The Boat of Fate Read Online Free PDF Page B

sad eyes, were herded finally into the trap, where they were finished off brutally enough with clubs and stones. The last part of the process I found I couldn’t watch; I still had a lot to learn before I could become a soldier.
    A few weeks afterwards my growing scholastic prowess came to my father’s ears. Gellius, like most teachers of rhetoric, was in the habit of holding public demonstrations, at many of which I had become has star attraction. On this particular occasion my exercise was to argue on Hadrian’s side in justification of his war against the Jews. It was a subject close to my heart; I had prepared my material well, and my impassioned pleading brought the house down. A couple of evenings later my father sent for me. He was sitting writing when I entered, and for some minutes continued to scratch away without acknowledging my presence. When he finally spoke I had a great surprise. He gave me, for my own, part of the De Re Rustica of Columella.
    The gift was totally unexpected. I flushed with pleasure, and began to stammer out my thanks, but Father cut me short. It was then I first really sensed the gulf that existed between us. ‘Don’t misunderstand me,’ he said in his quiet, cold voice. ‘I’m rewarding you for your accomplishment as an orator, not your opinions as an historian. You speak very well; but for the rest, you deserve a thorough whipping.’
    I flushed again, this time with annoyance, and would no doubt have embarked on a justification of my ideas if he hadn’t stopped me with a peremptory wave of his hand. ‘That’s enough,’ he said. ‘Go back to your room, Sergius. Don’t put your orator’s scarf on in here.’
    The incident had one long-term result. From then on I was allowed the use of my father’s library on rare occasions, usually when he was away from home. His collection was extensive and he was himself the author of several treatises on public engineering as well as a history of Baetica that had enjoyed considerable popularity some years before. One wall of his study was lined with the shelves on which the books were kept, each in its wrapper of dyed parchment; to one side was his writing table, illuminated at night by a pendant many-spouted lamp. The air of the room was heavy with a combination of scents: gum, resin, the soot and wine dregs from which he made his ink, the cedar oil used to protect papyri from the ravages of insects. It was a pleasure to me, on those odd visits, just to take the books down and handle them, rolling and unrolling them on their rods of wood and bone, admiring the neatness of the columns of script, the edges of the leaves smoothed with pumice and stained with bright dyes. I glutted myself on the history of the Province; military history for the most part, the campaigns of Gnaeus Pompeius, Sulla and Aemilius Paullus, whom I privately believed to be my ancestor. I read his great speech from the Roman Rostra, and Hadrian’s exhortation at Tarraco. One day I would visit these places, walk in the footsteps of these famous men; even perhaps--for my ambition had revived--surpass them.
    It was about this time that an incident took place that, looking back, I can see was to shape my entire life.
    It happened on a bright day in early summer. I was on holiday, and had risen early hoping to persuade Marcus out on a ferreting expedition. But for once he was unco-operative; a great deal needed doing about the house and in any case, he said, an old wound was troubling him, a spear-thrust in the leg he’d received in the Persian war. He shooed me determinedly from his room, and I was left to my own resources.
    The day was too fine to waste in reading or study. I considered going round to the stables to try to persuade my father’s groom to let me have one of the ponies, but it would have been a waste of time; I was still not considered old enough to stray too far on my own and Victor was under strict orders to that effect. My mother was in the kitchen