Anthia in Rome: Journey to a New Life

By Carol Fegté

Captured by invading Roman Soldiers, 10-year-old Anthia is taken away from her island home in Greece and sold as a slave in Rome, which, at the time, was considered the “center of the world.” Living in a culture her family has regarded as inferior to their own, Anthia struggles to use the Greek values learned at home to shape a meaningful life in busy first-century Rome. In this historical tale, readers are given a window into the life and customs of civilized Greece and pre-Imperial Rome.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Sep 3, 2021
• ISBN: 9781665711364

Carol Fegté

Carol Fegté is a retired Waldorf-methods teacher who had the pleasure of sharing the customs and cultures of ancient worlds with her students. She is neither Greek nor Roman, but rather a happy countrywoman living in the California gold rush town of Rough and Ready, where she reads, writes, and enjoys her horse and garden.

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Copyright © 2021 Carol Fegté.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Archway Publishing

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www.archwaypublishing.com

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN: 978-1-6657-1135-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-1136-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021917473

Archway Publishing rev. date: 9/1/2021

CONTENTS

Corcyra

1. A Cool Swim on a Warm Day

2. Stolen Treasures

3. Flames Behind, Fear Ahead

4. Bound Together

5. A Roman Camp

6. A Dark Journey Ends in Darkness

7. The Great City by Moonlight

Rome

8. Preparation

9. The Triumph

10. Not Althea

11. Serving Lady Julia

12. What Makes a Rainbow? Sun through the Rain.

13. Pleasure and a Surprise

14. Again My Life Changes in the Twinkling of an Eye

15. A New Life

16. Homesickness

17. Losses and Loves

18. A Soldier at Rest

19. Love Comes to Villa Scipio

20. Diversions and Excursions

21. Truth and Love

22. I am Given a Serious Charge

23. Force against Wits

24. The Daring Rescue

25. My Life Changes Again in a Flash

Glossary

About the Author

DEDICATION

To my Yuba River class, with love and gratitude

—C. F.

CORCYRA

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CHAPTER I

A COOL SWIM ON

A WARM DAY

M y family suffered greatly that summer from the heat. If I had been a Spartan child, perhaps my life would not have changed that summer. Perhaps I would have learned from my brothers to bear the heat in silence or to fight when the need arose. Perhaps.

That morning, I woke to small sounds. The scratch of weeds on the white wall outside the women’s room. Birds holding a conversation. The swish, below us, of the sea. Before dawn, a small shiver passed through the floor beneath my sleeping mat. The gods toy with us this way–almost every week they shift our land slightly. My nursemaid, Eugaea, came in to check on me.

Anthia,? she called nervously as she entered the sleep room. Even though I was a girl of 10, she watched me as if I were still a babe in arms. But, when the earth moved, I welcomed her concerned face.

I passed a usual morning. A bit of bread and wine, and then time spent with the hateful spindle. Eugaea made sure that I spent a good deal of time spinning fine thread–I had to fill a distaff before she would let me at the loom.

First I love my sister Chia. Then my mother, who is stately and fair, then Eugaea who will treat me like a child when I need to be babied. But beyond all these living things, I have other loves. The sea, whose blueness spreads below me and mocks the paler blue of the heavens; my father’s horse, Kleiton, whom I have sometimes ridden, cradled in between my father’s arms, which hold the reins, and, of course, the loom. On the loom I feel free. From the threads, I myself can make something almost as beautiful as the sea, or as Kleiton. I enjoy fashioning little figures from clay, but this is the play of a child. Women weave, and in the weaving they bring forth their dreams. Like Athena, the wise one, who rose full-made from her father’s brain, the cloths rise from my brain.

My mother was very pleased that I love so much to weave; my skill delighted her. Chia, who is my elder by two years, fumbled with the shuttles and tangled the thread, at least once a day. But my quick fingers seldom missed a thread, and my cloths were called beautiful by many people.

Mother was not as pleased with my reading and writing. She said, "How can those nimble fingers write such crooked letters and weave such seamless rows? I imagine my writing is not beautiful because it is so dull to write, to read, to recite.

I liked the Latin, because I could say things to Chia in Latin that Eugaea could not understand. Why, you might ask, did I learn Latin? My father, though a stern and hardworking farmer, had many ideas. One of his ideas was a little foolish. He thought that someday everyone will speak Latin as now everyone strives to learn Greek. It is hard to believe that those silly Macedonians, whose shores we can see from our hilltop on Corcyra, or the Dalmatians, who barely manage to steer their rough ships across the sparkling sea and who speak as clumsily as an oxen moves–it is hard to imagine they would ever speak a tongue as complicated as Latin.

The Latin had another use. Most of those who came to our shore to buy the wines of our island could speak Latin. It is the language of trade. Our Greek is the language of the civilized person.

And so we were, traveling through the vineyards or working in our courtyard, the two daughters of the household, Chia and I, spinning and learning as our brothers went out each day with our father to tend the vines or the bees or the orchards.

Why were we so fortunate? Most girls had only brothers, on our large island. I was lucky to have a sister. The Goddess of Fortune was responsible. If my father’s wine and olives had not grown so well, he would certainly not have kept me when I was born. Two daughters are a burden to a father, but our bountiful grapes and olives let me live.

On that summer day that started with a shiver from the earth, it was so hot by midmorning that Chia and I begged Livius Damon, our tutor, to let us go down for a swim in the cove below the vineyards. He said we could go if we would bring water to the workers on our way back. (There was a cool spring halfway up the cliff.) He sent Eugaea with us. Two girls, almost women, go nowhere alone. Eugaea carried wide white cloths for drying us, some cheese and bread in a basket, and a jar for fetching the water. She heckled us to wear our farm hats–ugh–they were so heavy, with their wide brims. As we picked our way down the cliff to the beach, we saw a boat, a tiny toy coming slowly across the stretch of perfect blue between our island and the mainland. Perhaps it was a merchant ship, coming to buy our father’s wine. (It was said our wine was the best in Ionia.)

We splashed and floated till the sun was high in the sky. At one point, a deer came crashing through the bushes at the edge of the beach. Something had scared her. She stood, looking surprised and confused for just a moment, and then leaped back into the green fringe of the underbrush.

Wrapped in the white cloths, our chiton’s warming on a rock beside us, we ate the bread and cheese while Eugaea went to fetch some water. Little round clouds, like the feathers of doves, floated overhead. We were teasing Eugaea; I remember that. I was saying to Chia in Latin, Is not Eugaea as beautiful as a swan? But I was saying it in a mean voice. Eugaea set her mouth in a stern, thin line, but Chia and I went on talking nonsense and laughing.

Greek! Greek! Eugaea shouted at us. Greek!

All was blue and white and warm with laughter. And then, in a moment, my world was changed forever. It had not been a deer in the underbrush.

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CHAPTER II

STOLEN TREASURES

A gain something was moving through the bushes toward the beach. In the blink of an eye, on that tiny stretch of white rock beach, two strangers crashed into our world. The larger one came first. He was puffing from the effort of climbing down the cliff in his heavy, clumsy clothing. He wore a helmet with a huge mane of horsehair, dyed red, bristling out to make a crest on top. Across his broad chest was shining brass armor. Thick leather sandals were cross-tied up to his knees. Over his tunic he wore a leather skirt grimy with dirt and sweat. This man had damp, dark curls twisting out from underneath his helmet. But, as I leapt up, grabbing my chiton to cover myself, it was his brow that frightened me the most. His eyebrows, black and heavy, almost met in the middle of his face. His eyebrows formed a disapproving V over his deepset, severe eyes. Beads of sweat dripped down his face, as if he were coming in from a rainstorm instead of coming into the sun out of the thick bushes at the base of the cliff. Chia cried out as she too, jumped up, grabbing for her robe as I had for mine. Behind this frightening soldier-man was another warrior, shorter, slighter and older. Though dressed like the first, he was quiet as a cat, and his mild grey eyes stared at us, it seemed, sadly.

Eugaea dropped to the ground like a dog in front of these two. Peace, kind sirs, she murmured as she crept toward them across the stones on her knees.

The younger one ignored her, stepped over her, saying casually as he moved. Ai, old woman (he spoke in Latin), but this is not peace. There is no longer peace.

He moved toward Chia, and his dark brows smoothed themselves out. Why was it that this softer look frightened me even more? He went up to Chia and grabbed her arm. My sister was very ashamed to be seen by a stranger, but when he touched her, she reacted without thinking. Lifting her chin, she grabbed her arm back from him. Then things moved too quickly. Before she had finished the gesture, he had swung his other arm back and delivered a stinging blow to her face. My sister, Chia! I moved back to the edge of the beach. I must have looked a mask of fear, for the grey-eyed one turned to his dark-haired friend and said, in Latin.

"Marius, gently. These maids are well-bred. Their nurse, the linen of their chitons–look for yourself. They will fetch a fine price, but not if they are bruised or frightened."

Fetch a price? What was happening? Holding my clothes in front of me, and drawing myself up straight, I inquired (in the little Latin I knew):

Gentlemen, does my father know of your arrival on our shores? They both stared at me. To them, it must have been as odd to hear my Latin as if it had come from the mouth of a dog!

The dark one laughed–an ugly sound, and replied, Ah, yes, lass. He knows. He gave us a lively welcome.

It was then that I saw a wisp of dark grey smoke curling up to meet the feathery clouds. A curl of smoke from our house. No fires burned on such a hot day. There was something terribly wrong. And yet, I am ashamed to admit now, I could not imagine the thing that had happened.

Come, Marius, the older one said in an encouraging voice. Let us leave these girls to dress themselves. I will send Ventanius to hold the ship for us in the next cove.

Shall we take the nurse? Marius