Strike of Venus

By Rexford Walker

Living in the Roman world of the fourth century could be very challenging. It was a time of change and danger. Barbarians were attacking the empire from all directions. At sea, no ship was safe from pirates. From the east, the Sasanian Empire from Persia was once more challenging the power of Rome.

Even religion was changing. The new Christian religion was spreading throughout the empire. But which Christian beliefs were to be accepted? Constantine settled the problem by calling the Council of Nicaea. His mother, Helena, would contribute much to the new religion.

The story is told by a large cast of characters that represent people from different backgrounds: soldiers, slaves, religious people, and beautiful women. The main character is Julia, the daughter of a retired Roman soldier whose estate in the south of Gaul produced grapes and olive oil. As a young girl, she got the Strike of Venus when playing the game of talus bones. This assured her of a charmed life.

Then one day, she, her father, and her slave left by ship with wine for Constantines new city in the east. She met a handsome young officer of the Imperial Navy who was to protect her from pirates.

Other characters include Antaios from Alexandria, who tried being a monk in Upper Egypt; Meirit, a beautiful Jewish woman who would steal his heart; Belisar the Manichaen, who fought the Sasanians; and Puglius, the slave, who would steal from his mistress, murder his family, and then become a Christian.

Also included is how Helena found the tabulum, which was affixed to the cross of Jesus, and what she did with it.

This and many more fascinating stories are included in the book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 16, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514415191

Rexford Walker

R. K. Walker is retired from teaching history and archeology. He has always been fascinated with the development of the Christian religion and also with the Roman Empire. He has made many trips in Europe and has spent much time in the south of France with the family and friends of his French-born wife. He received a degree in history from Emory University in 1970. His courses in religion, especially one about the role of the gnostics in Egypt and the writings of the church fathers, always intrigued him. This book is an attempt to put together everything he has learned on these subjects and to clarify in his own mind and the readers’ what happened to bring about the Christian religion that we know today.

Book preview

Historical Characters

Arius—religious adviser to Constantine; believed that Jesus was not God but a human whom God had chosen

Alexander of Alexandria—bishop of the city of Alexandria, Egypt

Alexander of Constantinople—bishop of the city of Constantinople

Anthony—founder of gnostic order of monks in Egypt; thought the world was too evil to live in

Athanasius—deacon of Alexander of Alexandria; later bishop of Alexandria; enemy of Arius and Antaios

Constans—son of Constantine and Fausta; given Rome and Italy to rule

Constantine—Roman emperor AD 306–337; first Christian emperor; issued Edict of Milan; moved capital to Constantinople

Constantine II—son of Constantine and Fausta; given Britain, Gaul, and Spain

Constantius—son of Constantine and Fausta; given Eastern Roman Empire to rule

Crispus—Constantine’s son by his first wife; killed by father based on false evidence

Dracilianus—Constantine’s man in charge of construction projects in Constantinople and the Holy Land

Fausta—second wife of Constantine; mother of three emperors

Helena—mother of Constantine; strong Christian; found true cross; became a saint

Judas—Jew who helped Helena to find true cross; became a saint

Mithras—Christlike Persian god worshipped by many Roman soldiers

Shapur II—Sassanian king of kings, Persian emperor; enemy of Constantine

Zenobius—Greek architect who designed original Church of the Holy Sepulchre as well as many other buildings in Constantinople and the Holy Land for Constantine

Strike of Venus

The past is never dead, it is not even past.

                                             —Faulkner

On the Road to Rome, AD 312

Constantine was a giant of a man, both physically and mentally. He had won two previous battles against forces that Maxentius had sent to impede his progress. But he knew that his brother-in-law had recently received unexpected reinforcements from the east—men who had been sent to fight Maxentius but who had joined him instead.

Marching with his men along the Roman road from Verona toward the sunrise, Constantine and his men beheld a cross in the sky. In the center was the sun, with beautiful rays of light extending above, below, and to either side of it. Constantine had been a follower of Apollo for all his pagan life and had always revered the sun. Now the sun was making the sign of the cross. He wished his mother, Helena, were here to see it since she was such a strong believer in the new Christian faith, but he had left her in his newly built palace at Treverorum (Trier, Germany) when he began his march to Rome. She had given birth to him when she lived in Britain. He was most acclimated to the cool northern climates but enjoyed the sunshine and landscape of Italy.

He thought about the cross all day long as his army moved south. That night, he had a dream in which the cross was in the sky, and through it were the words in Greek that meant that, by this sign, he would be victorious.

The next morning, he ordered that all his men paint a chi and a rho on their shields, one on top of the other. These were the first two letters of the word Christ. He also ordered that the eagles of his legion be removed and replaced with the Christian cross. Then he went into battle at the Milvian Bridge in Rome and was victorious. He personally threw the body of his brother-in-law off the bridge into the Tiber River.

A Villa North of Arelate (Arles, France), AD 320

Two cousins sat on a beautiful floral mosaic tile floor in the atrium of a Roman provincial villa near Arelate. Flavia and Julia were both twelve years old and played the game the Romans called talus. The front door was open and let in a lavender-scented breeze that exited through the round hole in the ceiling. Looking out the front door, they could see on the hills surrounding their villa neatly laid-out squares of olive trees and grapevines. A pool, which collected rare rainwater, was in the center of the room. It was noisy because the spring cicadas had returned with their loud scratching sounds, which could be heard throughout the province.

They had played the game since early childhood, progressing from one level to the next. It was played with five talus bones from the ankles of slaughtered sheep: four white ones and one painted red. The red one was called Venus. On the first level of the game, the four white bones were tossed on the ground, landing on one player’s half of a circle. Venus was tossed high into the air, and the player who tossed it would have to pick up one white bone and then catch Venus with the same hand. Then the other player had to do it. Next, two white bones had to be caught, then three, and finally four. If Venus hit the ground, the player would have to begin again.

They had mastered that part of the game several years before and progressed to the next level. The player would now toss a white bone and Venus into the air and try to catch them both on the back of his or her outstretched hand. Then the player would move on to two whites with Venus, then three, and finally four. Each white bone had four sides, each of which was numbered. If the player tossed all four bones into the air with Venus and the four bones landed in an order that showed different numbers, then that person won the strike of Venus—something that was nearly impossible. For the Romans, casting bones was a means of telling the future. If someone got the strike of Venus, his life would be protected by the gods forever.

So it was on that summer day—when Julia was twelve years old, in the atrium of her uncle’s villa—that she got the strike of Venus. Julia would depend on her luck throughout her adult life and continue to believe in her bones whenever difficulties arose.

Chapter One

Egypt and Antaios

It was a time of chaos and confusion in the Roman Empire. Claimants to the imperial throne had fought one another for centuries, and the cost of these struggles—both in lives and in power—severely weakened the empire. New religions of every type were vying for dominance. The old gods of the empire were still worshipped by many, and the customs and traditions—as well as superstitions that had been observed for centuries—were still firmly established and would be nearly impossible to change.

In Italy, unemployment was a major problem. For years, wealthy men had bought up large tracts of land and farmed it with slave labor. The free people moved to the cities; Rome itself burgeoned to nearly two million people at its largest. These people were given bread and circuses to keep them happy. Every day, long lines of people were given their daily allotment of bread and a few cheap coins.

The bathhouses and entrances to the coliseums were practically free. Year after year, this practice continued until the Senate began to run out of money. Constant warfare against both external and internal enemies depleted the treasury. The coins issued by the government became worth less and less as the mints began to mix cheap metals with the gold and silver. The commoner was unhappy with his lot in life. Organized gangs, which had always been a problem in Rome and elsewhere in Italy, began to make life more and more dangerous.

Many wealthy people had already left Rome for safer cities in the provinces. The Senate itself moved out of Rome and met in different cities in northern Italy. The administrative center of the western courts moved out of Italy altogether and was centered in Trevororum. In the western half of the Roman Empire, real control shifted to the church by the end of the fourth century, as it was better organized than the central government.

The eastern half of the Roman Empire had become more prosperous than the western half. Constantine moved his capital there in recognition of this fact. Large cities like Antioch, Athens, Corinth, Ephesus, Caesarea, and Alexandria were already there when he decided to build his new city, which would eventually be named after him.

Egypt was a part of the Roman world, ruled by the emperor. Wealthy Roman tourists visited the ancient pyramids just as tourists continue to do in our own time. They sailed across the Mediterranean to the bustling city of Alexandria and then transferred to smaller sailing vessels, which took them south through the palm trees and papyrus reeds of the delta. Beyond the reeds, they could see some of the most fertile lands of the empire. Wheat and other vegetables grown there fed much of the Roman world.

Leaving the delta, they caught sight of the pyramids to their right, with the bright Egyptian sun reflecting off their polished sides. They disembarked to visit the pyramids up close before continuing their sail to the monuments in the south.

Far to the south but still on the banks of the Nile, near the ancient city of Luxor, lay the tiny settlement of Chenoboskeon, named after the geese that came to glean the fields. Nearby, Christian hermits left the chaos and sinfulness of the empire to live in peace with their God. There the sun rose in the ever-cloudless sky as it had since the beginning of time.

On one bright morning, a young hermit monk named Antaios was awakened by light flooding into the interior of his cave. He had carved out his home in the side of a limestone hill using his own hands, with the help of his companion, Anubis, a greyhound dog. Survival in the desert was difficult for both of them. Anubis was left to roam at night and was usually successful in his hunt for geese. Sometimes he would even bring one back to his master.

This morning, Anubis gave him a friendly bark, as he did every morning, and ran to Antaios, who scratched his head and neck. Anubis always tried to talk and said something that sounded like Arrrhhhhhuuu! to Antaios. Antaios would praise him and ask him about his success at his nightly hunt. Anubis didn’t talk much, but he was a good listener.

Anubis had another talent that was unusual for a dog. Antaios taught him how to grind wheat into flour. Actually, Antaios helped his friend Zacharias with the winter wheat harvest. The wheat was ground in a heavy stone funnel-shaped grinder. He and Zacharias originally took turns pushing a long pole around in circles. Antaios made a harness for Anubis and taught him to walk around in circles, grinding the wheat. Of course, Anubis did not work for free—he always got a nice reward for his efforts. Usually it was dog bread—special hard bread that Antaios knew how to make.

Zacharias and Antaios would then make bread for delivery to all the other monks in their caves. This was baked Egyptian-style. They used tall, tapered clay jars with lids. First, dough was put into them and allowed to rise, and then it was punched down with their fists and allowed to rise again until it doubled in size. The jars were then placed in a large fire and baked. The cone-shaped loaves were then easily shaken from the jars.

Today, Antaios grabbed a rolled-up rug, tucked it under one arm, and walked to a spot beneath an acacia tree where he normally said his prayers. Anubis was by his side and looked up at his master with his loyal yellow eyes. Antaios spread the rug on the sand and got down on his knees, facing the morning sun. He could see other monks who lived around him doing the same. He raised his hands toward the sky and prayed out loud his version of the Lord’s Prayer.

At this point in his life, he was lonely and a little sad; his earthly existence weighed heavily on him, and he yearned for relief and the promise of a glorious afterlife. He remembered the happy times with his parents in Alexandria and with his lost love. Where was she now? Surely she wasn’t truly lost, he hoped, even though she, like most Egyptians, worshipped Serapis.

He didn’t think that he would ever stop missing her. He tried to train his mind on the present: the birds in the air, the palm trees, the beauty of the desert, and his dog. He reflected that there was even beauty in the scorpions and snakes. He looked around and saw his brother monks who were also doing their morning prayers. He liked mornings best: they were cooler, and there was always a breeze. The long afternoons were stifling, especially in the cave. He tried to sleep in the shade of his tree when things got too hot. Brother Barnabas lent him books to read and to meditate on. These included books that the patriarch of Alexandria said should be read and others of which the patriarch did not approve.

This morning, rubbing his long unkempt beard and tangled black hair, he walked to a nearby date palm, gathered some of its fruit, and went back into his cave. He ate the dates with his loaf of bread. He grabbed some onions and garlic from a bag he kept in the cave. These would keep him healthy and strong, he thought.

He thought about the city of Alexandria and of Anthony, whom he had met when he was in despair. It was this older man, who was very well-known and respected at the university, who introduced him to the hermits of the desert. For Anthony, these men lived in paradise, even though they denied themselves most of the pleasures of the earth. He truly believed and taught that the earth was ruled by Satan and that every earthly temptation should be resisted.

Nine years had passed since he came upriver. Sometimes he wondered if this was what God wanted him to do with his life; maybe he should be working in the pottery factory with his father, Leonidas. His father and mother wanted him to stay with them so much; they begged him not to join Anthony’s group—but he left them anyway.

The sound of the ram’s horn interrupted his thoughts. This was a signal for all the brothers to meet. He hurriedly finished his breakfast and put on his hooded robe, tied it with a leather belt, and tied on sandals to protect his feet from the burning sand. He grabbed a sack and joined his brothers on the walk to the gathering place by the river. Anubis followed the group, chasing any birds that he happened to see.

The river water had receded from the previous month’s flood. Overhead he watched a flock of ibises come to settle into a patch of papyrus reeds. Peasants were chatting loudly as they planted their fields. He covered his head with his hood because the sun was already burning his face. Anubis ran in front of him, barking at the birds in the papyrus reeds. He splashed around in the water before rejoining his master.

Antaios entered a flat-roofed building with clay walls and sat on a simple wooden bench that he had helped make. It, like the other benches, was carved with Christian symbols. The room smelled of burning incense, a luxury that a friend regularly sent to Barnabus the Ethiopian, their leader. At least a hundred other monks came when they heard the sound of the ram’s horn, and they sat quietly as Barnabus began to speak. They were not supposed to speak. Some saw a scorpion on the arm of Barnabus’s robe and chose to say nothing.

"Children of the Light, I have received news from the sainted father, Patriarch Alexander of Alexandria, who is old and infirm, that Athanasius, his second, who represented him at Nicaea, has issued orders that will apparently have an effect on the way in which we live our lives. Athanasius attended the latest church council with three hundred Christian leaders at Nicaea in Asia Minor. Each representative, bishop or priest, was allowed to bring five attendants with him. All their expenses—travel, food, and lodging—were paid for by the emperor. Apparently things were decided there that need to be explained to us. Within the next few days, a delegation is coming upriver from Alexandria to visit us. Until then, we shall wait, pray, and prepare. That is all I can tell you about that.

"I wanted also to announce that Zacharias needs help with mending his fishing nets, and Benjamin needs help in planting the wheat fields. The planting of wheat must be done or we’ll have no bread. And if we don’t have bread, how can we have the Eucharist?

Aeii! Barnabus exclaimed as the scorpion stung his arm. He reached under his robe, pulled the scorpion out, and stomped it to death. The brothers were used to scorpion stings, but sometimes the stings became infected and occasional brought death. But death was not a bad thing for the monks; it was a release. Barnabus stoically apologized for his outburst and went on.

The scorpion and his bite are reminders of the evil and lusts of this world and the power of the Evil One, who by God’s will, has been placed in control of this world. Having said this, allow me to continue about today’s schedule. Brother Donatus will blow the ram’s horn to announce the arrival of our guests. Everyone must be in attendance and show proper humility and respect.

After other announcements, they were all dismissed. Antaios stepped out into the blazing midmorning sun. The ancients called the sun Ra, and its power was supreme. The idea occurred to him that the light always dispelled the darkness just as the Christ would always dispel the Evil One. He heard Athanasius make the same analogy.

Anubis ran up to him, dragging a dead Ibis in the sand; he triumphantly placed it at his master’s feet. He patted his dog’s head and put the ibis in his sack. Then he walked over to join Zacharias, who had already reached his fishing nets.

Anubis has already brought us lunch today! he said quietly to Zacharias.

Antaios was born Antaios Ptolemaeus from Greek parents whose families had lived in Alexandria since the time of its founding by Alexander the Great over six hundred years before. His mother often bragged that Antaios was the descendant of the great Ptolemies, Greek rulers of Egypt since Alexander’s death. She wanted people to know that he was a direct descendant of Cleopatra (despite the fact that Cleopatra’s only son, Caesarion, had been murdered by the conquering Octavian). Antaios’s father owned a pottery factory that employed many poor, local Egyptian men. They made everyday pottery in the Roman style with red terra sigilata glaze. When he was born, his mother named him Antaios because she heard that the name meant healthy in Latin, and she thought that he certainly looked healthy.

The population of Alexandria was said to be nearly a million people, evenly divided between Greeks, Jews, and Egyptians. It was the second largest city in the empire and had the largest Jewish population of any city. Romans were officially in control of the city and in control of Egypt. The Romans referred to the city as Alexandria ad Egypt or Alexandria by Egypt because they did not really consider it to be Egyptian at all.

The Greeks in Alexandria produced many great men: Euclid the mathematician; Eratosthenes, who calculated the circumference of the earth; Aristotle; and other scientists and engineers. Their language was the language of the Eastern Roman Empire, and their religion was mostly Christianity.

The Jews produced the Septuagint there many centuries before. The Septuagint was the Hebrew Scriptures translated into Greek in the second century before Christ. The original Septuagint was housed in a museum that grew to become the Great Library.

Julius Caesar accidentally burned part of the Great Library when he fought against Cleopatra’s brother. Cleopatra’s lover, Mark Antony, tried to rebuild its collection as a gift to his paramour. The Great Library had always been a home for scholars and was known for its university, which was an integral part of it. The inventions and ideas of the whole ancient world could be found there.

The city was busy and noisy. Marching soldiers from the Legion Aegyptos, merchants selling their wares, fishmongers, barking dogs, flower merchants, and children playing all contributed to the sounds of city life. The city smelled of perfumes, incense, unwashed bodies, animal droppings, spices from the East, garlic, onions, and swamp, all at the same time. But being a Roman city, it was served by a first-class sewer system and always had a fresh supply of clean water. The smells of the city were continually refreshed by winds that usually flowed from the Mediterranean toward the desert and up the Nile. Sometimes in winter the wind direction was reversed and strong winds blew off the desert.

The wealthy merchants of the city prospered from the export of Egyptian food products, texts copied from the library, and African animals to fill the Empire’s coliseums. They imported Greek wine, wood from the Levant, Chinese silks, Arabian spices, and leather from Iberia.

It was a tradition that when a ship came into harbor, a slave from the library would greet the ship’s captain to ask if there were any scrolls or codices (books) on board. If there were, the scrolls would be taken to the library, examined, and copied if they were found to be something the library did not contain; they were always returned to their owners. For every scroll or codex in the library, theoretically there was always at least one other copy somewhere in the world. As time passed, very few books could be discovered on newly docked ships that had not already been copied and placed in some cubby hole or shelf in the library in Alexandria or at the Serapeum or at the Temple of Denderah. The library employed many full-time scribes to copy texts for export. The sales of these books brought in great sums of money for the city.

There also existed a neck of land that went around the harbor and ended at the Great Lighthouse. The lighthouse was originally constructed on the island of Pharos five hundred years before Antaios’s birth. A mile-long causeway was built of stone blocks to connect Pharos to the mainland. Over time, the causeway silted up, and the walls of stone were covered with sand. Beautiful homes and palaces were built along the causeway. Their owners enjoyed a spectacular view of the harbor and the lighthouse, and on the Mediterranean side there were long, sandy beaches for the rich to play in.

The Pharos, as the lighthouse came to be called, cast a light that could be seen from more than thirty-five miles out at sea both day and night, so that mariners could find Alexandria easily. During the day it used a large concave mirror to reflect sunlight; this light could also be focused on unwelcome ships approaching the harbor, blinding the crew and, if properly focused, setting fire to the sails. At night, the mirror reflected the light of a wood fire, which needed to be constantly fed and consumed whole forests over the years. Wood had to be imported to feed it. The Pharos had a statue of Poseidon on its roof, and its sides were covered in marble. Wood was stored on the first floor and was brought to the fire on the top floor by a system of winches and pulleys on the inside of the tower.

It was there as a teenager that Antaios got his first job. He could have worked in his father’s pottery factory, but he chose not to because, like most young men, he wanted to be free of his father’s commands.

His was the dirty but necessary job of ash removal. Once a week he had the additional chore of polishing the bronze mirror that sat behind the flames. Ashes and sand were used for this. Each morning, after the fire was extinguished, he would drive an oxcart beneath the ash chute, which the original designers had thoughtfully included in their plans. Next he had the job of hoisting water up to the top floor for use by the day crew; this was done with a series of pulleys and counterweights. Antaios would then make the hard climb up to the top using the spiral staircase.

He would shovel the ashes from the night fire into the chute and then polish the mirror before descending the stairs. The fire crew used the pulleys to bring up the wood they needed for their shifts. Antaios would always drink a lot of water before getting onto his cart.

Wearing a wide straw hat and shell eye protectors to shield his eyes from the burning sun, he would drive his oxcart up the road that went by the houses of the rich. He always admired the homes and dreamed about living in them—especially the home of Alexander, patriarch of Alexander, and the villa of Valentinus, consul of Egypt. Valentinus was the representative of Constantine and responsible for governing. He saw to it that all Egyptian cities got proper Roman facilities, such as baths, toilets, running water, amphitheaters, hippodromes, and roads. It was said that the city of Alexandria had four thousand baths and four thousand places of entertainment.

Antaios would take the ashes from the lighthouse to a place in the delta where hundreds of women were engaged in the business of doing the city’s laundry. He would empty his ashes into a pile next to dozens of copper vats. These were set on tripods over fires made from straw and dried animal dung. City workers brought the dried dung left in the streets from the horses, mules, and camels that littered the streets. Egyptian washer women tended the fires and gossiped while they worked. Occasionally they sang tunes that Antaios did not know.

Ashes that he brought were mixed with water from a small branch of the Nile that flowed near the city. It was put into their vats and brought to a boil, making a lye solution that did a fine job of whitening clothes. The women used wooden mallets to pound the clothes into the ash water. Then the clothes were taken from the vat and brought to the river, where the ashes were removed by rubbing the clothes on wooden washboards and dipping them into the current. Later, the clothes dried quickly hanging in the bright Egyptian sun.

It was here that Antaios met his first love, the beautiful dark-eyed Egyptian girl Memapera. He noticed her every morning that he brought ashes. She worked hard as a laundress, with her greyhound, Anubis, by her side. She also noticed him.

Upper Egypt

Under the stars, which shone so brightly across the cloudless, desert sky, with a cool breeze coming as it usually did from the north, Antaios, who was educated in Alexandria to speak and read both Greek and Coptic, instructed his brothers from the holy books that Barnabus loaned him:

"We have come to meet here in our brief stay upon this earth to enjoy the company of those who have discovered the Way. We are children of the light whose souls were incarnated in human bodies on this earth and discovered the world’s true nature, which is evil and is governed by the devil. Our Lord and Savior, who was the light, came down to rescue those of us who could see and return our souls out of these lust-filled, evil bodies, which are material and of the devil. He was crucified by the children of the darkness. But He was not dead. Only His physical body died. His spirit, which came from the Holy Spirit, returned … just as ours—which are also a part of the Holy Spirit—will, upon our physical deaths, return once more to the seventh sphere to be reunited with the Holy Spirit, Christ, and the Creator, never to be separated again.

Man is mortal God on earth; God immortal man in heaven.

Brother Philemon of Thebes decided to say something. Yes … It is not difficult for anyone who has ever lived to see that the world is an evil place. Look at what happened to Barnabus today with the scorpion! One never knows when the scorpion will sting or the cobra will bite, and those whom we love are carried off by famine and disease. But the world appears to be such a beautiful place—just look above you at the stars and the moonlight on the desert sands. Maybe it is all deception.

Thaddeus of Smyrna added, And evil is not just in natural things. Look at people. Those you trust most are the ones who are most likely to betray you—even those who call themselves Christians. It is logical that you should watch your enemies, but I advise you to keep a careful watch on your friends and even your relatives.

But, Thaddeus, you must remember that Christ said that you should love your enemies, Antaios stated.

Oh I do try to love those who have betrayed me, Thaddeus said. And I do try to pray for them, but they are not among the chosen—they do not know the light. They will be tormented after death; but when will my torment on this sorrowful earth end? When can I see the face of my creator? Why did he put me here just to suffer and see what evil people do to each other? My soul yearns for my bodily death and my return to the light!

Antaios shared with them his story: "When I was a young man, I met a beautiful, young Egyptian woman working as a washer of clothes. She was small, thin, and as delicate as a gazelle. She had eyes that Isis would have envied. Her glance was enough to freeze me and render me speechless and stupid. Every day I saw her and her white dog, which is my dog now, until one day I got up the courage to ask her name. ‘Memapera,’ she replied.

"Over the months of constantly seeing her, we became friends. One day I packed cheeses, fruits, and expensive wine from Italy, which they call Falernian, and asked her if she would like to join me in a picnic by the sea. She surprised me and said yes.

"I put her next to me on my oxcart, with her dog in the back, and we went to the beach beside the Pharos where I worked. I spread a blanket on the sand where I put the food. She was not wealthy so wore only a plain cotton wrap. We went for a walk