J
Juan1234
Guest
“Up!”
A horn blasted, and as my bleary eyes struggled with the torchlight and shadow, my mind slowly recognized the voice of my centurion ordering us to wake. It was night. Deep night, with no hint of the dawn on the starry horizon.
I followed orders - I couldn’t remember what they were after I had obeyed, but I remember we surrounded the praetorium in the dark, and that later I was sent to occupy one of the slave-quarters. We rushed in, waking the two dozen slaves in that room with our commotion. They blinked at us, bewildered, and we blinked back, with just enough energy to project our authority over the situation. An hour or two later, when the generals were satisfied and all the slaves had been accounted for, we were allowed to sleep in shifts, and I remember nothing else until morning.
In the morning, my centurion told us the prefect and his wife had both been murdered in the night by a disgruntled slave. Our work for the day, by order of the acting prefect, would therefore be to crucify the late prefect’s slaves. All of them.
Many of the younger soldiers groaned; mass executions are tedious. For my part, I began to think of the slaves we would be crucifying - these were the slave families who served us every day as well as the prefect. They were members of the prefect’s household, just as we were. I knew several by name, and many more by face. I would not enjoy putting them to death.
We formed into ten squads of four each. I was assigned to lead my squad. As each slave was brought to the courtyard, a squad would assume responsibility for seeing to it that he or she was beaten, marched to the east gate of the city, and crucified. This being accomplished, the squad would return to the courtyard to be assigned another slave while standing guards kept watch at the execution ground.
A horn blasted, and as my bleary eyes struggled with the torchlight and shadow, my mind slowly recognized the voice of my centurion ordering us to wake. It was night. Deep night, with no hint of the dawn on the starry horizon.
I followed orders - I couldn’t remember what they were after I had obeyed, but I remember we surrounded the praetorium in the dark, and that later I was sent to occupy one of the slave-quarters. We rushed in, waking the two dozen slaves in that room with our commotion. They blinked at us, bewildered, and we blinked back, with just enough energy to project our authority over the situation. An hour or two later, when the generals were satisfied and all the slaves had been accounted for, we were allowed to sleep in shifts, and I remember nothing else until morning.
In the morning, my centurion told us the prefect and his wife had both been murdered in the night by a disgruntled slave. Our work for the day, by order of the acting prefect, would therefore be to crucify the late prefect’s slaves. All of them.
Many of the younger soldiers groaned; mass executions are tedious. For my part, I began to think of the slaves we would be crucifying - these were the slave families who served us every day as well as the prefect. They were members of the prefect’s household, just as we were. I knew several by name, and many more by face. I would not enjoy putting them to death.
We formed into ten squads of four each. I was assigned to lead my squad. As each slave was brought to the courtyard, a squad would assume responsibility for seeing to it that he or she was beaten, marched to the east gate of the city, and crucified. This being accomplished, the squad would return to the courtyard to be assigned another slave while standing guards kept watch at the execution ground.