What good is being immortal if you are not around to enjoy it?

The Minneapolis Institute of Arts has a traveling exhibition featuring the terracotta soldiers from the Chinese first empire.  In an effort to protect himself in the afterlife, the first emperor ordered the creation of thousands of clay soldiers and hundreds of clay horses to be positioned standing guard.  A few of these pieces are now on tour.  These clay sculptures from 2200 years ago are amazing in their variety and detail.

In a quest for immortality, the emperor (shortly after becoming so) ordered work to begin on an elaborate burial compound that apparently includes an underground palace, multiple chambers for entertainers, courtesans, and officials, and, of course a tomb.  Turns out, it’s pretty easy to get things done when you have hundreds of thousands of conscripts at your disposal (literally).

On learning all this, my first reaction was to reflect on how powerful a motivator immortality is and how the emperor, who lived to 49, swung and missed on that score – actually one story is that he died from mercury poisoning resulting from an elixir concocted to make him immortal – probably too ironic to be true.

In another way, the emperor did achieve a degree of immortality as, among other things, I now blog about him.  Too bad he won’t be able to read this post.