The Defeated!

Background: In AD62, two Roman Legions, the XII Fulminata and the IV Scythica, led by the Roman Legate of Cappadocia, Lucius Caesennius Paetus suffered a devastating and humiliating defeat at Rhandeia at the hands of an Armenian-Parthian army led by Tiridates 1, king of Armenia and his brother Vologases 1, king of Parthia.

The twenty-four year old Roman Centurion Marcus Fabius is a survivor of that battle and this is his story told in his own words. 

Through the capriciousness of the goddess of misfortune, Mala Fortuna and the ineptitude of our commander, the Cappadocia Legate Lucius Caesennius Paetus, I, Marcus Fabius of noble Roman birth and a centurion of the XII Fulminata Legion, now find myself a slave of the Persians. 

Captured by the victorious Parthian army, I, together with the other survivors of our defeat, were subjected to the ultimate shame of "sub iugum" or passing under the Persian yoke.

Stripped naked and with our wrists tied in front of us, we were made to pass between two rows of jeering Persian soldiers who whipped us mercilessly until we came to the yoke where we sullenly bent our backs in subjugation and passed under. No longer were we free Romans; from that moment one we became Persian slaves.

Waiting beyond the yoke were the blacksmiths' anvils and the branding irons. After we were ignominiously branded, we were fitted with the accoutrements of slavery - the heavy iron collars and the chains that restricted our movements - and then sent to a slave-market in the Parthian capital.

Now, I stand naked and shackled on a display podium as I am examined by potential buyers. What is bewildering to me is the difference between the professional Parthian soldiers - the only barbarian army to inflict such a devastating defeat on our invincible Roman legions - and the men who are now looking to buy me. 

Without exception, these men are effeminate with their perfume-reeking bodies, their carefully coiffed wigs of tight, black curls, their kohl blackened eyes, rouged cheeks and red stained lips. These "men" appear more like the painted whores of Rome's Suburra district rather than the manly soldiers who defeated us at Rhandeia.

I fear these Persian men are sodomites who use the arses of their male slaves for their vile and abominable practices.

By the gods! My worst fears are confirmed as i am commanded by an elderly lecher to bend at the waist and part my buttocks as he fingers my anus.

Oh, Bona Fortuna, goddess of good fortune, why have you forsaken me?

Artwork by Amalaric: text is mine.