Andivius Hedulio: Adventures of a Roman Nobleman in the Days of the Empire Part 52

Our captors did not treat us roughly, though they bound our hands behind us effectually. They laughed over our device for escaping the arrows and commented on our cleverness. Our amulet-bags they ignored, being more interested in our brand-marks and scourge-scars. Their sergeant asked us where we were from.

"Do you think it likely," Agathemer laughed, "that we would tell you; can't you read on our backs that, wherever we came from it is the last place on earth we want to go back to?"

The sergeant laughed genially.

"Mark 'em 'unidentified'," he ordered.

They clothed us in tunics innocent of any blood-stains, but which, we felt sure, had been taken from the corpses of our late a.s.sociates.

"Put 'em with the rest," the sergeant ordered.

With the rest, some three hundred survivors out of more than three thousand tumultuaries, we were herded inside a convoy of constabulary and marched in the dusk and dark to our former camp at Rubrae. There we were liberally fed on what was, apparently, the leavings from the entertainment afforded the mutineers there on their down-march.

Next morning we were lined up and inspected by a superior officer with two orderlies and two secretaries. As he pa.s.sed down the rank in which Agathemer and I stood he eyed us keenly. After a time he returned and said:

"These two rascals are trying to keep together. Separate them!"

Thereafter I saw no more of Agathemer for over four years.

I do not wish to dwell on my wretchedness, after we were parted. Alone among riffraff, I was very miserable. I mourned for the faithful fellow and knew he mourned for me. I longed for him as keenly as if he had been my twin-brother.

I and my fellows were marched on under close convoy, up the Flaminian Highway and the batch among which I was, was cast into the _ergastulum_ at Nuceria.

There I pa.s.sed a miserable winter. Our prison was not unlike the _ergastulum_ at Placentia; ill-designed, damp, cold, filthy, swarming with vermin and crowded with wretches like myself. I was despondent in my loneliness and found harder to bear my s.h.i.+verings, my fitful half-sleep in my foul infested bunk, the horrible food, the grinding labor, the stripes and blows and insults of the guards and overseers and the jeers of my inhuman fellow-sufferers. This time I had no chance of becoming cook's- helper or of easing my circ.u.mstances in any other manner. I spent the entire winter haggard for sleep, underclad, underfed, overworked, s.h.i.+vering, beaten and abused.

Conditions in that _ergastulum_ were more than amazing. It was so utterly mismanaged that, in fact, very little effective work was done, though the inmates were roused early, set to their tasks before they could really see, lashed all day, given but a very brief rest at noon and released only after dusk. Half the prisoners judiciously directed could have ground twice as much grain. As it was, the superintendent and overseers had far less real authority than a sort of dictator elected or selected or tolerated by the rabble. He had a sort of senate of the six most ruffianly of the prisoners. These seven ruled the _ergastulum_ and their power was effective for overworking and underfeeding, even more than the generality, those whom they disliked, and for diminis.h.i.+ng the labors and increasing the rations of their favorites. The existence of this secret government among the rabble was in itself astonis.h.i.+ng, its methods yet more so.

Unlike the _ergastulum_ at Placentia the watch at the _ergastulum_ at Nuceria was very lax and haphazard. It was effective at keeping us in; there were but three escapes all winter. But communication with the outside world was fairly easy and was kept up unceasingly. Many of the inmates had friends among the slaves of Nuceria. The gate-guards were so remiss that, daily, one or more outsiders entered our prison and left when they pleased. The henchmen of the dictator even managed to slip out and spend an hour or more where they pleased in the city. This, however, was possible only if they returned soon, for the superintendent was keen on calling us over three times a day.

Through the activities of those inmates who arranged to get out and return, and of their friends who entered and left, since the weighers of the grain and flour were careless and their inspectors negligent, the dictator and his friends drove a regular and profitable trade in stolen flour, which they exchanged for wine, oil, dainties, stolen clothing and such other articles as they desired; they even sold much of it for cash, and not only the dictator but each of the six senators had a h.o.a.rd of coins, not merely coppers, but broad silver pieces.

In this traffic and its advantages I had no share. In fact, of all his fellows, I think the dictator hated me most; certainly he bullied me, made my lot harder in countless petty ways, and abused and insulted me constantly.

After mid-winter I became aware of a traffic not only in dainties and wine, but in implements and weapons. Many daggers and knives were smuggled into the _ergastulum_, not a few files. The senators had a small a.r.s.enal of old swords, regular infantry swords, rusty but dangerous. Gradually I heard whispers of a plot. The conspirators were to file through the bars of more than one window, plastering up the filed places with filth and earth to conceal the filing, leaving a thread of metal to hold the filed bars in place. Then, when all was ready, they planned to murder the guards, overseers and superintendent, break out, sack the town-a.r.s.enal, loot shops and mansions, and then, well-clad and fully armed, take to the mountains and join the bands of the King of the Highwaymen. Two of the senators claimed to have been men of his before their incarceration and promised to lead the rest to the haunts of his brigands.

The date set for their attempt was the fourteenth day before the Kalends of April, a few days before the Vernal Equinox. My gorge rose at the idea of the burning and sacking of Nuceria, even at the slaughter of our cruel guards, overseers and superintendent. The more I thought the matter over the less I liked the prospect. I had every reason to hate the dictator and senators. I saw no likelihood of betterment for myself if I were carried off with these riffraff as one of a band of looters, murderers and outlaws, loose in the forests.

I contrived to disclose the plot to the prison authorities. As a result the _ergastulum_ was entered by the town guards, rigorously searched by the aldermen and their apparitors, under the aldermen's eyes, all the sawn bars, files, knives, daggers and swords discovered, the suspected men tortured till the ring-leaders were identified, the dictator and his senators flogged and manacled, and the management of the _ergastulum_ renovated.

I was conducted from the prison, given a bath, clothed in a clean, warm tunic and cloak, provided with good shoes, abundantly fed and put to sleep in a clean bed in the house of a freedman who watched closely that I did not escape, but did everything to make me comfortable.

The next day the chief alderman of Nuceria interrogated me at the town hall, praised me, declared that I had saved the town many horrors and much damage and loss, and asked me what reward I craved.

I answered, boldly, that what I craved was what all slaves craved: freedom.

He replied that, in his opinion, I had merited manumission; but that I was not the property of the munic.i.p.ality of Nuceria, but of the _fiscus_; [Footnote: See Note B.] I was, in short, part of the personal property of the Emperor and could be manumitted only by the Emperor, or by one of his legal representatives. Such a manumission would be difficult to arrange and its arrangement would take a long time. He would set to work to try to arrange for it. Meantime, could I not ask some reward within their power to grant?

I at once replied that I desired above all things never to be returned to that _ergastulum_.

This he promised immediately, saying that recommitment there would be equivalent to a sentence of torture and death, since my late a.s.sociates, infuriated at my treachery, as they named it, would certainly inflict on me all the torments their malignity could suggest and keep on till I died.

He added that he and the other aldermen had never meant to recommit me; deliverance from that _ergastulum_. they considered part of my reward and that the least part of it. What else did I desire?

"If," said I, "I must remain a slave and, remaining the property of Caesar, must be employed as the administration of the _fiscus_ direct, at least try to arrange that I be employed out of doors far from any town, on a slave farm, or at herding or wood-cutting or charcoal-burning. I have heard that many of Caesar's slave-gangs are busy afield, on farms, or pasture-lands or in the forests."

"That," said the alderman, "will be easy. Afield you shall go--even far afield. Do you like horses? Can you manage horses?"

"I love all animals," I said, "and most particularly horses."

"Then," said the alderman, "I have already in mind the very place for you, where none of your rancorous late a.s.sociates can ever find you, on an Imperial stock-farm or breeding-ranch in the uplands, among the forested mountains. Would you consider it a reward, would you consider it the fulfillment of your wish to be transferred from our town _ergastulum_, where you were as an Imperial slave rented out to our city, to such an Imperial estate, where you will be directly under the employees of the _fiscus_?"

"I certainly should feel rewarded," I said, "by such a transfer."

"In addition," he concluded, "we shall present you with a new tunic and cloak and new shoes, also an extra tunic, and with a purse containing ten silver pieces."

CHAPTER XXV

THE OPEN COUNTRY

After some days of rest, abundant food and leisurely hot-baths in the freedman's house, I left Nuceria under convoy of three genial road- constables and journeyed deliberately northward along the Flaminian Highway to the Imperial estate which was to be my abode. I am not going to locate it precisely nor to name the villages nearest it nor the neighboring towns. It will be quite sufficient to set down that it was near the Flaminian Highway and approximately half way between Nuceria and Forum Semp.r.o.nii.

My reasons for vagueness are mandatory, to my mind. Feuds in the Umbrian mountains differ greatly from feuds in the Sabine hills; but, like Sabinum, Umbria is afflicted with feuds. Now I antic.i.p.ate that this book will not only be widely read among our n.o.bility and gentry and much discussed by them, but also that it will be talked of by more than half Rome and that copies of it and talk about it will spread all over Italy and even into the provinces. Talk of it may trickle into the Umbrian mountains. Umbrian mountaineers live long. Some of those who loved me and befriended me or loved and befriended those who loved and befriended me, may still be alive and hearty and likely to live many years yet. So also may be some of those who hated me. I do not want anyone holding a grudge, or nursing the grudge of a dead kinsman or friend, to learn through me of any secret kindness to me which he might regard as treachery to his kin and so feel impelled to avenge on those who befriended me or their children or grandchildren. Umbrian enmities ramify incredibly and endure from generation to generation. I remember with grat.i.tude many Umbrians who were kind to me; I would not, however, indirectly cause any trouble to them in their old age, or to their descendants.

The Imperial estate was large and I learned its history. It was made up of three adjacent properties confiscated at different periods by different Emperors. One had fallen to the _fiscus_ under Nero, a second under Domitian, and a third under Trajan, each as the result of its owner being implicated in a conspiracy against the Emperor. The administration of the resultant large estate was a perfect sample of the excellent management in detail and stupid misjudgment in general so common under the _fiscus_. The estate was hilly, some of it mountainous, and quite unfitted for horse- breeding, which is best engaged in, as everybody knows, on estates composed chiefly of wide-spreading plains or gently rolling country with broad, flat meadows. Good judgment would have put this estate chiefly in forest, with a few cattle, some sheep and more goats, but no horses. As I found it, it had, to be sure, many goats, but almost as many sheep and cattle, and horses almost as numerous as the cattle and far more important, for to their breeding most of the efforts of the overseer were directed.

The overseer's house was the best of the three original villas. About it were ample, commodious and scrupulously clean quarters for slaves like me.

Also it had yards for fowls, ducks, geese, guinea-fowls, and peac.o.c.ks, arranged before the confiscation and allowed since to run down, but still productive and fairly well-filled with birds, as were the big dovecotes.

Besides, there were fish ponds and a rabbit-warren, left from the former villa. There were extensive stables, cattle-sheds and pens, sheep-folds, goat-runs and pig-sties adjoining the house. In the quarters I found a goodly company of hearty, healthy, contented slaves, sty-wards, goatherds, shepherds, cowmen and horse-wranglers. These were friendly from my first arrival among them, seemed to look me over deliberately and appraise me, and appeared to like me.

I was first sent out as one of two a.s.sistants to an experienced herder in charge of a rather large herd of beef-steers. We drove them up the mountains to a gra.s.sy glade and, when they had eaten down the gra.s.s there, to another. Our duties were light, as the steers were not very wild or fierce and were easy to keep together, to keep in motion by day and to keep stationary by night. Each night two of us slept by a smouldering fire and the third circled about the herd as the steers lay sleeping or chewing their cuds. The circling was done at the horse's slowest walk. Our horses were good, our food good, and my two companions genial, though reticent.

Only once did any of our charges bolt. Then, when we missed three steers, our senior asked me:

"Do you think you could find them and fetch them back?"

On my affirming confidence that I could he smiled doubtfully, and shook his head, but drawled:

"I'll give you the chance, just to try you out."

I found the runaways with no trouble whatever, for their trail was nowhere faint, turned them easily and brought them back, manifestly, much sooner than he had hoped. He appeared pleased, but merely grunted.

Yet he must have spoken well of me to the superintendent, for after a day's rest in the slave-quarters I was a.s.signed the sole care of a small bunch of young cows with their first calves. It seemed to be a.s.sumed that I would make no attempt to escape. As I had been given a good horse and a serviceable rain-cloak, I had thoroughly enjoyed my life from the start.

The landscape was charming, the climate agreeable, spring was approaching, I was out in the open air, camping at night by a fire wherever my charges lay down to sleep, eating what I chose of the ample supply of good food which I carried in my saddle-bags. I was happy, thoroughly happy, and I throve from my arrival. I still mourned for Agathemer, but I did not miss him as acutely as I had in the _ergastulum_.

After about ten days in the woodland glades I brought my charges back to the villa for inspection, according to orders. The inspector was pleased with their condition and commended me. Some of the fellow-herdsmen, off duty, stood or sat about and they seemed to approve.