Nomen est omen, the Romans used to say—a name is a destiny. It’s a contestable notion, of course; even the idea of destiny leaves me uncertain. But just consider what you are saddled with when you’re named after a ruthless warrior thought to have been responsible for 17 million deaths. The Central Asian warlord Tamerlane, or Timur the Lame, was the cruel master of a 14th-century empire that stretched from India in the east to the Caucasus and Syria in the west. His armies, primed for pillage, left Delhi, Damascus, and Baghdad in ruins, adding to the glory of his own capital, the Silk Road city of Samarkand. His acts of atrocity were so over the top—pyramids of human heads in conquered Persian cities, prisoners walled in alive so their screams would cow others into submission—that they remain the stuff of macabre legend. “Tamerlane used terror as a central aspect of his military strategy,” said his biographer Justin Marozzi, “and it worked.”
We may never know what, if anything, all that meant to his namesake Tamerlan Tsarnaev, whose body today lies unclaimed in a Boston morgue. Plenty of men are named Alexander without entertaining thoughts of world domination. I know a Hungarian named Attila and a German named Adolf (he goes by Adi); neither has ever shown the slightest tendency toward megalomania. No doubt, the emerging picture of the older Tsarnaev brother (see The main stories, In-depth briefing, and The last word) includes ample evidence of cruelty, even before he engineered senseless violence at the Boston Marathon. But he grasped for terror without his forebear’s tactical brilliance, and it didn’t work. His sorry act leaves no legacy beyond the pain of the victims.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
'Horror stories of women having to carry nonviable fetuses'Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Haiti interim council, prime minister sworn inSpeed Read Prime Minister Ariel Henry resigns amid surging gang violence
-
Today's political cartoons - April 26, 2024Cartoons Friday's cartoons - teleprompter troubles, presidential immunity, and more
-
Editor's letterfeature
-
Editor's letter: Are college athletes employees?
feature The National Labor Relations Board's decision deeming scholarship players “employees” of Northwestern University has many worrying that college sports itself will soon be history.
-
Editor's letter
feature
-
Editor's letter: When a bot takes your job
feature Now that computers can write news stories, drive cars, and play chess, we’re all in trouble.
-
Editor's letter: Electronic cocoons
feature Smartphones have their upside, but city streets are now full of people walking with their heads down.
-
Editor's letter: The real cause of income inequality
feature When management and stockholders pocket all the profits, the middle class falls further behind.
-
Editor's letter: The real reason you’re so forgetful
feature When you consider how much junk we’ve stored in our brains, it’s no surprise we can’t remember our PINs.
-
Editor's letter: Ostentatious politicians
feature The McDonnells’ indictment for corruption speaks volumes about the company elected officials now keep.