leonding, near Linz. Hitler attended primary school in Leonding, but from September 1901 went to the Realschule in Linz itself. See Kershaw, Ian. Hitler, 1889-1936. W. W. Norton & Company, 2000, p. 16ff.
Christoph Haidacher and Richard Schober write that Langer taught at the school from 1884 until 1901; see Haidacher, Christoph and Schober, Richard. Von Stadtstaaten und Imperien, Universit�tsverlag Wagner, 2006, p. 140.

See, e.g., MS 154.
Culture and Value, Ludwig Wittgenstein, (Oxford 1998), page 16e (see also, pages 15e�19e).
M.O'C. Drury, "Conversations with Wittgenstein", in Recollections of Wittgenstein, ed. R. Rhees, New York: Oxford University Press, revised edition, 1984,p. 161.
Hans Sluga, The Cambridge companion to Wittgenstein, (Cambridge 1996), p. 2.
Monk, p. 27.
Monk, p. 29.
Monk, pp. 30�35.
Beaney, Michael (ed.). The Frege Reader. Blackwell, 1997, pp. 194-223, 258�289.
Monk, p. 36ff.
Kanterian, p. 36.
O'Connor, J.J. and Robertson, E.F. "Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein", St Andrews University. Retrieved 2 September 2010.
McGuinness, Brian. Wittgenstein: A Life : Young Ludwig 1889�1921. University of California Press, 1988, pp. 88�89.
Monk, p. 41.
Russell, Bertrand. Autobiography. Routledge, 1998, p. 281.
Pitt, Jack. "Russell and the Cambridge Moral Sciences Club", Russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies: Vol. 1, issue 2, article 3, winter 1982.

Also see Klagge, James Carl and Nordmann, Alfred (eds.) Ludwig Wittgenstein: Public and Private Occasions. Rowman & Littlefield, 2003, p. 332, citing Michael Nedo and Michele Ranchetti (eds.). Ludwig Wittgenstein: sein Leben in Bildern und Texten. Suhrkamp, 1983, p. 89.

Edmonds, Eidinow 2001, pp. 22�28.
Eidinow, John and Edmonds, David. "When Ludwig met Karl...", The Guardian, 31 March 2001.

"Wittgenstein's Poker by David Edmonds and John Eidinow", The Guardian, 21 November 2001.

Minutes of the Wittgenstein's poker meeting, University of Cambridge, shown on Flickr. Retrieved 7 September 2010.
McGuinness, Brian. Wittgenstein: A Life: Young Ludwig 1889-1921. University of California Press, 1988, p. 118.
Monk, pp. 583�586.
Monk, pp. 369.
Monk, pp. 238-40 and 318
Goldstein, Laurence. Clear and queer thinking: Wittgenstein's development and his relevance to modern thought. Rowman & Littlefield, 1999, p. 179.
Monk, p. 58ff. *See Von Wright, G. H. A Portrait of Wittgenstein as a Young Man: From the Diary of David Hume Pinsent 1912-1914. Basil Blackwell, 1990.
Kanterian, p. 40.
Von Wright, G. H. A Portrait of Wittgenstein as a Young Man: From the Diary of David Hume Pinsent 1912-1914. Basil Blackwell, 1990. p.88
Monk, p. 71.
Stewart, Jon. (Ed.) Kierkegaard's Influence on Philosophy: German and Scandinavian Philosophy. Ashgate Publishing, 2009, p. 216.
Monk, p. 262.
Edmonds, Eidinow 2001, pp. 45�46.
Monk, p. 103.
McGuinness, Brian. Wittgenstein: A Life : Young Ludwig 1889�1921. University of California Press, 1988, p. 200.
Wittgenstein had a double hernia, according to philosopher Iain King, who recounts Wittgenstein's war record in an April 2014 article here (link to Military History Monthly magazine article), accessed 23 July 2014.
Wittgenstein's medical exemption is confirmed in Philosophy Now magazine here (link to Philosophy Now), accessed 23 July 2014.
According to philosopher Iain King, who described Wittgenstein's war record and its impact on his thinking here (link to Military History Monthly magazine article), accessed 23 July 2014.
From Iain King, writing in April 2014 about Wittgenstein's war record and its impact on his thinking here (link to Military History Monthly magazine article), accessed 23 July 2014.
Monk, pp.137�142.
From a July 2014 article in Philosophy Now magazine here (link to Philosophy Now), accessed 23 July 2014.
Waugh, p. 114.
Monk, p. 154.
Klagge, James Carl (22 December 2010). Wittgenstein in exile. MIT Press. p. 68. ISBN 978-0-262-01534-9.
Monk, pp. 44, 116, 382�384.

Also see Bill Schardt & David Large, "Wittgenstein, Tolstoy, and the Gospel in Brief", The Philosopher, Volume LXXXIX.

Monk, p. 136.

Also see Robert Hanna, "Kant, Wittgenstein, and Transcendental Philosophy" Archived 23 May 2013 at the Wayback Machine..

King writes: "... the two halves of his war service seem to be reflected in a change of writing style. Protected from danger until spring 1916, his words were dry, abstract, and logical. Only when he was in the midst of action did he confront ethics and aesthetics, concluding their �truths� could only be shown, not stated." - taken from 'Thinker at War' article on Wittgenstein (link), accessed 23 July 2014.
Monk, p. 183.
Bartley, pp. 33�39, 45.
Bartley, pp. 33�34. For an original report, see "Death of D.H. Pinsent", Birmingham Daily Mail, 15 May 1918: "Recovery of the Body. The body of Mr. David Hugh Pinsent, a civilian observer, son of Mr and Mrs Hume Pinsent, of Foxcombe Hill, near Oxford and Birmingham, the second victim of last Wednesday's aeroplane accident in West Surrey, was last night found in the Basingstoke Canal, at Frimley." Courtesy of "Wittgenstein in Birmingham", mikeinmono, 3 August 2009. Retrieved 7 September 2010.
Monk, p. 169ff.
Edmonds, Eidinow 2001, p. 68.
Waugh, p. 150
Klagge, James Carl. Wittgenstein: Biography and Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, 2001, p. 185.
Malcolm, Norman. "Wittgenstein�s Confessions", London Review of Books, Vol. 3 No. 21, 19 November 1981.
Monk, p. 195.
Bartley, p. 107.
Monk, pp. 196, 198.
For the introduction, see Russell, Bertrand. Introduction, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, May 1922.
Russell, Nieli. Wittgenstein: From Mysticism to Ordinary Language. SUNY Press, 1987, p. 199.
Edmonds, Eidinow 2001, p. 35ff.
"Ludwig Wittgenstein: Tractatus and Teaching" Archived 13 February 2010 at the Wayback Machine., Cambridge Wittgenstein archive. Retrieved 4 September 2010.
For example, Ramsey translated "Sachverhalt" and "Sachlage" as "atomic fact" and "state of affairs" respectively. But Wittgenstein discusses non-existent "Sachverhalten", and there cannot be a non-existent fact. Pears and McGuinness made a number of changes, including translating "Sachverhalt" as "state of affairs" and "Sachlage" as situation. The new translation is often preferred, but some philosophers use the original, in part because Wittgenstein approved it, and because it avoids the idiomatic English of Pears-McGuinness. See:

White, Roger. Wittgenstein's Tractatus logico-philosophicus. Continuum International Publishing Group, 2006, p. 145.
For a discussion about the relative merits of the translations, see Morris, Michael Rowland. "Introduction", Routledge philosophy guidebook to Wittgenstein and the Tractatus. Taylor & Francis, 2008; and Nelson, John O. "Is the Pears-McGuinness translation of the Tractatus really superior to Ogden's and Ramsey's?", Philosophical Investigations, 22:2, April 1999.
See the three versions (Wittgenstein's German, published 1921; Ramsey-Ogden's translation, published 1922; and the Pears-McGuinness translation, published 1961) side by side here (TLP, University of Massachusetts). Retrieved 4 September 2010.

Grayling, A. C. Wittgenstein: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 16ff.
Tractatus (Ogden translation), preface.
For the comment to Ogden, see Monk, p. 207.
The English is from the original Ogden/Ramsey translation.
Monk, pp. 212, 214�216, 220�221.
Mellor, D.H. "Cambridge Philosophers I: F. P. Ramsey", Philosophy 70, 1995, pp. 243�262.
Ezard, John. "Philosopher's rare 'other book' goes on sale", The Guardian, 19 February 2005.
Monk, pp. 224, 232�233.
Waugh, p. 162. Monk, p. 232.
Monk, pp. 370�371.
Hanfling, Oswald (1981). Essential Readings in Logical Positivism. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. p. 3. ISBN 0-631-12566-3.
The Limits of Science�and Scientists
Rudolf Carnap, Autobiography, in P.A. Schlipp (ed) The Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap, The Library of Living Philosophers, Volume 11, La Salle Open Court, 1963, pages 25-27
Hyde, Lewis. "Making It". The New York Times, 6 April 2008.
Jeffries, Stuart. "A dwelling for the gods", The Guardian, 5 January 2002.
Monk, p. 240.
Monk, p. 255.
Monk, p. 271.
R. B. Braithwaite George Edward Moore, 1873 - 1958, in Alice Ambrose and Morris Lazerowitz. G.E. Moore: Essays in Retrospect. Allen & Unwin, 1970.
Ludwig Wittgenstein: Return to Cambridge Archived 3 November 2007 at the Wayback Machine. from the Cambridge Wittgenstein Archive
Waugh, pp. 137ff, 204�209.
Waugh, pp. 224�226.
For the view that Wittgenstein saw himself as a Jew, see Stern, David. "Was Wittgenstein Jewish?", in James Carl Klagge. Wittgenstein: Biography and Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, 2001, p. 237ff.
Edmonds, Eidinow 2001, pp. 98, 105.
Edmonds, Eidinow 2001, p. 98.
Moran, John. "Wittgenstein and Russia" New Left Review 73, May�June 1972, pp. 83�96.
Malcolm, pp. 23�4.
Malcolm, p. 25.
Monk, p. 528
Hoffmann, Josef. "Hard-boiled Wit: Ludwig Wittgenstein and Norbert Davis", CADS, no. 44, October 2003.
Malcolm, p. 26.
Hodges, Andrew (2014). Alan Turing: The Enigma. London: Vintage. p. 194. ISBN 978-1-784-70008-9.
Diamond, Cora (ed.). Wittgenstein's Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics. University Of Chicago Press, 1989.
For his desire that his students not pursue philosophy, see Malcolm, p. 28
Monk, p. 431ff.
Monk, p. 432.
Wittgenstein Upon Tyne Bill Schardt , Newcastle Philosophical Society. Retrieved December 2011
Monk, p. 447ff.
"Ludwig Wittgenstein: Final Years", Cambridge Wittgenstein archive. Retrieved 8 September 2010.

Also see Malcolm, p. 79ff. Archived 5 March 2009 at the Wayback Machine.

Malcolm, p. 79ff.
Malcolm, pp. 80�81.
A Guide to Churchill College, Cambridge: text by Dr. Mark Goldie, pages 62 and 63 (2009)
Monk, pp. 576�580.
[1]
Finch, Peter (1984), Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, p. 33, "What inclines even me to believe in Christ's resurrection? I play as it were with the thought.�If he did not rise from the dead, then he decomposed in the grave like every human being. He is dead & decomposed. In that case he is a teacher, like any other & can no longer help; & we are once more orphaned & alone. And have to make do with wisdom & speculation. It is as though we are in a hell, where we can only dream & are shut out from heaven, roofed in as it were. But if I am to be REALLY redeemed,� I need certainty�not wisdom, dreams, speculation�and this certainty is faith. And faith is faith in what my heart, my soul, needs, not my speculative intellect. For my soul, with its passions, as it were with its flesh and blood, must be redeemed, not my abstract mind. Perhaps one may say: Only love can believe the Resurrection. Or: it is love that believes the Resurrection"
Norman Malcolm; G. H. Von Wright (2001). Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir. Oxford University Press. pp. 59�60. ISBN 9780199247592. "I believe that Wittgenstein was prepared by his own character and experience to comprehend the idea of a judging and redeeming God. But any cosmological conception of a Deity, derived from the notions of cause or of infinity, would be repugnant to him. He was impatient with 'proofs' of the existence of God, and with attempts to give religion a rational foundation. ...I do not wish to give the impression that Wittgenstein accepted any religious faith�he certainly did not�or that he was a religious person. But I think that there was in him, in some sense, the possibility of religion. I believe that he looked on religion as a 'form of life' (to use an expression from the Investigations) in which he did not participate, but with which he was sympathetic and which greatly interested him. Those who did participate he respected � although here as elsewhere he had contempt for insincerity. I suspect that he regarded religious belief as based on qualities of character and will that he himself did not possess. Of Smythies and Anscombe, both of whom had become Roman Catholics, he once said to me: 'I could not possibly bring myself to believe all the things that they believe.' I think that in this remark he was not disparaging their belief. It was rather an observation about his own capacity."
Tim Labron (2006). Wittgenstein's Religious Point of View. Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 47. ISBN 9780826490278. "Wittgenstein has no goal to either support or reject religion; his only interest is to keep discussions, whether religious or not, clear."
William Child (2011). Wittgenstein. Taylor & Francis. p. 218. ISBN 9781136731372. ""Was Wittgenstein religious? If we call him an agnostic, this must not be understood in the sense of the familiar polemical agnosticism that concentrates, and prides itself, on the argument that man could never know about these matters. The idea of a God in the sense of the Bible, the image of God as the creator of the world, hardly ever engaged Wittgenstein's attention..., but the notion of a last judgement was of profound concern to him." - (Engelmann)"
Edward Kanterian (2007). Ludwig Wittgenstein. Reaktion Books. pp. 145�146. ISBN 9781861893208.
PI, �38.
PI, �107.
PI, �133.
Stern D., "The Bergen Electronic Edition of Wittgenstein's Nachlass", European Journal of Philosophy, Vol 18, Issue 3, September 2010.
The Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen (WAB)
Cambridge University Press release: Unpublished Wittgenstein Archive explored
Lackey, Douglas "What Are the Modern Classics? The Baruch Poll of Great Philosophy in the Twentieth Century", Philosophical Forum. 30 (4), December 1999, pp. 329�346. For a summary of the poll, see here. Retrieved 3 September 2010.
"The one hundred most influential works in cognitive science in the 20th century". Millennium Project.
"Peter Hacker". Philosophy Now. Retrieved 17 October 2013.
Glock, Hans-Johann (2007). "Perspectives on Wittgenstein: An Intermittently Opinionated Survey". In Kahane, Guy; Kanterian, Edward; Kuusela, Oskari. Wittgenstein and his interpreters: essays in memory of Gordon Baker. Blackwell. pp. 37�65. ISBN 9781405129220.
Alice Crary, The New Wittgenstein, Routledge, 2007, p. 1
Wisdom, John (1953). Philosophy and Psycho-Analysis. Blackwell.
Bouwsma, O. K. (16 March 1961). "The Blue Book". The Journal of Philosophy. 58 (6): 141�162. doi:10.2307/2023409. JSTOR 2023409.
University database with information on dissertation
Eddie Brawley (16 September 2015). ""The Big Lebowski", Wittgenstein, and the Garbage Pile That Is Online Discourse".
For ethical and religious themes, see Barrett, Cyril. Wittgenstein on Ethics and Religious Belief. Blackwell, 1991, p. 138.

The Day the Universe Changed at Documentary-Video; distributed by Ambrose Video Publishing, Inc., New York, NY

References

Bartley, William Warren. Wittgenstein. Open Court, 1994, first published 1973.
Barrett, Cyril. Wittgenstein on Ethics and Religious Belief. Blackwell, 1991.
Beaney, Michael (ed.). The Frege Reader. Blackwell, 1997.
Braithwaite, R. B. "George Edward Moore, 1873 - 1958", in Alice Ambrose and Morris Lazerowitz. (eds.). G.E. Moore: Essays in Retrospect. Allen & Unwin, 1970.
Diamond, Cora (ed.). Wittgenstein's Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics. University Of Chicago Press, 1989.
Crary, Alice and Rupert Read (eds.). The New Wittgenstein. Routledge, 2000.
Crary, Alice (ed.). Wittgenstein and the Moral Life: Essays in Honor of Cora Diamond. MIT Press, 2007.
Creegan, Charles. Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard: Religion, Individuality and Philosophical Method. Routledge, 1989.
Drury, Maurice O'Connor et al. The Danger of Words and Writings on Wittgenstein. Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973.
Drury, Maurice O'Connor. "Conversations with Wittgenstein", in Rush Rhees (ed.). Recollections of Wittgenstein: Hermine Wittgenstein--Fania Pascal--F.R. Leavis--John King--M. O'C. Drury. Oxford University Press, 1984.
Edmonds, David and Eidinow, John. Wittgenstein's Poker. Ecco, 2001.
Edwards, James C. Ethics Without Philosophy: Wittgenstein and the Moral Life. University Presses of Florida, 1982.
Gellner, Ernest. Words and Things. Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979, originally published 1959.
Goldstein, Laurence. Clear and Queer Thinking: Wittgenstein's Development and his Relevance to Modern Thought. Rowman & Littlefield, 1999.
Hamann, Brigitte and Thornton, Thomas. Hitler's Vienna: A Dictator's Apprenticeship. Oxford University Press, 2000.
Kanterian, Edward. Ludwig Wittgenstein. Reaktion Books, 2007.
Klagge, James Carl. Wittgenstein: Biography and Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Klagge, James Carl and Nordmann, Alfred (eds.). Ludwig Wittgenstein: Public and Private Occasions. Rowman & Littlefield, 2003.
Kripke, Saul. Wittgenstein on rules and private language: an elementary exposition. Harvard University Press, 1982.
Leitner, Bernhard. The Architecture of Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Documentation. Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, 1973.
Malcolm, Norman. Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir. Oxford University Press, 1958.
McGuinness, Brian. Wittgenstein: A Life : Young Ludwig 1889-1921. University of California Press, 1988.
Monk, Ray. Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius. Free Press, 1990.
Nedo, Michael and Ranchetti, Michele (eds.). Ludwig Wittgenstein: sein Leben in Bildern und Texten. Suhrkamp, 1983.
Perloff, Marjorie. Wittgenstein's Ladder: Poetic Language and the Strangeness of the Ordinary. University of Chicago Press, 1996.
Peterman, James F. Philosophy as therapy. SUNY Press, 1992.
Russell, Bertrand. Autobiography. Routledge, 1998.
Russell, Bertrand. "Introduction", Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, May 1922.
Shanker, S., & Shanker, V. A. (eds.). Ludwig Wittgenstein: Critical Assessments. Croom Helm, 1986.
Sluga, Hans D. (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Wittgenstein. Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Waugh, Alexander. The House of Wittgenstein: A Family at War. Random House of Canada, 2008.
Whitehead, Alfred North and Russell, Bertrand. Principia Mathematica. Cambridge University Press, first published 1910.
Von Wright, G. H. A Portrait of Wittgenstein as a Young Man: From the Diary of David Hume Pinsent 1912-1914. Basil Blackwell, 1990.

Further reading

Bergen and Cambridge archives

Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen. Retrieved 16 September 2010.

Wittgenstein News, University of Bergen. Retrieved 16 September 2010.
Wittgenstein Source, University of Bergen. Retrieved 16 September 2010.

The Cambridge Wittgenstein Archive. Retrieved 16 September 2010.

Papers about his Nachlass

Stern, David. "The Bergen Electronic Edition of Wittgenstein's Nachlass", European Journal of Philosophy, Vol 18, Issue 3, September 2010.
Von Wright, G.H. "The Wittgenstein Papers", The Philosophical Review. 78, 1969.

Other

Baker, G.P. and Hacker, P. M. S. Wittgenstein: Understanding and Meaning. Blackwell, 1980.
Baker, G.P. and Hacker, P. M. S. Wittgenstein: Rules, Grammar, and Necessity. Blackwell, 1985.
Baker, G.P. and Hacker, P. M. S. Wittgenstein: Meaning and Mind. Blackwell, 1990.
Baker, Gordon P., and Katherine J. Morris. Wittgenstein's Method: Neglected Aspects: Essays on Wittgenstein. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2004.
Brockhaus, Richard R. Pulling Up the Ladder: The Metaphysical Roots of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Open Court, 1990.
Conant, James F. "Putting Two and Two Together: Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein and the Point of View for Their Work as Authors" in The Grammar of Religious Belief, edited by D.Z. Phillips. St. Martins Press, NY: 1996
Engelmann, Paul. Letters from Ludwig Wittgenstein. Basil Blackwell, 1967
Fraser, Giles. "Investigating Wittgenstein, part 1: Falling in love", The Guardian, 25 January 2010.
Grayling, A. C. Wittgenstein: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2001.
Hacker, P. M. S. Insight and Illusion: Themes in the Philosophy of Wittgenstein. Clarendon Press, 1986.
Hacker, P. M. S. "Wittgenstein, Ludwig Josef Johann", in Ted Honderich (ed.). The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Oxford University Press, 1995.
Hacker, P. M. S. Wittgenstein's Place in Twentieth Century Analytic Philosophy. Blackwell, 1996.
Hacker, P. M. S. Wittgenstein: Mind and Will. Blackwell, 1996.
Jormakka, Kari. "The Fifth Wittgenstein", Datutop 24, 2004, a discussion of the connection between Wittgenstein's architecture and his philosophy.
Levy, Paul. Moore: G.E. Moore and the Cambridge Apostles. Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1979.
Luchte, James. "Under the Aspect of Time (�sub specie temporis�): Heidegger, Wittgenstein, and the Place of the Nothing", Philosophy Today, Volume 53, Number 2 (Spring, 2009)
Lurie, Yuval. Wittgenstein on the Human Spirit.. Rodopi, 2012.
Macarthur, David. "Working on Oneself in Philosophy and Architecture: A Perfectionist Reading of the Wittgenstein House." Architectural Theory Review, vol. 19, no. 2 (2014): 124�140.
McGuinness, Brian. Wittgenstein in Cambridge: Letters and Documents 1911-1951. Wiley-Blackwell, 2008.
Padilla G�lvez, J., Wittgenstein, from a New Point of View. Wittgenstein-Studien. Frankfurt a.M.: Lang, 2003. ISBN 3-631-50623-6.
Padilla G�lvez, J., Philosophical Anthropology. Wittgenstein's Perspectives. Frankfurt a. M.: Ontos Verlag, 2010. ISBN 978-3-86838-067-5.
Monk, Ray. How To Read Wittgenstein. Norton, 2005.
Pears, David F. "A Special Supplement: The Development of Wittgenstein�s Philosophy", The New York Review of Books, 10 July 1969.
Pears, David F. The False Prison, A Study of the Development of Wittgenstein's Philosophy, Volumes 1 and 2. Oxford University Press, 1987 and 1988.
Richter, Duncan J. "Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889�1951)", Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 30 August 2004. Retrieved 16 September 2010.
Scheman, Naomi and O'Connor, Peg (eds.). Feminist Interpretations of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Penn State Press, 2002.
Sch�nbaumsfeld, Genia. A Confusion of the Spheres: Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein on Philosophy and Religion. Oxford University Press, 2007.
Temelini, Michael. Wittgenstein and the Study of Politics. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015.
Xanthos, Nicolas, "Wittgenstein's Language Games", in Louis Hebert (dir.), Signo (online), Rimouski (Quebec, Canada), 2006.

Works referencing Wittgenstein

Doctorow, E. L. City of God. Plume, 2001, depicts an imaginary rivalry between Wittgenstein and Einstein.
Doxiadis, Apostolos and Papadimitriou, Christos. Logicomix. Bloomsbury, 2009.
Duffy, Bruce. The World as I Found It. Ticknor & Fields, 1987, a recreation of Wittgenstein's life.
Jarman, Derek. Wittgenstein, a biopic of Wittgenstein with a script by Terry Eagleton, British Film Institute, 1993.
Kerr, Philip. A Philosophical Investigation, Chatto & Windus, 1992, a dystopian thriller set in 2012.
Markson, David. Wittgenstein's Mistress. Dalkey Archive Press, 1988, an experimental novel, a first-person account of what it would be like to live in the world of the Tractatus.
Tully, James. Strange Multiplicity: Constitutionalism in an Age of Diversity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995
Wallace, David Foster. The Broom of the System. Penguin Books, 1987, a novel.

Ladies, ladies…show some decorum, pleaze.

Here is the Wookiepedia entry on chair:

"Chairs were pieces of furniture humanoids could sit in. Like many objects in the galaxy, chairs could also function temporarily as ad hoc weapons. They were sometimes made of wood.

The term 'Chair' could also refer to a chairman.
Han Solo owned a chair considered to be the 'most comfortable chair ever designed.'"

---------- Post added at 05:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:37 PM ----------


Yep. You are an idiot.

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BAZINGA

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I like THE BIG BANG THEORY, sue me.

I'm not gonna sue you.











































































































































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|88888888888888888888888888/
|~~____~~~~~~~~~"""""""""|
/ \_________/"""""""""""""\
/ | \ \
/ | 88 88 \ \
/ | 88 88 \ \
/ / \ |
/ | ________ \ |
\ | \______/ / |
/"\ \ \____________ / |
| |__________\_ | | / /
/""""\ \_------' '-------/ --
\____/,___________\ -------/
------* | \
|| | \
|| | ^ \
|| | | \ \
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\| / /"""\/ /
------------- | | /
|\--_ \____/___/
| |\-_ |
| | \_ |
| | \ |
| | \_ |
| | ----___ |
| | \----------|
/ | | ----------""\
/"\--"--_| | | \
|_______/ \______________/ )
\___/




_ _ _ _ _ __ _
| | | | ___ | || | ___ | | / /(_) _ _
| |_| | / _ \ | || | / _ \ | |/ / _ _| |_ _| |_ _ _
| _ |/ /_\ \| || |/ / \ \ | / | |_ _|_ _|| |/ /
| | | |\ ,___/| || |\ \_/ / | |\ \ | | | |_ | |_ | / /
|_| |_| \___/ |_||_| \___/ |_| \_\|_| \___| \___|| /
_ _ / /
/ \_______ /|_\ \/
/ /_/ \__
/ \_/ /
_|_ |/|_
_|_ O _ O _|_
_|_ (_) _|_
\ /
_\_____________/_
/ \/ (___) \/ \
\__( o o )__/





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Yeah, I do. LIKE it, not love it. Sometimes, when I watch randomly, I'm entertained by it.

I will gladly be seeing all of you in court.

Prepare yourself for a long case.

Prepare yourself for a long case.

Try me! I've got the best attorney in this case.

May I ask, who?

Suuure... Prepare for Laughs galore !!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASZ8Hks4gko

May I ask, who?

PHOENIX WRIGHT!

Guys, seriously, let me enjoy and like whatever I want. You don't like it? Suck it. Geez.

PHOENIX WRIGHT!

Guys, seriously, let me enjoy and like whatever I want. You don't like it? Suck it. Geez.

I Know. People Do Not Like Something Then No One Else Should. So Sod Em'

PHOENIX WRIGHT!

Guys, seriously, let me enjoy and like whatever I want. You don't like it? Suck it. Geez.

Ponyo, it's gonna be a long night if you don't knock off the crap!

:p

So Sod Em'

You've been Banged!

Suuure... Prepare for Laughs galore !!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASZ8Hks4gko

Almost every sitcom that's filmed on a set would be most definitely 10x better if the laugh track was removed.

I Know. People Do Not Like Something Then No One Else Should. So Sod Em'

So let me get this straight. If you like the big bang theory and I think it's stupid I'm not allowed to say so, but if I like posting off topic Wikipedia articles in spam threads and you think it's stupid it's your responsibility to get really indignant and publicly cry about it.

Just making sure I have it all clear.

The Longest Joke in the World
* * *
Lost in the Desert


So, there's a man crawling through the desert.

He'd decided to try his SUV in a little bit of cross-country travel, had great fun zooming over the badlands and through the sand, got lost, hit a big rock, and then he couldn't get it started again. There were no cell phone towers anywhere near, so his cell phone was useless. He had no family, his parents had died a few years before in an auto accident, and his few friends had no idea he was out here.

He stayed with the car for a day or so, but his one bottle of water ran out
and he was getting thirsty. He thought maybe he knew the direction back, now that he'd paid attention to the sun and thought he'd figured out which way was north, so he decided to start walking. He figured he only had to go about 30 miles or so and he'd be back to the small town he'd gotten gas in last.

He thinks about walking at night to avoid the heat and sun, but based upon
how dark it actually was the night before, and given that he has no flashlight, he's afraid that he'll break a leg or step on a rattlesnake. So,
he puts on some sun block, puts the rest in his pocket for reapplication
later, brings an umbrella he'd had in the back of the SUV with him to give
him a little shade, pours the windshield wiper fluid into his water bottle
in case he gets that desperate, brings his pocket knife in case he finds a cactus that looks like it might have water in it, and heads out in the
direction he thinks is right.

He walks for the entire day. By the end of the day he's really thirsty. He's
been sweating all day, and his lips are starting to crack. He's reapplied the sunblock twice, and tried to stay under the umbrella, but he still feels sunburned. The windshield wiper fluid sloshing in the bottle in his pocket is really getting tempting now. He knows that it's mainly water and some ethanol and coloring, but he also knows that they add some kind of poison to it to keep people from drinking it. He wonders what the poison is, and
whether the poison would be worse than dying of thirst.

He pushes on, trying to get to that small town before dark.

By the end of the day he starts getting worried. He figures he's been walking at least 3 miles an hour, according to his watch for over 10 hours. That means that if his estimate was right that he should be close to the
town. But he doesn't recognize any of this. He had to cross a dry creek bed a mile or two back, and he doesn't remember coming through it in the SUV. He figures that maybe he got his direction off just a little and that the dry creek bed was just off to one side of his path. He tells himself that he's close, and that after dark he'll start seeing the town lights over one of these hills, and that'll be all he needs.

As it gets dim enough that he starts stumbling over small rocks and things,
he finds a spot and sits down to wait for full dark and the town lights.

Full dark comes before he knows it. He must have dozed off. He stands back
up and turns all the way around. He sees nothing but stars.

He wakes up the next morning feeling absolutely lousy. His eyes are gummy and his mouth and nose feel like they're full of sand. He so thirsty that he can't even swallow. He barely got any sleep because it was so cold. He'd forgotten how cold it got at night in the desert and hadn't noticed it the night before because he'd been in his car.

He knows the Rule of Threes - three minutes without air, three days without water, three weeks without food - then you die. Some people can make it a little longer, in the best situations. But the desert heat and having to walk and sweat isn't the best situation to be without water. He figures, unless he finds water, this is his last day.

He rinses his mouth out with a little of the windshield wiper fluid. He waits a while after spitting that little bit out, to see if his mouth goes numb, or he feels dizzy or something. Has his mouth gone numb? Is it just in
his mind? He's not sure. He'll go a little farther, and if he still doesn't
find water, he'll try drinking some of the fluid.

Then he has to face his next, harder question - which way does he go from here? Does he keep walking the same way he was yesterday (assuming that he still knows which way that is), or does he try a new direction? He has no idea what to do.

Looking at the hills and dunes around him, he thinks he knows the direction he was heading before. Just going by a feeling, he points himself somewhat to the left of that, and starts walking.

As he walks, the day starts heating up. The desert, too cold just a couple of hours before, soon becomes an oven again. He sweats a little at first, and then stops. He starts getting worried at that - when you stop sweating he knows that means you're in trouble - usually right before heat stroke.

He decides that it's time to try the windshield wiper fluid. He can't wait
any longer - if he passes out, he's dead. He stops in the shade of a large
rock, takes the bottle out, opens it, and takes a mouthful. He slowly
swallows it, making it last as long as he can. It feels so good in his dry
and cracked throat that he doesn't even care about the nasty taste. He takes
another mouthful, and makes it last too. Slowly, he drinks half the bottle.
He figures that since he's drinking it, he might as well drink enough to
make some difference and keep himself from passing out.

He's quit worrying about the denaturing of the wiper fluid. If it kills him,
it kills him - if he didn't drink it, he'd die anyway. Besides, he's pretty
sure that whatever substance they denature the fluid with is just designed to make you sick - their way of keeping winos from buying cheap wiper fluid for the ethanol content. He can handle throwing up, if it comes to that.

He walks. He walks in the hot, dry, windless desert. Sand, rocks, hills,
dunes, the occasional scrawny cactus or dried bush. No sign of water.
Sometimes he'll see a little movement to one side or the other, but whatever moved is usually gone before he can focus his eyes on it. Probably birds, lizards, or mice. Maybe snakes, though they usually move more at night. He's careful to stay away from the movements.

After a while, he begins to stagger. He's not sure if it's fatigue, heat
stroke finally catching him, or maybe he was wrong and the denaturing of the wiper fluid was worse than he thought. He tries to steady himself, and keep going.

After more walking, he comes to a large stretch of sand. This is good! He
knows he passed over a stretch of sand in the SUV - he remembers doing
donuts in it. Or at least he thinks he remembers it - he's getting woozy
enough and tired enough that he's not sure what he remembers any more or if
he's hallucinating. But he thinks he remembers it. So he heads off into it,
trying to get to the other side, hoping that it gets him closer to the town.

He was heading for a town, wasn't he? He thinks he was. He isn't sure any more. He's not even sure how long he's been walking any more. Is it still morning? Or has it moved into afternoon and the sun is going down again? It must be afternoon - it seems like it's been too long since he started out.

He walks through the sand.

After a while, he comes to a big dune in the sand. This is bad. He doesn't
remember any dunes when driving over the sand in his SUV. Or at least he
doesn't think he remembers any. This is bad.

But, he has no other direction to go. Too late to turn back now. He figures
that he'll get to the top of the dune and see if he can see anything from
there that helps him find the town. He keeps going up the dune.

Halfway up, he slips in the bad footing of the sand for the second or third
time, and falls to his knees. He doesn't feel like getting back up - he'll
just fall down again. So, he keeps going up the dune on his hand and knees.

While crawling, if his throat weren't so dry, he'd laugh. He's finally
gotten to the hackneyed image of a man lost in the desert - crawling through
the sand on his hands and knees. If would be the perfect image, he imagines, if only his clothes were more ragged. The people crawling through the desert
in the cartoons always had ragged clothes. But his have lasted without any
rips so far. Somebody will probably find his dessicated corpse half buried in the sand years from now, and his clothes will still be in fine shape -
shake the sand out, and a good wash, and they'd be wearable again. He wishes his throat were wet enough to laugh. He coughs a little instead, and it hurts.

He finally makes it to the top of the sand dune. Now that he's at the top,
he struggles a little, but manages to stand up and look around. All he sees
is sand. Sand, and more sand. Behind him, about a mile away, he thinks he
sees the rocky ground he left to head into this sand. Ahead of him, more
dunes, more sand. This isn't where he drove his SUV. This is Hell. Or close enough.

Again, he doesn't know what to do. He decides to drink the rest of the wiper
fluid while figuring it out. He takes out the bottle, and is removing the
cap, when he glances to the side and sees something. Something in the sand. At the bottom of the dune, off to the side, he sees something strange. It's a flat area, in the sand. He stops taking the cap of the bottle off, and tries to look closer. The area seems to be circular. And it's dark - darker than the sand. And, there seems to be something in the middle of it, but he can't tell what it is. He looks as hard as he can, and still can tell from
here. He's going to have to go down there and look.

He puts the bottle back in his pocket, and starts to stumble down the dune.
After a few steps, he realizes that he's in trouble - he's not going to be able to keep his balance. After a couple of more sliding, tottering steps, he falls and starts to roll down the dune. The sand it so hot when his body hits it that for a minute he thinks he's caught fire on the way down - like a movie car wreck flashing into flames as it goes over the cliff, before it ever even hits the ground. He closes his eyes and mouth, covers his face with his hands, and waits to stop rolling.

He stops, at the bottom of the dune. After a minute or two, he finds enough
energy to try to sit up and get the sand out of his face and clothes. When
he clears his eyes enough, he looks around to make sure that the dark spot
in the sand it still there and he hadn't just imagined it.

So, seeing the large, flat, dark spot on the sand is still there, he begins
to crawl towards it. He'd get up and walk towards it, but he doesn't seem to
have the energy to get up and walk right now. He must be in the final stages
of dehydration he figures, as he crawls. If this place in the sand doesn't
have water, he'll likely never make it anywhere else. This is his last
chance.

He gets closer and closer, but still can't see what's in the middle of the
dark area. His eyes won't quite focus any more for some reason. And lifting
his head up to look takes so much effort that he gives up trying. He just
keeps crawling.

Finally, he reaches the area he'd seen from the dune. It takes him a minute of crawling on it before he realizes that he's no longer on sand - he's now crawling on some kind of dark stone. Stone with some kind of marking on it - a pattern cut into the stone. He's too tired to stand up and try to see what the pattern is - so he just keeps crawling. He crawls towards the center,
where his blurry eyes still see something in the middle of the dark stone
area.

His mind, detached in a strange way, notes that either his hands and knees are so burnt by the sand that they no longer feel pain, or that this dark
stone, in the middle of a burning desert with a pounding, punishing sun
overhead, doesn't seem to be hot. It almost feels cool. He considers lying
down on the nice cool surface.

Cool, dark stone. Not a good sign. He must be hallucinating this. He's
probably in the middle of a patch of sand, already lying face down and
dying, and just imagining this whole thing. A desert mirage. Soon the
beautiful women carrying pitchers of water will come up and start giving him
a drink. Then he'll know he's gone.

He decides against laying down on the cool stone. If he's going to die here
in the middle of this hallucination, he at least wants to see what's in the
center before he goes. He keeps crawling.

It's the third time that he hears the voice before he realizes what he's
hearing. He would swear that someone just said, "Greetings, traveler. You do
not look well. Do you hear me?"

He stops crawling. He tries to look up from where he is on his hands and
knees, but it's too much effort to lift his head. So he tries something
different - he leans back and tries to sit up on the stone. After a few
seconds, he catches his balance, avoids falling on his face, sits up, and
tries to focus his eyes. Blurry. He rubs his eyes with the back of his hands
and tries again. Better this time.

Yep. He can see. He's sitting in the middle of a large, flat, dark expanse
of stone. Directly next to him, about three feet away, is a white post or
pole about two inches in diameter and sticking up about four or five feet
out of the stone, at an angle.

And wrapped around this white rod, tail with rattle on it hovering and
seeming to be ready to start rattling, is what must be a fifteen foot long
desert diamondback rattlesnake, looking directly at him.

He stares at the snake in shock. He doesn't have the energy to get up and
run away. He doesn't even have the energy to crawl away. This is it, his
final resting place. No matter what happens, he's not going to be able to
move from this spot.

Well, at least dying of a bite from this monster should be quicker than
dying of thirst. He'll face his end like a man. He struggles to sit up a
little straighter. The snake keeps watching him. He lifts one hand and waves
it in the snake's direction, feebly. The snake watches the hand for a
moment, then goes back to watching the man, looking into his eyes.

Hmmm. Maybe the snake had no interest in biting him? It hadn't rattled yet -
that was a good sign. Maybe he wasn't going to die of snake bite after all.

He then remembers that he'd looked up when he'd reached the center here
because he thought he'd heard a voice. He was still very woozy - he was
likely to pass out soon, the sun still beat down on him even though he was
now on cool stone. He still didn't have anything to drink. But maybe he had
actually heard a voice. This stone didn't look natural. Nor did that white
post sticking up out of the stone. Someone had to have built this. Maybe
they were still nearby. Maybe that was who talked to him. Maybe this snake
was even their pet, and that's why it wasn't biting.

He tries to clear his throat to say, "Hello," but his throat is too dry. All
that comes out is a coughing or wheezing sound. There is no way he's going
to be able to talk without something to drink. He feels his pocket, and the
bottle with the wiper fluid is still there. He shakily pulls the bottle out,
almost losing his balance and falling on his back in the process. This isn't
good. He doesn't have much time left, by his reckoning, before he passes
out.

He gets the lid off of the bottle, manages to get the bottle to his lips,
and pours some of the fluid into his mouth. He sloshes it around, and then
swallows it. He coughs a little. His throat feels better. Maybe he can talk
now.

He tries again. Ignoring the snake, he turns to look around him, hoping to
spot the owner of this place, and croaks out, "Hello? Is there anyone here?"

He hears, from his side, "Greetings. What is it that you want?"

He turns his head, back towards the snake. That's where the sound had seemed
to come from. The only thing he can think of is that there must be a
speaker, hidden under the snake, or maybe built into that post. He decides
to try asking for help.

"Please," he croaks again, suddenly feeling dizzy, "I'd love to not be
thirsty any more. I've been a long time without water. Can you help me?"

Looking in the direction of the snake, hoping to see where the voice was
coming from this time, he is shocked to see the snake rear back, open its
mouth, and speak. He hears it say, as the dizziness overtakes him and he
falls forward, face first on the stone, "Very well. Coming up."

A piercing pain shoots through his shoulder. Suddenly he is awake. He sits
up and grabs his shoulder, wincing at the throbbing pain. He's momentarily
disoriented as he looks around, and then he remembers - the crawl across the
sand, the dark area of stone, the snake. He sees the snake, still wrapped
around the tilted white post, still looking at him.

He reaches up and feels his shoulder, where it hurts. It feels slightly wet.
He pulls his fingers away and looks at them - blood. He feels his shoulder
again - his shirt has what feels like two holes in it - two puncture holes -
they match up with the two aching spots of pain on his shoulder. He had been
bitten. By the snake.

"It'll feel better in a minute." He looks up - it's the snake talking. He
hadn't dreamed it. Suddenly he notices - he's not dizzy any more. And more
importantly, he's not thirsty any more - at all!

"Have I died? Is this the afterlife? Why are you biting me in the
afterlife?"

"Sorry about that, but I had to bite you," says the snake. "That's the way I
work. It all comes through the bite. Think of it as natural medicine."

"You bit me to help me? Why aren't I thirsty any more? Did you give me a
drink before you bit me? How did I drink enough while unconscious to not be
thirsty any more? I haven't had a drink for over two days. Well, except for
the windshield wiper fluid... hold it, how in the world does a snake talk?
Are you real? Are you some sort of Disney animation?"

"No," says the snake, "I'm real. As real as you or anyone is, anyway. I
didn't give you a drink. I bit you. That's how it works - it's what I do. I
bite. I don't have hands to give you a drink, even if I had water just
sitting around here."

The man sat stunned for a minute. Here he was, sitting in the middle of the
desert on some strange stone that should be hot but wasn't, talking to a
snake that could talk back and had just bitten him. And he felt better. Not
great - he was still starving and exhausted, but much better - he was no
longer thirsty. He had started to sweat again, but only slightly. He felt
hot, in this sun, but it was starting to get lower in the sky, and the cool
stone beneath him was a relief he could notice now that he was no longer
dying of thirst.

"I might suggest that we take care of that methanol you now have in your
system with the next request," continued the snake. "I can guess why you
drank it, but I'm not sure how much you drank, or how much methanol was left
in the wiper fluid. That stuff is nasty. It'll make you go blind in a day or
two, if you drank enough of it."

"Ummm, n-next request?" said the man. He put his hand back on his hurting
shoulder and backed away from the snake a little.

"That's the way it works. If you like, that is," explained the snake. "You
get three requests. Call them wishes, if you wish." The snake grinned at his
own joke, and the man drew back a little further from the show of fangs.

"But there are rules," the snake continued. "The first request is free. The
second requires an agreement of secrecy. The third requires the binding of
responsibility." The snake looks at the man seriously.

"By the way," the snake says suddenly, "my name is Nathan. Old Nathan,
Samuel used to call me. He gave me the name. Before that, most of the Bound
used to just call me 'Snake'. But that got old, and Samuel wouldn't stand
for it. He said that anything that could talk needed a name. He was big into
names. You can call me Nate, if you wish." Again, the snake grinned. "Sorry
if I don't offer to shake, but I think you can understand - my shake sounds
somewhat threatening." The snake give his rattle a little shake.

"Umm, my name is Jack," said the man, trying to absorb all of this. "Jack
Samson.

"Can I ask you a question?" Jack says suddenly. "What happened to the
poison...umm, in your bite. Why aren't I dying now? How did you do that?
What do you mean by that's how you work?"

"That's more than one question," grins Nate. "But I'll still try to answer
all of them. First, yes, you can ask me a question." The snake's grin gets
wider. "Second, the poison is in you. It changed you. You now no longer need
to drink. That's what you asked for. Or, well, technically, you asked to not
be thirsty any more - but 'any more' is such a vague term. I decided to make
it permanent - now, as long as you live, you shouldn't need to drink much at
all. Your body will conserve water very efficiently. You should be able to
get enough just from the food you eat - much like a creature of the desert.
You've been changed.

"For the third question," Nate continues, "you are still dying. Besides the
effects of that methanol in your system, you're a man - and men are mortal.
In your current state, I give you no more than about another 50 years.
Assuming you get out of this desert, alive, that is." Nate seemed vastly
amused at his own humor, and continued his wide grin.

"As for the fourth question," Nate said, looking more serious as far as Jack
could tell, as Jack was just now working on his ability to read
talking-snake emotions from snake facial features, "first you have to agree
to make a second request and become bound by the secrecy, or I can't tell
you."

"Wait," joked Jack, "isn't this where you say you could tell me, but you'd
have to kill me?"

"I thought that was implied." Nate continued to look serious.

"Ummm...yeah." Jack leaned back a little as he remembered again that he was
talking to a fifteen foot poisonous reptile with a reputation for having a
nasty temper. "So, what is this 'Bound by Secrecy' stuff, and can you really
stop the effects of the methanol?" Jack thought for a second. "And, what do
you mean methanol, anyway? I thought these days they use ethanol in wiper
fluid, and just denature it?"

"They may, I don't really know," said Nate. "I haven't gotten out in a
while. Maybe they do. All I know is that I smell methanol on your breath and
on that bottle in your pocket. And the blue color of the liquid when you
pulled it out to drink some let me guess that it was wiper fluid. I assume
that they still color wiper fluid blue?"

"Yeah, they do," said Jack.

"I figured," replied Nate. "As for being bound by secrecy - with the
fulfillment of your next request, you will be bound to say nothing about me,
this place, or any of the information I will tell you after that, when you
decide to go back out to your kind. You won't be allowed to talk about me,
write about me, use sign language, charades, or even act in a way that will
lead someone to guess correctly about me. You'll be bound to secrecy. Of
course, I'll also ask you to promise not to give me away, and as I'm
guessing that you're a man of your word, you'll never test the binding
anyway, so you won't notice." Nate said the last part with utter confidence.

Jack, who had always prided himself on being a man of his word, felt a
little nervous at this. "Ummm, hey, Nate, who are you? How did you know
that? Are you, umm, omniscient, or something?"

Well, Jack," said Nate sadly, "I can't tell you that, unless you make the
second request." Nate looked away for a minute, then looked back.

"Umm, well, ok," said Jack, "what is this about a second request? What can I
ask for? Are you allowed to tell me that?"

"Sure!" said Nate, brightening. "You're allowed to ask for changes. Changes
to yourself. They're like wishes, but they can only affect you. Oh, and
before you ask, I can't give you immortality. Or omniscience. Or
omnipresence, for that matter. Though I might be able to make you gaseous
and yet remain alive, and then you could spread through the atmosphere and
sort of be omnipresent. But what good would that be - you still wouldn't be
omniscient and thus still could only focus on one thing at a time. Not very
useful, at least in my opinion." Nate stopped when he realized that Jack was
staring at him.

"Well, anyway," continued Nate, "I'd probably suggest giving you permanent
good health. It would negate the methanol now in your system, you'd be
immune to most poisons and diseases, and you'd tend to live a very long
time, barring accident, of course. And you'll even have a tendency to
recover from accidents well. It always seemed like a good choice for a
request to me."

"Cure the methanol poisoning, huh?" said Jack. "And keep me healthy for a
long time? Hmmm. It doesn't sound bad at that. And it has to be a request
about a change to me? I can't ask to be rich, right? Because that's not
really a change to me?"

"Right," nodded Nate.

"Could I ask to be a genius and permanently healthy?" Jack asked, hopefully.

"That takes two requests, Jack."

"Yeah, I figured so," said Jack. "But I could ask to be a genius? I could
become the smartest scientist in the world? Or the best athlete?"

"Well, I could make you very smart," admitted Nate, "but that wouldn't
necessarily make you the best scientist in the world. Or, I could make you
very athletic, but it wouldn't necessarily make you the best athlete either.
You've heard the saying that 99% of genius is hard work? Well, there's some
truth to that. I can give you the talent, but I can't make you work hard. It
all depends on what you decide to do with it."

"Hmmm," said Jack. "Ok, I think I understand. And I get a third request,
after this one?"

"Maybe," said Nate, "it depends on what you decide then. There are more
rules for the third request that I can only tell you about after the second
request. You know how it goes." Nate looked like he'd shrug, if he had
shoulders.

"Ok, well, since I'd rather not be blind in a day or two, and permanent
health doesn't sound bad, then consider that my second request. Officially.
Do I need to sign in blood or something?"

"No," said Nate. "Just hold out your hand. Or heel." Nate grinned. "Or
whatever part you want me to bite. I have to bite you again. Like I said,
that's how it works - the poison, you know," Nate said apologetically.

Jack winced a little and felt his shoulder, where the last bite was. Hey, it
didn't hurt any more. Just like Nate had said. That made Jack feel better
about the biting business. But still, standing still while a fifteen foot
snake sunk it's fangs into you. Jack stood up. Ignoring how good it felt to
be able to stand again, and the hunger starting to gnaw at his stomach, Jack
tried to decide where he wanted to get bitten. Despite knowing that it
wouldn't hurt for long, Jack knew that this wasn't going to be easy.

"Hey, Jack," Nate suddenly said, looking past Jack towards the dunes behind
him, "is that someone else coming up over there?"

Jack spun around and looked. Who else could be out here in the middle of
nowhere? And did they bring food?

Wait a minute, there was nobody over there. What was Nate...

Jack let out a bellow as he felt two fangs sink into his rear end, through
his jeans...

Jack sat down carefully, favoring his more tender buttock. "I would have
decided, eventually, Nate. I was just thinking about it. You didn't have to
hoodwink me like that."

"I've been doing this a long time, Jack," said Nate, confidently. "You
humans have a hard time sitting still and letting a snake bite you -
especially one my size. And besides, admit it - it's only been a couple of
minutes and it already doesn't hurt any more, does it? That's because of the
health benefit with this one. I told you that you'd heal quickly now."

"Yeah, well, still," said Jack, "it's the principle of the thing. And nobody
likes being bitten in the butt! Couldn't you have gotten my calf or
something instead?"

"More meat in the typical human butt," replied Nate. "And less chance you
accidentally kick me or move at the last second."

"Yeah, right. So, tell me all of these wonderful secrets that I now qualify
to hear," answered Jack.

"Ok," said Nate. "Do you want to ask questions first, or do you want me to
just start talking?"

"Just talk," said Jack. "I'll sit here and try to not think about food."

"We could go try to rustle up some food for you first, if you like,"
answered Nate.

"Hey! You didn't tell me you had food around here, Nate!" Jack jumped up.
"What do we have? Am I in walking distance to town? Or can you magically
whip up food along with your other powers?" Jack was almost shouting with
excitement. His stomach had been growling for hours.

"I was thinking more like I could flush something out of its hole and bite
it for you, and you could skin it and eat it. Assuming you have a knife,
that is," replied Nate, with the grin that Jack was starting to get used to.

"Ugh," said Jack, sitting back down. "I think I'll pass. I can last a little
longer before I get desperate enough to eat desert rat, or whatever else it
is you find out here. And there's nothing to burn - I'd have to eat it raw.
No thanks. Just talk."

"Ok," replied Nate, still grinning. "But I'd better hurry, before you start
looking at me as food.

Nate reared back a little, looked around for a second, and then continued.
"You, Jack, are sitting in the middle of the Garden of Eden."

Jack looked around at the sand and dunes and then looked back at Nate
sceptically.

"Well, that's the best I can figure it, anyway, Jack," said Nate. "Stand up
and look at the symbol on the rock here." Nate gestured around the dark
stone they were both sitting on with his nose.

Jack stood up and looked. Carved into the stone in a bas-relief was a
representation of a large tree. The angled-pole that Nate was wrapped around
was coming out of the trunk of the tree, right below where the main branches
left the truck to reach out across the stone. It was very well done - it
looked more like a tree had been reduced to almost two dimensions and
embedded in the stone than it did like a carving.

Jack walked around and looked at the details in the fading light of the
setting sun. He wished he'd looked at it while the sun was higher in the
sky.

Wait! The sun was setting! That meant he was going to have to spend another
night out here! Arrrgh!

Jack looked out across the desert for a little bit, and then came back and
stood next to Nate. "In all the excitement, I almost forgot, Nate," said
Jack. "Which way is it back to town? And how far? I'm eventually going to
have to head back - I'm not sure I'll be able to survive by eating raw
desert critters for long. And even if I can, I'm not sure I'll want to."

"It's about 30 miles that way." Nate pointed, with the rattle on his tail
this time. As far as Jack could tell, it was a direction at right angles to
the way he'd been going when he was crawling here. "But that's 30 miles by
the way the crow flies. It's about 40 by the way a man walks. You should be
able to do it in about half a day with your improved endurance, if you head
out early tomorrow, Jack."

Jack looked out the way the snake had pointed for a few seconds more, and
then sat back down. It was getting dark. Not much he could do about heading
out right now. And besides, Nate was just about to get to the interesting
stuff. "Garden of Eden? As best as you can figure it?"

"Well, yeah, as best as I and Samuel could figure it anyway," said Nate. "He
figured that the story just got a little mixed up. You know, snake, in a
'tree', offering 'temptations', making bargains. That kind stuff. But he
could never quite figure out how the Hebrews found out about this spot from
across the ocean. He worried about that for a while."

"Garden of Eden, hunh?" said Jack. "How long have you been here, Nate?"

"No idea, really," replied Nate. "A long time. It never occurred to me to
count years, until recently, and by then, of course, it was too late. But I
do remember when this whole place was green, so I figure it's been thousands
of years, at least."

"So, are you the snake that tempted Eve?" said Jack.

"Beats me," said Nate. "Maybe. I can't remember if the first one of your
kind that I talked to was female or not, and I never got a name, but it
could have been. And I suppose she could have considered my offer to grant
requests a 'temptation', though I've rarely had refusals."

"Well, umm, how did you get here then? And why is that white pole stuck out
of the stone there?" asked Jack.

"Dad left me here. Or, I assume it was my dad. It was another snake - much
bigger than I was back then. I remember talking to him, but I don't remember
if it was in a language, or just kind of understanding what he wanted. But
one day, he brought me to this stone, told me about it, and asked me to do
something for him. I talked it over with him for a while, then agreed. I've
been here ever since.

"What is this place?" said Jack. "And what did he ask you to do?"

"Well, you see this pole here, sticking out of the stone?" Nate loosened his
coils around the tilted white pole and showed Jack where it descended into
the stone. The pole was tilted at about a 45 degree angle and seemed to
enter the stone in an eighteen inch slot cut into the stone. Jack leaned
over and looked. The slot was dark and the pole went down into it as far as
Jack could see in the dim light. Jack reached out to touch the pole, but
Nate was suddenly there in the way.

"You can't touch that yet, Jack," said Nate.

"Why not?" asked Jack.

"I haven't explained it to you yet," replied Nate.

"Well, it kinda looks like a lever or something," said Jack. "You'd push it
that way, and it would move in the slot."

"Yep, that's what it is," replied Nate.

"What does it do?" asked Jack. "End the world?"

"Oh, no," said Nate. "Nothing that drastic. It just ends humanity. I call it
'The Lever of Doom'." For the last few words Nate had used a deeper, ringing
voice. He tried to look serious for a few seconds, and then gave up and
grinned.

Jack was initially startled by Nate's pronouncement, but when Nate grinned
Jack laughed. "Ha! You almost had me fooled for a second there. What does it
really do?"

"Oh, it really ends humanity, like I said," smirked Nate. "I just thought
the voice I used was funny, didn't you?"

Nate continued to grin.

"A lever to end humanity?" asked Jack. "What in the world is that for? Why
would anyone need to end humanity?"

"Well," replied Nate, "I get the idea that maybe humanity was an experiment.
Or maybe the Big Guy just thought, that if humanity started going really
bad, there should be a way to end it. I'm not really sure. All I know are
the rules, and the guesses that Samuel and I had about why it's here. I
didn't think to ask back when I started here."

"Rules? What rules?" asked Jack.

"The rules are that I can't tell anybody about it or let them touch it
unless they agree to be bound to secrecy by a bite. And that only one human
can be bound in that way at a time. That's it." explained Nate.

Jack looked somewhat shocked. "You mean that I could pull the lever now?
You'd let me end humanity?"

"Yep," replied Nate, "if you want to." Nate looked at Jack carefully. "Do
you want to, Jack?"

"Umm, no." said Jack, stepping a little further back from the lever. "Why in
the world would anyone want to end humanity? It'd take a psychotic to want
that! Or worse, a suicidal psychotic, because it would kill him too,
wouldn't it?"

"Yep," replied Nate, "being as he'd be human too."

"Has anyone ever seriously considered it?" asked Nate. "Any of those bound
to secrecy, that is?"

"Well, of course, I think they've all seriously considered it at one time or
another. Being given that kind of responsibility makes you sit down and
think, or so I'm told. Samuel considered it several times. He'd often get
disgusted with humanity, come out here, and just hold the lever for a while.
But he never pulled it. Or you wouldn't be here." Nate grinned some more.

Jack sat down, well back from the lever. He looked thoughtful and puzzled at
the same time. After a bit, he said, "So this makes me the Judge of
humanity? I get to decide whether they keep going or just end? Me?"

"That seems to be it," agreed Nate.

"What kind of criteria do I use to decide?" said Jack. "How do I make this
decision? Am I supposed to decide if they're good? Or too many of them are
bad? Or that they're going the wrong way? Is there a set of rules for that?"

"Nope," replied Nate. "You pretty much just have to decide on your own. It's
up to you, however you want to decide it. I guess that you're just supposed
to know."

"But what if I get mad at someone? Or some girl dumps me and I feel
horrible? Couldn't I make a mistake? How do I know that I won't screw up?"
protested Jack.

Nate gave his kind of snake-like shrug again. "You don't. You just have to
try your best, Jack."

Jack sat there for a while, staring off into the desert that was rapidly
getting dark, chewing on a fingernail.

Suddenly, Jack turned around and looked at the snake. "Nate, was Samuel the
one bound to this before me?"

"Yep," replied Nate. "He was a good guy. Talked to me a lot. Taught me to
read and brought me books. I think I still have a good pile of them buried
in the sand around here somewhere. I still miss him. He died a few months
ago."

"Sounds like a good guy," agreed Jack. "How did he handle this, when you
first told him. What did he do?"

"Well," said Nate, "he sat down for a while, thought about it for a bit, and
then asked me some questions, much like you're doing."

"What did he ask you, if you're allowed to tell me?" asked Jack.

"He asked me about the third request," replied Nate.

"Aha!" It was Jack's turn to grin. "And what did you tell him?"

"I told him the rules for the third request. That to get the third request
you have to agree to this whole thing. That if it ever comes to the point
that you really think that humanity should be ended, that you'll come here
and end it. You won't avoid it, and you won't wimp out." Nate looked serious
again. "And you'll be bound to do it too, Jack."

"Hmmm." Jack looked back out into the darkness for a while.

Nate watched him, waiting.

"Nate," continued Jack, quietly, eventually. "What did Samuel ask for with
his third request?"

Nate sounded like he was grinning again as he replied, also quietly,
"Wisdom, Jack. He asked for wisdom. As much as I could give him."

"Ok," said Jack, suddenly, standing up and facing away from Nate, "give it
to me.

Nate looked at Jack's backside. "Give you what, Jack?"

"Give me that wisdom. The same stuff that Samuel asked for. If it helped
him, maybe it'll help me too." Jack turned his head to look back over his
shoulder at Nate. "It did help him, right?"

"He said it did," replied Nate. "But he seemed a little quieter afterward.
Like he had a lot to think about."

"Well, yeah, I can see that," said Jack. "So, give it to me." Jack turned to
face away from Nate again, bent over slightly and tensed up.

Nate watched Jack tense up with a little exasperation. If he bit Jack now,
Jack would likely jump out of his skin and maybe hurt them both.

"You remember that you'll be bound to destroy humanity if it ever looks like
it needs it, right Jack?" asked Nate, shifting position.

"Yeah, yeah, I got that," replied Jack, eyes squeezed tightly shut and body
tense, not noticing the change in direction of Nate's voice.

"And," continued Nate, from his new position, "do you remember that you'll
turn bright purple, and grow big horns and extra eyes?"

"Yeah, yeah...Hey, wait a minute!" said Jack, opening his eyes,
straightening up and turning around. "Purple?!" He didn't see Nate there.
With the moonlight Jack could see that the lever extended up from its slot
in the rock without the snake wrapped around it.

Jack heard, from behind him, Nate's "Just Kidding!" right before he felt the
now familiar piercing pain, this time in the other buttock.

Jack sat on the edge of the dark stone in the rapidly cooling air, his feet
extending out into the sand. He stared out into the darkness, listening to
the wind stir the sand, occasionally rubbing his butt where he'd been
recently bitten.

Nate had left for a little while, had come back with a desert-rodent-shaped
bulge somewhere in his middle, and was now wrapped back around the lever,
his tongue flicking out into the desert night's air the only sign that he
was still awake.

Occasionally Jack, with his toes absentmindedly digging in the sand while he
thought, would ask Nate a question without turning around.

"Nate, do accidents count?"

Nate lifted his head a little bit. "What do you mean, Jack?"

Jack tilted his head back like he was looking at the stars. "You know,
accidents. If I accidentally fall on the lever, without meaning to, does
that still wipe out humanity?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure it does, Jack. I'd suggest you be careful about that
if you start feeling wobbly," said Nate with some amusement.

A little later - "Does it have to be me that pulls the lever?" asked Jack.

"That's the rule, Jack. Nobody else can pull it," answered Nate.

"No," Jack shook his head, "I meant does it have to be my hand? Could I pull
the lever with a rope tied around it? Or push it with a stick? Or throw a
rock?"

"Yes, those should work," replied Nate. "Though I'm not sure how complicated
you could get. Samuel thought about trying to build some kind of remote
control for it once, but gave it up. Everything he'd build would be gone by
the next sunrise, if it was touching the stone, or over it. I told him that
in the past others that had been bound had tried to bury the lever so they
wouldn't be tempted to pull it, but every time the stones or sand or
whatever had disappeared."

"Wow," said Jack, "Cool." Jack leaned back until only his elbows kept him
off of the stone and looked up into the sky.

"Nate, how long did Samuel live? One of his wishes was for health too,
right?" asked Jack.

"Yes," replied Nate, "it was. He lived 167 years, Jack."

"Wow, 167 years. That's almost 140 more years I'll live if I live as long.
Do you know what he died of, Nate?"

"He died of getting tired of living, Jack," Nate said, sounding somewhat
sad.

Jack turned his head to look at Nate in the starlight.

Nate looked back. "Samuel knew he wasn't going to be able to stay in
society. He figured that they'd eventually see him still alive and start
questioning it, so he decided that he'd have to disappear after a while. He
faked his death once, but changed his mind - he decided it was too early and
he could stay for a little longer. He wasn't very fond of mankind, but he
liked the attention. Most of the time, anyway.

"His daughter and then his wife dying almost did him in though. He didn't
stay in society much longer after that. He eventually came out here to spend
time talking to me and thinking about pulling the lever. A few months ago he
told me he'd had enough. It was his time."

"And then he just died?" asked Jack.

Nate shook his head a little. "He made his forth request, Jack. There's only
one thing you can ask for the fourth request. The last bite.

After a bit Nate continued, "He told me that he was tired, that it was his
time. He reassured me that someone new would show up soon, like they always
had.

After another pause, Nate finished, "Samuel's body disappeared off the stone
with the sunrise."

Jack lay back down and looked at the sky, leaving Nate alone with his
memories. It was a long time until Jack's breathing evened out into sleep.

Jack woke with the sunrise the next morning. He was a little chilled with
the morning desert air, but overall was feeling pretty good. Well, except
that his stomach was grumbling and he wasn't willing to eat raw desert rat.

So, after getting directions to town from Nate, making sure he knew how to
get back, and reassuring Nate that he'd be back soon, Jack started the long
walk back to town. With his new health and Nate's good directions, he made
it back easily.

Jack caught a bus back to the city, and showed up for work the next day,
little worse for the wear and with a story about getting lost in the desert
and walking back out. Within a couple of days Jack had talked a friend with
a tow truck into going back out into the desert with him to fetch the SUV.
They found it after a couple of hours of searching and towed it back without
incident. Jack was careful not to even look in the direction of Nate's
lever, though their path back didn't come within sight of it.

Before the next weekend, Jack had gone to a couple of stores, including a
book store, and had gotten his SUV back from the mechanic, with a warning to
avoid any more joyriding in the desert. On Saturday, Jack headed back to see
Nate.

Jack parked a little way out of the small town near Nate, loaded up his new
backpack with camping gear and the things he was bringing for Nate, and then
started walking. He figured that walking would leave the least trail, and he
knew that while not many people camped in the desert, it wasn't unheard of,
and shouldn't really raise suspicions.

Jack had brought more books for Nate - recent books, magazines, newspapers.
Some things that would catch Nate up with what was happening in the world,
others that were just good books to read. He spent the weekend with Nate,
and then headed out again, telling Nate that he'd be back again soon, but
that he had things to do first.

Over four months later Jack was back to see Nate again. This time he brought
a laptop with him - a specially modified laptop. It had a solar recharger,
special filters and seals to keep out the sand, a satellite link-up, and a
special keyboard and joystick that Jack hoped that a fifteen-foot
rattlesnake would be able to use. And, it had been hacked to not give out
its location to the satellite.

After that Jack could e-mail Nate to keep in touch, but still visited him
fairly regularly - at least once or twice a year.

After the first year, Jack quit his job. For some reason, with the wisdom he
'd been given, and the knowledge that he could live for over 150 years,
working in a nine to five job for someone else didn't seem that worthwhile
any more. Jack went back to school.

Eventually, Jack started writing. Perhaps because of the wisdom, or perhaps
because of his new perspective, he wrote well. People liked what he wrote,
and he became well known for it. After a time, Jack bought an RV and started
traveling around the country for book signings and readings.

But, he still remembered to drop by and visit Nate occasionally.

On one of the visits Nate seemed quieter than usual. Not that Nate had been
a fountain of joy lately. Jack's best guess was that Nate was still missing
Samuel, and though Jack had tried, he still hadn't been able to replace
Samuel in Nate's eyes. Nate had been getting quieter each visit. But on this
visit Nate didn't even speak when Jack walked up to the lever. He nodded at
Jack, and then went back to staring into the desert. Jack, respecting Nate's
silence, sat down and waited.

After a few minutes, Nate spoke. "Jack, I have someone to introduce you to."

Jack looked surprised. "Someone to introduce me to?" Jack looked around, and then looked carefully back at Nate. "This something to do with the Big Guy?

"No, no," replied Nate. "This is more personal. I want you to meet my son."
Nate looked over at the nearest sand dune. "Sammy!"

Jack watched as a four foot long desert rattlesnake crawled from behind the
dune and up to the stone base of the lever.

"Yo, Jack," said the new, much smaller snake.

"Yo, Sammy" replied Jack. Jack looked at Nate. "Named after Samuel, I
assume?"

Nate nodded. "Jack, I've got a favor to ask you. Could you show Sammy around
for me?" Nate unwrapped himself from the lever and slithered over to the
edge of the stone and looked across the sands. "When Samuel first told me
about the world, and brought me books and pictures, I wished that I could go see it. I wanted to see the great forests, the canyons, the cities, even the
other deserts, to see if they felt and smelled the same. I want my son to
have that chance - to see the world. Before he becomes bound here like I have been.

"He's seen it in pictures, over the computer that you brought me. But I hear that it's not the same. That being there is different. I want him to have
that. Think you can do that for me, Jack?"

Jack nodded. This was obviously very important to Nate, so Jack didn't even
joke about taking a talking rattlesnake out to see the world. "Yeah, I can
do that for you, Nate. Is that all you need?" Jack could sense that was
something more.

Nate looked at Sammy. Sammy looked back at Nate for a second and then said,
"Oh, yeah. Ummm, I've gotta go pack. Back in a little bit Jack. Nice to meet
ya!" Sammy slithered back over the dune and out of sight.

Nate watched Sammy disappear and then looked back at Jack. "Jack, this is my
first son. My first offspring through all the years. You don't even want to
know what it took for me to find a mate." Nate grinned to himself. "But
anyway, I had a son for a reason. I'm tired. I'm ready for it to be over. I
needed a replacement."

Jack considered this for a minute. "So, you're ready to come see the world,
and you wanted him to watch the lever while you were gone?"

Nate shook his head. "No, Jack - you're a better guesser than that. You've
already figured out - I'm bound here - there's only one way for me to leave
here. And I'm ready. It's my time to die."

Jack looked more closely at Nate. He could tell Nate had thought about
this - probably for quite a while. Jack had trouble imagining what it would
be like to be as old as Nate, but Jack could already tell that in another
hundred or two hundred years, he might be getting tired of life himself.
Jack could understand Samuel's decision, and now Nate's. So, all Jack said
was, "What do you want me to do?"

Nate nodded. "Thanks, Jack. I only want two things. One - show Sammy around
the world - let him get his fill of it, until he's ready to come back here
and take over. Two - give me the fourth request.

"I can't just decide to die, not any more than you can. I won't even die of
old age like you eventually will, even though it'll be a long time from now.
I need to be killed. Once Sammy is back here, ready to take over, I'll be
able to die. And I need you to kill me.

"I've even thought about how. Poisons and other drugs won't work on me. And
I've seen pictures of snakes that were shot - some of them live for days, so
that's out too. So, I want you to bring back a sword.

Nate turned away to look back to the dune that Sammy had gone behind. "I'd
say an axe, but that's somewhat undignified - putting my head on the ground
or a chopping block like that. No, I like a sword. A time-honored way of
going out. A dignified way to die. And, most importantly, it should work,
even on me.

"You willing to do that for me, Jack?" Nate turned back to look at Jack.

"Yeah, Nate," replied Jack solemnly, "I think I can handle that."

Nate nodded. "Good!" He turned back toward the dune and shouted, "Sammy!
Jack's about ready to leave!" Then quietly, "Thanks, Jack."

Jack didn't have anything to say to that, so he waited for Sammy to make it
back to the lever, nodded to him, nodded a final time to Nate, and then
headed into the desert with Sammy following.
Over the next several years Sammy and Jack kept in touch with Nate through
e-mail as they went about their adventures. They made a goal of visiting
every country in the world, and did a respectable job of it. Sammy had a
natural gift for languages, as Jack expected he would, and even ended up
acting as a translator for Jack in a few of the countries. Jack managed to
keep the talking rattlesnake hidden, even so, and by the time they were
nearing the end of their tour of countries, Sammy had only been spotted a
few times. While there were several people that had seen enough to startle
them greatly, nobody had enough evidence to prove anything, and while a few
wild rumors and storied followed Jack and Sammy around, nothing ever hit the
newspapers or the public in general.

When they finished the tour of countries, Jack suggested that they try some
undersea diving. They did. And spelunking. They did that too. Sammy finally
drew the line at visiting Antarctica. He'd come to realize that Jack was
stalling. After talking to his Dad about it over e-mail, he figured out that
Jack probably didn't want to have to kill Nate. Nate told Sammy that humans
could be squeamish about killing friends and acquaintances.

So, Sammy eventually put his tail down (as he didn't have a foot) and told
Jack that it was time - he was ready to go back and take up his duties from
his dad. Jack, delayed it a little more by insisting that they go back to
Japan and buy an appropriate sword. He even stretched it a little more by
getting lessons in how to use the sword. But, eventually, he'd learned as
much as he was likely to without dedicating his life to it, and was
definitely competent enough to take the head off of a snake. It was time to
head back and see Nate.

When they got back to the US, Jack got the old RV out of storage where he
and Sammy had left it after their tour of the fifty states, he loaded up
Sammy and the sword, and they headed for the desert.

When they got to the small town that Jack had been trying to find those
years ago when he'd met Nate, Jack was in a funk. He didn't really feel like
walking all of the way out there. Not only that, but he'd forgotten to
figure the travel time correctly, and it was late afternoon. They'd either
have to spend the night in town and walk out tomorrow, or walk in the dark.

As Jack was afraid that if he waited one more night he might lose his
resolve, he decided that he'd go ahead and drive the RV out there. It was
only going to be this once, and Jack would go back and cover the tracks
afterward. They ought to be able to make it out there by nightfall if they
drove, and then they could get it over tonight.

Jack told Sammy to e-mail Nate that they were coming as he drove out of
sight of the town on the road. They then pulled off the road and headed out
into the desert.

Everything went well, until they got to the sand dunes. Jack had been
nursing the RV along the whole time, over the rocks, through the creek beds,
revving the engine the few times they almost got stuck. When they came to
the dunes, Jack didn't really think about it, he just downshifted and headed
up the first one. By the third dune, Jack started to regret that he'd
decided to try driving on the sand. The RV was fishtailling and losing
traction. Jack was having to work it up each dune slowly and was trying to
keep from losing control each time they came over the top and slid down the
other side. Sammy had come up to sit in the passenger seat, coiled up and
laughing at Jack's driving.

As they came over the top of the fourth dune, the biggest one yet, Jack saw
that this was the final dune - the stone, the lever, and somewhere Nate,
waited below. Jack put on the brakes, but he'd gone a little too far. The RV
started slipping down the other side.

Jack tried turning the wheel, but he didn't have enough traction. He pumped
the brakes - no response. They started sliding down the hill, faster and
faster.

Jack felt a shock go through him as he suddenly realized that they were
heading for the lever. He looked down - the RV was directly on course for
it. If Jack didn't do something, the RV would hit it. He was about to end
humanity.

Jack steered more frantically, trying to get traction. It still wasn't
working. The dune was too steep, and the sand too loose. In a split second,
Jack realized that his only chance would be once he hit the stone around the
lever - he should have traction on the stone for just a second before he hit
the lever - he wouldn't have time to stop, but he should be able to steer
away.

Jack took a better grip on the steering wheel and tried to turn the RV a
little bit - every little bit would help. He'd have to time his turn just
right.

The RV got to the bottom of the dune, sliding at an amazing speed in the
sand. Just before they reached the stone Jack looked across it to check that
they were still heading for the lever. They were. But Jack noticed something
else that he hadn't seen from the top of the dune. Nate wasn't wrapped
around the lever. He was off to the side of the lever, but still on the
stone, waiting for them. The problem was, he was waiting on the same side of
the lever that Jack had picked to steer towards to avoid the lever. The RV
was already starting to drift that way a little in its mad rush across the
sand and there was no way that Jack was going to be able to go around the
lever to the other side.

Jack had an instant of realization. He was either going to have to hit the
lever, or run over Nate. He glanced over at Sammy and saw that Sammy
realized the same thing.

Jack took a firmer grip on the steering wheel as the RV ran up on the stone.
Shouting to Sammy as he pulled the steering wheel, "BETTER NATE THAN LEVER," he ran over the snake.



THE END


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PLEASE READ:

This joke was also a personality profile test...

It was the subject of a recent Educational Psychology Master's Thesis, soon to be published, which investigated the way that someone responds to a webpage such as this correlates to certain personality tendencies.

The research confirmed a statistically significant correlation which strongly suggests a dependably predictive positive relationship between how a person responds to this page and certain aspects of his or her psychological profile. Thus, it is called the Personality Profile Assessment Test Hypothesis.

While the actual results looked at several complex factors, and depended heavily on questionnaires filled out by volunteers upon completion of their experience, I will simplify the results by discussing three main groups and their profiles. While these profiles may not be exactly fitting of each person within each group, they do strongly suggest a statistically significant likelihood of profile similarity.



11% of those who see this page take their time, enjoying the joke as they read it, enjoying the build up to the punch line, and even if the punch line itself wasn�t particularly humorous, they tended to enjoy the process.



56% begin scroll down to the punch line either before starting to read the joke or within a short period of time- usually 20 seconds or less. The vast majority of this group choose not to read the joke.


33% read at least 1/3 of the joke, with the intention of reading it all, but then begin to question their decision and the investment of time they are making. They go back and forth between deciding to continuing or to skip to the end (this vacillating may be unconscious at the time, and happen in a matter of moments). The vast majority in this group give up before finishing � of the joke, and scroll to the end.

People in the first group, who read the entire joke, tend to enjoy the journey of life, and take their time as they move towards a goal. When traveling, they tend to thoroughly enjoy the process, and are not uptight or stressed about single-mindedly getting to their destination. They also tend to be very attentive, patient and long lasting lovers, and enjoy intimacy and physical connectivity whether or not it is carried to completion.

Those in the second group, who scroll to the end before reading more than a few sentences of the joke, tend to avoid surprises and the unknown. They prefer to have a regular schedule and not to step out of their routine. They tend to be efficient, but are often lacking in enjoyment, spontaneity and passion. They tend to be less patient and more interested in the destination than the journey. When on a trip, they tend to focus on getting where they are going, rather than enjoying the process. During intimacy, they tend to not be able to enjoy it unless they are certain it will be taken to completion. The idea of just �playing around� a while, engaging in physical intimacy without the promise of full completion is, rather than simply enjoyable and connective, considered to be �cruel� and a �teasing� and is met with resentment. This group�s ability to enjoy depends largely on their need to know what is going to happen. They tend to be more self-focused lovers, and tend not to last very long in satisfying the other partner if their own satisfaction has happened or is within easy reach.

The third group, who decided not to read the entire joke after reading a third or more of it, tend to be commitment-phobic and lack the ability to move forward to completion when things become challenging. They are often procrastinators and frequently give up on tasks when they become more difficult. They tend to prefer to have big dreams than act on them in the real, challenging world. A significantly higher percentage of this group had Cesarean birth, and may not have had the benefit of that early experience of struggle and effort being rewarded with accomplishment. This group tends to not take big vacations which would take more effort to plan and implement, and tends to stay close to home or even stay home during time off. Promotions and career moves which are within reach but still require some effort and focus are frequently not fully tried for, although the perception will be they were passed up. In intimate relationships, this group tends to start out romantic and passionate, but it quickly fades and is replaced by lackadaisicalness and indifference, characterized in part by a sense of feeling it is not worth the effort to continue having a passionate, energized and complete experience during intimacy. There is a tendency to �peter out� both in intimacy and in other aspects of life, and to take the easier road, even if it leads to a less fulfilling life.


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Disclaimer: This summary of the thesis results is not intended in any way to offer advice or therapy, nor is it intended to infer anything about whether anyone reading this page does or does not fit the personality profiles described.



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Those in the second group, who scroll to the end before reading more than a few sentences of the joke, tend to avoid surprises and the unknown. They prefer to have a regular schedule and not to step out of their routine. They tend to be efficient, but are often lacking in enjoyment, spontaneity and passion.

Wow, they know me so well!

In other reported nonsense, if you're a Sagittarius, here's your daily horoscope for September 25th 2016:

Your analytical skills are adequate for any research you're doing right now in your working life, but when it comes to figuring stuff out in your love life, you can't use logic. Facts are nonexistent -- you only have your gut to go on when it comes to emotions. People are too complicated to be figured out objectively, plus they are known to change their mind! If you want to unravel your feelings about someone, just let yourself feel what you feel. Don't try to tell yourself how to feel.

In other reported nonsense, if you're a Sagittarius, here's your daily horoscope for September 25th 2016:

Your analytical skills are adequate for any research you're doing right now in your working life, but when it comes to figuring stuff out in your love life, you can't use logic. Facts are nonexistent -- you only have your gut to go on when it comes to emotions. People are too complicated to be figured out objectively, plus they are known to change their mind! If you want to unravel your feelings about someone, just let yourself feel what you feel. Don't try to tell yourself how to feel.

what is it for scorpio plz

The same, but in reverse, except on the Sabbath, when you turn into a cannibal, and sating your bloodlust is all that will possibly matter to you.

Only 3 days to go! :)

I prefer Helvetica.

Helvetica Neue or get out!

I believe a variant of Helvetica was used on Super Mario Bros.' cover art.

I bet the cover of The Little Mermaid is written in Arial.

See what I did there!? :)

Yes, and frankly, I do not approve.

;)

Maybe 300 is written in Times New Roman. :)

Except That Are Spartans Not Romans.... -_-

D'ah... maybe Futurama uses Futura?

:p

Maybe 300 is written in Times New Roman. :)

Uhh�Sparta was in Greece, not the Apennine Peninsula, so no Times New Roman. Perhaps�

http://i.imgur.com/GkGdpEql.png.

300 would've been CCC

Airplane 2 is written in WingDings :)

Only one day to go! :)