My Son


The long months of winter dragged slowly by, with chill winds from the Adriatic that coated the land with a blanket of snow and then blew harder to strip it bare again. Lucius kept busy with the cattle, the winter ploughing, disputes among the slaves and all the things that a successful estate manager has to know and do. To give him credit, Cornelius didn't seem to mind the intrusion of a master and, indeed, the two of them seemed to get on well together.

I was surprised at all the things one had to know in order to run an estate properly. For example, did you know that although all sorts of fruit trees can be grafted onto other trees273 , one mustn't attempt to graft anything onto a tree with thorns? Apparently, so Cornelius told us, if such a tree should be struck by lightening the ceremonies to expiate the prodigy are both long and expensive.

At first I had big plans for travelling to some of the nearby towns and making the business contacts that my father had suggested, but Cartimandua clung to me and seemed distressed if I left her in the house just to ride round the estate with Lucius. I never even got as far as Ravenna, let alone Milan or further afield.

There were no Christians up here, of course, but every Sabbath Cartimandua assembled the female slaves and told and retold the story of the Christos and taught them to pray in His name. Soon even some of the male slaves were attending her meetings, a fact which annoyed Lucius, but as everyone knows that you mustn't deny a pregnant woman anything, at my earnest request he let her carry on undisturbed. In a way it was soothing to sit in the atrium in front of a glowing brazier, with the wind howling outside and dashing snowflakes against the walls, and listen to Cartimandua's sweet voice telling a story that by now I could just about recite in my sleep.

"She tells it well," Lucius commented after one such occasion. "Watch it, my friend, or she'll become a priestess of this new religion274 and you'll have to look for someone else to share your bed."

Spring came early that year and for a time Lucius was worked off his feet with the ploughing and planting and animals giving birth but then the rush died down and we both began to feel cramped and bored on this little farm, isolated and lonely on the vast flat plains of Apulia.

"Let's go," Lucius said one day. "You ought to be about your father's business and I could do with a change."

"Go where?" I queried.

"Well, Ravenna for a start. After that we can work our way north and down into Istria. I believe that Pola275 is quite a thriving little town these days. From there we can catch a boat straight across the sea back here."

I was enthusiastic about the idea, but the problem was Cartimandua. On the one hand she insisted that I make the journey, on the other she resolutely refused to be parted from me.

"You must go, lord. Your father tell you to do this," she said, always adding, "And I coming with you."

I begged and pleaded, Lucius backed me up, Cornelius' wife cajoled and warned, but all to no avail and finally, for fear of harming the baby if we upset her, I gave in. The cart was piled high with cushions and blankets and loaded with more food than we could ever eat before it went bad, and the four of us set out on our travels again. There was a myrtle bush growing on the side of the lane and I plucked a sprig276 and kept it permanently in my wallet.

We stayed a couple of days in Ravenna, lodging in an inn by the harbour. I went round the merchants, introducing myself and making friends. (The year after I came home, Hephaeston brought the Great Bear up here and sold half his cargo of fine woollens and silk in Ravenna alone, so my efforts weren't wasted.) From there we went north past the various mouths of the Po river, including the one called Tartarus, which, a local farmer informed us, is really part of the Philistina canal. We didn't stay long in Venetia as the merchants weren't friendly, but I found a better reception in the colonies of Concordia, Aquileia and Trieste, and we spent nearly a week in each.

Not far from Trieste we crossed the river Formio and entered Istria, which has been considered a part of Italy ever since the time of Augustus Caesar, even though it was conquered by the Romans a little less than a century before him. The road south crawled over rough, stony mountains or dropped into rugged ravines and poor Cartimandua, jolted about in the cart, was very uncomfortable at times. As a result we spent longer than we really needed to in the towns of Aegida and Parenzo, from where we could look out over the island-studded sea with its deep blue water.

Finally we reached Pola - often known by its modern name of Pietas Julia - and Cartimandua and I booked ourselves into an inn on the hill overlooking the harbour. For the last week or so Lucius had been increasingly impatient with our slow progress and anxious to return to his estate. The day after we arrived he went down to the harbour and found a boat bound for Ravenna that was willing to take the horses and the cart, but we didn't accompany him. Cartimandua was, by this time, so large and swollen that any further travel was clearly out of the question and the short walk we took each evening down the hill, through the forum and out to the seaside and the cool breeze was about all she could manage.

The innkeeper was friendly enough and his wife fussed over Cartimandua like a mother hen. They put me in touch with the town's midwife277, an old crone with toothless mouth and rheumy eyes who was, nonetheless, reputed to have quite phenomenal skill in her profession. She came to visit Cartimandua and put her ear to my girl's belly to confirm that all was well with the baby within. She got Cartimandua to walk up and down the room a couple of times and tut-tutted over her slim hips.

"Ah, poor dear, poor dear," she croaked. "She'll have a hard time of it, young sir. Hard time of it indeed. Pray to the gods for a safe delivery for your girl, young sir."

"Which ones do you suggest, mother?" I enquired.

The old woman considered for a moment, her gummy jaws working the while. "Myself, I always say that Artemis278 is the best," she said at last. "Look with favour on us, divine lady, and so on. Still, you may have a god or goddess of your own who looks on you with particular grace. What charms are you wearing, dear?"

Cartimandua looked taken aback. "None, mother," she stammered.

"Oh dear. Oh dearie dear. No charms? What are you thinking of, young sir? A woman must have charms. You're not hard up, are you?" She peered at me suspiciously.

Actually, although I hadn't said a word to Cartimandua - it wasn't any of her business - I was a little hard up. All this travelling slowly by cart had increased the expenses of our journey enormously, and so had Cartimandua's various cravings, which I had done my best to supply, often at outrageous cost.

"I have enough for your fee, mother," I assured her.

"Hmmmph," the old woman snorted. "I'll send you up some charms right away, young sir. I've got a real beauty, wonderful power with the Immortals, brought all the way from Ephesus it was by a poor young thing who left it to me on her deathbed. 'You have it, aunty,' she says, 'it's all I've got to pay you with,' and me having stayed up two nights with her before she died. You put it on your girl, young sir. We don't want to take any risks with those slim hips of hers, do we now?"

She went off, wheezing and cackling, not long after and Cartimandua came over to me, standing as close as her enormous belly would allow.

"Please, lord. I not like charms. I am Christian. I pray to the Christos. He will hear me."

"But Cartimandua," I protested. "That woman knows her business. It's never right to offend the Immortals and even if some of her charms have more to do with the Infernal Powers279 than with Olympus, well, they too require respect and reverence."

Cartimandua shook her head and stroked my face. "Please, lord. I am Christian. I not like charms."

"Well, have it your own way," I shrugged. "I just hope the Christos hears you."

When the young girl sent by the midwife brought a handful of charms and amulets, I thanked her and reverently placed the objects in a safe place near the bed. Even if Cartimandua wouldn't wear them, at least their proximity might do her some good. Just to be certain that the gods would grant us their help, that evening, as we passed through the forum with its twin temples, I left Cartimandua in the square for a moment and ran up the stairs into the nearest one, the temple to Diana280 . I thrust a handful of sestertii into the hand of the priest and begged him to pray for a safe delivery for my - I nearly said, wife but I caught myself in time - for my girl. I couldn't really afford the money, but if it kept Cartimandua and my son alive it was money well spent.

A week later I had just stepped out of the room on my way down to the kitchen to fetch some water when I heard Cartimandua cry out. I raced back up the stairs and found her standing, ashen faced, in the centre of a pool of water tinged with blood.

"What's wrong?" I demanded.

"It's started. I think it's started," was all she could say.

I helped her back to the bed and then rushed downstairs again. The innkeeper's wife couldn't leave the kitchen but she put a large cauldron of water on the fire to boil and sent one of the slaves to fetch the midwife.

"You go up and look after her, sir, until the midwife arrives. After that you come down here and get drunk. That's what they all do, sir. Drunk as a lord, that's what you men do while we women suffer."

I won't try to describe the next twelve hours. I didn't get drunk, I just sat in the bar gripping my pot of wine so hard that my knuckles ached, while upstairs Cartimandua sobbed and screamed. From time to time the inkeeper's wife came down and gave me news of what was happening up in our room.

"Ah, it's terrible hard, sir. A healthy young thing like her should have dropped her child hours ago, but she's too small, poor thing, and it's a big baby. The midwife is trying her on some drugs now281 ."

An hour or so later she was back down again.

"We nearly had it then, sir. The midwife could see the baby's head, but your girl just couldn't push hard enough. She's obstinate, though. She refuses to wear any charms, even the special ones the midwife is offering her at no extra cost." She went off, shaking her head.

Finally, well after dark, things seemed to reach a crescendo upstairs. I could hear women shouting, urging Cartimandua to "Push! Push!" and Cartimandua alternately screaming and moaning. She gave one last great cry and there was a terrible silence, followed almost immediately by the sound of a baby crying. Minutes later the innkeeper's wife appeared, accompanied by several other women and carrying a tiny, cloth-wrapped bundle.

"This is your girl's child," she said, holding the bundle out to me. "It is a boy."

In a daze, dimly aware that my grin was nearly splitting my face, I reached out my arms. I knew exactly what I was saying.

"Let me see my son282."

"Your son."

The women chorused the word and broke into happy smiles and congratulations. Out of the corner of my eye I saw one of them slip out of the room, headed for the stairs, but all my attention was on that tiny scrap of flesh that Cartimandua and I had created. I stroked my finger down his tiny nose and across his downy cheeks. I glanced up at the watching women.

"Is he - I mean - is he all there?"

A great shout of laughter went up from the women and the innkeeper's wife bustled forward and took the child from me.

"Ten fingers, ten toes," she said. "What more do you want?"

273 The range of trees that were grafted in ancient times was truly astonishing. Among others, Pliny in his Natural History XV.xii mentions: "Plums grafted on a nut tree show a remarkable effrontery, displaying the appearance of the parent tree and the juice of the adopted stock; they take their name from each, being called nut-plums. . . . Recently in Baetica the name of apple-plum has begun to be given to plums grafted on apple trees and that of almond-plum to others grafted on almonds: the latter have the kernel of an almond inside their stone and indeed no other fruit has been more ingeniously crossed."

A little further on (XV.xvii) Pliny says, "This department of life has long ago arrived at its highest point, mankind having explored every possibility, inasmuch as Virgil speaks of grafting nuts on an arbutus, apples on a plane and cherries on an elm. And nothing further can be devised - at all events it is now a long time since any new kind of fruit has been discovered. Moreover, religious scruples do not permit us to cross all varieties by grafting; for instance, we must not graft upon a thorn inasmuch as it is not easy to expiate thunderbolts when they have struck them and it is declared that the same number of bolts will strike it in a single flash as the kinds of trees that have been grafted on it." Return

274 Not all priestesses were prostitutes; most religions called for strict chastity. Livy, in his History of Rome IV.xliv, remarks: "It was during this year that a Vestal Virgin named Postumia was put on trial for a sexual offence. Actually she was innocent, but the fact that she dressed well and talked rather more freely and wittily than a young girl should, up to a point justified the suspicion against her. She was remanded and afterwards acquitted, with a warning from the Pontifex Maximus, in the name of the college of priests, to stop making jokes and to dress in future with more regard to sanctity and less to elegance." Return

275 Set on a magnificent natural harbour, Pula was indeed thriving. Shortly after this time, in 50 AD, the citizens erected an amphitheatre, the sixth largest in the Roman world. Return

276 Pliny's Natural History XV.xxxvii, says, "Sprigs of myrtle also, merely by being carried by a traveller, are beneficial when making a long journey on foot." Return

277 As in primitive societies today, it was considered shameful for gynaecological problems to be discussed with, or in the presence of, a man. In Euripides' Hippolytus, Phaedra's nurse advises her, "If it's some trouble you can't mention that makes you ill, look, these people here [the Chorus] are women who can help you find a cure. But if men can be told your ailment, out with it and we'll consult doctors." (p. 138) Return

278 In Euripides' play Hippolytus the Chorus sings: "A miserable, wearing helplessness too often accompanies the irritable constitution of women before the pains of labour, making our wits go astray. Through my womb once this breeze blew strong but on the heavenly one I cried, the archeress who eases labour, Artemis, and always - gods be thanked! - she comes to my side, the answer to all prayers." (p. 135) Return

279 According to Pausanias' Guide to Greece I.i, "Twenty furlongs away from Athens is Cape Kolias, where the sea-race washed up the wreckage of the Persian fleet. An image of Aphrodite stands there, with the Genetyllides: I think these are the same that the Phokaians in Ionia call Gennaides." They were underworld birth goddesses. Return

280 The Roman Diana was considered the equivalent of the Greek Artemis. To the ancients the fact that different cultures had similar gods or goddesses was confirmation that these deities were objective realities. It was cultures which did not have similar gods - such as the Jews and the Persians - that worried them. Return

281 The skeleton of a thirteen year old girl with the remains of an unborn foetus in her abdomen was recently excavated in Israel. Buried with her were a number of glass jars and one was coated with marijuana which had been burnt, presumably as a form of pain-relief for the poor girl. (Information from Joe Zias of the Rockerfeller Museum, Jerusalem.) Return

282 The formal acknowledgement of a new-born child was vital. In Menander's The Girl from Samos, Moschion, who has seduced his neighbour's daughter, tries to show that he is doing his best to put things right. "I didn't deny that I was responsible, but went without being asked to the girl's mother and promised to marry her daughter as soon as my father came home. I gave my word I would. The baby was born a few days ago and I formally acknowledged it as mine." On the other hand, if a man refused to acknowledge a child as his, that child was illegitimate. Suetonius, in The Twelve Caesars, tells us that the emperor Claudius "had children by three of his wives. Urgulanilla bore him Drusus and Claudia; . . . Claudia's real father was Claudius' freedman Boter. Claudius disavowed paternity and, though she was born nearly five months after the divorce, had her laid naked outside Urgulanilla's house door." (p. 203)

To the people of antiquity, this was the real significance of the voice from heaven at Jesus' baptism, which acknowledged "This is My Son." As Paul says, Jesus was "declared with power to be the Son of God". Romans 1:4 Return