The Decided Ones

You've probably never heard of the Decided Ones of Jupiter the Thunderer, an Italian secret society and bandit army of the nineteenth century, but they were large enough to virtually seize southern Italy for themselves, marching under a skull and crossbones “Jolly Roger” flag bearing the inspirational slogan “Sadness, Death, Terror, and Mourning.” They were led by a sociopathic Catholic priest named Ciro Annunchiarico, who claimed to be the earthly avatar of the ancient Roman god Jupiter. Belief in his supernatural powers was so unquestioned that he was actually able to walk straight through an army encampment unmolested and take the general prisoner at knife-point.

The peasants of Calabria were convinced that the priest and bandit warlord was really Jupiter, and that he could call down lightning from the skies at will. He is supposed to have killed between sixty and seventy men by his own hand, the first baker's dozen before he was a bandit (in a private vendetta with the family of a man who felt that a Catholic priest should not have seduced his fiance, and made the fatal mistake of saying so!) and the others after he fled to the mountains to join the bandit gangs. He seems to have had an extraordinary if not mysterious power of charisma, as tens of thousands of hardened bandits readily obeyed him and acknowledged his bizarre claims. However, when the authorities hired some very unsuperstitious Swiss and German mercenaries, he was quickly defeated and captured. Even his execution was bizarre- supposedly a firing squad of twenty-one men couldn't put him down, and he went on praying to Jupiter until an officer finished him off with a silver bullet. I'm not suggesting anyone take that last bit too literally, but clearly Ciro Annunchiarico was no garden-variety sociopath.