by R. W. Peake
It was on the day that Vibius and I treated ourselves to one of the meat pies sold by a vendor who had a stall at the southern edge of the forum. It was run by an older woman, and I suppose we reminded her of her own sons, who I knew were grown and had moved away, but she treated us with an indulgent amusement, laced with a fair amount of disapproval at our antics. Our talent was making her laugh in spite of herself, which we tried to do every time we visited, because it meant that the meat pies were sometimes provided free of charge. And for me in particular, “finding” the copper obol to buy a pie was not always easy. Fortunately, my father spent so much time drunk that it was less a case of avoiding being caught as the fact that he rarely had that much money on him.
“Here comes Plancus,” the vendor muttered, and before I turned to look over my shoulder, I saw the scowl cross her face at the sight of the heavy farmer.
However, when I turned back after ascertaining that it was indeed the man in question, I saw that she had her falsest proprietor’s smile on her face, calling out with a gaiety that I am sure she did not feel.
“Ave, Aulus Plancus! Come to sample the finest meat pies in Astigi? Or perhaps a sweet pastry?”
“Finest?” Plancus had a harsh sounding voice under the best of circumstance, but now it was scornful. “Hardly. But Ovidia’s stall is closed for some reason. Probably Ovidius beat her again last night and she can’t walk. Not that I blame him; her mouth is almost as bad as yours! No,” he shook his head, “I’m only here because I’m famished, and you’re all that’s left.”
I gasped in shock, but I imagine my voice was drowned out by Vibius, the vendor, and everyone else within hearing distance. The insulted woman’s mouth had dropped open, but no words came out, and I remember being struck by the thought that she looked very much like a fish I had once caught out of the stream that ran across our farm as it gasped its last breaths. Finally, she turned about to put the pies he had ordered into the oven for the last baking. This meant that there were going to be several awkward moments, since neither Vibius nor I were finished with our own pies, and being honest, I could see he was no more inclined to leave than I was. There is not much that passes for entertainment in towns like Astigi, so there was no way we were going to miss any of this. Plancus must have caught us staring at him, because he turned to examine the two of us, starting with Vibius.
“Gods, you must be the runt of your litter.” Plancus gave that mocking laugh again, and as usual, he scored a direct hit on his target. There was nothing that Vibius was more sensitive about than his size, and I saw his face flush with the embarrassment of having it pointed out. “If I were your father, I would have left you for the wolves to eat. You’re not going to be much use to him, even if he is a tanner.” He said this last word like it was the worst epithet with which he could come up.
I began to grow alarmed, because I recognized the look that came over Vibius’ face at this last insult; it was the same one I saw when we had first become friends, in our battle with two of the local bullies. He was opening his mouth to say something, and I suppose I either made some sort of movement or sound that drew the attention of Plancus. And if he had been scornful before, now he made no attempt to hide his contempt.
“Oh, it’s you, Pullus’ boy. You’re certainly bigger than that one.” He jerked a thumb over at Vibius. “But you better hope that you’re not as stupid as your father.” By this point, the vendor had retrieved the pies from their last step, wrapping them in cloth and was holding them out to Plancus. As he turned away from me to toss a coin contemptuously onto the wooden board that served as the counter, he made one last parting remark. “Or you’ll turn into a drunk like he is.” Without another word, he turned to leave.
I have been large my whole life, and because of the hard work on my father’s farm, I was, and still am exceptionally strong, even in my dotage. I also have a horrific temper, and while time has served to wear down its edge, back then it was as if I was riding the back of a huge beast that was barely under my control. And when it got loose, I could no more stop it from doing whatever damage it could than I could have stopped a stampeding herd of cattle who are panicked by lightning. Before I had any conscious thought, my legs were pumping, the remnants of the pie in the dirt and forgotten, and he had gotten just far enough away that I was able to get up to full speed. I lowered my shoulder, driving it right into the small of his back, and I was rewarded by a massive explosion of air as it was forced out of his lungs by the impact of him hitting the ground with me on top of him. I was no more than twelve years old, but I was already the size of many full-grown men, and he is fortunate that I was as yet untrained in the ways of hurting another human being and was just a ball of unfocused rage. There is a vague memory of meat pies tumbling through the air as we went crashing to the ground and, unskilled I may have been, I knew enough to understand that I had not yet won the battle. I immediately began pummeling him about the head, barely noticing that smashing my fist into his skull hurt my hands at least as much as it was hurting him. I have no idea how long I was flailing away at him before I was suddenly, and very roughly, jerked from my position of straddling his prone body. Someone had hold of the back of my tunic, and although they had exerted enough force to pull me off Plancus and more or less upright, they had no idea how strong I was. My tunic, one of two that I owned, ripped away from my upper body, and I would have completely yanked myself out of it except that my belt held it in place. Plancus was just then rolling over, shaking his head like a bull that had been stunned, and I suppose that was what he was in some ways, and I felt a sense of savage satisfaction when I saw that his face was covered in blood. I did not know it then, but he looked very much like a general of Rome who is celebrating a triumph. Lunging at him again, I was only stopped when I was tackled, hard, and knocked off my feet, and out of the corner of my vision, I saw the face of one of the town watch, understanding that he had been the one who was now pinning me to the ground. This gave Plancus the opportunity to regain his feet, and while he was unsteady, he immediately staggered toward me with a bellow of rage. The watchman, seeing Plancus come, scrambled to his feet, but I had no time to regain my own. Somehow, I managed to dodge the heavy kick that Plancus aimed at me. I was not so lucky the second time; I had just come to my knees when his next blow hit me squarely in the chest, his foot knocking the wind out of me and putting me flat on my back. Since I was staring skyward, I did not see what happened next, although Vibius was more than happy to give me the details. Hearing another bellow, I assumed it was Plancus and I closed my eyes, knowing that I was about to receive the most severe beating of my life. But when the next blow did not fall, only then did my mind recognize that the shout of Plancus had been more of pain than rage or triumph. His first cry was immediately followed by another, another one of pain, but it gave me the time to roll off my back and onto all fours as I gasped to regain the breath he had knocked out of me. Plancus was standing there, but he had his hands up around his head, and while I recognized that he was trying to protect himself, I had no idea why. Until the third paving stone in perhaps as many heartbeats came flying from somewhere beyond my vision, striking him in the hip.
I had been saved. Not by Vibius, not by the watchman, but by the citizens of Astigi who, over the years, I suppose had suffered more insults and outrages from Plancus than I had. They did not do it for me; I knew that even then, but the fact that I was saved at all was more than enough. Our last sight of Plancus that day was, with his face still covered in blood, backing out of the forum while pointing at me, howling that he would have revenge.
“That was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen.” The vendor had bustled out from behind her stall, and while I was thankful for her praise, I was even happier because in her hand, she held two steaming pies.
“That was the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen,” was the opinion of the watchman, but he offered me a hand, pulling to me my feet. “Plancus is nothing if he’s not a vengeful man. I don’t envy you a bit. A
lthough,” I suppose he thought he meant this as a chastisement, “it’s probably your poor father who’s going to suffer the most.”
That idea actually cheered me a great deal.
It did not take long for Plancus to act. He started by damming off the stream that ran across our property, which he was able to do because his own farm was upstream. Fortunately, that scheme of his was short-lived, as he quickly ended up flooding his most valuable pasture. My father, as addled as he was by his wine consumption, never considered that Plancus was the cause of this; he was blissfully unaware of what had happened in Astigi, which I was determined would remain the case. Instead, he attributed it to some quirk of the gods, and was just another sign to him that he was cursed, which I suppose was one of the few things he had the rights of in his whole life. I had confided in our male slave Phocas who, although worried about Plancus, knowing the farmer not just by reputation, but in his own dealings with the man, was also proud of what I had done. I, on the other hand, was not so sure about my actions once I had cooled off and had the opportunity to think about it. My reaction had had nothing to do with the slur against my father; it was the insinuation that I would end up like him that had enraged me. Now I had brought down consequences on the heads of my entire family, and I would be lying if I said I did not have conflicting feelings about it, because despite how harsh it was, Plancus had uttered no less than a truth. My father was a drunkard; that was about the best that I could say about him, and the reason I had been so angry at what Plancus said was that, even at my young age, I somehow recognized that my following down the same road as my father was a distinct possibility. It was because of my hatred towards my father that a secret part of me was happy that he would be inflicted with some sort of punishment, even if this particular time he had done nothing to cause it. However, that satisfaction was far outweighed by the idea that my sisters, and our slaves Phocas and Gaia, who I viewed more as parents than my own blood, would be suffering because of my temper. After Plancus dammed the stream, although it did not last long, I knew more was coming, and that is what kept me awake nights.
Perhaps a week after the incident, I was roused by a visibly upset Phocas, who curtly told me to get out of bed and follow him. It was sufficiently unusual for him to speak to me in such a manner that my alarm drowned out any irritation I might have felt at a slave spoke to me in such a manner. Hurrying to catch up, we went outside, and I followed him to the small shed that served as our barn that held our mule, milk cow, chickens, and the sow that my father had paid to mate with, ironically enough, Plancus’ hog and had just borne its litter. Even as I walked into the barn, I had a premonition of what I would see, but even so, I was unprepared for the scene that met my eyes. Because it was still early, just after dawn, Phocas had brought an oil lamp, and its flickering light contributed to the macabre vision. In the enclosure where the piglets and their mother had been contained, it looked much like a scene with which I would become all too familiar as an adult, although I had no way of knowing that then. Blood was literally everywhere, splashed on the plank walls, and in congealed pools surrounding the corpses of the sow and every piglet. I could not stop myself from letting out a horrified gasp, and my heart started hammering in my chest as I stared down at the grisly sight, knowing without any doubt that I had been the unwitting cause of what was a devastating blow, not just to my father, but my entire family. Because my father had a lack of interest and skill in farming, those piglets represented a large portion of our food supply for the coming winter. Naturally, despite the manner in which the sow had been slaughtered, Phocas would salvage every scrap of meat, along with those of the piglets, but they were still many months away from providing more than a mouthful of meat. Having been born and raised on this farm, I had become accustomed to the sight of slaughtered animals, and in fact helped Phocas in the yearly task, but I had never seen anything of this nature before. And in the lamplight, I could see by Phocas’ face that neither had he, as his face was paler than normal, even in the dim light.
“Fucking Plancus,” he muttered under his breath. “He did this.” Phocas turned to look at me, and while his gaze held no censure, I could see that he held me at least partially responsible. “Titus,” he said quietly, “I know why you did what you did. And a part of me is proud of you for standing up to a bully like that man. But your temper,” he shook his head, “is going to get you in serious trouble.”
Even now as I recall this, I have to give a rueful laugh; he was more right than he could possibly have known. But in that moment, I felt a peculiar mixture of shame and rage…and a cold, hard lump in my chest as I swore that I would come up with a way to stop Plancus. Because the one thing I was sure of was that he would not stop.
Not surprisingly, I did not even think of mentioning this to Phocas; my only confidante was Vibius, and it is still to his eternal credit that he did not flinch when I told him I planned on exacting retribution on the farmer. Equally unsurprising, and for once understandably, my father’s reaction was one of rage at this devastating blow, not just to our family’s fortunes, meager as they were, but to his own dignitas, which was equally skimpy. Until, that is, Phocas finally revealed the identity of the culprit and resulting cause of Plancus’ actions…himself. Yes, gentle reader, a man who was our slave had the courage to tell my father that he had unwittingly caused Plancus’ offense, on one of Phocas’ trips to town. As I sat at the table and listened to Phocas calmly relay what, to my ears anyway, was a fantastic tale where Phocas had not been looking where he was going and, turning a corner, had knocked Plancus into a particularly nasty mud puddle, I did not see how even someone as drunk as my father could possibly believe it. Yet, to my astonishment and contempt, he not only accepted Phocas’ tale, when he learned that it was Aulus Plancus, he turned even greener than his normal coloring, and for a horrified moment I thought he would vomit all over himself, and us.
“You did what?” he screeched, his already reedy voice coming out as a shrill blast that felt like an awl was being punched into my ears. “You…imbecile! You stupid, incompetent idiot!” He pointed a shaking finger at Phocas. “I am going to whip you bloody for giving him offense, do you hear me?”
Phocas sat there, and while I could see that he was afraid, he looked steadily at my father, then inclined his head.
“As you say, master,” he replied, his voice husky. “I deserve to be punished, and I humbly beg your apology.”
“Well, you don’t have it,” my father snapped, his lips pulled back in a sneer, which gave me a perfect view of a row of rotting teeth. “I’m going to give you a striping you’ll never forget, you cunnus!”
I sat there, waiting for him to turn his wrath on Plancus, but he turned his attention to his wine cup, draining it greedily and, as usual, I had to watch as he drank so deeply that two thin streams of the liquid came out on either side of the cup, running down and staining his already filthy tunic.
Finally, I could take it no longer, and I asked incredulously, “Is that all you have to say? What about Plancus?”
“What about him?” my father replied, eyeing me with a wary hostility.
“He slaughtered our pigs!” I shot back. “No matter what…Phocas may have done, he has to pay for that!”
“Shut your mouth, boy,” my father did his best to growl at me, but to my ears, it was a surly whine. “How I handle this is none of your affair. I am the paterfamilias! So it’s my business and not yours!”
“Which means you’re not going to do anything.” I could match my father when it came to surliness, and I made no attempt to hide my scorn.
“I said shut up!”
I know that from his perspective, his hand shot out with the speed of a lightning bolt, but it had been many years since my father had been quick enough that he could catch me with a blow, and I dodged this one easily. I was not so quick that I dodged the kick he aimed at me from underneath the table, catching me in the shin. Staggering to his feet, he raised his hand to try to actua
lly land a blow, but I dodged out of the way and stood myself, facing him and, as I remember it, this was the first time I realized that, even at twelve years old, I was as tall as my father already. This was a dance we had done before, and it was one that later my sisters and I would laugh about, as he lurched around the kitchen trying to catch me, bellowing with rage as I capered just out of reach. Apparently, he remembered this as well, because he only took a step or two before dismissing me with a disgusted wave and collapsing back into his chair. Within another moment, he was again sucking wine from his cup, and my disgust for my father raised yet another notch.
Phocas was never whipped, although none of us expected my father to follow through with it. But neither did he do anything about Plancus. That was left to me, and to Vibius.
“We need to do something that sends a message that if he tries anything like that again, we’re going to answer back, even worse than what he did. And we won’t stop until there’s nothing left.”
I can say now that I uttered these words with all the callow assurance of a boy who was certain that he would never fail at anything he set his mind to, but I now understand how much stupid luck was involved. The plan we came up with was ambitious, and that is putting it mildly. Over a period of perhaps a week, Vibius and I planned a campaign of terror that was restrained only by our imaginations, and those imaginations were very vivid. None of his property would be left untouched or unscathed; our first target were the olive trees that accounted for a large proportion of the olive oil supply of Astigi. We would girdle the trees, stripping a section of bark all the way around, knowing that within a season the trees would stop bearing their fruit. His chickens would be fed feed that we had soaked in our own urine, and although we had no idea whether this would kill them, we were fairly certain that they would at the very least become sick and stop laying. He had a herd of goats, and while at first, our scheme involved hamstringing them and crippling them, neither of us were particularly enthused about this idea, so we settled on killing the rams. Our final blow would be our most ambitious one, and it involved Plancus’ prize bull. The bull, named Hercules, was a local legend, supposedly siring fully half of the cattle belonging to several farmers. But being honest, both Vibius and I bore a grudge against that bull that was only slightly less vehemently held than the one against his owner. One day, after a particularly tiring adventure that I have forgotten, I urged Vibius to take a shortcut, across the pasture where Hercules was lord and master, as it offered the shortest path back to my farm. Vibius wanted nothing to do with the idea; part of the legend of Hercules the bull included goring at least two men that we knew about, and he was as bad-tempered as his owner. However, there is no better way to overcome one’s trepidation than being goaded by one’s best friend, which was exactly what I did, finally making Vibius mad enough that his anger overwhelmed his very sensible caution. And although we both escaped the wrath of Hercules more or less intact, in Vibius’ case it was not without the bull offering him an extra boost over the stone fence that surrounded my farm. I had just hopped over and landed with a heavy thud when I saw Vibius sail past me, over my head, to land in a heap at my feet, the bull tossing him over the fence to safety. And yet, despite this close call, with the short memory that comes with boyhood, we had convinced ourselves that we would somehow be able to rope Hercules, snub him to a tree, and turn him into a steer. A very large, very angry steer certainly, but neither Vibius nor I doubted that this act alone would avenge the insult done to my family and our honor. I still believe that to this day, but as matters turned out, we would never find out.