The ROMAN EMPIRE

Recently I’ve been adapting an award-winning  movie script called, Simon: Son of Star, into a novel. It’s an historical tale about an Israeli rebellion against the Roman Empire in the years 132-135 AD. Simon was a master swordsman who rose to power and led the rebellion. Rabbi Akiva, the chief rabbi of Israel at the time, declared that Simon was the long-awaited Jewish messiah. When Emperor Hadrian heard about the Simon and that he was declared the messiah, his response was: “What, another one!”

Hadrian thought Simon and the rebels could be quickly defeated but he was wrong. The rebels first took over a series of Roman-held villages, then the capital city Jerusalem and Hebron. Simon freed the Judeans, as they were then called, for three years before Hadrian sent most of his military – legion and legion of soldiers- and surrounded the fortress  village of Beitar, where Simon and his army took their last stand and went down in defeat in a massive slaughter.

I (Rob) was working on the novel when an email popped up for a new disc golf disc, synchronistically called ROMAN EMPIRE as depicted above. When I’m not at my desk writing, I’m a disc golf player, playing a game or two a week with a group of friends. So it’s not surprising that I would get an email from Infinite Discs about a new disc on the market. But the name of it was clearly a meaningful coincidence for me. And BTW, I played today…and got slaughtered!