Journey to Eudaimonia (eBook)

Chapter 1

When I was a small child my mother, Cornelia Secunda, told me I came kicking and bawling into this world. She worried I would not survive. I came a month early and was a scrawny infant who did not go to her breast at first. What made matters worse was that she did not let down enough milk once I did latch on and a wet nurse had to be found. I am not embarrassed to admit that as the youngest of four children I was her favorite. She often recounted how, once I had determined to live, I grasped life in my tiny fists and held on to it tightly and grew quickly.

I was born during the first consulship of Quintus Fabius Maximus Varrucosus, seventy-one years ago. It was a time of peace in Latium and the gates of the temple of Janus in Rome remained closed for most of my childhood. I am the son of Lucius Latinius, who was always called Marinus due to his service as a centurion of marines in the first war with Carthage. This was long before I got to know him. When I came along our family lived on a farm in Latium where we grew wheat and some olives and ran a small flock of sheep. There was also a small orchard of figs my mother had planted. The land had been in the family for as long as anyone could remember. Unlike other farmers in our district, however, Father also owned two seagoing merchant ships and a warehouse at the port of Lavinium. This was in part due to his connections with the patrician clan Cornelii. One might say we were prosperous, with patrician connections. As a child I expected to be a farmer and to have some share, with my older brothers, in our family’s growing import and export business. Fate had other plans.

It has been a year since a dispatch rider from Tarraco arrived at the family villa in Saguntum. He carried a letter under military seal from the praetor in Tarraco. As is customary, he asked for a drink and something to eat. After drinking some wine mixed with water and eating a fig cake he indicated to the steward that he carried a letter that was to be placed only in the hands of the prefect. And so he was shown to the veranda that serves as my private study and office. This is what I read after breaking the seal:

“His Excellency, M. Latinius Martialis, Prefect, Martialis, it is with regret that it is my sad duty to inform you that your son, M. Latinius, first centurion of hastati, was killed in fighting against Celtiberian and Lusones forces at the Manilian Pass on 14 Lunius. All wounds were in the front.

T/S Q.F. Nobilitor, Praetor, Hispania Citerior, SPQR.”

As I read this document slowly, not wanting to understand its meaning, the dispatch rider stood quietly with the same grim expression I had so often seen in soldiers. After a minute or so I placed the document on my writing table and looked up at the man. He was a young man of about thirty years, with short, dark brown hair and steady but sorrowful blue eyes. He was clearly tired, his leather cuirass and dispatch case dust covered from what had to have been a four-to-five-day ride. I asked, “Does Nobilitor expect a reply?”

“The praetor only requires a receipt that the prefect has received the dispatch.”

I could see he wanted to say something so I said, “You look tired. We will arrange for a fresh mount in the morning. Tonight you should bathe and eat a hot meal.”

I turned to my assistant, who was hovering near the door to the veranda. “Escort this man to the camp and inform the officer of the watch he is to attend to this man’s needs tonight and provide him with what he requires for his journey north in the morning.”

I turned back to the rider. “You are to rest tonight at the camp down the hill.”

After placing my seal on a note that read, “Received with gratitude, M. Latinius, prefect,” I placed a silver denarius in the rider’s hand and thanked him for his promptness in attending to his duties. At this he took from the leather satchel slung at his side a funerary urn, placed it on the table, bowed his head slightly, and said, “This has not left my person since Tarraco. The praetor wishes you to know your son’s personal effects and equipment including his gladius were recovered and will be sent to you once transport can be arranged.”

As he was about to leave, he turned to me somewhat hesitantly. “May I presume on your grief, your honor?”

I nodded and he continued. “I knew your son, sir. He was a brave man and a good soldier. He enjoyed the respect of those with whom he served. It was my honor to have been considered his friend. I asked to be given this sad task and am honored to have been of some service to you, Martialis.” I nodded at this and he turned without further comment and left with my assistant.

Once they left, I was alone on the veranda. As I recall, it was a warm evening with the sun setting beyond the mountains to the west and the sea to the east becoming dark in the gathering dusk. The early evening stars were just beginning to make their appearance. The letter and the ashes of my only son rested on the table in front of me. Tears began to well up in my eyes. My thoughts began to wander back to happier times and memories of Marcus as a boy and young man. How proud his mother, Similice, had been of this fine fellow when he first wore the toga virilis on his fourteenth birthday and how she had fussed over his bride, Cassia, at their wedding. What a striking figure he was when I helped him with the panoply of a centurion of the hastati of the Legio Hispanicus for the first time, only little more than a year earlier.

By the time this terrible news arrived, Similice had, nearly five years earlier, traveled on to whatever awaits us when we pass out of this mortal life. I was grateful Similice had not lived to know of our son’s death. However, I also knew without her wise counsel and loving touch his death would be very hard on me. And so I stood for some time with memories flooding into my mind and tears flowing from my eyes.

It occurred to me that even in my grief I had responsibilities. There was the matter of my son’s young family—his wife, Cassia, and their children, Lavinia and young Marcus. Although they had come to stay with me at the villa under my protection while Marcus was on campaign, they could not go back to the camp at Tarraco. They would have to stay with me in Saguntum. The education and upbringing of Lavinia, now fourteen, and Marcus, two years younger, would fall to me. Until now this had seemed only a temporary responsibility, just for one campaign season. The tutors I had hired to provide instruction during their stay in Saguntum would not suffice over the longer term that now loomed.

Their education now seemed all the more urgent. I had become aware of some deficits and insufficiencies in both children, but especially in young Marcus. They both were barely literate and remarkably unread. Although Lavinia had the advantage of having come under the influence of her mother, a fine and literate woman, Marcus had become somewhat defiant and prideful. His father, being of some rank, was often away with the army. This meant young Marcus had been allowed to run freely about the camp at Tarraco with some of the older boys, playing at soldiering and falling in with soldiers in the barracks, where he became acquainted with habits that would not serve him well.

The last time I saw my son was during Saturnalia, when he arrived by naval transport in Saguntum with Cassia and the children before returning to Tarraco to rejoin the army, still in winter quarters, before it moved against the rebels in the north.

Marcus had concerns about young Marcus. “Father, it is my hope he will receive more attention here with you than I have been able to give him. He has expressed to me his excitement at staying with ‘the fearsome Martialis.’ The boy has bragged to all his playmates and most of the garrison that he will be a great soldier like his grandfather. He is most looking forward to the stables here and learning the skills of an equestrian. He is determined to be a cavalry officer.”

I said, “If this is so, has he been introduced to Xenophon? As I recall you took to Greek quickly once you became a companion to Xenophon.”

He was taken aback by this comment. “Greek? The boy can barely write his name in Latin. He seems convinced your rank will ensure his position and future. He is barely literate, dodges his lessons, and is often defiant of the pedagogues at Tarraco. I have tried beatings and restrictions with little effect.”

I nodded and assured him there would be discipline here while the children were guests. I added, “With Micipsa and his Numidians the stables may not be as much fun as he dreams. Micipsa will not tolerate foolishness or arrogance in the stables. You yourself know the diligence with which he guards and cares for the horses and mules. They are his children.”

Marcus looked somewhat relieved so I continued. “I will see tutors are found for them and I myself will oversee their education while they are here.”

He was further relieved by this. As I looked at my son, I could see in him the gentleness and seriousness of his mother. Like her, he was tall and tan, with black hair and deep, fierce, brown eyes. He smiled weakly. “Thank you, Father; this has been a burden. I fear I have...