News from Home


Cartimandua's convalesence was long. The doctor came again, tut-tutting with amazement at her recovery, and absolutely refused to let her leave the bed for a fortnight. I would have been very hard pressed to pay for all his services and the prolonged stay had it not been for a curious coincidence. In the afternoon of the day after Cartimandua's miraculous return to life I went down to the forum to stretch my legs and while I was there a dignified Roman approached me.

"You're Arxes, the Greek, aren't you, young man?"

"Yes, I am." I raised my eyebrows and smiled, disarmed by his friendly manner.

"Someone told me about you. Are you making a long stay in Pola? You see, my son's tutor doesn't speak Greek and I think the boy needs to have a bit of culture. Would you be willing to give him lessons in the Greek language and philosophy while you're here? I'll pay you, of course."

Naturally I agreed at once and from then on I spent an hour each day with the man's son, a likeable lad who made good progress in learning his alpha beta and seemed fascinated by what I could remember of Athenodorus' lectures. It wasn't long before other parents brought their sons to me and by the time Cartimandua was up and taking short walks I had six boys and the room at the inn had become a regular lecture hall. The fees, which were paid weekly, did wonders for my purse. Not only was I able to pay the doctor and the innkeeper, but I could afford to buy little treats for Cartimandua to tempt her appetite and build up her strength.

Cartimandua caught me counting the fees one day and came over to stand beside me, my son cradled in her arms.

"We have enough money, Arxes?"

I looked up at them and smiled happily.

"More than enough, my love. It's amazing how all this tutoring came at just the right time."

"I prayed to the Christos. This is His answer."

I stared at her, the memory of her words before her illness flooding back.

"So you did! You know, the other gods never answered my prayers like this. They just didn't seem interested in the affairs of us mortals. I can't get used to this God Who concerns himself even with little things. I wonder why He's different?"

"I think it is because He is living on earth like a man. He understand our problems."

"It must be," I said after a moment of thought. "If my parents agree, I'm going to call our son Paul, after the man who brought us the good news about the Christos."

Another month went by and at last the doctor pronounced Cartimandua completely cured and ready to travel. As soon as he had gone I picked up my cloak and put it on.

"Cartimandua, I'm going down to the harbour to find a ship for Ravenna. It's high time we went back."

"What about your students?" Cartimandua asked.

"Yes," I paused. "It seems a shame to leave them, but Lucius will be wondering what has happened to us and I've got to try and get to Gaul. You don't mind coming with me?"

"I like go to my country," Cartimandua assured me.

"Will the baby be all right?"

"Why not?" Cartimandua shrugged. "I pray to the Christos. Is no problem."

There were about a dozen ships in the harbour, apart from the usual small fishing boats and several naval vessels - a trireme and two biremes - which lay close to the dockside292, their oars neatly shipped. Only one ship was going direct to Ravenna, a well-kept vessel that was expecting a load of oil293 from Nesactium in the next day or so. I paid for our passage and then spent the rest of the afternoon going round my pupils to say farewell and collect the fees I was owed.

To my delight, I ended up with enough money to hire a donkey and its driver in Ravenna for Cartimandua and my son. It took us until late afternoon of the day after we landed to reach Lucius' estate, but the welcome we received was worth the effort of the journey. Once inside the house Lucius and I embraced warmly and then he turned to Cartimandua, kissing her chastely on the cheek and peering curiously at the baby.

"Well, he looks to be all there," he commented.

"Of course he's all there!" I laughed. "Go on, take him. I don't mind you holding my son."

"Ye gods, no!" Lucius looked startled. "I might drop him, Arxes."

"Come on," I chided him. "You didn't mind holding the lambs you delivered."

"That was different," he insisted, putting his hands behind his back. "They were mine. This is yours and if I drop him or break him you'll never forgive me. You actually acknowledged him?"

"Sure," I said. "Cartimandua and I are 'one flesh' and I tell you this, old friend. Whether or not I can persuade my father, I'm going to take her as my legal wife."

"This is the end!" Lucius threw up his hands and staggered towards the door. At the threshhold he turned and winked at us. "The first sign of madness is when a man legally marries his slave girl. Cartimandua, I pity you. Fancy having a lunatic for a husband."

We stayed there for a week while I made the arrangements for our trip to Gaul. My father's agent in Rome had sent up enough money for the venture and Lucius insisted on lending us a horse for me and a pony for Cartimandua. He wanted to lend us a couple of slaves as well but I knew that my money wouldn't stretch to food and lodgings for a whole retinue of followers. Young Paul would be expense enough.

The story of our adventures could easily fill a whole book on its own. It took us a month to reach the Alps and I made useful contacts in the cities of northern Italy on the way. We shivered with mingled fear and cold as we rode our animals over the terrifying passes, praying to the Christos to preserve us every step of the way294. In each place where we stopped for the night Cartimandua found someone to whom she could tell the story of the Christos and for my own part, I often found myself having to explain to a friendly merchant or fellow-traveller why I would not participate in some gesture of respect or worship to the gods.

Gaul is a vast country, covered in thick forests. The few large cities are widely spaced but eager for luxury goods and once again I made useful contacts with traders and merchants that my father was later able to exploit. Our trade virtually doubled when I returned home and went a long way towards reconciling him to the loss of the dowry that would have accompanied the daughter of Aristippus. Most of the people I met by way of business spoke some sort of Latin, but Cartimandua came in very useful in the small villages where we stopped at night.

Winter in Gaul is terrible, with thick snow and bitter, bitter cold. On Cartimandua's advice, however, we headed south and spent the worst months around the winter solstice in Marseille, where there were many who spoke my language. I set myself up as a philosopher and lectured in rhetoric and ethics to all who would listen, as well as teaching Greek to a class full of boys295. It kept me from dying of boredom and brought in some useful money for all the unforseen expenses. There were clothes for young Paul, who was growing at a tremendous rate, and Cartimandua needed some winter shoes296.

I didn't waste my time. I found a couple of merchants in Marseille who were interested in my father's cloth, and a new form of purple. I noticed that all the slaves here wore faded purple garments and while I was making enquiries about this I discovered a man who supplied a splendid new form of purple that came from Spain297. He gave me a small quantity in a leather bag to show to my father, but I felt sure Dad would be delighted. I could just hear him boasting about his "Spanish purple".

Naturally, neither Cartimandua nor I were able to refrain from speaking about the Christos. We were quickly made unwelcome in the town's small synagogue, but by the time spring came round again there were seven people who wanted to be initiated into the Christian mystery. When we left I promised to try and send someone to carry out the initiation.

That spring we made a short detour to visit Cartimandua's home village, which left me with a tearful girl on my hands for a couple of days. I already knew that both her parents and most of her relatives had died in some sort of a plague but what neither of us realised was that so had most of the villagers. There were only two or three families that she remembered and they weren't particularly friendly, which I suppose was why she had ended up a slave in the first place. Only one woman in the whole village showed us any hospitality, but she was willing to listen to the story of the Christos and responded with such simple joy that it made the trip well worth while.

After nearly eighteen months on the road and with the third winter away from home approaching, you can imagine our feelings when we saw Lucius' farm rising out of the flat lands of the Po valley. It was almost as good as coming home! One of the slaves must have spotted us approaching, for Cornelius came bustling out of the house as I dismounted.

"Welcome back, sir. How was your journey?"

"It's good to be back, Cornelius." I looked past him, expecting Lucius to appear through the open door at any moment. "Does Lucius know we're back?"

"No, sir. The master is not here."

"Bother." I handed the reins to one of the lads and walked stiffly across to help Cartimandua off her pony. "When will he be back?"

"I don't know, sir. I don't think he is coming back?"

I turned and stared at the man. "What do you mean? Where is he?"

"Sir, the master has returned to Greece. He left word that you were to treat this place as your home when you returned."

"Back to Greece?" I repeated dumbly. "But why?"

"About a month ago a messenger came from the master's aunt, sir, to say that the old master was dead."

"Dead! Old Varrus is dead?"

"I'm afraid so, sir."

I whistled. This was news indeed. Varrus Corfidio Tubero may not have been the most friendly of people, but he was well respected in Corinth.

"How did Lucius take the news?" I enquired. "Was he very upset?"

"The master mourned as was proper, sir, but he left a message for you. He bade me tell you that you have your girl and now he will have his."

"What on earth did he mean?" I demanded, hoping desperately that the words didn't mean what I thought they did.

Cornelius shrugged. "I don't know exactly, sir, but I gather that there is some girl over whom he and his father had a difference of opinion."

I nodded. "Yes, I knew that. Her name is Mysticus."

"Indeed, sir? I hope I'm not speaking out of place, sir, but I did like the young master, a very fine young man. I would be very sorry if he did something that he might afterwards regret."

"So should I," I agreed fervently.

"There is one more thing, sir." Cornelius glanced over his shoulder and lowered his voice and took a step closer. "The master used to go to Ravenna from time to time and visit a synagogue of the Jews there. After the news came of his father's death, the master went to visit again - perhaps seeking some sort of comfort - and came back grinning like an idiot. He clapped me on the shoulder and said, 'Cornelius, I've found the way.' I asked him what he meant and he said that the Jews had read to him from their holy books and according to them, if you are betrothed to a girl, even if your father sleeps with her, you can still marry her298 ."

"Oh no!" I groaned. "If Lucius does what I think he is planning he will be as bad as Oedipus. Listen, when did he leave?"

"Two weeks ago, sir."

"Right! We'll just stop for a night and then we're off. If the gods - I mean, if the Christos looks on us with favour, we'll get there in time to stop him making a fool of himself."

292 Unlike the practice in Christian times, (and the picture in Ben Hur) the oarsmen in Greek and Roman ships were not galley slaves chained to their benches, but free sailors following an honourable profession. In the History of Rome XXVI.xxxv, Livy remarks: "When the troops were enrolled, the question of additional oarsmen was taken up. At the moment there was not only an insufficiency of men for this purpose, but no money in the treasury for finding or paying them; so the consuls issued an edit ordering private individuals, according to their class and property-rating, to provide oarsmen, as had been done on a previous occasion, together with pay and rations for thirty days."

This is not to say that there were no slaves in the fleet, for men could be press-ganged into naval service. The people protested at the consuls' decree, protesting that "the enemy had burnt their houses, the state had stolen the slave-labour from their farms, either impressing the slaves as oarsmen for the fleet or buying them cheap for military service; any silver or copper money a man might have had been taken from him either for the oarsmen's pay or for the annual tax." Return

293 In speaking of the best quality olive oil Pliny, in his Natural History XV.iii, remarks, "The remainder of the competition is maintained between the territory of Istria and that of Baetica on equal terms." Istria is still littered with the remains of Roman oil-presses, while sherds of the amphorae that contained the oil have been found all over the Roman world. Return

294 The ancients did tend to exaggerate height. It is almost amusing to read Josephus' description of the Tyropoean Valley as so deep that the eye cannot reach the bottom - yet it can have been little more than a hundred feet from the top of the temple walls to the valley floor. Here is Strabo on the Alps: Geography IV.vi.6 "In addition to his putting down the brigands, Augustus Caesar built up the roads as much as he possibly could; for it was not everywhere possible to overcome nature by forcing a way through masses of rock and enormous beetling cliffs, which sometimes lay above the road and sometimes fell away beneath it and consequently, if one made even a slight misstep out of the road the peril was one from which there was no escape, since the fall reached to chasms abysmal. And at some places the road there is so narrow that it brings dizziness to all who travel it afoot - not only to men but also to all beasts of burden that are unfamiliar with it; the native beasts, however, carry the burdens with sureness of foot." Return

295 Pliny, in his Natural History III.iv, says "On the coast is Massilia, founded by the Greeks of Phocaea and now a confederate city." Massilia, named after the nearby tribe of the Massilians, is the same as Marseilles. Strabo adds in his Geography IV.i.5 "The Galatae [of Massilia] are glad to adapt their leisure to such modes of life, not only as individuals but also in a public way; at any rate they welcome sophists, hiring some at private expense but others in common, as cities, just as they do physicians." Return

296 Pliny, in his Natural History XVI.xiii, tells us that "The cork is a very small tree and its acorns are very bad in quality and few in number; its only useful product is its bark, which is extremely thick and which, when cut, grows again. When flattened out it has been known to form a sheet as big as ten feet square. This bark is used chiefly for ships' anchor drag-ropes and fishermen's drag-nets and for the bungs of casks and also to make soles for women's winter shoes." Return

297 The famous Roman purple was really a dark scarlet colour. Pliny's Natural History XVI.xxxi, remarks: "the same is the case with the whortleberry, grown in bird-snares in Italy but in Gaul also to supply purple dye for slaves's clothes." In XVI.xii he then tells us that "the holm-oak challenges all these products of the hard-oak on the score of its scarlet alone. This is a grain and looks at first like a roughness on a shrub, which is the small pointed-leaf holm-oak. The grain is called scolecium - 'little worm'. It furnishes the poor in Spain with the means of paying one out of every two instalments of their tribute." This "grain" is really the kermes insect which produces a red colour rather like cochineal. Return

298 "As has been taught: Rabbi Eliezer said, A man may marry a woman who has been raped by his father or seduced by his father, one who has been raped by his son or one who has been seduced by his son. Rabbi Judah prohibits one who has been raped by his father or seduced by his father." Babylonian Talmud, tractate Berakoth. Return