Toutes les nouvelles de Cabotages en un clin d'œil ...
_2.jpg)
Your ad here
May '68 (ad) – arrival of a headless man
This is the story of Roman martyr Torpetius, also known as "Saint Tropez".
As you stroll through the town's streets you may wonder who this statue commemorates. Despite the bust's rather rakish looks, it isn't actually John Galliano, but Caïus Silvius Torpetius, also known as the Knight Torpès.
This steward, s
erving in the court of the Emperor Nero, was commissioned to guard the Apostle Paul in prison. But the inmate ended up converting his prison officer. Nero was not one for pleasantries, and immediately put the turncoat to death in Pisa. But in a well-recorded miracle, the lions lay down at his feet. Even more remarkably, the pillar he was then attached to in order to be flogged to death broke and killed his executioner. As a last resort, decapitation was proposed, and this finally proved fatal. Torpetius died on 29th April 68
and his body was placed in a small boat with a rooster and a dog, and set adrift in the mouth of the Arno river. The Mediterranean currents took care of the rest. On 17th May 68, the boat ran aground on the shore of a place that came to be known as Saint Tropez, once the story became known.
The rooster and the dog, which had been put in the boat to eat the body, hadn't even touched it. The head of Torpetius is now in Pisa, and a small party from Saint Tropez visits the relics every year on 29th April. 
