Corinth Slave-market

Glaucus of Korinthos

Or

The Spoils of War

Part 1: “The Barbarian Brothers”

This is a story of erotic fiction meant for adult readers over the age of eighteen years

Written by Jean-Christophe (Chris)

Chapter 1: “The Barbarian Brothers”

“Where Corinth, are thy glories now…

Thy ancient wealth, thy castled brow,

                                     Thy solemn fanes, thy halls of state

     Thy high-born dames, thy crowded gate”

                                        -Antipater of Sidon (2^nd Century BC) 

Prologue: 

Macedonia, 146 BC

All around me my beloved city is dying a brutal death at the hands of our Roman conquerors. I watch in horror at the pillaging of our homes and temples and the rape of our women and maidens. I see our grandparents put to the sword without mercy.  I watch the desecration of our religious statues and it is even rumoured that the victorious soldiers are playing dice on one of our most venerated icons, the Dionysus by Aristeides.

This total destruction of Korinthos by the Romans is unconscionable and matched  by the destruction of faraway Carthage and the salting of the very earth on which that fabled city flourishes. 

And yet it isn’t without precedent. It is only eighteen years since the Roman Senate ordered the looting and pillaging of seventy communities in Epirus in one of its ‘just’ wars. Those towns had been stripped of their wealth and 150,000 of their citizens sold into slavery. 

But why is this happening to Korinthos which, with Athens and Thebes, ranks as one of the most beautiful, cultured and wealthiest cities in all of Macedonia? 

The reasons are complex and would arguably help to swell the library at Alexandria with countless scrolls and tablets which would tell of the political machinations of the Achaeans led by the Strategos Diaeus and the insatiable greed of the Romans led by their Consul and General, Lucius Mummius.

Ambitious and greedy, Mummius has seized this chance to add to his “dignitas” and “gloria” by the total destruction of Korinthos, the pilfering of all its art treasures and the killing and enslavement of her citizens. And the Roman Senate will honour him for his total destruction of the Achaean League and Korinthos by bestowing upon him the cognomen of “Achaicus”; he being the first of plebeian birth to be so honoured.

Lucius Mummius will grow immensely wealthy in the process. He’ll carry the riches of Korinthos back to Rome where he’ll share them with his cronies and supporters. And with the crushing of the Achaeans, it will fall to Mummius to dismember the Achaean League and re-organise the government of the Hellenes in Rome’s interests. The task will be monumental but he’ll be ably assisted by the historian, Polybius.

Loaded with booty and captives, Mummius will wear the victor’s laurel and triumphantly parade through the streets of Rome to the hoarse shouts of her citizenry in the same manner as Scipio Africanus’ moment of triumph with the destruction of Carthage in the same year. The Roman Republic will reign supreme and her subjugated peoples will live under the law of the “Pax Romana”.

                        >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 

Three days ago, Diaeus and the Achaeans had met the Roman army in battle and won a short-lived victory. Quickly, the Romans had regrouped and put Diaeus to flight. Left without a leader, the Achaeans retreated into the city hotly followed by the victorious Roman army. It had taken the Romans less than three days to subdue them and now they sweep all before them. 

Later, we are to hear that Diaeus killed his wife and then died by his own hands after drinking a poison draught.

But today, in the ensuing panic, I have become separated from my parents and family. I don’t know it they are alive or dead and I worry about my mother and two sisters. Are they too being despoiled by the Roman victors? I pray to Zeus and the gods of Olympus that this isn’t so.

My name is Glaucus and I am eighteen years old. My father is Clearchus of Korinthos and his home is on the far side of the city in that enclave reserved for the city’s elite. I am trying to make my way there through the panic and chaos of a terrified citizenry. That is where our townhouse is situated and it is where my father spends most of his time. My aristocratic father is of the old school that holds a free citizen should not engage in commerce but work for the public’s good. Therefore, most of his time is spent in the city’s agora debating with friends and foes alike those issues – both great and small – which affect the affairs of Korinthos and the well-being of her citizens. 

I, on the other hand, prefer to spend my time on the family’s farm just beyond the boundaries of the city. There I supervise the activities of our agricultural slaves in the growing of grain, grapes for wine-making and olives to produce the refined oil for which my family is justifiably famous.

I have always loved the farm. There, life is governed by the seasons, the planting and harvesting of the grain crops, the maintenance of the grape vines and olive trees, the wine-making and the pressing of olives. My true interest is in the good management of the farm and the control of our family’s slaves.

For the moment, my father is happy for me to do this. Even though I have attained my manhood and technically I enjoy all the privileges of a free man and citizen, he considers me too young and inexperienced to involve myself in the labyrinth affairs of the polis. As his only son, he has great ambitions for me and he has exposed me to the best education and tutors that his considerable wealth could afford.

I am proficient in several languages including that coarse, vulgar tongue Latin, which to my refined, Hellenic ears sound more like the ‘baa-ing’ of a herd of wild mountain sheep. I have studied mathematics, the sciences, the arts, Homer’s poetry and the Greek tragedies. But arguably, my tutors gave me the greatest gift of all – rational thought. 

I’d watched the Romans steadily advance towards the city and with just hours to spare, I’d given our slaves permission to flee the farm and seek sanctuary within the city. I’d stayed behind just long enough to gather up all our family valuables - jewellery, cash and documents – and then joined them in my own flight. Accompanying me was my loyal body-slave, Diagoras and an older slave, Perimedes.

Diagoras has been with me since my childhood. On my tenth birthday, my father had taken me to the slave-market where he’d allowed me to choose a male slave who’d serve me as I journeyed towards manhood.

I had been with my father to the market before when he’d purchased slaves to work on the farm. I’d always been fascinated by the market and, on my father’s instruction, I’d watched intently as he put a slave through his paces. Father’s inspection of a slave was always thorough. Of course, the slaves were as naked as the day their mothers gave birth to them as it was the accepted practice that nothing is hidden from the buyer. 

Nudity isn’t an issue for me. Indeed, it is the norm. I had seen my father and his friends naked countless times in the gymnasia and of course I’d seen naked, male slaves serving at symposia. My own introduction to a symposium took place several years ago when my father held one at our city home where he’d proudly presented me to his closest friends to mark my entry into ‘manhood’. In the past, I’d been excluded from the symposium because of my age but I was familiar with the room set apart exclusively for these events. Father’s is large even by today’s standards and holds fifteen reclining couches. The average symposium is furnished with seven or perhaps nine couches.

I was proud to attend my first symposium and I had ordered Diagoras to attend me. Like all the other slaves he was naked and I’d paired him with the older Perimedes to act as one of the two bearers of the large wine jar or krater. I’m not sure which of us was the proudest. Was it me because I was attending my first symposium or was it Diagoras because he was a krater bearer? How nobly he carried himself and how proudly he disported his massive erection that was favourably noted and commented on by my father and his friends. As his master, I watched proudly as Diagoras was called to a couch where the strength and hardness of his penis was assessed by an appreciative guest of my father. Diagoras was truly the envy of his fellow slaves. 

But I am ahead of myself and should return to the slave-market and the day when Father bought Diagoras for me.

                           >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 

The slaves for sale that day were lined up abreast of one another on a raised dais and even the juvenile ones were restrained by their chains. Hanging around the neck of each slave was a tablet setting out the details of age, place of birth, health, educational abilities, their skills and the length of time they’d spent in servitude.

That day, most of the slaves on offer had been born into slavery and were well adjusted to their condition. Even I could sense their docile natures.  But there were a few who stood out. They were very different in appearance to the olive complexioned and dark-haired slaves I was familiar with. What made them different were the milky whiteness of their skins and the golden colour of their hair which reminded me of sun-ripened wheat. And unusually, they all had eyes coloured like the blue of the sparkling Aegean Sea. I was entranced by their beauty; surely, they were demi-gods from Mount Olympus and not slaves. 

I asked my father about them and he told me they came from a misty land far to the north of our most extreme borders and in all likelihood, they were warriors who had been caught up in border skirmishes with the Roman army. Exactly how they found their way to the slave-market at Korinthos was a mystery to me.

One small boy attracted my attention. He was about my age – subsequently, I was to find he was slightly more than one year older than me– and he presented a sorrowful sight with his hunched shoulders and tear stained face. His widely opened eyes mirrored the fear he no doubt felt and he sought security by clutching the leg of a young, adult male slave standing next to him. To my inexperienced eyes the older slave was aged about seventeen or eighteen years. I noticed the striking resemblance between the two and I took the adult slave to be an older brother.

There were very few slaves of my age for sale that day and those that were had little or no appeal to me. I was boyishly smitten by the young, golden haired barbarian from the north. My mind was made up! He was the slave I wanted my father to buy for me and as I told my father of my choice, he said we must first examine and question the young slave. 

Father indicated our interest to the slave-dealer who congratulated him on our choice and ordered the slave to step forward. I don’t know whether it was fear or a lack of understanding of our language but the slave didn’t move; instead he clutched his brother’s leg with both arms and clung on with grim determination. The dealer tried unsuccessfully to pry the two brothers apart and when this failed, he took to beating the younger slave with his cane. After several repeated blows, the older of the two brothers spoke to the younger one in an unfathomable yet pleasant language. I didn’t understand their strange tongue but I did notice the soothing tone of his words that were meant to calm his younger brother.

I am an only son and so I am unused to any displays of brotherly love. And yet even I, a ten years old boy, was affected by the older brother’s concern for the young slave. There was poignancy and pathos in the scene being played out before us and my father was quick to notice it too.

But who wouldn’t be moved by the protective stance of the older slave for his young brother? How could you fail to notice the love and concern on his face and he lent forward to wipe away his young brother’s tears. What a heavy burden rested on his manly, warrior’s shoulders for surely, he knew that his brother was to be sold and they were to be separated forever. My heart went out to the two brothers and that day, for the first time, I felt pity for a slave. This was a new experience for me. 

Tenderly, the older slave placed a protective arm around his brother and led him to where we were standing. He crouched down in front of the lad and gently spoke words of encouragement to him. I don’t know what was said but it seemed to pacify the young slave, who used his arm to wipe his nose and his hands to wipe away his tears. Then they reached out and clasped each other in a final, close embrace before the slaver ordered them apart. The older slave stood and moved to resume his place in the line of other slaves. As he did so I saw his body convulsed by his silent sobbing. 

Obviously, the slave’s devotion to his young brother affected my father also. He spoke to the slave dealer and asked to inspect both slaves. 

Unexpectedly summoned back to stand by his young brother’s side the older slave’s face was a study in bewilderment. But then he comprehended my father’s intention was to examine him and suddenly his eyes lit up with a new hope. Possibly – dare he hope - both he and his brother would be purchased by my father and they would stay together. He looked at my father with his pleading eyes and smiled shyly before lowering his gaze to the platform.

I watched intently as my father inspected the older slave. Father’s inspection of the slave was thorough and followed the same pattern I had seen him use many times previously. Despite his tender years, the slave’s body had reached full maturity and quite obviously it was that of a warrior. And yet the youthfulness of his countenance contrasted with the muscularity of his frame. This slave possessed the body of a man and the innocence of a youth. The slave stood proudly erect and his noble bearing hinted at his possible aristocratic roots. 

Even through my boyish eyes, I truly appreciated the naked magnificence of the young barbarian. The slave was tall by our standards and he towered a head’s height over my father. With his well-defined musculature, the slave reminded me of the marble torsos of naked athletes that adorned my father’s home.

But this slave wasn’t carved from cold, inanimate marble. Rather he was living, breathing tissue. Oxygen filled his lungs, giving life to his glorious body and energizing his muscles. Blood coursed through his arteries warming his firm flesh to the touch. 

And, like those statues the slave had wide shoulders and a broad chest which tapered down to a trim, narrow waist. The powerful chest muscles – each adorned with a prominent red nipple - rose and fell with the slave’s rapid breathing. 

His anxiety was all too evident; the fluttering of the sharply defined abdominal muscles centred on the deep indent of his navel betrayed his nervousness.  Stoically, he stood still with his eyes downcast as my father’s hands explored his nakedness. And like an unbroken colt, his limbs quivered from the uncertainty of his situation.

This slave was truly a creature of beauty. His long blond hair was tousled and he had the beginnings of manly stubble on his chin. His chest and limbs were lightly dusted with a soft down that glinted like fine, golden threads in the sunlight and a darker line of hair trailed down the centreline of his belly connecting the chest hair to the thick, golden bush that surrounded his more than generous genitalia. Two large, plump balls hung suspended between his strong thighs and the thick meatiness of his cock rested cheekily on top of them. 

As my father continued his inspection of the slave, it did seem to me that he was taking much longer in this appraisal than is normal for him. He spent an inordinate length of time inspecting the slave. I watched - and learned – as he gently weighed the slave’s scrotum in his cupped hand and nodded in approval at his burgeoning erection. 

Father stepped back to watch as the slave’s cock lengthened and thickened until it stood ramrod stiff at a slight upward angle to the horizontal. Then, as a small, pearl-like gem glistened at the piss-slit, Father ordered the slave to turn around.

It would have to be said the slave’s rear was as impressive as his front and once again my father didn’t hurry in his appraisal. His hands squeezed the broad shoulders gauging their strength before sweeping down the gentle concave of the back to the flaring curves of the buttocks. Again, Father wasn’t to be hurried in his inspection and he lingered over the job in hand.

I was becoming impatient! Father was taking far too long in his inspection of this slave. This wasn’t why we were here. Hadn’t Father promised me a boy slave of my own and hadn’t he brought me to the slave-market for that express purpose. I sighed deeply and I hopped from foot to foot to show my growing impatience.

It would take years and more maturity than I possessed that day to understand that my father was infatuated with the young, barbarian slave. My father had been smitten by his beauty and was determined to own him. 

Finally, to my intense relief, the inspection ended and Father told the dealer he would buy the slave. Then he turned his attention to the younger brother.

I’m not sure of the reasons – perhaps it was because of the slave’s tender years - but Father’s inspection of the younger brother wasn’t as detailed as the one the older slave had been subjected to. Basically, it was a quick check to ensure the slave was free of defects or blemishes and once he’d been re-assured my father bought them both.

When the two brothers realized they’d been bought by the same master they couldn’t contain their joy. They weren’t to be separated.  Both broke into wide smiles and touchingly embraced one another. Their joy was infectious and I was caught up in it. I was happy for them. Even Father’s customary sternness disappeared temporarily. They laughed and they hugged and then the older of the two suddenly became very serious. He spoke softly to the younger slave in their strange language – how primitive all other languages sound when compared to the cadence of our Greek tongue – and they came and knelt before my father and placed their foreheads to the ground at his feet. I looked at Father and I saw him look down on them with an uncharacteristic kindness.  But the moment was brief and gruffly he ordered them to their feet. 

We returned home that day with the two, naked slaves walking a respectful distance behind us in wide-eyed amazement. The thing I remember most about that day is the brothers’ awe as they saw the beauty and wonders of Korinthos for the first time. And that wonderment increased when they beheld the magnificence of their new Master’s home.

They had much to learn and Father wasted little time in training them. It was very much a case of learn- and learn quickly – or feel the wrathful sting of his cane. He had little time to spend on their training and even less patience.

But to their credit, both brothers were intelligent and they made good students.  Now eight years on, both slaves speak our language fluently, but with an accent that still sounds strange to my ears. More importantly, they quickly adapted to slavery and applied themselves diligently to serving us. The older brother became my father’s body slave and bed companion and in the fullness of time, the younger slave came to serve me in like manner. 

Their joy at being together ensures their loyalty and devotion to both Father and me and in truth, we love them in the true sense of “Greek love.”

On arriving home that first day, Father gave me the task of finding suitable names for them; names that would be engraved on the collars that were to be fastened around their necks 

I tried to find out by what names they were called in their native tongue; this proved to be an impossible task given our lack of knowledge of each other’s language and so I compromised. I had recently been studying poetry under one of my tutors and I chose the names from those lessons.

The older slave, I named Perimedes after a companion of Odysseus mentioned by Homer in his Odyssey and the other, I named Diagoras after the great poet from the island of Melos who had found sanctuary from religious persecution in Korinthos several centuries ago.

                            >>>>>>>>>>>>.

Today, as I hurry through the doomed city seeking out my parents and sisters, Perimedes and Diagoras accompany me.

Then, we turn a corner and suddenly, we are halted in our tracks. Ahead of us Roman soldiers are manning a barrier across the narrow street and they are stopping everyone. Quickly, we turn to retrace our steps only to come face to face with an advancing group of Roman soldiers heavily laden down with booty. A Decurion orders us to “HALT!” as he and another two soldiers unsheathe their short swords and advance menacingly toward us.

We have nowhere to hide and it is too late to flee.  We are caught between Scylla and Charybdis.

We are trapped!

Continued in Part 2 ……………

Thanks to Madahv, I can now acknowledge the artwork as the work of Baron of Prague whose works cover a wide spectrum of highly evocative and erotic subjects.

As usual the text is mine.