Stories from the Boxcar (eBook)

Chapter One

Sythians, Xiungnu, Romans, and Huns

Ancient home of many migrating tribes

Sythians and Xiungnu

Grandfather began the story by telling Mihaly about a fierce and mighty people called the Sythians. He explained that they were ancestors of the people that eventually became the Varro family. Mihaly had never heard much of the Sythians. His father Sandor had once sung him a Scottish (Celtic) folk song, and then followed it with a Hungarian song, illustrating the similarity between the Scottish Snap and the Hungarian Phrase-accent, and then had told him ‘we came from an ancient people called the Sythians.’ But what was Grandfather telling him? The Celtic people and the Magyars had come from common ancestors – the Sythians? He had only heard of them as a blood-thirsty group of horsemen and bow-and-arrow warriors. He was astounded. So interesting…come to think of it, his neighbor in Timisoara was part Scot.

Grandfather droned on and on…“Nimrod, son of Kush, grandson of Ham, a son of Noah, was a mighty hunter, and an evil king of Akkad, in Mesopotamia, whose people formed the Kingdom of Akkadia, the seat of the Sumerian culture of Babylon, between two great rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates. These people had built the Tower of Babel. At first, Nimrod was an idol worshipper, and tried to burn Abram at the stake for refusing to worship his idols. Abram was the eighth great grandson of Noah, and he had been warning his uncle Nimrod about the evil of idol worship. Abram escaped to Haran with his father Terah and his family...”Grandfather’s voice trailed off, and he fell asleep for a while. Mihaly waited until later to continue the conversation, after Grandfather had rested, and had eaten some of the food Grandmother Juliana brought them. Over the next few days, Grandfather continued the story, with Mihaly sitting in rapt attention, taking notes on the almost unbelievable unfolding of his family’s origins.

[Nimrod had had two sons, Hunor and Magor, and, according to the Hungarian legend—as found in The White Stag, they became the forefathers of the Hunnic and Magyar groups of people. The document tells the story of the migration of these people to the steppes of Asia where they intermarried with Turkic, Iranian, and further north, the Mongol, and Sibur people, all of which became mighty warriors on horseback, plundering the regions of China and Mongolia, living together, and forming trading alliances within the territories they had left behind. The legend outlined how, generation after generation, they looked for new land to graze their horses and livestock, and were led further and further east, across the great desert of the steppes of Asia. Despite intermarrying with other Hunnic and Turkic people, they still maintained their distinct culture. They also brought the agglutinative characteristics of the Ural-Altaic languages from their Sumerian roots. This, and other Finnic and Uralic groups, they adopted as their own linguistic system. These nomads wandered far and wide and became great herdsmen, introducing saddles, becoming skilled horsemen, and fierce warriors. Eventually, Grandfather said, they became feared above all the peoples of the Central Asian plains. The Sinae and Hethian people joined them. These became the Mongol, Sibur and Chinese herdsmen, and were fierce warriors as well.

* * * * *

Mihaly awoke suddenly. Lajos was standing over him. “What is the matter with you? I have been trying to wake you up for a long time,” Lajos said in a loud whisper. He offered Mihaly some stale bread that he and Istvan had found in one of the village garbage cans. The old piece of cloth that he extended to him was torn, and the foul smell made him almost gag, but he quickly ripped off a piece of it to bind his swollen leg. He mumbled his thanks, as he munched on the hard bread. Istvan was standing guard at the edge of the bushes, where he could watch the river and see if the ‘man in the white hat’ would come for them. Lajos lay down next to Mihaly and fell asleep almost immediately. Mihaly knew he should take his turn standing watch, but Istvan waved him off. The leg began to feel better with the piece of cloth bound tight around it. He found himself drifting off again…

* * * * *

Romans and Huns

Gaelin Alba was a Celtic Sythian, the son of Kraeth Alba, chieftain of a group of Samartians and Sythians, who had migrated from north of the Black Sea to Gaul. When the tribes split in the Second Century BC, part of them went to Ireland and Scotland, and became the Scotti, and the other part went to the Balkans. The family settled in southern Pannonia, but after Gaelin’s father died when he was eighteen years old, Gaelin was conscripted into the Roman army that had conquered the Celts and Sythians living in the Balkans. Kraeth had been killed in battle when the Romans took over Moesia when they were living in south central Pannonia. His mother, Fraenuth, along with his sister, Braethen, had been taken captive, the estate where they lived had been razed, his mother was enslaved by the Roman general, Aulus Terentius Gallinius, and his sister taken by a Roman consul of Asia, Apolinius Lucullus. When the battles there were over, Gaelin was taken to Rome along with thousands of other slaves. His wife Brenna and their son had been killed. In Rome, he was trained by the best minds in the empire. He not only studied Greek and Latin, but all the disciplines as well, especially the fine arts. Because of his outstanding native intelligence, Gaelin excelled greatly and, moving up the ladder of instructors and mentors, he eventually was instructed by Marcus Reatinus Varro, the son of the greatest of all Roman scholars, Marcus Terentius Varro. Reatinus Varro had kept the Varronian Institute open after his father’s death. Varro was very impressed with Gaelin, and they grew very close in the next couple of years, intellectually as well as emotionally. Gaelin spent many days and weeks in the Varro home, not only in Rome, but also at the family villa in Reata, meeting Reatinus’s family and friends, as well as senators and leaders, and going with his family on social outings. After a few years, his master, Reatinus adopted him, and gave him a new Roman name: Onesimus Reatinus Varro. Since he was much sought after as a tutor and scholar, Onesimus was eventually assigned to wealthy Greek residents in Rome. He married again. This time to Cian, a fellow tutor, and former slave. She was, as was Onesimus, a Celt, from Moesia. Eventually, he made the acquaintance of a man named Tychicus from Ephesus. This young man, a scholar himself, was instrumental in helping Onesimus gain employment with the family of a well-known Greek entrepreneur, by the name Philemon, who was well-traveled in all points of the Mediterranean. Onesimus, though a Roman citizen, was nevertheless bonded, and considered, like all other tutors and scholars, an indentured instructor. He was required to instruct Philemon’s three young children in all of the literary works, as well as the fine arts. It was rumored that Philemon had become a follower of the young Jewish prophet, Jesus of Nazareth. Philemon had come under the influence of a Jewish Roman – and former anti-Christian himself–whose name was Saul of Tarsus, in the province Cilicia, while he was in Ephesus. Tychicus, too, they said, had become a secret follower of Jesus. It was 60 AD, and many Christians were being killed for their faith…no one dared speak openly of it. Tychicus had insisted that Onesimus and Cian live with him, and his wife Doloriana, in a rather nice part of Rome.

Onesimus had only been employed a couple years, when he received word that his mother (who had been mistreated for years by General Aulus Gallinius) was dying and had asked for “her son Gaelin.” There was no possible way to go be with her of course, but the more Onesimus struggled with this, the more he became increasingly troubled. He finally decided he had to do whatever it would take, to be by his mother’s side before she died. He secretly located a friend of Tychicus, a fellow tutor whose name was Erastus, who, it was said, was joining a caravan going to Moesia within weeks. While Philemon was away with his family trying to meet with the great Apostle Paul in Rome, Onesimus had full run of the estate. Desperate with worry, he took some of the silver he needed to finance his trip. He left for Singidunum (later called Beograd) in the Balkans, where his mother was being cared for by his sister Braethen, following years of her own mistreatment by General Gallinius. He told no one, not Tychicus, not even his pregnant wife Cian, or his adoptive father Reatinus, now almost 88 years of age. Onesimus was reunited with his sister and saw his mother before she died. They transported her body, according to her wishes, to central Pannonia, near their old home. He felt empty and lost. His father had been killed, his mother mistreated, and now had died. Only he and his sister were left…alone and afraid. Onesimus thought his life was over. His sister had married a Roman who left her, and then was killed fighting the Getae. So, she had gone back to caring for friends of Roman military families, for whom she had previously worked. Onesimus was troubled, and finally confided the truth in Erastus: that he had run away, broken his bond, and had probably lost his Roman citizenship; that he had left Philemon–even stealing silver from him–all this after Philemon and his family had treated him so well. It was then that he learned that Erastus, like his friend Tychicus, was also a...