Across
the
The sack of Rome began in earnest by King Alaric of the Visigoths on August 24, 410 ACE, when it was clear the ancient gods had abandoned the city. From across the Middle Sea, reports flowed in with refugees who fled in boats crammed with the dead, the dying, and the desperate. My family having been put to the sword, I had no patrimony or wealth in Rome, so I clawed my way aboard a vessel for a single gold coin and watched the buildings burn with smoke curling toward the empty heavens in spreading black plumes.
I had no idea where the boat was heading. I did not care. All I carried were the clothes on my back, a cloth on a stick, and the food tied under my tunic. I stank like all the other passengers because the city’s public baths had long since failed. I was tempted to jump into the sea to get clean, but I thought I would never be allowed to climb back on board afterward.
Two slaves cleared a narrow path to cast another dead body overboard. Whether the dead were luckier than the living, it was hard to say. The emaciated body they hurled into the deep had buboes on its neck and chest and blue lips and extremities. I shied away because I knew the signs of plague. When the two slaves shouted questions about the locations of other dead bodies, the men and women below decks wailed and moaned. One slave shrugged to the other, and they stepped down a ladder into the hold to find the next body.
Our passage was slow for we had only a few rowers, but the body count mounted fast. People died from starvation, ghastly wounds, disease, and murder. Life was cheap, particularly the lives of Christians, the cause of all the grief. That was a prevailing view. We had caused the temples of the Roman gods to be closed. Without the gods’ protection, formerly immortal Rome was vulnerable. Among the passengers, some Christians, like me, clan-destinely traveled, hoping not to be identified and killed.
The popular rage against Christian believers was so great, discovery meant instant judgment and death. I had witnessed whole city blocks searched by roving bands of Visigoths and Roman citizens alike. Any Christian found in the search was hauled into the street and butchered.
Then too, Visigoths and Romans fought against each other as the barbarians ravaged a city too weak to offer a defense. The invaders were pillaging as they moved street by street. Anything of value, they stole. You could tell which houses were looted because they were set ablaze. You could tell a Visigoth from his towering height, the cubit-length of his beard, and the plunder he carried on his back. In contrast, you could tell Christian by their moaning and praying and their refusing to fight back when attacked.
Plague came with the Visigoths. The dreaded disease moved through the city like the fires that followed. Rome’s tradition of keeping streets clean and tidy was irrevocably broken. Slaves who had been the backbone of all sanitary work now lost their owners to slaughter and tried to flee the city. There was no law and order anymore. Roman soldiers were working without effective leadership. Civilian street watchmen spent all their time calling for the people to bring out the dead and supervising the haulage of corpses. The streets steamed from the offal of animals used to haul the carts with their dead piled high. In the stench was the sweet, putrid smell of the decaying corpses that lined the streets.
I marked sights in that city I thought I would never see. Three soldiers on the Appian Way were busy crucifying a runaway slave who screamed Christian prayers while they systematically broke his ribs. A man and his wife gnawed on the limbs of an infant and offered other human limbs for sale for gold. Women sold themselves on the street for gold and silver or for food. Their offering was wall jobs, whereby they placed their backs against the wall and let men fornicate to their heart’s delight for bronze coins. Among those were vestals in their sacred regalia, their priests serving as their criers and pimps.
I saw hook-nosed money changers killed at their stations by Visigoths brandishing swords and wanting gold and silver coins. Dogs roamed the streets with bloody human hands and feet. Wherever codices, scrolls, and parchment could be found, the Visigoths piled them high in the streets and burned. The vestiges of civilization were destroyed by those who could not read!
Senators and their families were paraded through the streets and taunted because they had been more interested in their corruption and license than in protecting the city. Citizens spat at any sign of authority. Visigoths laughed while they stripped Senators of their gold rings and purple-lined togas and left them naked or in their tunics. I happened to pass near enough to the Visigoth commander to see how he gestured toward those young Roman women he wanted stripped and led to his tent. The Visigoths were schooled from their leader – they raped every woman they found.
Rome became a battleground where blocks were owned by brigands of one kind or another. Some were held by slaves and gladiators. Others were held by desperate Roman citizens. The rest fell in even portions to the Visigoths and Roman soldiers. All seven hills were embroiled in the fighting and the slaughter. The fighting continued both on the streets and in every building. So it was that my block was pitted between Visigoths and Romans, and I do not know which was worse.
I managed to descend into the public sewer system and walked underground along the flow of human waste to the Tagus River, which ran red with blood and entrails. Bodies floated on the surface of the reddish-brown water with huge black rats feasting on torn faces. Carrion birds flocked on the river’s banks to eat the dead who had not made it to the water.
As I wandered, looking for a way to escape, I came to emplacements where Roman soldiers had been slain and then eviscerated. Heads of Romans were piled while headless bodies were stacked like so many cords of wood. Their once powerful weapons lay disused with all their projectiles spent.
By following the river, I made it to the launch area where a few boats were taking aboard all who could afford passage. Showers of arrows and javelins were coming in waves, and the Visigoths were trying to break through a line of Roman defense. A few soldiers tried to slip aboard the vessels, but they were betrayed and killed by order of their commanders. The ship captains cut their moorings just before the Visigoths broke through the Roman line. The passengers closest to the bank were slain by arrows and spears of the vengeful Visigoths.
I helped throw the dead overboard, adding to the bobbing bounty of the Tagus. That I was not hit by a projectile, I took as God’s favor. At the time, I did not know my mission, but I knew I had a purpose worth preserving.
Now, by some miracle, my boat sailed south across the Middle Sea. Twenty or so other boats were sailing in company with mine. I knew that all refugees were sorting out the mix of personal identities. I carried a secret store of citizens’ rings, precious beyond accounting to those who wore none. A runaway slave sidled up to me, indicating he wore no ring on his finger. He also made a sign he was a Christian.
At the risk of both our lives, I reached in my parcel and fetched out a citizen’s ring for him. It was a close thing as men with swords drawn moved through the passengers looking for hands without rings or hands with golden rings, indicating nobility. I heard cries of those who were pierced or thrown overboard. Few could swim, so anyone in the water was assumed to drown. When anyone managed to grope toward the boat, men with long spears lunged at them.
The sea was suddenly calmed. Great clouds formed, piling on top of each other high in the heavens. I knew from the signs an enormous storm was preparing to stir up the sea. I found some hempen line and tied myself to the mast. A few others saw what I was doing and imitated me.
When the winds blew, they came with waterspouts twirling in the distance. The towering clouds blackened and spread out to fill the skies from one horizon to the other. Lightning and thunder seemed to be the expressions of the Roman gods of yore, and rain fell in a deluge so finally, I could not see my hand in front of my face. Yet, I rejoiced as the ship rose and fell in the increasing waves. Why? The water was washing me clean for the first time in months. It was also removing the stench we refugees collectively carried with us.
The rains continued whipping the passengers as the vessel tossed and turned. Some men and women were washed overboard. Waves broke against the sides of the ship, and other waves washed right across the decks and began to fill the hold. I wondered whether the ship would take on so much water it would sink.
The slave to whom I had given the citizen’s ring whispered in my ear, “Prayer works! Now we must pray for the rain to stop. Pray hard, but don’t raise your voice or they’ll know we’re Christians.”
I prayed silently with my eyes wide open. At first, I could not see the slave who had addressed me. Then the rain stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Sunlight shot in golden bolts through the breaking clouds. A double rainbow formed.
The slave next to me witnessed the sight and whispered, “Hallelujah!” Then he unfastened his hemp rope and went below decks to help bail out the hold. He lifted buckets handed by those below and threw their contents overboard before sending the emptied buckets back down.
In the distance, I saw a ribbon of land. From the angle of the sunlight and the ship’s heading, I deduced the land was to the south.
A citizen came up beside me and said, “Ecce! Land ho! It’s Africa! Let’s hope the Visigoths haven’t occupied that side of the Middle Sea yet.”
I said, “They’re too busy sacking Rome to bother with desert climes that don’t offer the prospect of easy riches.”
“You have that right, citizen. But stranger things have happened since Rome lost her way. The things we’ve seen should never have happened.”
“When Rome fails, how can the world remain stable?” a second citizen enjoined.
I asked him, “Do you think that Rome’s time has truly come?”
He shook his head. “When Byzantium was declared the capital of the new Rome by Constantine, that was the beginning of the end.”
The slave had stopped bailing out the hold. He said, “Such is the course of all empires. They rise slowly and quickly fall.”
The citizen frowned and said, “The goddess Fortuna said as much from her slippery ball and her always-turning wheel. At least until her worship was no longer permitted in Rome. Yet, ironically, she still holds sway over human events though she is not worshipped publicly by decree.”
I said, “Then you think the goddess Fortuna is the cause of Rome’s woes?”
He winked and nodded, “Not only she, but all the gods who were displaced and reviled by Christians.” He spat when he spoke the name, and his eyes blazed with hatred.
“Do you think Byzantium is the answer to the question, ‘What follows?’”
“I don’t have to form an argument about that. Byzantium simply is while Rome is no more. Let the philosophers figure out and expound on the reasons.”
The first citizen now took umbrage with the other. “Rome will come back eventually. The Visigoths are sacking and burning Rome the physical city, but the idea of Rome extends in all directions. Rome will be rebuilt when the Visigoths depart. It’s too vast and too resilient to be downcast for long.”
The slave, now posing as a citizen, said, “Rebuilding takes time and resources. Rome’s treasury is broke. Its senators are totally corrupted. The emperor’s authority is empty and vain.”
The first citizen sneered. “Maybe you should turn in your ring and renounce your citizenship! As for me, I’ll be Roman till I die.” He looked at his ring with pride.
The slave said, “I’ve got to help bail the hold. I’m rested now. Do you want to help?”
The first citizen said, “I won’t do a slave’s work.”
“And you?” the slave asked the second citizen.
“I won’t dirty my hands. You go right ahead if you like.”
The slave then turned to me and winked. “So it goes with the sinking ship of state. When all is well, we all complain but do nothing. When the state is endangered mortally, we still do nothing. Why? Because doing anything is ‘a slave’s work.’”
The first citizen’s hand reached out to strike the slave, but I caught it and deterred him. “What this citizen says has merit. Back in Rome, we citizens let the state and our slaves bear all responsibility for our welfare. We citizens forgot how to do the simplest things.”
The second citizen said, “I never forgot.”
“Is that so?” I asked. “What if I asked you to prepare the gramina or daily feast of grain that our soldiers eat every day. Could you do that?”
He shook his head and admitted, “Probably not.”
I raised the hem of my tunic and asked, “Can you weave cloth like this?”
The first citizen shook his head. “That’s women’s work, and you know it.”
I asked, “What can you do, then?”
He looked at me proudly and said, “I’m a bureaucrat. I’m very good at counting things. I also remember what must be done on each business day. I know the reports that must be filed. I know how to consult the soothsayers and to determine the white ball days from the black.”
I laughed. “When we reach Africa, what do you intend to do to make a living?”
The first citizen said with a worried look, “There’s always work for someone who counts things. Can you do basic arithmetic?”
I said, “In fact, I’m fairly good at the trivium. I’m better, though, at the quadrivium.”
The second citizen said, “Here we talk about the skills required for civilization. You had a point about doing the basic things to keep life going. Like cooking and sewing. Let’s hope Africa still has slaves and commerce.”
We sailed for three more days before we entered port at Tunis, where the old Carthaginian Empire once held sway. The mighty fortress that once challenged Rome had been dismantled, so no stone of it now stood upon another. Cattle grazed where once the fabled watchtowers rose. The Roman histories documented that rival empire’s demise.
The slave whispered in my ear as he surveyed the ruins. “Behold the ruins of an empire past. Think how Rome might one day soon be like this. Consider herds of goats grazing along the Tagus as those cows do here.” He gestured toward the lowing cows in the meadow.
I raised two fingers to my lips. I did not want his treasonous thoughts to condemn us both.
When we disembarked and wandered into the city, the slave stuck with me. Outside of an earshot of others, he told me, “I’ve never done anything independent of a master. Do you mind if I adopt you as my new master?”
“I’m afraid I can’t support a slave or a household of any kind.”
“So how will you survive?” It was a good question, for which I did not have a ready answer.
I said, “I’m frankly not sure. If you stay with me, you must share whatever fate I find. If you’re willing to accompany me with no promises whatsoever on my part, it’s all right by me.”
“Well, I’ll be a cross bearer!”
“That’s quoted straight from the play by Plautus.”
“I once had a role in that play and many others by him.”
“So, cross bearer, shall I call you Crucifer?”
“You’d better not do that. Instead, call me by my given name, Pollux.”
“Does that improve things for you? If you’re Pollux, I must be Castor.”
The slave laughed. “What’s your name, Master?”
“Just call me Marcus Tullius,” I replied.
“Are you a descendant of the famous Marcus Tullius Cicero, who lost his head and hands to Julius Caesar?”
Now I laughed. “No. I’m a descendant of the other Marcus Tullius, called Tiro.”
“Did you say, Tiro?”
“That’s right. He was Cicero’s slave who, as a freed man, did wondrous things.”
“I’d like to know more about this Tiro. Maybe I should emulate him.”
“That’s not a bad plan, Pollux. Let’s go looking for a man I’ve been asked to contact.”
“I thought you might have interesting contacts in Africa.” He rubbed his hands together and skipped for joy.
I sobered him by asking, “Are you prepared to die to protect my contact?”
He looked alarmed. “Die here? Now?”
“No, Pollux. Everything seems to be normal here in Carthage now. Slaves are running here and there. See that litter.” An expensive litter was being borne by us on the main highway.
“Yes, I do. Who do you suppose is riding inside behind those rich curtains?”
“I don’t know, but with twelve lictors running in front and two behind, I’d say it’s someone in the Governor’s personal retinue. The four strong slaves bearing the litter are decked out in refinement including solid gold armbands.”
“Maybe I should try to become part of the Governor’s slave contingent.”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. All the Governor’s slaves are eunuchs.”
“Ouch. I take back what I said.”
I looked around and marveled. “From what we’ve seen, you wouldn’t think anything was amiss on the other side of the Middle Sea.”
Pollux nodded. “Now that you mention it, I see that you’re right. There are no signs of Visigoths. Life here follows the familiar Roman routine, it seems.”
I looked at our garments and knew we had to blend with the other citizens of Africa, or the authorities would ask us difficult questions. “I’m going to get us some new clothes and a good dinner. What do you say?”
“I don’t need much, Master.”
“Please call me Marcus. Remember, you’re a Roman citizen, not a slave anymore.”
“Marcus, my needs are basic.”
“I’m glad we agree on that.”
I took him to a shop where, with a coin of gold-clad bronze, I bought us two simple off-white tunics. We went to a barbershop for a haircut and shave. Then we ate loaves of fresh bread and flagons of wine at an outdoor eatery. Pollux ate and drank heartily as if he had never had so fine a meal.
“Pollux, when was the last time you ate this well?”
“I’ve been hiding out in Rome for almost a full lunar cycle. I used to eat fairly well, actually—for a slave, that is.”
“You mentioned you were a player. What was your job description as a slave?”
“I was identified as a linguist as a child of educated slaves. I went to a special school where I learned how to read and write, so I’m both fluent and literate in Latin and Greek. My Master, a poet, tasked me to care for his scrolls. I also prepared his parchment, ground his inks, fashioned his wax tablets and styluses, took dictation, and read or recited to his wife and their children. In balance, I suppose you would say I was his scribe.”
“I would say you were at least a learned man—more learned in some respects than I am.”
“Marcus, I don’t know what to say to that compliment. I do like histories. I can recite some classic passages from Dio Cassius and Livy if you like.”
“The man we’re going to see is a reader and writer. Your skills might be handy for him. Tomorrow we’re going to travel west to Hippo Regius along the coastal road.”
“Isn’t that in Numidia?”
“Yes, it is. It appears you know geography.”
Pollux reddened with pride in his knowledge. “What’s your contact’s name?”
“Augustine of Thagaste.”
“I’ve never heard that name.”
“I’m not surprised. He never sought fame. He’s a great scholar. He’s also a brewer.”
“Manuscripts and beer? Have I died and gone to heaven?”
“Not yet, you haven’t. You can rest assured that, for a while—at least on this side of the Middle Sea—we won’t be persecuted for worshipping as we please.”
The next morning at dawn, Marcus and Pollux departed on the coastal road in the company of a caravanserai of merchants and tradesmen who dressed in colorful, flowing robes and spoke a variety of African languages as well as Latin and Greek.
The leader of the group pulled out a scroll and demanded that we read it. When we proved we were literate by doing that, he invited us to join them.
“We’re getting all sorts of people in Africa these days. By your rings, I see you are Roman citizens. Because you can read, you’re worthy to join us. How far are you heading along the coast?”
“We’re heading for Hippo Regius where a friend waits for us. Perhaps you’ve heard of a brewer who lives there?”
He grinned and nodded. “I know of a young brewer who’s also a learned man. He learned the brewing trade from his father. His mother is a Christian who will talk your ears off about her faith. The son favors his mother and, by her accounts will become a pillar of the faith, but Augustine wants to enjoy the pleasures of life first. My only concern is that we have other cities to visit beyond that one. We’ll stop and drink there, but I don’t want my merchants to become like the lotus eaters.”
I laughed and said to Pollux, “I told you Augustine was a well-known figure on this side of the Middle Sea.”
The leader of the group said, “I hope you both can manage a spear in self-defense. Brigands raid the caravanserai. They’re ruthless. If they attack us, they’ll rob us of everything and kill or enslave everyone who is able-bodied.” As he said this, he handed us each a spear and showed where we were to walk among the animals and people in his group.
I noticed that our placement was behind the beasts of burden and in front of the chained slaves, who were guarded by well-armed Roman soldiers. Pollux was not happy seeing the brutality with which the slaves were being treated by the soldiers. The Centurion remarked to me that the slaves were rough customers being transported to a gladiatorial training facility near the Atlas Mountains. He said that, between the school and the gladiatorial arena, only one among the hundred slaves was likely to be alive one year hence.
“Centurion,” I responded, “what qualified these slaves to become gladiators?”
He laughed. “The Governor gave all new slaves a choice: death by crucifixion, the galleys, the mines, or the gladiatorial school. These are the unfortunates who did not take one of the other three choices.”
Pollux was looking down at a drawing he had made on the ground with the butt of his spear. It was a five-sided matrix. I knew where he was headed with that, so I jabbed him in the ribs to discourage him from completing the SATOR-ROTAS square. What was he trying to do? I knew he was feeling down about the slaves, but we did not need to join them in their tribulations.
I changed the subject. “When we get to Hippo Regius, will all your men partake of the beer?”
“Absolutely not. Beer will be granted to those who have earned it. The rest will have the daily rations of gramina and water. You never know when we’ll be attacked, after all.”
As it was time to depart, the soldier rallied his men, and they got the slaves off their rear ends with a great rattling of chains. The animals moved forward with all the sounds that horses and camels make. The desert sands were not yet hot, so walking was comfortable for a while. To the right was the water of the Middle Sea. To our left was the endless desert. I was glad we were with a large enough group to carry water. There was no potable water to be found in the sea or in the desert, to be sure.
The sand was still only warm under our sandals as the sun reached its zenith. Late afternoon sand was the worst as it scorched the foot soles. We reached an oasis just before nightfall. This was propitious since the animals and slaves could be watered before sleeping.
I kept looking for brigands, but none came during this trip. Perhaps our numbers were too great for them, or the size of our Roman guard. After two nights at oases, we arrived the third day at noon at Hippo Regius and bid goodbye to our caravanserai’s leader and to the Centurion.
It was not hard to find Augustine because he was dispensing beer with abandon, along with his father, mother, and siblings. He saw right away that I wanted to talk privately, but he gestured for me to wait until everyone had been served. He then motioned for Pollux and me to meet him behind the brewery.
We were given the task of separating the grain from sheaves while he talked.
“Welcome. What word do you bring me of Rome?”
I said, “We bring no good word. Rome is a slaughterhouse. Visigoths are sacking and burning everything. Roman citizens are killing Christians because we are blamed for banning the worship of the traditional gods. Flames are devouring the Eternal City, and only a few are able to escape the general melee.” I thwacked the sheaves on the ground as I spoke.
Augustine observed Pollux closely. “Show me your hands,” he said.
Pollux turned his hands, so the palms faced the ground and extended them toward Augustine, who turned them over and examined them carefully.
“Your hands tell everything about you. You’re a household slave, but not in a normal household. Not military, but senatorial, I would guess. How long have you worn the ring of a Roman citizen?”
Pollux looked at me. I shrugged.
“Nine days I’ve worn this ring. Marcus here gave it to me during our crossing. It saved my life. I’m very grateful.”
“You’re thrice blessed, my friend. First for escaping servitude. Second for finding your friend Marcus. Third for finding me. I need someone to help transcribe my writings. Could you do that simple service, but not as a slave?”
Pollux said, “I’d do it gladly. Do you intend to compose in Latin or Greek?”
Augustine squinted at the man, smiled, and said, “This is getting increasingly interesting. Greek, indeed. Well, stop ruining your hands beating sheaves and follow me to my scriptorium.”
Augustine led Pollux to a two-story dwelling behind the brewery yard where a library of scrolls was on the ground floor level. On the second level were tables where scribes were bent over scrolls, copying one to another.
“From now, you’ll sit at the free table over there by the window. Brother Iactus will show you where to sleep. You’ll eat in the refectory in the building behind this one. Any questions?”
“Will I drink beer?”
Augustine laughed. “As much as you like as long as it doesn’t interfere with your work. Also, beware of my mother. She believes in abstinence. As for me, I’ll abstain later. I’ll also be chaste later, but that’s another story.”
When the convivial host came back, I was still pounding sheaves on the ground. He picked up some sheaves and pounded alongside me.
“I suppose Peter’s flock is still worshipping together in Rome despite everything?”
I said, “Yes, they are still gathering in His name, but they are meeting underground in the catacombs.”
“That’s a fitting place to contemplate the hereafter.”
“Yet, we somehow must survive these evil times.”
Augustine smiled. “Come now. Have the times ever been other than evil?”
A commotion broke out in the forecourt, and a man in rags flitted through the granary and hid behind the scriptorium building with a soldier in hot pursuit and the Centurion following both.
The Centurion walked up to Augustine and asked, “Did you see a man running through here?”
“Hmm,” said Augustine, “can you describe him?”
“He was a slave, dressed in rags. He has escaped from my future gladiators. I’d hoped to not have to crucify any of them during our passage. Now, I’m afraid justice must be done.”
“The desert is the justice here. If anyone goes far into the endless Nubian sands, he’ll die of thirst within six days, guaranteed.”
The soldier brought out the runaway slave. “I found him cowering behind the building over there.”
“How did he slip his chains?”
“Look how his wrist is all bloody. He must have dislocated his thumb.”
“I’d like to dislocate more than his thumb.”
Augustine said, “My mother will not tolerate any violence in our establishment.”
“Then,” the Centurion said, “we’ll have to move outside. Slave, you have two choices. You can fight with the soldier of your choice to win your place among the other slaves again. Or you can be crucified at dawn.”
“I’ll fight the man who pursued me. Will I have a weapon?”
The centurion shook his head and looked at Augustine as if to say, “Can you believe the audacity?” Then he said, “You’ll have the weapon of your choosing.”
“I’ll take the triton.”
“Good choice. Soldier, prepare a square and find a triton for this man. Either he or you will survive this afternoon.”
The combatants left the granary and met again across the way from the brewery in a field where soldiers took position in a square. The soldier carried a sword and knife. The runaway slave carried only a triton.
The centurion announced, “This runaway slave will fight this soldier to the death. If the soldier wins the contest, the slave will be left for carrion birds of the desert. If the slave wins, he will return to his chains, and the soldier’s body will be consigned forthwith to a funeral pyre.”
Augustine and I became spectators to the duel. In fact, it was a disappointment because the slave was adept with the triton, and the soldier never had the chance to close with his sword and knife. The triton pierced the soldier’s neck on the slave’s first thrust. The other slaves let out a cheer, and the soldiers might have killed them all, but the centurion ordered the spectators to put the slave back in chains and tighten them so he could not break free again. Then, he arranged for a funeral pyre to be built to burn the soldier’s corpse.
Monica, Augustine’s mother, insisted on praying over the soldier’s body. Finally, her husband led her back into the refectory where the household was enjoying their evening meal.
“Marcus, you’ve seen an emblem of mortality. The centurion’s expectation was that the errant slave would be killed by his soldier. By turning expectations upside down, the whole order was exposed as fraudulent.”
“I heard the slaves muttering that the choice of weapons was Poseidon’s. His triton killed the soldier.”
“Blatant superstition! It was stupid of the soldier to have gone up against an opponent whose weapon gave him a reach greater than his. The only way the soldier could have won was to rush to get inside the slave’s thrust radius.”
“I take it you like gladiatorial contests?”
“I’m only relating common sense. As in all such contests where death is the end, someone must live, and the other must die. My mother prayed for the dead man’s soul. Since he was not a believer, little was probably accomplished, but she felt good about her effort. Perhaps she was thinking about how her actions would have affected all the others, including me. You were giving me the news of the Petrine group in Rome.”
“They’re still preserving the old documents, the gospels, and the letters mainly.”
“That’s fine. But praying in their catacombs will not convert multitudes of sinful men and women.”
“They’ll have a better chance of surviving the present trials to preach another day.”
As they drank beer, Augustine grew pensive. “You were speaking of keeping the records alive by preserving the documents. Well, I’ve been working on documents too, only they’re new.”
“What kind of documents?”
“For one, my own conversion history, which is a work in progress. And, looking beyond my personal salvation, I’ve been contemplating the meaning of the fall of Rome.”
“Meaning? Isn’t it what we’ve all been preaching—the fruits of sin and licentiousness?”
Augustine laughed. “You’ll have to broaden your scope to understand what I’m doing. I know it’s difficult, so I’ll lead you through it, step by step.”
I was wearied from my Roman experience and from my journey by ship and caravanserai, but I said, “Please tell me the short version. I’d genuinely like to think there was meaning in witnessing the end of the world as we know it.”
Augustine stroked his beard and asked, “Did you really think the fall of Rome was like the end of the world?”
“I was terrified that I might die at any moment—as that soldier did this evening. I had been thrust into the middle of a great, confusing maelstrom that could have ended any way at all. Even when I escaped, the residual horrors continued on the ship. Only when I reached the shores of Africa was my faith in the old order restored. It was as if all the Visigoth invaders were irrelevant. The sack of Rome might not be happening. Is it wrong to think that my escape was for me to accomplish a greater purpose?”
“It is not wrong for you to suspect a design for your life. Know that the sack of Rome is really happening. I receive word of the Visigoths’ atrocities every day. Even if Rome remains afterward, all will be changed. And the change will be the active principle in Rome’s forward motion from now on.”
“So how long until Rome becomes what it was before the debacle?”
“A millennium, perhaps two? Or perhaps it never will revert to its golden magnificence. Somehow, I don’t think this sack of Rome will be the last one. Do you like the beer?”
“Yes, very much. But what does that have to do with our discussion?”
“The recipe for that beer is over a thousand years old. It was lost until my father unearthed the recipe with the help of an Egyptian priest who had found it in the Library of Alexandria.”
“I thought that library had been sacked and the librarians dispersed.”
“Not hardly. The library is diminished and so is the staff of librarians, but an institution as venerable as that one will have ways of continuing. Rome will be like that.”
“And in the library, the priest found the recipe. Was the recipe originally Egyptian?”
“Actually, no. It was Mesopotamian initially, but the Egyptians added some new grains and spices and revived the original in a new form.”
“Again, I think you’re talking about the future Rome.”
“We agree, then. And that’s the first step in your education. Now let’s go a step further. Do you need some more beer? I certainly do.” Augustine beckoned to one of the servers, who rushed to replenish their bowls. He continued, “Your point about the two sides of the Middle Sea is significant. You’re frowning. Yet, you just said on one side—the Roman side—everything was darkness, death, and confusion. On the other side, things seemed as if they had not changed at all. So, Rome, the center of the universe, but no longer the capital city of the empire, had an inverse relationship to a major part of the empire. Now think of Heaven as it must appear in contrast to Earth.”
“Augustine, I get your analogy. The north side of the Middle Sea is like the Earth, and the south side is like Heaven.”
He nodded and said, “Yet tonight, we witnessed a gladiatorial contest whose meaning is simply that the earthly analogy you just invoked is false.”
“Where does this line of reasoning leave us?” I asked him.
“My son, there is no analogy that will replicate the difference between Heaven and Earth. More particularly, my mother would say that the proper contrast is between Heaven and Hell.”
“Go over that for me, please.”
“I’ll try to put this another way. Because you are literate, you must know history.”
“I’ve had the privilege of reading all the classical historians and the poets too.”
“Ah, the poets! Particularly the epic poets, like Publius Vergilius Maro. Madness, yet truth. Something like the gospels, don’t you think?”
“I’ll take that under advisement. But go on.”
Augustine sipped his beer and broke off a large crust of bread, which he waved at me as he spoke. “There is a City of Man. Let’s think of it as Rome, but it’s really all that we mortals can see and understand. Are you willing to grant me that premise?”
“Yes, of course. All history is about this City of Man. So what?”
“Now, let’s—for the sake of argument only—posit that there is a City of God.”
I was dumbstruck. This was an entirely new idea, but it hit me with such force, I shook my head. “And the City of God is?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
“Then why did you bring it up?” I felt frustrated and angry that Augustine was playing with my mind.
“I brought it up to gauge what you thought of it. So, think about it. And tell me what made your eyes go wide when you heard the term for the first time.”
“I suppose it was the juxtaposition of the terms City of Man and City of God that caught my imagination.”
Augustine looked pleased. He twirled his crust of bread between two fingers. “Can you distinguish the thoughts for me?”
I swallowed and focused on the man’s twinkling eyes. “If the evil in men, as well as the good, are on one side of the scale and on the other side of the scale are the rewards and punishments of God, then we have two complex domains, only one of which can be known by the living.”
“Yet you already know a lot about the City of God.”
“But I know it as if I were seeing it through a dark glass.”
“Yet, you know its essence.”
“And I know the idea of opposites.”
“I’ve long studied the idea of Manichaeism. Black and white. Bad and good. Absolutes.”
“Yet, from my perspective, it’s hard to draw the line between the opposites.”
“Your vision is wholly dependent on the City of Man because you are a man.”
“Yet, I aspire to what you just called The City of God.”
“And that is why you are a Christian.”
“I think so, yes. No. I’ll be bolder. I know that’s so.”
“Even though you can only see it through the dark glass?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’ll understand why Flora still appeals to me. Come over here, my beautiful Flora, and say hello to Marcus.”
A beautiful girl in a saffron gown with a desert flower in her hair brought dark brown beer and a basket of freshly baked bread to their table.
“Oh, Augustine, when are you going to be finished lecturing to this stranger? You promised to recite poetry to me in the moonlight behind the scriptorium tonight. The night is young, but I know what happens when you start talking philosophy.”
“Flora, please tell Marcus what you think about Heaven.”
“I think it’s Heaven when you hold me in your arms.”
“And what about Hell?”
She smiled wickedly and said, “It’s Hell when you’d rather pay attention to ideas rather than me.” She put the beer and bread down on the table and extended both her hands toward him. Augustine grabbed her hands and let her pull him up. He embraced her warmly and looked at me with a shrug. She pulled him through the refectory and through the back door into the darkness.
When I turned to my right, Pollux was there. How long he had been sitting there beside me, I did not know.
“So, Marcus, you’ve heard about the City of God from the master himself.”
“You overheard that?”
“I did, but I first read the term in the scriptorium. It’s on the colophon page of Augustine’s newest great work, called, The City of God.”
“He asked me what I thought of the term, specifically when contrasted with its apparent opposite The City of Man.”
“That’s the natural opposition, don’t you think?”
“It would be if opposites were clearly distinguishable.”
“And that’s why a book must be written on the subject. It would be entirely boring to neck things down to absolute opposites. Anyway, Augustine is a consummate genius.”
“And he loves good beer with bread. And he has a gorgeous girlfriend named Flora.”
“She’s not the only one after his you-know-what!”
“And your point is?”
Pollux smiled like an Etruscan statue. “I think I’m going to like working with Augustine. His scribes have nothing but good things to say about him. Then there’s the beer.” He drank from a freshly filled bowl and raised a crust of bread before he ate a large bite of it.
“Say, Marcus, I missed all the action. Tell me about the fight between the runaway slave and the soldier.”
“It was over in a flash. The soldier had a sword and knife, but the slave thrust his trident through the man’s neck before he could engage. Now the soldier is lying on the pyre out front. They’ll be lighting it any moment.”
“And Monica, Augustine’s mother prayed over the corpse?”
“Word gets around quickly. Yes, she did pray. What do you make of that?”
“Monica is like that, the scribes say. She’s always witnessing to her faith and importuning others to convert and see things her way.”
“Yet, her son is still not entirely convinced.”
“She doesn’t care as long as he comes along eventually to her way of thinking. He temporizes, and she stays strictly on course. She’s the one who suggested the term City of God to him.”
“Hmm.”
“Believe it or not, Augustine is caught between two forces every bit in opposition. By that, I mean his father, the unrepentant pagan philosopher, and his mother, the convicted Christian. His library’s a treasure trove of writings by the ancient philosophers. He may own four thousand scrolls. Of course, he has all the major Christian writings too, together with his copious notes on those.”
“Pollux, you’ve accelerated well beyond my knowledge after only one afternoon of digging into his repository.”
“Some of his scribes have been scouting the libraries on this side of the Middle Sea, all the way to Alexandria. One has even visited Byzantium. I feel deprived having been reared on the north side of the Middle Sea. It seems the tradition of learning migrated south some time ago. It’ll be years before I catch up with the rest of the scholars here.”
“Meanwhile, Augustine has an interest in knowing how the Petrine community is doing in Rome.”
“I hope you told him about the prayer meetings in the catacombs.”
“I did—and the valiant attempts to transcribe the sacred Christian texts.”
“By keeping the faith underground, there can’t be much progress spreading the good word.”
“Yet Augustine seemed to agree that surviving is important, at least for now.”
Pollux drank the remainder of his beer. He then volunteered to take me to the sleeping quarters. I was so exhausted I thought I would fall asleep at the table, so I went with him and collapsed on the coarse matting on the floor next to the place he had selected for himself. I fell into a deep sleep and dreamed about two cities constantly at war with one another. They were, I later deduced, the City of Man and the City of God. The trouble, though, was that I could not tell the difference between them.
I awakened to the sound of the caravanserai departing. The noise of animals, soldiers and slaves diminished until all I could hear was the clucking of hens and crowing of roosters. Then sunlight burst through the windows, and I realized that Pollux had risen before me and gone to the refectory for breakfast. I threw water on my eyes to wash the sleep away and joined the breakfast group. Augustine sat beside me looking bright and happy.
“You seem remarkably refreshed, my friend,” I told him.
“I am refreshed. Flora always has that effect on me. She’s one of my best pupils, though I don’t tell my mother much about that. I like your friend, Pollux. I think he’s an excellent addition to my team. He’ll learn as fast as I have time to teach him, and he has the unique ability to build on the ideas of others as well as to have new ideas himself. I want to ask you a confidential question.”
“Ask away!” I urged him.
“Are there any ownership impediments to my plans for using Pollux in my work?”
“I met the slave on the last boat out of Rome. I only know about him from his own accounts of his past and from deductions I’ve made. He seems to be forthright and honest. His former owner’s family, like my own, were all killed by Visigoths. He might have been killed in Rome or on the ship, yet he survived. If you need to know more, why not just ask him?”
Augustine nodded. “These are dark times. I’m a little suspicious of everyone, even you.”
“What do you need to know that I haven’t told you about myself?”
“Are you willing to go back across the Middle Sea to Rome for me?”
“It’s not an attractive prospect, but I’m willing to go for the sake of our mutual faith.”
“I need to be sure I have all the Christian documents that exist. What I require is for you to work with Pollux and my other scribes to compile a list of our holdings. In Rome, I want you to compare our list to all lists our fellow believers have compiled. Whatever documents are not in my collection, I need to have copied and brought here as soon as possible. I’ve already had my scribes go east as far as Bethlehem and Byzantium searching for documents.”
“I’m willing to help if I can. When I return to Rome, may I take with me excerpts from your own new works for trade? If I have those, the Petrines will barter yours for theirs.”
“I can arrange that. So, work with Pollux and let me know when you’re ready to travel north and east. Essentially, I want you to be the conduit between the group in Rome and me, and the learned Eusebius Hieronymous Sophronius, who is now living in Holy Bethlehem. Like me, Jerome views the sack of Rome as the end of the world as we know it. I would have liked to add my good friend and mentor Aurelius Ambrosius to your list, but he is no longer with us. At least he died before the sack occurred.”
***
At that historic meeting in Hippo Regius, I had no idea that I was going to become the chief conduit for Christian writings of my time. I composed nothing of note, but I personally kept the lines of communication flowing in spite of the travails of the empire.
Ironically, the former slave, my friend Pollux, became my partner in clandestine Christian activities around the Middle Sea. We met in Hippo Regius to plan our activities. Sometimes, he stayed in place and performed the duties of a scribe while I sailed north and east. Sometimes, while I was in Rome or Bethlehem, he traveled on special missions for Augustine.
The large number of scrolls attributed to Augustine—more even than those by Jerome—were made possible, in part, by his access to manuscripts that Pollux and I procured for him. By the same token, his works became well known because they were the best currency we could offer for the priceless scrolls we fetched home for him.
Flora died of plague, a deathbed convert to Christianity. Augustine’s father remained an unregenerate pagan to the end. Though Augustine finally became what his mother always wanted him to be—the perfect Christian, he was the first to admit his being fully human first in his work called Confessions.
As for The City of God, neither Pollux nor I could finally fathom the depths of that masterpiece. The sack of Rome did not end the world, but it opened the idea as never before. The closest thing I ever read to my personal experience during the sack of Rome was the strange book Revelation. Anyway, I know what I felt when I reached Africa after the Visigoths’ desecration of Rome. I sincerely hope that when I leave this sinful world and land on the far shore of Heaven, I’ll finally know how The City of God and The City of Man relate. But by then, I doubt I’ll care to think back on The City of Man.