Chapter XLII: Epilogue

I do not think it necessary to describe in detail my marriage to Vedia, nor our dinners at Nemestronia's, at Tanno's, at Segontius Almo's; nor the dinners we gave at my old home, after it had been fitted up to our liking, all trace of its occupancy by tenants effaced and we had settled there.

Why tell at length of my manumission of Agathemer, of my endowment of him with a goodly share of my heritage from poor Falco, or of his disposition of Falco's gems and his rapid acquisition of vast wealth and of his continued prosperity?

When my misfortunes began Nemestronia was past her eighty-fourth birthday. After my rehabilitation Vedia and I helped at the celebration of her ninety-fifth, and of three more.

Nemestronia lived almost to her hundredth birthday, in full possession of her faculties and, until near the end, in marvellously good health. She is still remembered as having been the oldest noble matron ever known in Rome.

Like her, Chryseros Philargyrus, though long past the usual term of human life when my disasters overtook us, survived my nine winters of adventures and lived to greet me as a son rearisen from the dead, in the tenth summer after he had sped me on my way in the midnight woods from Ducconius Furfur's land.

Enough to say that Vedia and I, from a second-floor balcony, watched pass the triumphal procession of our great Prince of the Republic, Septimius Severus, when he returned victorious over both his rivals and reentered Rome, indubitably master of the world.

As to my later life I cannot forbear remarking that I am the only man with pierced ears who ever mingled as an equal with the bathers in the Baths of Titus, the only man, certainly, with a brand mark on his shoulder and scourge-scars on his back who ever habitually frequented that most magnificent of our fashionable pleasure-resorts. My brand-marks and scourge-scars have not diminished my enjoyment of life except that they frequently give bores a pretext for insisting on my narrating my adventures.

Of course, as in my city mansion, so also at Villa Andivia, I have had constructed and consecrated a handsome private chapel to Mercury.

NOTES TO ANDIVIUS HEDULIO

A. THE ROMAN ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEM

From the expulsion of the Kings, the people of Rome, assembled in their voting-field outside their city, each year elected the magistrates for the year: others, and especially quaestors, answering to our army-paymaster and custom-house collectors; praetors (judges, generals and governors of provinces), and two consuls, acting as chief-magistrates and generals-in- chief. A man was generally first quaestor, later praetor and finally consul, often holding other intermediary offices.

Ex-officials, who had held the more important offices of the Republic, became by immemorial custom life-members of the Senate, which was never an elective, always a selective body, without legal authority but with great influence. As the Republic's Empire spread the Senate was less and less able to control provincial governors, until such self-confident geniuses as Sulla, Caesar and Augustus became able to control it. The Roman Republic was never abolished, and did not die till the Turks captured Constantinople in 1453. It conquered a great Empire and when its Senate could no longer control the magistrates who managed that Empire, its solders who, by conquering and holding provinces to pay taxes maintained the Empire and the Republic, wearied of the incompetence of the Senate's appointees, of the squabbles and strife of their leaders, chose by acclamation one commander whom they loved and trusted. The Senate, at his mercy, legalized his sovereignty by conferring on him for life the powers of a Tribune, an official who could initiate nothing, but had the legal power to forbid anything and everything.

The Senate continued to administer those provinces reckoned safe from invasion or insurrection; always two governed by ex-consuls and about ten governed each by an ex-praetor. It continued to dispose of the funds derived from their taxes and to recruit itself from ex-magistrates and to retain much of its influence, dignity and importance.

The outer provinces and those prone to turbulence were governed not by ex- consuls and ex-praetors acting in the name of the Senate, but each by a deputy of the Emperor, styled propraetor, praeses, or procurator. These were called imperial provinces. The magistrates of the senatorial provinces were, under the Empire, no longer elected by the people, but appointed by the Senate, with or without an indication of the Emperor's wishes.

The Romans never devised any method of choosing a chief magistrate other than acclamation by an army and confirmation by the Senate, creating an Emperor. If two commanders at about the same time were separately saluted "Imperator," as were Septimius Severus and Pescennius Niger, there was no method of adjudicating their conflicting claims except by Civil War and the survival of one Imperator only.

B. THE FISCUS

From this word comes our "confiscate," "to turn totally into the Fiscus." A fiscus was a large basket, such is were used by all Roman financial concerns to contain live vouchers. The fiscus was the organization managing the pubic property, income and expenditures of the Roman Emperor. It controlled the proceeds of the taxes of all the imperial provinces and of the domains, mines, quarries, fisheries, factories, town property and whatever else the fiscus held for the Emperors, impersonally. It gathered in all moneys and possessions forfeited for suicide, crime or treason.

C. THE ROMAN CALENDAR

All primitive calendars went by the moon. Moon and month are the same word in English. No more than Hengist and Horsa could the early Romans have conceived of a month not beginning with the day of the new moon, as all months begin yet in the Jewish and Mohammedan calendars.

The first day of each month the Romans called its Kalends (announcement day). After that day they called each day so many before the Nones (half moon), then so many before the Ides (full moon), then so many to the Kalends of the next month. Julius Caesar, impatient with the difficulties of fitting together the solar and lunar calendars, bade his experts ignore the moon and divide the solar year into twelve months. They did, and his calendar, with trifling improvements, has lasted till our days. The Romans continued to reckon days before the Nones, Ides and Kalends. The Nones fell on the seventh of March, May, July and October, on the fifth of the other months; the Ides on the fifteenth of March, May, July and October and on the thirteenth of the rest.

D. THE LEGION

The legion, always the largest fighting unit of the Roman armies, corresponded most nearly to our regiment, but had also features of our brigade. It was always rostered as of 6,000 men, all told. But the causes which operate in all armies brought it about that a legion in the field had usually about 5,000 men. It was divided into sixty bodies resembling our companies, called centuries, because nominally of 100 men, each commanded by a centurion. The Roman army never, like ours, had tiering grades of officers; it always, theoretically, consisted of soldiers, centurions and the commander: other officers were additional and special. Each centurion chose from among his men an _optio_, to assist him and to take his place if killed. These _optiones_ corresponded most nearly to our corporals, but their duties and authority were always very vague. The centurions corresponded to our sergeants, in that they were picked men from the ranks, but they had all the duties and powers of our lieutenants and, some of them, of much higher officers. Three centuries made up a maniple, more or less like one of our battalions, each commanded by its senior centurion. Two maniples made up a cohort, also commanded by its senior centurion, and the ten centurions commanding cohorts were the actual officers of the legion, its head centurion an officer of great importance.

True, a _tribunus militum_ (tribune of the soldiers) was attached to each cohort; but he did more advising than commanding, though, in theory, he represented the general. The tribunes answered to our captains. Under the Empire each legion was commanded by a _legatus_, who also represented the general in his absence. Such an officer corresponded most nearly to our colonel, but had many of the characteristics of a brigadier-general.

E. "_Ubi tu Caius, ego Caia._"

These words, never varied whatever the names of the bride and groom, were the kernel of the Roman wedding ritual and after their utterance the bride was a wife. They correspond to the "I do" and "love, honor and obey" of our customary marriage formulas. As Caius and Caia were far and away the most frequent names among the Romans the phrase might be rendered: "Where you are Jack, I'm Jill."

No English words convey precisely the mingling of banter, and earnestness, of archness, devotion, shyness and fervor implied in the Latin words as uttered by Vedia.

F. OPTIONES

Private soldiers chosen by their centurions as informal assistant- centurions; to take their superior's place if he fell in battle, or was disabled or ill, and to assist him with his routine duties. They correspond more or less to the corporals of modern armies. (See also NOTE D.)

G. SPINA

The stone wall, platform, or long narrow structure down the middle of the arena of a Roman circus, dividing its race-course into half laps. Along it the teams tore at top speed, for the short turns about its rounded ends their drivers reined them in. The spina was about 660 feet long. It varied from a low wall to a gorgeous and complicated series of structures.

H. ERGASTULUM

A hard-labor prison, whether belonging to a private person, company or municipality, usually below ground-level, for criminal, dangerous, unmanageable or runaway slaves.

J. COMMODUS AS AN ATHLETE

Even more than Babe Ruth at baseball Commodus was a wonder at beast- killing in the amphitheater. Dio Cassius, who, being a senator, looked on from a front seat, says (LXXII, 18.) that he killed a hundred bears in one day. Herodian, who grew up with men who had known Commodus and had been spectators of his prowess, says (I; 15; 3, 4, 5, 6.) that when he speared lions and leopards no one saw a second javelin cast nor any wound not fatal, that he sent his dart at will through the forehead or the heart of an animal rushing at top speed and that his missile never struck any part of a beast except so as both to wound and kill. Hurling his javelins from a distance he killed a hundred lions let out of the crypts of the Colosseum with precisely the same number of spear-casts, no dart missing its mark.