Church Lucius

Adventures of a Roman Boy
1. Auflage 2018
ISBN: 978-83-8162-186-1
Verlag: Ktoczyta.pl
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 310 Seiten

Alfred John Church (1829-1912) was an English classical scholar. He was born in London and was educated at King's College London, and Lincoln College, Oxford, he took holy orders and was an assistant-master at Merchant Taylors' School for many years. Church wrote a number of stories in English re-telling of classical tales and legends for young people. 'Lucius Adventures of a Roman Boy', follows Lucius as he talks with Cicero, meets Spartacus, falls in love, is kidnapped by pirates, joins the Roman army, is captured by king Mithridates, and finds pirate treasure! Sounds exciting? Follow the young Lucius Marius who leads an adventurous life in Ancient Rome from the time of his capture by Spartacus.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Church, Alfred J.

Leseproben

II. AN ADVENTURE LUCIUS did not fail to present himself on the day appointed at the residence of the Prefect of Capua. He was perhaps a little disappointed with the appearance and manner of his superior. The quaestor was a man of about thirty-two, sufficiently good-looking, but already somewhat unwieldy and corpulent, foppish in his dress, and with a drawling, affected voice, which was not a little irritating to any one who was compelled to listen to it. Just then he was full of the grievance of having to leave Rome at such an inconvenient time, and began at once to pour his griefs into the ears of his subordinate. “It is perfectly monstrous,” he said, “making one leave Rome in April! If it had been in December, now, it would have been different. I am told that Sicily is very pleasant and warm in winter, while Rome is so cold that one can hardly keep one’s self alive. But now, at the very best time of the year, when it is neither too hot nor too cold, when all the best people are in town and there are entertainments every day, it is cruel to be banished in this way.” These complaints were repeated again and again at every stage of the journey. Lucius was soon exceedingly weary of them, and was not much better pleased when the quaestor varied them with anecdotes about himself and his friends. According to his own showing there had never been a man so popular and so ill-treated. “I should have been on the highroad to be consul,” he would say, “if I had had my deserts. But there are some great people whom I didn’t please; too independent, my dear lad, too original for them. If you want to get on you must be commonplace.” His talk, however, was not always so empty and conceited. He had lived among great people, and had seen great events; and though he did not really understand either the one or the other, the personal details which as an eye-witness he could sometimes give were often remarkably interesting. He had been a spectator of some of the most dreadful scenes of the civil wars, and he made his young hearer’s blood run cold by describing how he had seen the market-place of Rome almost ankle-deep in blood, with human heads piled up in heaps against the walls of the houses. All his reminiscences, however, were not of so dismal a character. He had been a boy of ten when Lucius’ great kinsman, Caius Marius, came back from his victory over the barbarians from beyond the Alps, and had had such a triumph as Rome had never seen before. Lucius was intensely interested in hearing all that he could recollect about it. “I can see it all,” he said, “as if it had happened yesterday. How the streets were crowded! I remember my father saying that all Italy seemed to have emptied itself into them. And what shouting! And then the procession itself! Of course it wasn’t so splendid as some that have been seen. The barbarians hadn’t much gold and silver and jewels to make a great show; but all that there was was so strange, it seemed as if it came from another world. There were the great wagons lumbering along, drawn by such oxen as never had been seen, with horns five feet long from root to tip. And then the prisoners! If the oxen were big, what were the men! Our tallest Romans seemed children beside them. One could not imagine how the soldiers had managed to make a stand against them and actually conquer them. And they were as like to each other as so many brothers, all with yellow hair and ruddy faces, and eyes as blue as the sea. The king was an absolute giant, nearly eight feet high. I remember being almost afraid to look at him, and dreaming of him for weeks and weeks afterwards.” The quaestor had also much that was interesting to say about Marcus Tullius. For the most part he was far too fashionable a person to show anything like enthusiasm; but for Tullius he did seem to have a genuine admiration. “Ah!” he said, “you people at Arpinum ought to be proud of your townsman. You have never heard him speak? Well, that is a real treat in store for you. I don’t care much in general for law or politics; but I never miss a chance of hearing him. He is absolutely irresistible. There is nothing that he won’t talk you into believing. You may know that he has got no case; but before he has done he makes every thing so plain and clear that you can’t imagine how you ever thought otherwise.” For two or three days the travellers pursued their journey without interruption; but as they went farther south they found a general feeling of uneasiness along the road. At an inn which had been built just where a branch road turned off to Paestum, the host, who had been much gratified by the quaestor’s loudly-expressed appreciation of his fare, especially some fat beccaficos and a haunch of roe-buck, was very emphatic in his warnings about the dangers which threatened all travellers in Southern Italy. “My dear sir,” he said, “be advised by me, if you don’t want to fall into the hands of Spartacus. Since the spring began he has been on the move, and the roads are not safe. I had a couple of merchants here the other day, and they told me all about him. He does not seem such a bad sort of fellow, though he is a rebel. They were taken, it seems, on the road near Laüs, and of course gave themselves up for lost. But they got no harm after all. They were marched up to Thurii, where Spartacus and his men have been all the winter. The place, they said, was a wonderful scene, as much like a fair as a camp. People were thronging in from all the country to buy and sell, and the harbor was full of ships. You see, sir, these people have picked up a pretty lot of plunder from one place or another; for they have run over nearly the whole of the east side of Italy from north to south, and they are ready to sell what they have got very cheap. There are some capital bargains to be had there, I am told, and I can very well believe it. My friends the merchants made a very good business of their trip, even according to their own account, and one does not expect a trader to be quite correct when he gives you the credit side of his account. You see they had six mules’ loads of arms with them, swords and daggers of the very best quality from Corsica and Spain, and these are just what Spartacus is always ready to buy. He gave them pretty well their own prices, and I don’t suppose they spared him. And then they did a little business on their own account. They might have bought any amount of silver plate, but that wouldn’t have suited them. You see pieces of plate can be recognized, and that would not have answered their purpose. They did buy a few gold cups for about half the price of the metal, as I understood, and had them melted down. But the chief business they did was in jewels and fine stuffs, linen and silks (the new textures, you know, that they bring now from the far East). They sold two of their mules, and came away with the others pretty well laden; and if you will believe me, sir, they did not lose a pennyweight of goods or a penny’s worth of money. And Spartacus gave them a safe-conduct too. If it had not been for that, they told me, they would have been taken half-a-dozen times or more upon their journey back.” “Well,” said Manilius, “I don’t particularly wish to make this gentleman’s acquaintance. I have nothing to sell, you see, and I am in a hurry. But what would you advise, for I must get on, you understand? I want, as I think you know, to make the best of my way to Sicily, and I should best like, for more reasons than one, to go as far as I can by land.” The landlord considered a while. “I have it. Wait here two or three days. I will answer for it you won’t repent it, for I see that you are a gentleman who knows what is good. This will give you time to send a messenger on to the nearest camp, and to get an answer back. Varro the praetor has got a very fair force with him at Velia– two legions, I understand, and about as many more auxiliaries, encamped about thirty miles to the south from here; and I did hear of his intending to march as far as Laüs. Well, if he does, you might go with him, and the rebels will think twice before they meddle with a force like that. Will that suit you?” “Exactly,” answered the quaestor. “Laüs is the very place I want to go to. I have business of importance there which I should not like to neglect. That done I can take ship.” “Very good,” said the landlord. “Then I will send off a messenger to the praetor, if you will write a few lines for him to carry. It is now about an hour to noon, and he will do the thirty miles, barring accidents, in five hours. Give him three hours to rest, and he will be back long before you are out of your beds to-morrow, for he is as active and long- winded a young fellow as ever I saw. You will see from the answer he brings back what you had best do. You can, if need be, by making an early start, reach the camp to-morrow. But if there is no need for hurry, I should strongly recommend you to stay.” The letter was written and the messenger despatched, with strict injunctions to lose no time upon the road. The man, a spare young fellow, whose legs seemed to have been developed out of all proportion to the rest of his body, started at a good round trot. He made indeed such excellent use of his time that he was back at the inn before dawn the next day. He brought a despatch addressed to the quaestor, which, as it was marked “urgent” on the outside, that official, not altogether to his liking, was roused to receive. It ran as...