each other would pull us off balance causing one or more of us to fall, wrestling for a horrid and frantic moment with the stiffening corpses. We struggled to our feet, Roman blood staining our faces and hands. As we trudged on, our ankles became spattered with a fruitage of butchery so copious at times it flowed in rivulets down the street’s central gutter. In the worst passages we gave up trying to avoid it; our toes were stained and slippery, our sandals sticky with clotting blood.
The centurion led us into a wider street, the Vicus Patricius, where we turned southwest and walked until we came into a crowded neighborhood - a valley called the Subura. That is to say it felt as if it ought to be bursting with people and activity, yet the street and alleyways were empty, save for the occasional squad of Sulla’s soldiers going about their grisly business, their captains gripping scrolls of the damned. It was oddly quiet here. Like birds calling to each other, the silence was pierced now and then by the cries of the dying. The merchant shops were shuttered; the apartments above full of fearful eyes. We could feel their stares upon us but could not see them, did not wish to see them. In our state, there was no gaze we were eager to meet.
I never made it to the auction block.
Soon we heard many voices raised, not in agony but in commerce. We turned into a wide courtyard where it was evident that the business of selling an endless, hapless multitude fallen to the lowest strata of human suffering was not only open, but brisk. Soldiers anxious to cash in on their human booty milled among the braver citizens hoping for a bargain. Other than legionaries, these were the first living Romans I had seen since entering the city. The wooden holding pens on either side of the single raised platform were full. The auctioneer and two assistants were quite well organized, moving people up one side of the auction block and down the other into their new owners’ care at a steady and rapid pace. Being the newest arrivals, before we were crammed into one of the cages we were greeted by a mercenary with a rusty, bent gladius and an armload of blank wooden boards. He began at the end of our line, questioning each captive, writing down the replies on the board, then hanging the identification plaques around each neck. Afterwards, he copied the information into a ledger and moved to the next man.
This efficient process was interrupted by the appearance of a lone mounted officer who rode into our midst with the casual confidence of the victor. The man was frighteningly magnificent in his gleaming armor, his red horsehair-plumed helmet blindingly bright when the sun momentarily sliced through the clouds and smoke hanging over the city. He sat with ease upon the largest steed I had ever seen, but was not dwarfed by it. I was toward the front of our miserable parade and heard him tell our centurion that he was looking for talent. Our officer, whose name escapes me, was still caked with the grime, sweat and dried blood of battle. I was struck by the difference in appearance between these two officers - it was as great as that between owner and owned.
Our centurion snorted a short laugh and wiped his arm across his nose with no noticeable improvement. “Talent?” he said. “Take a look. There’s no fucking talent in this lot. What’s he want with ‘em, anyway?” he asked with more impertinence than sense. For answer, the military tribune reined his mount and walked the huge horse down the line.
“Any of you Greeks speak Latin?” he asked in the language of Rome.
I barely hesitated. Before me stood the auction block with what horrid assortment of futures I could only guess. Finding a place where my education might be put to use had to be better than any other fate. To be given this choice, well, it was as close to freedom as I had had since my capture. I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could utter a word the captive next in line elbowed me aside and rasped his assent. If the last four years had reduced me to a reed, this one was a blade of grass. And just as sturdy, for in his haste to edge past me his leg irons tripped him up. Breeding