To see the previous installments, click on the following links: #1, #2 , #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12, #13, #14, #15, #16, #17, #18, #19, #20, #21, #22, #23, #24, #25

It was a summer night, and in the gloom of our little dwelling above the bakery, I related to Aemilia what the rumours of Rome brought from the capital of the empire. Fate, capricious as ever, had bent at the last moment to save Marcus's son from the mortal sentence. The young man who only a few days before had awaited his death and the cold sword of the executioner, now found in the death of the emperor an unexpected hope of life.

“Vespasianus died in the early hours of June 24,” I said, watching the soft light falling on his attentive face, “and with it, the fate of Marcus’s son changed.” Aemilia listened with a mixture of awe and calm as I told her how, with Titus now on the throne, all executions on that fateful day had been suspended by imperial order. With the arrival of the new Caesar, even the darkest of fates could vanish with an edict.

From the time we kneaded bread in the early hours of the morning to the time we shared wine at the end of the day, the story of young Marcus seemed to echo in every corner of Pompeii. “Titus has decreed that he will be banished, not as a condemned man, but as a legionary to Judea. There,” I continued, “he will live out his sentence in the form of a legionary loyal to Rome.” The death sentence had been commuted and the whole city was buzzing with the news that the young man would be back in Pompeii to recuperate before leaving for the East.

Aemilia looked at me, her face serious in the glare of the low light of our modest house, and in a soft voice she asked, “Is this the price of his freedom? To sell his soul to the armies of Rome, to give up everything here?” I replied, still watching his expression, “His life in the legions of Judea will be a life on the razor's edge, yes, but it will be a life at last. And his father, Marcus, has not ceased to pull every string, to fill every corner of Rome with promises and denarii. Now, he has also committed himself to one last promise: to build a temple to honour the late Vespasian, divine among the gods.”

And so, amidst the noise of the streets and the murmur of the people, the life of young Marcus went on, entangled in the wills of the powerful and in the incense of a new altar for the god Vespasian, the last immortal of an empire which, nevertheless, always found a way to demand the highest tribute from those who served it.

To be continued

Header Image:

Illustration of the funeral pyre of an emperor in ancient Rome.