New Cargo: (by Baron of Prague)
All roads end in Rome! And so it is for the recently defeated and enslaved barbarians whose chieftains had foolishly challenged Rome's authority with rebellion.
Left behind, the crucified chieftains, suffered the agonies and torments of their gruesome deaths. Helpless to prevent it, their naked bodies reddened under the fierce rays of the mid-summer sun and stinging, biting insects swarmed, unchallenged, over them. Mangy curs prowled at the base of their crosses occasionally nibbling at an enticing toe or licking the blood oozing from the wounds caused by the iron spikes driven through their ankles.
Opportunistically, carrion birds sat on the crossbars of the crucifixes awaiting the chance to join the feast.
With their throats parched by thirst and their shoulders torn asunder, they were unable to ease the agony in their outstretched arms. To find some relief, the crucified men danced the macabre "dance of the cross" as they straightened their legs and raised their bodies to gulp precious air into their tortured, oxygen starved lungs and to ease the strain on wildly beating hearts. However, their relief was only temporary and soon their knees sagged once more and their tortured bodies slumped forward until the next time.
Even the crucified value life such as it is and struggle to sustain it for as long as possible. But, they were doomed and after two days, the first of their number succumbed and surrendered to a merciful death. The waiting scavengers wasted no time and soon, sharp fangs and beaks were tearing into the flesh of the dead chieftain. His two companions could only watch in horror at what was happening in the certain knowledge that they will share his fate.
The second chieftain died on the third day and the youngest and strongest of the three lasted for one day more. Now, all that remains are the sun-blackened, shredded bodies of the rebellious chieftains left as a grim warning of Rome's lack of tolerance of rebellion among her subject peoples.
As their crucified leaders suffered and died, the naked and shackled survivors of the rebellion were whip driven south to the port of Massalia (modern day Marseille), loaded onto a galley and taken to Rome's port, Ostia.
The journey from Ostia to Rome is a short one but it gave the new slaves a foretaste of their futures as they saw countless slaves toiling in fields and on construction sites. They also saw other near naked slaves - litter-bearers with stressed bodies and bulging muscles - carrying their Roman masters and mistresses through the crowded streets.
Now, they are in Rome - in the Graecostadium slave-market to be precise - and they are available for purchase.
The artwork is by Baron; however, the text is mine. I am grateful to Madahv who drew my attention to the existence of this picture after an earlier post.
As always, the Art by the great Baron is beyond all possible praises ……. but, allow me to repeat, Chris, this extraordinary piece of prose, that you wrote below this stupendous work by Baron, is full worthy of praise and of admiration at the same level of the Artwork that it accompanies.
ReplyDeleteThis magnificent and very bewitching text is a continuation of that other wonderful text “ENSLAVEMENT” that you wrote below and that impressed and delighted me so much yesterday.
As for the art of Baron, also for your Art, Chris ….. so powerful and so expressive and dramatic in describing the awful dying on the cross of the rebel chieftains ……. I can’t find adequate words of admiration.
About the “naked and shackled survivors” , hauled from their savage forests of Gaul to the crowded Slave Markets of the immense city of Rome, to be sold, as strong animals for hard-labours to the highest bidder, you are right in emphasizing that certainly, in their short trip in heavy chains from the port of Ostia to the vast Market of “cattle & animals” …… both beasts and slaves ! …… near the Roman Forum , they had the chance, with horror, anxiety and terror, to “FORETASTE” they awful future life as slaves by seeing “COUNTLESS SLAVES TOILING IN FIELDS AND ON CONSTRUCTION SITES” ……. and by seeing ” OTHER NEAR NAKED SLAVES - LITTER-BEARERS WITH STRESSED BODIES AND BULGING MUSCLES - CARRYING THEIR ROMAN MASTERS AND MISTRESSES THROUGH THE CROWDED STREETS ……… CRUELLY SPURRED and GOADED with WHIPS, RIDING-CROPS and POINTED STEEL GOADS “ like if they were really MULES, DRAFT-HORSES or OXEN !!!!!
However allow me to observe that these miserable Celtic captives had certainly the same terror, anxiety and horror, during their much longer travel by sea from Massalia to Rome, in seeing the probably even more miserable 300 or even up to 500 galley-slaves, rowing in chains, tied to the oars of the colossal cargo-galley that transported them from Gaul to Rome.
Perhaps some of them is beseeching his cruel Celtic gods of not being bought by an owner of ships and of ending up chained at the oars of a galley, probably the cruelest fate that might occur to a Roman slave.
Compared to this, it looks even better and somehow even “bearable” to be yoked to a plough in a farm, or to be chained to some huge grindstone in an estate and to push and turn it from dawn to sunset …… or to be leashed and tied, as a litter-bearer slave, under the bars of an amazingly big and weighty luxurious litter of some vicious Roman Lord or Lady, and to be cruelly spurred and lashed with whips and quirts like a mule or a donkey !
Karel