Expect no mercy!

If you are a barbarian unlucky enough to be captured by the Roman Legions, then you can expect no mercy to be shown to you.

As you writhe and scream under the whips and heavy boots of the victorious Romans, you'll, no doubt, believe the worst is happening. 

How wrong you are!

As can be seen from this video, you'll be cruelly tortured at the stake after which you'll be savagely raped multiple times until your spirit is broken.

Then, you'll be stripped naked, placed in chains and driven under the whips of your captors to a far distant slave-market where even worse horrors await you.

Abandon all hope for nothing can save you from the yoke of Roman slavery!

Picture sourced from the internet: the text is mine.

The Dogs of War

These four white mercenaries were captured aiding the rebels during a failed coup to oust a legitimate government in modern day Equatorial Africa.

What prompted these four to intrude into the internal affairs of another nation? Was it a sense of adventure, boredom with their civilian lives or just pure greed for money?

Once they were proud, dedicated members of an elite fighting team within their country's military; now they are prisoners of the government they sought to overthrow. What will become of them?

Not so long ago, they would have been brutally dealt with. However, with the introduction of slavery in Africa, they are a valuable resource and their lives will be spared. Instead of being cruelly tortured and brutally executed, they will be sold as slaves forever doomed to labour in rebuilding the emerging economies of a self-confident "New Africa".

As they toil naked in the fields of their new black masters and sweat and groan under the whips of their overseers, no doubt they will regret their decision to fight for money and not for principle.

The words "dogs of war" are from a phrase spoken by Mark Anthony - "Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war."- in William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

More recently, it was also the title of a novel by Frederick Forsyth about mercenaries fighting in Africa. 

Photo sourced from the internet: the text is mine.

After Sale Service

Here at Skank and Dreyfus, we take pride in being recognised as the city's leading slave-dealership and this is best illustrated by the quality of the livestock we offer you, our most valued clients.

Our slaves are second to none as many of you would attest from your past purchases and we work most assiduously to meet your every requirement. In conjunction with our new slave and previously-owned divisions - these operate independently of one another - we also offer a comprehensive after-sales service where your requirements are catered for.

We can offer a wide range of services including branding, circumcision, gelding, body modification, piercing and adornment  providing they are allowed under the "Humane Treatment of Slaves Act" the terms of which we strictly adhere to.

Additionally, Skank and Dreyfus have a well-stocked showroom of the accoutrements of slavery such as collars, shackles, restraints, benches, cages and all the important instruments of punishment. Please feel free to check our vast range of whips, tawses, straps and canes. You won't be disappointed!

As can be seen from the above picture, the purchaser of this fine, young slave is availing himself of our after-sales service. Once he'd paid for his new slave, the owner requested that his slave be "kitted out" in our blacksmith's forge with a new collar and set of chains. Here, the slave is being measured and fitted with his brand new, shiny restraints which also have a lifelong guarantee. To our knowledge no slave has ever managed to free himself from the shackles provided by us. 

Meanwhile, while his slave is being equipped with his shackles, the purchaser has chosen a brand and asked that his slave be branded before he returns home with his new property.

As always and in line with our policy that the client's needs are uppermost, Skank and Dreyfus are happy to oblige! 

This magnificent artwork is by the well-known Herodotus and I am sure it is well known to many of us. The text is mine.  

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Julius Caesar and the Cilician Pirates.

Julius Caesar is one of the towering figures of history and who hasn't heard of him and read of his exploits. He irrevocably changed Rome and was instrumental in establishing a new Imperial era and quite possibly he'd have been Rome's first emperor if he hadn't been assassinated on the floor of the Roman Senate.

Was his assassination necessary is a question I have asked myself a number of times. I am opposed to violence and to capital punishment and in the modern context I would have to say no. 

However, in Caesar's day, the Romans would have seen things from a different perspective to mine. Certainly, Caesar was ambitious and ruthlessly cruel and his treatment of the defeated Gaul tribes and their mass enslavement speaks of his greed and cruelty. To curry favour with the masses, Caesar also sponsored games where many thousands of slaves were killed as entertainment for the populace. His personal ambition new no limits and eventually, his enemies within the Senate were fearful of his dictatorship and decided he must die.

A earlier incident in Caesar's life perhaps gives us an insight into the true nature of the man. 

In the first century BC, the eastern Mediterranean was a lawless area dominated by pirates operating from an area of Anatolia known as Cilicia Trachea (Rough Cilicia). Expediently, the Romans never challenged these pirates who supplied Rome's senators and wealthier citizens with many slaves needed to work their latifundia.

According to Plutarch, in 75BC, twenty-five year old Julius Caesar was travelling to the island of Rhodes to study oratory when he was captured by pirates in the Aegean Sea and held to ransom. The pirates set his ransom at twenty talents. Contemptuously, he laughed at the pirates and told them he was worth fifty talents.

While Caesar waited for the fifty talents to be paid he spent thirty-eight days with the pirates joining in their games and activities, forcing them to listen to his oratory and the poems he wrote and arrogantly assuming the role of their leader. Despite, his seeming good humour, Caesar told the pirates that once the ransom was paid, he would crucify them no doubt much to their amusement. 

When the ransom was paid and he was set free, Caesar held true to his promise. He put together a naval force returned to the pirate stronghold and took the pirates captive. He delivered them to the governor of Asia demanding they be put to death. However, the governor hesitated and growing impatient, Caesar went to the prison were the pirates were being held, seized them and then had them crucified.

To me, this tells much about Julius Caesar; of his overbearing arrogance, his self-belief in his own destiny, his bravery in the face of personal danger, and his need for merciless revenge against his enemies. Perhaps these traits weighed on the minds of his assassins. If so, Julius Caesar was in a way, the author of his own downfall.

The artwork for this post is a taken from a larger work called "Last Rest" by Baron of Prague. However, the text is mine. 

COVID-19

I know I am stating the obvious, but the COVID-19 virus is now very much a part of our lives. I feel it will be the defining moment for these current generations as much as the two world wars and the Great Depression were for previous ones.

I am no expert on coronavirus but I know enough to be scared and concerned for all my family and friends which include all who follow this blog. Each one of you is special to me and I ask that you take care of yourselves and one another. And please help and support those in your communities who are unable to look out for themselves. 

We are moving into new territory and we should heed the advice of the health and medical experts and follow any government directives given to us. 

Most of all, I wish you well and I ask that you all take care of yourselves!

Regards,
Chis 

MIA (Missing in Action)

Place: Afghanistan. Time: 1979-1989.

The struggle for supremacy between the Marxist government in Kabul - backed by the might of the Soviet army - and the rebellious mujahideen warlords shows no signs of a clear winner.

Beyond Kabul, large areas of Afghanistan are rigidly controlled by the mujahideen who hate both the Marxists and their Russian backers and no mercy is shown to any captured Russian soldiers.

It has been said that most Russian prisoners of the mujahideen were put to death under the most barbaric of tortures and at the end of the war, the Soviets listed 311 of their soldiers as 'missing in action'.

What happened to these missing men is open to conjecture and perhaps we will never know for sure.

I came across this 2004 picture by Roberto Carlo and it suggested a story to me. I should add that what follows is pure fiction based solely on my imagination.  

In my imagination, the scene portrayed in the picture is taking place in a remote area where the mujahideen reign unchallenged. Here, among the steep mountains and deep valleys, life is hard, living is at subsistence levels and farming is basic relying on primitive tools and strong beasts-of-burden. And slavery still exists. 

It is a masculine world where women are jealously guarded by their menfolk and they are forbidden to leave their homes or dance in public. Indeed, the thinking of the local men is that 'women are for child-bearing and slave-boys are for pleasure.'  

Here, we see three young Russian soldiers - survivors of a recent skirmish - being offered for sale as slaves. They are forced to strip naked before they are dragged through the crowd of spectators all eager to have a full 'hands-on' inspection of the new slaves.

Special interest will be shown in their pert, young arses - Slavic arse is a rarity in this remote corner of the world - and their virginity enthusiastically tested as they are probed for tightness, grip and responsiveness. 

Once the inspections are completed, Dimitri, Grigor and Mikhail will each take their turn on the auction block and made to obscenely display their muscular, young bodies to the laughter, jeers and taunts of the mujahideen onlookers. 

Who will buy them? Possibly a wealthy landowner who needs slaves to cultivate his opium poppy crop. Or perhaps a warlord to add to his harem of slave-boys.

However, one thing is for certain. They will never see Russia again.

Artwork by Roberto Carlo found on the internet. The fiction is mine.

  

Forbidden Lust

The Romans were very relaxed in their attitudes to sex. For example, the concepts of heterosexuality and homosexuality were unknown to them and sex between males was accepted under certain conditions as set out in the 'Lex Scantinia'. 

Rome was a patriarchal society where, in today's parlance "men were men" and they were expected to live their lives accordingly. While the Greeks accepted full male nudity as normal - with the exception of showing the glans of the penis - Romans saw nudity as shameful and it was reserved for defeated enemies and slaves. Rome's free men proudly wore the toga virilis as a sign of their dominant masculinity and to identify them as free citizens. 

While Roman men were free to engage in homosexual acts, they were forbidden to play the role of the passive partner in any sexual  activities. They must at all times be the penetrator and NEVER the penetrated or face the disgrace of being named as 'infamia' with the loss of legal and social standing for them and their families.

Slaves, on the other hand, had no legal status and were regarded as non-persons. They were merely property and as such they were subject to the sexual depredations of their masters. Rape didn't apply to slaves and one assumes, in the majority of cases, they played the passive role in satisfying their masters' lust.

However, it is inconceivable that there weren't any Roman free men who didn't play the passive role in their sexual activities. The Romans even had a derogatory term for such men - 'scultimidonus'  which literally translates as 'arse-hole bestower'.

When I saw the attached picture I imagined it as a scene where a young slave is enthusiastically fucking his Roman master and my imagination fired up. 

No doubt, the slave, because of his 'dominant' role, feels a sense of power over his 'passive' master and foolishly plans to use this to his advantage to make his life as a slave easier.  

However, the slave's master knows that he will soon tire of the slave and hunger for a newer cock-slave to please him. Soon, the master will visit the slave-market and choose a newer, fresher slave to sate his lust. 

And the fate of this current slave? The master could simply sell him at auction but slaves are notorious for gossiping about their masters and there is always the risk that the slave will tell others of his true role and he - the master - will be declared 'infamia'.

Despite being a 'scultimidonus', the master still has total power over the slave and rather than face exposure and humiliation, he will have the slave crucified to silence him.

The slave is well set-up and his good looks and naked, muscular  body will soon adorn his cross. As he hangs suspended from the crossbeam, his youth and strength will ensure he lives for several days and his death throes will entertain any jeering onlookers and passers-by.

And as a special reward for 'services rendered' the master will have an oversized, wooden phallus inserted in the slave's virgin arse to keep him permanently aroused as he writhes on his cross.

Artwork by Vittorio Carvelli was found on the internet; the text is mine however.

The Art of Cavelo

These two have long been among my favourites pieces of erotic slave art by the artist, Cavelo.  They portray two of my favourite fantasies and they have always "excited" me to such an extent that I keep returning to them for stimulation and inspiration for my own story writing. 

Who among those of us who owns a slave's nature hasn't fantasised about being the subjects so erotically displayed in these two works. Who among us hasn't imagined himself as a naked and shackled captive being offered for sale in an Arab slave-market and who hasn't thought about being a naked galley-slave labouring and sweating at the oar of a Spanish or Moorish galley under the cruel whips of our slave-drivers. 

I know I have - many times! 

Cavelo knows his male anatomy and his renderings of naked males - usually slaves or prisoners undergoing torture - are second to none and serve to arouse both the masochist and sadist. 

From my perspective, what makes Cavelo's art outstanding is that they are rendered in black and white and his use of light and shade to emphasise the male physique and the stressed musculature of his slaves/victims make them true works of art. 

If I remember correctly, some time ago another "artist" took it upon himself to "colourise" some of Cavelo's - and others - works and I remember thinking how colour detracted from the impact of them.

Sadly, Cavelo's stories are now hard to find and I know these two were use to illustrate two of his stories. Luckily, I had saved the art but sadly, not the stories in my files some years ago.

From memory, Cavelo specialised in historical works which dealt with ancient Rome, the Saracens and the Spanish Inquisition. His interpretations of Roman crucifixions are outstanding in their portrayal of the utter brutality of such an appalling form of execution for a slave. 

Recently, I mentioned another artist, Etienne. How fortunate we are to have such artists as Cavelo and Etienne who add so much of interest to our Master/slave genre.

Chris   

Achilles sacrificing twelve captured Trojans on the grave of his lover, Patroklos/Patroclus

Further to my last post, Karel sent this to me overnight. It is a clearer picture of the photos of the frescoes that I posted and shows a grief-stricken and revengeful Achilles actually slitting the throat of a Trojan prisoner on the grave of his lover, Patroklos while the next naked prisoner looks on knowing he is to share this fate imminently.  

Mosaics/frescoes  from Pompeii

Recently a reader of "Nova Baiae" kindly sent me these pictures of a fresco from Pompeii that he'd come across on the internet and asked if I was familiar with them.

I have visited Pompeii several times and spent many interesting hours there immersing myself in the lives and culture of the Romans of two thousand years ago and I have seen many mosaics/frescoes that adorned the walls of the villas but not this one.

The Romans depicted many aspects of their lives - and their likenesses - through the mosaics/frescoes they used to beautify their homes and these provide us with insights into their day to day lives - in many ways not unlike our own modern day lives - and these serve as an invaluable reference for historians, archaeologists, etc.

I recall in one villa an uncompleted fresco that was obviously being worked on at the time of the Vesuvius eruption. The workmen's abandoned tools, pots of paint, etc were still in situ.

As I mentioned, the mosaics/frescoes of Pompeii give us fabulous insights into a civilisation that shaped our own modern day one and whose impact we live with each and every day though such things as art, literature, law, engineering, etc. We are, in many ways, the modern day heirs of ancient Rome.

From my perspective, what makes this fresco interesting is that it could be showing actual naked, male slaves, possibly being inspected and sold. Then again, I could be mistaken and it is a reference to prisoners in the aftermath of a battle - another subject popular in the mosaics/frescoes of Pompeii. I recall being in awe of one large mosaic or fresco which showed the conquests of Alexander the Great. 

If the subject does refer to the sale of slaves then it could be unique as I have never seen reference to it and my limited research has revealed nothing. 

The pictures look authentic and I am wondering if there is anyone among the followers of this blog who can shed some information on these two interesting pictures. 

Thanks to the reader, J-M for sending these to me and I know he is as interested in learning more about them as I am.

Chris