Chapter IV
"Now he is treading that dark road to the place from which they say no one has ever returned.” - Catullus
I was thirteen years old and I was alone. The hunger gnawing away at my insides is the only excuse I can offer for the way I behaved; I should have known better, but a craving for food can drive anyone to anything.
I sat in the oppressive heat on the sun-baked ground, outside Rome’s Servian Gate. The air was still and the dust from the Via Servia hung in billows every time someone rode or walked into the city.
A man, leading a donkey laden with trade goods, passed and scowled at me as if I should not be there. A group of four young girls overtook him, giggling and shoving as only young people do. A big Nubian slave followed behind, he was there to protect them. The girls did not spare me a glance; they were too busy talking in their cheerful high-pitched voices. It was a merry summer's day for them, but not for me. It felt this way, because I had no luck at finding work and now, not even at begging. Perhaps I possessed no talent for it; perhaps I lacked charm. I wondered what I needed to do to get someone to feed me.
A middle-aged man approached; a leather satchel on his shoulder.
'Please sir, a copper as for a hungry boy, please sir.'
The man looked at me with palpable disgust. He sneered.
'Get some work, you little parasite.'
'Please sir, anything; I’ve had nothing to eat for two days.'
'Get away from me you street scum,'
He tried to cuff me across the mouth and walked away. Judging by his clothes, he was no wealthy man, but it was clear even an ordinary fellow like him, detested beggars like me. It reminded me of where I was in the pecking order.
I sat down again, my back to the wall with my knees bent up to my chest; I hugged them as if curling up would still the hunger pangs. A loud rumbling came from my stomach anyway so it was an ineffectual ploy. I prayed I could have my parents back. I longed for my home and a reversal of the terrible events pitching me into this miserable place. I dared not think too hard upon it all though; it made me want to cry. The gentle tension in the back of my throat was a warning to stop thinking about what was gone, so I forced myself to consider the present and pushed my grief into some deep corner of my mind lest it overwhelm me. It was a trick I often used, a mental protection; an escape.
The concept of tasty, succulent food began to infiltrate my mind again. It seemed relentless. I thought about fruit, bread, and meat - roasted, fried, salted or boiled. I could see it in front of me, almost taste it in my mouth. I swallowed the involuntary saliva and it seemed to make the orchestra performing in my stomach even louder. I looked around me. I saw a sedan chair in the distance, making its way across the flat, cracked ground as it approached the gate.
Presently, I noticed the arrival of a street vendor. He was selling bread and a fish stew from a wheeled barrow. The smell reminded me of happier days, laughter and a full stomach. This cruelty of the senses, appreciating and drinking in the sumptuous odour, was overwhelming. I watched disconsolate, as the sedan stopped at the stall and a large fat man emerged. A good few dinners must have gone into that enormous paunch. He purchased a bowl of delicious, steaming, tasty and satisfying stew and a loaf of beautiful, white, tempting, glorious bread. It was only a single-meal sized loaf but enough to make my eyes project on stalks with envy. I licked my lips.
As the man bit into the bread, I felt my mouth watering and imagined my teeth crunching into the crust. There can be no sound so compelling to a hungry mind than the sound of teeth sinking into a crusty loaf. I could almost taste it as well as hear it. My mouth moved with an involuntary chewing movement.
Then it happened. Somehow, the Gods turned my envy to anger. The anger turned to action. Why should others eat when I could not?
I was desperate to eat. I was quick and I knew I could run fast as anyone. Faster than most. Take the bread. The thought spread in my consciousness like a fire. A relief from hunger, a relief from the pain in my stomach, the pain in my very shade.
How to get it?
The man was fat. He would not run. He could not run. Perhaps a chance of food, a way to relieve the cramps digging away at my innards like crabs on a corpse.
I walked up to the diner in a casual way and began to walk past. Easy now, don’t overdo it. I smiled as the plump fellow raised chubby, grasping fingers to his mouth. They looked like sausages to my hungry eyes. The bread almost reached his lips again when, quick as boiled asparagus, I grabbed and ran. As the stew spilled down his tunic, I skittered away. I ran so fast it surprised even me. I ran through the Servian gate to a chorus of cries behind me.
'Thief!'
'Stop him.'
'Thief, my food!'
Grown men jumped out at me, people pursued me, but I dodged and ran. I ate as I ran, savouring the rewards of my perdition. When I reached the Subura by running past the Circus and the Forum Boarium, there was no bread left; not even a crumb. I had never eaten on the run before, but in successive weeks, I learned it could be the sweetest meal and I did it over and over again. Rome is after all, a big place for a small person.
Perhaps stealing food from the customers of street vendors revealed a kind of hunting instinct in me. I do not know. I only understood it allowed me to survive, to flourish, to live. I slept rough. I walked the streets at night and found festivals were the best time of all. They gave food away and people were careless about where they left their things.
My problem was where to sell the things I stole, since more than food entered my grasping fingers. One particular night, during the Saturnalia, when people gave each other presents and almost everyone in the street was drunk, I came across an over-refreshed man in a toga, who sat snoring in a doorway near the Forum Romanum.
The sound of revellers was all around and it was late. Groups of drunken merrymakers backslapping and laughing meandered their inebriate way home and decorations in the streets were beginning to look forlorn and abandoned as they waved in a light breeze.
Splashes of red wine stained his toga and he slept with the depth only contented inebriation can imbue. With each snore his nose twitched and on occasion, he raised a hand as if to touch his face, but in his drunken state, it was a half-hearted movement coming to nothing.
He was clutching a small bundle wrapped up in a linen cloth, with one hand. I reasoned it was Saturnalia after all and everyone else got a present. This was my gift from the Gods. It needed no skill to relieve him of his burden either. I did not even have to run this time. Grinning like a Greek, I walked away with the swagger of any thirteen-year-old thief and found a quiet corner in which to examine my purloined treasure.
The bundle contained a filigree triangular necklet, made of gold and silver wire. I pondered what to do with it. I realised I needed to sell it, but where? In the Subura there were people who would buy anything, but I had no idea how to make sure they did not cheat me. I wanted what it was worth.
Next morning, I walked along the main street of the Subura, at the start of the Vicus Longus, to where I had seen a jeweller and lapidary shop on my wanderings. I stopped across the street and waited to see who the jeweller's customers might be. I knew from my father's business, one could judge the jeweller by his customers. Had I not heard my father say so often enough?
After almost an hour, I realised the clientele were local Suburans and a few very rough looking men. I began to become street-wise at last. They were unlikely to be buying jewellery for their wives, even if they had any. I walked into the shop as if I knew with certainty what I wanted. A brash swagger was all it took.
'Yes?' enquired the jeweller.
He was a small, thin man with a puckered scar on his cheek and a look of seriousness and suspicion in his dark eyes, which I could understand. He was sensible enough to know a thirteen-year-old was not the type of customer known to frequent jewellers, least of all, a lad dressed in a tight, dirty and tattered tunic, worn to a ravelling.
&nb
sp; 'I have something to sell which might interest you. It is a piece of family jewellery of great value and I can only sell it at the right price. My mother lies dying of an illness and requires a doctor. The Greek bastard won't come unless we pay him first, so Mother sent me to sell this item at the best possible price. You may not be able to afford to buy it.'
'Here let me look at it,' the jeweller said, with a sigh of resignation, 'You young thieves seem to tell the same story every time! Steal it from a rich consul’s wife or something?'
'Steal? I would never do such a thing. If you offer me a fair price there might be more family treasures to sell as time goes by.'
'All right but let me look at it at least. I won't take it from you. The last thing I want is to attract attention.'
The jeweller examined the necklet. 'It's a fine piece,' he said, 'I can offer twenty sesterces and not more.'
'Twenty’s not enough. My father was a jeweller and I know its worth.'
'A jeweller, you say? What was his name?'
I hesitated and then told the man about the fire and how Father died. It was no secret after all.
'I knew your father, we had dealings from time to time and we met at the Lapidary Guild sometimes. He was a fine technician. The last thing of his coming to me was a ring. Here, I have it still.'
The jeweller reached under his desk and pulled out a box. He produced a ring with a large green gemstone. It depicted a carved medusa's head. I recognised it at once.
'Why did my father sell it to you?' I said, 'It was meant for the Chief Vestal.'
'It was no Vestal who sold it to me. It was a rough looking slave from the Quirinal. Cerberus, I think his name was. Why they have to give these silly Greek names to their slaves I don't know.'
'My father made it just before the fire and it was due to be collected anytime after.'
'If you're trying to say it's yours you can forget it! I bought it fair and square and you’re not having it!'
'No, that's not what I meant. You might be able to sell it still to the House of Vestals. I'm interested to know how the slave got it though.'
'I really don't know. Ask no questions; hear no lies, that's my motto. Now if you've finished passing the time of day, I have work to do. I'll give you twenty-five sesterces, for your father, he was a decent man.'
I took the money. I now possessed enough for food and I bought a new tunic from a stall in the Forum Suarium and it left me enough to pay for a month's lodgings in a tavern.
Thieving became my art and my living. I never seemed to question it and I was damned good at it too. It kept me alive but deep inside, I knew it was not my real destiny. How could I reconcile my daily dishonesty with the noble family to whom I owed my very existence? The honour of family and memories of my parents lay buried deep most of the time; but all things hatch out in time.
Guilty thoughts haunted me when I was alone, before sleep or sometimes when I awakened. The dingy rooms, the dirty alleyways and the dregs of Roman society, seemed to mirror my feelings of dejection and unhappiness with the turns my life took and the person I was becoming. I lost my pride, abandoning my morals and my scruples. I would take anything from anyone as if the world owed me for the losses I suffered. Betrayal took a hand in this shaping of my mind. I felt I was a child betrayed by all who mattered to me. I wanted revenge upon the world and everyone in it. The world took from me and it was my right to take from the world in return.
I swam in a sea of bitterness and anger in those days.