Here is a short crux story in 3 chapters.
It’s one I wrote some time back but haven’t posted until now. Enjoy.
And, as always, comments, banter … even limericks … are welcome. As are illustration contributions from our resident artists.
Post CCLXVII.
Part I.
“Post CCLXVII, Post CCLXVII, Post CCLXVII,”
He keeps muttering that to himself. He’s been doing it incessantly ever since we left the Porta Appia.
He leads me by a coarse rope tied loosely around my neck. I follow along, partially bent over and staggering under the weight of the rough wooden crossbar I’m forced to grip with both hands and balance across my bare shoulders.
It’s early morning, still relatively cool … the brief but pleasant time that precedes the stifling heat of a typical Roman summer day. The pavement stones beneath my bare feet are yet cool and damp, even a bit slippery. I take care to maintain my footing.
A slight breeze from off to my right stirs my long brown tresses … which hang free and loose over my shoulders and bare breasts rather than arranged in the stylishly flamboyant mass of curls and braids typically affected by an aristocratic young Roman woman like myself.
They had stripped me of my beautifully elegant stola and palla on the day I was arrested, leaving me with nothing more than the simple grey woolen tunic I now wear … secured at the waist with a braided leather belt, but with the top part torn from my shoulders and hanging about my hips in loose folds.
My utterly disheveled appearance says volumes about how far and how quickly I have fallen. It was my misfortune to have married a man of wealth and significance who had foolishly cast in his lot with a cabal of ambitious zealots plotting to seize power.
Ambitious, yes, but failing spectacularly due to the deceit of an informant planted in their midst. But it was actually worse than that. Truth be told, even without the informant, their insurrection was doomed from the start by countless indiscretions and blunders. Indeed, I can well imagine that half of Rome knew about it. The whole thing was unbelievably amateurish from the very beginning.
But what’s done is done.
I stagger on over the uneven stone paving, passing slowly by the gruesomely displayed human wreckage of the failed coup … body after body, both male and female, hanging nakedly and wretchedly from the seemingly endless parade of rough wooden crosses that flank both sides of the roadway for as far ahead as the eye can see.
My arms already feel the strain imposed by the awkwardness of keeping my crossbar perched squarely across my shoulders. The pressure against the back of my neck is uncomfortable. The weight of my burden forces my head and upper body to lean unnaturally forward. And with my wrists bound to the crossbar I am unable to shift the load.
It’s said that the wrath of Rome has no equal. In this instance it has chosen to summarily deprive the failed plotters of the citizenship that might have protected them, their families and households, from such a humiliating and barbarous end.
This very morning, before exiting through the Appian Gate, I overheard someone say that as many as two thousand, possibly even more, were destined to be crucified along the road before the day is over … the most prominent closest to the city gate, the lesser further out. And that once the spectacle is readied for viewing, the crowds are to be permitted to roam the length of the display to bear witness to the price of treason.
That I am apparently condemned to be crucified on the two-hundred-sixty-seventh roadside post, is indicative of the relative un-importance amongst the conspirators of my fool of a husband. I rue his silly, vainglorious eagerness to have joined such an obviously ill-fated venture. Not to mention the fact that the damned old fool, nearly thirty years older than myself, had gone off and gotten himself killed in the process. And, as a consequence, deprived me of the satisfaction of seeing the dumb bastard die nailed to a cross alongside my own! How I now despise him!
“Post CCLXVII, CCLXVII, Post CCLXVII,” the legionary tugging at my rope continues to mutter to himself as he leads me forward. That too adds to my fury and growing anxiety. I imagine that the thick-necked lout placed in charge of my fate is likely as dumb as an ox.
Together he and I trudge relentlessly on, passing silently between the endless double line of human misery. We follow others who, like myself, are being led forward to a terrible death … a death normally reserved for slaves and criminals. From all around, my senses are assaulted by a cacophony of darkly unsettling sounds … the groans and moans, curses, pleadings, sobs, cries, shrieks and wails of the already crucified.
And from a short distance up ahead come the shouts of the legionnaires tasked with extending this mass crucifixion tableau to the far horizon, accompanied by the ring of hammers striking iron nails and the howls and screams of those being nailed and raised.
My arrest took place in the middle of the night. They had stormed without warning into our villa, savagely slaying an old servant who attempted to bar their entry. I was brusquely ordered from my bed, told to dress quickly, bound at the wrists and escorted, under guard … along with my faithful young personal maid, Lucilla, and much of the remaining household … through the darkened streets to the Tullianum, the city’s notorious prison in which those awaiting trial languished,
In my case, the languishing lasted only overnight as the authorities were bent on moving quickly to make a public spectacle of the perpetrators of the foiled plot along with everyone … innocent or not … associated with them, no matter how tenuous that association might be.
My brief stay in the Tullianum was spent shackled, arms spread over head, backed against a cold stone wall …where, stripped to the waist, I endured the humiliation of being rudely fondled and mauled, every so often, by passing guards. But thankfully, as an aristocrat, or at least formerly one, I was spared the incessant gang rapes inflicted on the younger female prisoners of lesser rank, including my poor innocent servant girl, Lucilla.
“Post CCLXVII, CCLXVII, Post CCLXVII.”
My lout keeps repeating the same refrain over and over to himself. I continue to find this most highly irritating … ever more so as time passes.
As we move on, from off to my left, someone calls out my name. I turn half around to see who it might be.
Pushing upwards shakily with her legs and leaning out from the wood, face twisted into a grimace reflecting both effort and pain, is my dear friend, Livia … wife of Marcus Licinius Gannicus.
Marcus, one of my husband’s closest chums and co-conspirators, hangs listlessly on the cross next to Livia’s. His corpulent nude body is horribly bruised and bloody. His facial muscles are slack. His eyes closed. It’s difficult to judge whether he is dead or alive.
It’s startling to see such a close friend, stripped nude and nailed to the wood. Her flaming red hair, wet with sweat, half covers her face. Blood trickles from the wounds inflicted by the nails driven through her wrists and feet.
“Curse you, Barbara!” she croaks hoarsely. “Curse you, and your forever scheming scum of a husband for enticing my dear Markus into such an ill-fated venture! Curse you!”
I turn my head abruptly away. I cannot face her wrath, nor witness her shame.
My lout jerks my rope and I stagger on, now more bent over under the weight of my burden than before, Livia’s shouted venomous curses still ringing in my ears.
“Post CCLXVII, CCLXVII, Post CCLXVII.”
Annoyingly, the seemingly never ending refrain continues.
But not for long, for we abruptly come to a full stop. Raising my head sufficiently to look ahead rather than down at my feet, I see that I’ve nearly reached the place where i am to be crucified.
Not very far ahead, men and women are being being separated from the slow-moving column and thrown to the ground on either side of the roadway. Only a handful remain on their feet, in the shrinking distance that presumably separates me from the location of Post CCLXVII.
An Optio brandishing a “flagrum” materializes from somewhere up ahead. He is methodically working his way back along the column, lashing out at those still in line. The sharp hiss and dull thud-smack of braided leather thongs cutting through air and biting into exposed human flesh drifts towards me, mixed with the cries of his helpless victims.
Some stand their ground and stoically accept the lash, others sink to their knees to cower and beg. Some eventually fall to the ground, their fall awkwardly impeded by the heavy wooden crossbeams carried on their shoulders.
I wonder what I will do … how I will react … when he reaches me … to the terrible bite of his flagrum.
And before too long my turn has come. He stops and stands before me, hands planted on hips, regarding me carefully, looking me over … up and down.
TBC
It’s one I wrote some time back but haven’t posted until now. Enjoy.
And, as always, comments, banter … even limericks … are welcome. As are illustration contributions from our resident artists.
Post CCLXVII.
Part I.
“Post CCLXVII, Post CCLXVII, Post CCLXVII,”
He keeps muttering that to himself. He’s been doing it incessantly ever since we left the Porta Appia.
He leads me by a coarse rope tied loosely around my neck. I follow along, partially bent over and staggering under the weight of the rough wooden crossbar I’m forced to grip with both hands and balance across my bare shoulders.
It’s early morning, still relatively cool … the brief but pleasant time that precedes the stifling heat of a typical Roman summer day. The pavement stones beneath my bare feet are yet cool and damp, even a bit slippery. I take care to maintain my footing.
A slight breeze from off to my right stirs my long brown tresses … which hang free and loose over my shoulders and bare breasts rather than arranged in the stylishly flamboyant mass of curls and braids typically affected by an aristocratic young Roman woman like myself.
They had stripped me of my beautifully elegant stola and palla on the day I was arrested, leaving me with nothing more than the simple grey woolen tunic I now wear … secured at the waist with a braided leather belt, but with the top part torn from my shoulders and hanging about my hips in loose folds.
My utterly disheveled appearance says volumes about how far and how quickly I have fallen. It was my misfortune to have married a man of wealth and significance who had foolishly cast in his lot with a cabal of ambitious zealots plotting to seize power.
Ambitious, yes, but failing spectacularly due to the deceit of an informant planted in their midst. But it was actually worse than that. Truth be told, even without the informant, their insurrection was doomed from the start by countless indiscretions and blunders. Indeed, I can well imagine that half of Rome knew about it. The whole thing was unbelievably amateurish from the very beginning.
But what’s done is done.
I stagger on over the uneven stone paving, passing slowly by the gruesomely displayed human wreckage of the failed coup … body after body, both male and female, hanging nakedly and wretchedly from the seemingly endless parade of rough wooden crosses that flank both sides of the roadway for as far ahead as the eye can see.
My arms already feel the strain imposed by the awkwardness of keeping my crossbar perched squarely across my shoulders. The pressure against the back of my neck is uncomfortable. The weight of my burden forces my head and upper body to lean unnaturally forward. And with my wrists bound to the crossbar I am unable to shift the load.
It’s said that the wrath of Rome has no equal. In this instance it has chosen to summarily deprive the failed plotters of the citizenship that might have protected them, their families and households, from such a humiliating and barbarous end.
This very morning, before exiting through the Appian Gate, I overheard someone say that as many as two thousand, possibly even more, were destined to be crucified along the road before the day is over … the most prominent closest to the city gate, the lesser further out. And that once the spectacle is readied for viewing, the crowds are to be permitted to roam the length of the display to bear witness to the price of treason.
That I am apparently condemned to be crucified on the two-hundred-sixty-seventh roadside post, is indicative of the relative un-importance amongst the conspirators of my fool of a husband. I rue his silly, vainglorious eagerness to have joined such an obviously ill-fated venture. Not to mention the fact that the damned old fool, nearly thirty years older than myself, had gone off and gotten himself killed in the process. And, as a consequence, deprived me of the satisfaction of seeing the dumb bastard die nailed to a cross alongside my own! How I now despise him!
“Post CCLXVII, CCLXVII, Post CCLXVII,” the legionary tugging at my rope continues to mutter to himself as he leads me forward. That too adds to my fury and growing anxiety. I imagine that the thick-necked lout placed in charge of my fate is likely as dumb as an ox.
Together he and I trudge relentlessly on, passing silently between the endless double line of human misery. We follow others who, like myself, are being led forward to a terrible death … a death normally reserved for slaves and criminals. From all around, my senses are assaulted by a cacophony of darkly unsettling sounds … the groans and moans, curses, pleadings, sobs, cries, shrieks and wails of the already crucified.
And from a short distance up ahead come the shouts of the legionnaires tasked with extending this mass crucifixion tableau to the far horizon, accompanied by the ring of hammers striking iron nails and the howls and screams of those being nailed and raised.
My arrest took place in the middle of the night. They had stormed without warning into our villa, savagely slaying an old servant who attempted to bar their entry. I was brusquely ordered from my bed, told to dress quickly, bound at the wrists and escorted, under guard … along with my faithful young personal maid, Lucilla, and much of the remaining household … through the darkened streets to the Tullianum, the city’s notorious prison in which those awaiting trial languished,
In my case, the languishing lasted only overnight as the authorities were bent on moving quickly to make a public spectacle of the perpetrators of the foiled plot along with everyone … innocent or not … associated with them, no matter how tenuous that association might be.
My brief stay in the Tullianum was spent shackled, arms spread over head, backed against a cold stone wall …where, stripped to the waist, I endured the humiliation of being rudely fondled and mauled, every so often, by passing guards. But thankfully, as an aristocrat, or at least formerly one, I was spared the incessant gang rapes inflicted on the younger female prisoners of lesser rank, including my poor innocent servant girl, Lucilla.
“Post CCLXVII, CCLXVII, Post CCLXVII.”
My lout keeps repeating the same refrain over and over to himself. I continue to find this most highly irritating … ever more so as time passes.
As we move on, from off to my left, someone calls out my name. I turn half around to see who it might be.
Pushing upwards shakily with her legs and leaning out from the wood, face twisted into a grimace reflecting both effort and pain, is my dear friend, Livia … wife of Marcus Licinius Gannicus.
Marcus, one of my husband’s closest chums and co-conspirators, hangs listlessly on the cross next to Livia’s. His corpulent nude body is horribly bruised and bloody. His facial muscles are slack. His eyes closed. It’s difficult to judge whether he is dead or alive.
It’s startling to see such a close friend, stripped nude and nailed to the wood. Her flaming red hair, wet with sweat, half covers her face. Blood trickles from the wounds inflicted by the nails driven through her wrists and feet.
“Curse you, Barbara!” she croaks hoarsely. “Curse you, and your forever scheming scum of a husband for enticing my dear Markus into such an ill-fated venture! Curse you!”
I turn my head abruptly away. I cannot face her wrath, nor witness her shame.
My lout jerks my rope and I stagger on, now more bent over under the weight of my burden than before, Livia’s shouted venomous curses still ringing in my ears.
“Post CCLXVII, CCLXVII, Post CCLXVII.”
Annoyingly, the seemingly never ending refrain continues.
But not for long, for we abruptly come to a full stop. Raising my head sufficiently to look ahead rather than down at my feet, I see that I’ve nearly reached the place where i am to be crucified.
Not very far ahead, men and women are being being separated from the slow-moving column and thrown to the ground on either side of the roadway. Only a handful remain on their feet, in the shrinking distance that presumably separates me from the location of Post CCLXVII.
An Optio brandishing a “flagrum” materializes from somewhere up ahead. He is methodically working his way back along the column, lashing out at those still in line. The sharp hiss and dull thud-smack of braided leather thongs cutting through air and biting into exposed human flesh drifts towards me, mixed with the cries of his helpless victims.
Some stand their ground and stoically accept the lash, others sink to their knees to cower and beg. Some eventually fall to the ground, their fall awkwardly impeded by the heavy wooden crossbeams carried on their shoulders.
I wonder what I will do … how I will react … when he reaches me … to the terrible bite of his flagrum.
And before too long my turn has come. He stops and stands before me, hands planted on hips, regarding me carefully, looking me over … up and down.
TBC
