The extinguishing of the oil lamp caught my attention, pulling me from the papyrus tome I was reading. Despite the lamp's light dimming, dawn was upon me, signaling another sleepless night. I was lost in my studies, unable to decide on a thesis, treatise, or speech to demonstrate my mastery in chronography, biology and medicine, rhetoric, or philosophy at the Universitas. At 17, nearly 18, I was no longer a puer but an iuvenis, a young man. This meant my teachers could no longer beat me, but it also meant I was late in graduating. My presence at the Quintilian University in Patricium was not driven by my interest in philosophers like Abundius and Corbinianus or in Eligius' law treatises but by my father's financial support to secure respectable positions for his children in Sestinian society, a compulsory duty for men of gens Sergia.
I rose from my desk and stretched my bones for I felt stiff and sore. My eyes were closing and hurting from continuously trying to decipher the writings during the night, my head was pounding, probably from a mixture of exhaustion and lack of food and water, and my back was hurting after I clearly stood crouching over the desk, as much as mother always told me to stand straight. Moaning like this reminded me of my avia, my father’s mother, back when I was a child. She always said everything hurts. I looked around, and to my left, at a different desk, stood Gabinus. I looked closer to him, but he literally fell asleep at the small desk. If I ever felt as a failure, Gabinus was probably what made me feel that I could be worse. At least I got my approval from the rhetoric professor, from the philosophy one and to my surprise even from the Arcadian language professor, meaning that all I would have to do is manage to show that I mastered biology, chronography and hold that damn speech, and finally, I can return victorious back home in Vallum, where probably father is preparing me for a position for some years in the council of the city, or maybe in the administration of the Diocese itself. That is of course, if I am not sent into the army afterwards…
I arranged my light gray tunic, and decided to leave Gabinus on his own. I took the tome which I was reading, De Re Variniae, by Caecilius and went back to the large wooden shelf where I took it from. It fascinated me, that it was written on papyri, which meant it was over two centuries old, for it was from before the Great Crisis of the Numerian Emperors, which had the Empire lose its eastern provinces and brought forth the creation of the Orontide Empire. Since then, very little papyri from Meridia were reaching the northern coasts of the Viridian Sea, and most of the writing had to be done on parchment.
I saluted the curator as I went outside of the library. The morning sun was strong, despite the early autumn. The leaves were starting to get their golden hue and started to change the ambient of the Universitas. The whole complex was situated on the Mensa hill, in the center of Patricium, a city with about 50,000 to 60,000 people, situated on the northernmost point of the Great Viridian Sea’s coast; a true junction of the Empire, as it connected the Ebrian peninsula and the northern province of Secuania, to Sestinia, the center and nucleus of the Empire and the Arcadian Diocese to the east. It stood at five days horse ride from Sestinum, and three days from Cuminaria, in the Diocese of Ebria. Most of the town was built with adobe and wooden structures, like most provincial towns in the Empire, with the exception of his stone walls and the buildings on the Mensa Hill, where one could find the Quintilian University, the Grand Temple of Sol, build about a century ago when a smaller temple complex dedicated to the old gods was demolished, when the worship of the Sun and the monotheistic religion centered on the Sun was turned into state religion by Emperor Claudius Magnus. The University itself, was a smaller complex, and housed an amphitheater, some small classrooms, a bunkhouse, and some other maintenance buildings and a grand library. As an institution, it called itself to be a rival of the Grand Academy in Sestinum, and in time, its library became famed across the Empire if not even more, as one could see Orontide Scholars and even from farther away, even Sakan scholars traveling to it. While the bunkhouse where we stayed, and the other maintenance buildings were made mostly from adobe too, the library and the amphitheater were made of stone and covered in beautiful yellow marble coming from Bagradas, in Meridia, the most beautiful of building materials, showing the prestige of the University and the grand donations each of the families of the students here offer to it.
I knew we will have to meet with Rogatus Bursio Rufus, our chronographer, in one of the classrooms, but it was still early for that. With the sun already up, I knew I had to go to quickly to eat breakfast. I went past the bunkhouse to the kitchen building. As it was still summer, the outdoor kitchen nearby was still in use, where there was a fireplace and some tables around it, underneath a pergola to provide some shade. I received from a storehouse lady some bread with cheese and some apricots.
“Durans! You didn’t come to sleep last night!” said Aegidius to me, a student about my age, who was very close to finishing and graduating. If I am honest, I was jealous of him. He always managed to sneak out, he was boasting about visiting the lupanar and now he was talking about even getting sweet with the daughter of a local rich merchant. He was from the great gens Caelia, who was probably one of the richest family in the Empire. He just felt that he was everything I was told I should aspire to be, and yet, here I was, with less clothes, less money, no opportunity of going out of the university without being punished, and with a accent that made my sestinian language sound with a slight lisp, which made me look from afar that I was a provincial from Ebria, far to the west. Somehow, we two got together, even if we used to have some disputes. He was a little taller than me and had a curly, light brown hair and green eyes, while I was shorter, had olive skin, black eyes and black hair. Probably his lighter skin, hair and eye color showed some Secuanian or even Varinian ethnicity some generations ago, but I did learn, the hard way that he gets really triggered if you call him out on that. The same way he learned the hard way when he called me a Tingitanian for my look. The Arch Curate was never happy about it, but when in the end you had two students from a family that played the high politics, in the circle of the Emperor and another who was governing Vallum and at times the whole Diocese of Ebria, he knew how much the University was gaining from having us, so he didn’t expel us, he just have us a stern talk.
“No, I did not. Wasted most of the night reading Caecilius and his elegy to the Varinians,” I said, rolling my eyes as I munched on some cheese and a little bread.
“He’s completely useless,” Aegidius said.
“Imagine living four centuries ago, before the Great Plague, before the Orontide Crisis, before everything, and you still imagine, that Sestians are wicked, corrupt and contemptible,” he continued.
“Oh for the love of Sol, we’re talking about that irrumator again?” said Honorius, entering the conversation too. He was two years younger than us, and he was actually set to graduate in just a few days. He got all the approvals, he wrote his thesis on philosophy and how he was waiting for the Curators to analyze it, and if they give their approval, he is off. Honorius always tried to get close to both me and Aegidius, but there was something in his style that he made it insufferable to all of us, and even some professors, namely his religious fanaticism.
“So what did you write in your thesis, Honorius?” I asked him to change the subject, because the very little food I had in front of me I’d rather eat it with some other background noise than his irritant speech on how pagan writers hold no value and mustn’t be taken into consideration. While probably all of us weren’t fans of Caecilius, because we never were supportive of his ideas that barbarians were great and represented true civilization, while our ancestors were the savage ones, his writings had some effect in me though. I found most of the subjects discussed upon to be quite tedious, and while I did my best to graduate, my mind wanders off to the stories about the world and the travelers and the peoples and cities they see.
“… it will mean that the light brings us hope, but we mustn’t fall for it naively, but rather use it to prepare stoically for the night, when the eternal eclipse will come,” said Honorius, and that is when I observed I faded out again.
“So, you rewritten the classical stoicism of the Arcadians with the theology of Sol,” said Aegidius.
“It’s not about rewriting it, it’s all about understanding the laws of this world and how to better life within it as part of Sol’s creation, not like how the Arcadians or the pagan philosophers saw it,” Honorius said, defending himself and his philosophical positions
“Well, I’m unsure if the Arch-Curate would see it the same way, or even Laurus, the philosophy professor,” Aegidius said. Honorius was preparing to say something but I interrupted him as I rose from the chair.
“I think it’s time to go meet with the professor,” I say as I nod upward towards Aegidius, who agrees and rises up too.
“With whom?” asked Honorius.
“Rogatus Bursio,” I say.
“Ah, yeah, the chronographer…” muttered Honorius, whom I know he hates, especially as Rogatus had no nerve for his takes and even got him out of the class when he was interrupting him, and that said an extreme lot, as out of everyone, Rogatus was the sole professor we had that loved the most to have a dialogue, rather than a monologue on his specialization. He loved it the most when we had some general knowledge of the events and we discussed it thoroughly and the least when he felt he talked all by himself. I gave the kitchen servant the wooden plate I ate from and was followed by Aegidius, as we crossed the central yard, going past a small basin and a fountain, by which I stopped to drink some water.
“You really were desperate to escape Honorius,” Aegidius said as I was drinking water.
“He annoys me. He’s here to finally learn of the world and all he does is argue with everyone who doesn’t share his own views,” I said.
“It’s the arrogance of the new money,” he said.
“He’s not from a patrician gens?” I asked. Aegidius shook his head and then leaned to drink some water too.
“No, plebeian merchant, his father deals with frankincense and other spices from along the Aghbanian Sea. Got really rich from it and now he mostly throws money around in huge donations to Sun temples in Sestinum, to allegedly show his piety,” he said.
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“It means he has connections in the Orontidian Coast,” I said and he nodded.
“There are many other stories that go about him, back home in Sestinum, but I find them idiotic rumors. The problem is, Durans, there are more and more like him,” he said. I wanted to move and continue towards the small patio in front of one of the buildings, in the shadow of some pergolas on which vine grew and it was filled with golden grapes.
“What do you mean? More and more rich plebeians?” I asked. It wasn’t really something new nor unique, nor something that condemnable, unless you were an extremely traditional aristocrat.
“No, I mean more and more people who seem to start using the faith in the sun as a show to gain support from the clergy and then use that to rise in politics,” he said, and while usually I didn’t care much of his ideas because he was most of the times just mocking all serious talking points, this time I was surprised by how concerned he seemed.
“I have heard rumors that in Bagradas, in the Diocese of Meridia, radical Sol followers went as far as lynching a family which has supposedly preyed to Aquos, the old god of water, to end the drought there. They say that there, there is this whole monastic movement, where people go out the cities and towns, in the middle of the desert and put wooden beams on the ground and then climb them up, and just stay there and pray to the sun for salvation, until they get a heatstroke or something else and collapse and die,” he said. I looked at him a bit skeptical.
“It sounds…” I start saying, but he interrupted me.
“Crazy, I know… and yet, they do it,” he insisted.
“I’m not sure. Father, back in Vallum would have heard of such insanities,” I said. He just shrugged.
“You are cynical, but believe me, if father heard of it back in Sestinum, it was talked in the whole imperial administration,” he said.
We continued walking and we joined the professor, who was waiting for us, together with a new student which I didn’t seen before.
“Come, come, we’ve been waiting for you,” said Rogatus. He was a man past his prime, but one couldn’t call him old yet. His hair was graying but he was clear to all of us, if you looked at him, that he was using some concoction to dye it, but you could still see the gray hairs of in his stubble. He was wearing a white linen tunic with some red and green embroidered geometric patterns, and some brown trousers. Today he was wearing a brownish pillbox had too, which he used to do only when he felt that his graying hair was getting visible again and he didn’t manage to dye it yet.
“Durans, Aegidius, this is Silvius Quirinius Decius, a new student, who will be for a while with you as we discus chronology,” said Rogatus as he welcomed us. “Silvius, these are Durans Sergius Tertius, and Aegidius Caelius Scaevola, two of our terminal students whom I will graciously ask them to show you the ropes around and maybe help you in your initial studies,” he continued. We greeted him and sat down on the benches in front of what was an opened map that showed the basin of the Great Viridian Sea, with the main cities of the Imperium Sestinorum, or the Sestinian Empire, or even simpler as we all called it, Sestinia. Silvius looked a bit inquisitive at Aegidius. I could observe it as I sat between them.
“Scaevola?” he asked meekly and I could already see Aegidius blushing.
“Yes, Scaevola, for our dear Aegidius here, never managed to write with his right hand, only the left one. Irrespective of how much we tried to sort it, here at the Universitas,” Rogatus said. I could only imagine how much it pretty much meant beat him again and again and again, until they observed that they had to choose between not understanding a word what he written with his right hand or accepting his left-handedness. Aegidius wanted to say something, but Rogatus, observing how red he was and how probably it would be something aggressive, intervened, changing the subject.
“Today, I thought that we could discuss the Great Crisis of the Numerians,” said Rogatus, turning towards the map, which, opened up, was the length of a man’s span of his arms, and about half way in height. He was using the intelectual name that most chronographers used, but most of the people called it the Orontide Crisis.
“You three are all from important families that offered generals, governors, senators to this state, so of course, you will have to continue, once you graduate, probably with a military academy, where you will study tactics, logistics and a lot of chronology to understand what happened in the past, why battles ended like they did, be they victories or defeats and clearly the Great Crisis, which I will venture to call the greatest failure of our state will be discussed upon, again and again, so it is important to have a basis for it all,” Rogatus said as he was looking at the map. “Silvius, what do you know of the Numerian Emperors?” Rogatus asked. Both Aegidius and I looked at him and I feel that we probably intimidated him.
“They were a dynasty of three emperors, a father and two brothers, who ruled in the 7th century,” he said.
“Do you know who is who?” Rogatus asked. Silvius looked at us first, clearly caught a bit by surprise by the question.
“I know one of them was Marcus,” Silvius said, avoiding making eye contact with Rogatus. He was clearly used to the schools for the pueri, which would offer a good beating as a consequence to a wrong answer, but even here, until you became a man, the professors would still beat you, but Rogatus wasn’t like this. With the exception in which he told Honorius to leave his class, he never lost his patience. Then again, compared to the schools where pueri were taught, which had at times even 10 children per class, here, classes had two to five students, so it wasn’t hard to keep your patience and ensure that all of your students were well taken care off.
“Which of them was Marcus?” Rogatus asked. Silvius stopped for a bit, as if to think, but I thought more that he was just delaying in giving what was a wrong answer or just a capitulation, where he said he doesn’t know. In the end, after a long while that felt like a tense eternity, he just shook his head.
“Marcus was the last of them. The one assassinated by the Palatine Guard,” Rogatus said, answering for him. “Publius was the military general that usurped the throne in 625, which started a civil war between an emperor in Sestinum, and the proclamation of Quintus Albanus in Anicium, and that was followed by the proclamation of the Orontide Empire in Sarepta,” the professor continued. “When happened next?” he asked and when he saw that Silvius wasn’t saying anything, I could feel his gaze fell upon me.
“Queen Symacho proclaimed herself Empress in Sarepta. Publius invaded first the Diocese of Secuania, and defeated Quintus Albanus, but was quickly assassinated afterwards, and nobody, even today still knows who was the culprit. Then his first son, Hostus took control of the Empire, and wanted to invade Orontida, only to be defeated and killed at the Battle of Iopolis. His younger brother Marcus took then control of the state, but with more and more signs of crisis, such as threats of proclamation of a Meridian Empire in Bagradas, the Senate conspires with the Palatine guard to have him killed and then they elect a new emperor between themselves, prompting the beginning of the Rufinian Dynasty, and the 2nd Golden Age,” I say, maybe a bit too proud of myself.
“Why didn’t the Rufinians move against the Orontide Empire afterwards?” Rogatus asked. I wasn’t sure exactly if it was a question for me, so I looked at the others. Aegidius looked bored, as always. He liked law and rhetoric and for his thesis to finish he wanted to hold a speech in defense of some law that I couldn’t understand or better said, didn’t care enough to understand. Silvius was listening, but he was avoiding Rogatus’ gaze, as he clearly knew very little of the subject.
“The Empire was going through an economic crisis, as commerce collapsed in the Grand Viridian Sea because of the war with the Orontides, while the Diocese of Secuania was hit by famines,” I say and Rogatus smiled happily. “Exactly. They tried to win over the state they were elected to lead, before they wanted to be adventurous,” Rogatus said.
“But then, why not later? What’s with the Orontide Empire that held us in check for such a long time?” Aegidius suddenly asked and Rogatus immediately lightened up, but then, instead of answering, he looked at me, expecting me to answer. I didn’t understand fully his game, so I waited for him to say something, but he didn’t, and then he pointed towards me to answer.
“The Great Plague came about five decades later, ending the 2nd Golden Age and also killing off about a tenth of the population of the Empire, again, weakening us. In the end, it was mostly a case of never there being an opportunity for it,” I say.
“And what about Orontidia?” Rogatus asked.
“What about them?” I asked back. He rolled his eyes and for a bit I expected him to say something at cut me down to size for a bit, but he didn’t. He instead had an idea as it could be felt in his extremely expressive face.
“This will be your final thesis for you to graduate!” he proclaimed, proudly.
“What?” I asked, confused.
“Do you know the Periplus on the Viridian Sea?” he asked me.
“Bits of it, yes,” I said back.
“There isn't more than just bits of it, because it’s a lost manuscript. But it was a story written by a mariner who travelled the ports of the eastern coasts of the Viridian Sea, before the conquest of the region by the Empire. It presents the people, their culture, their faith and so on. Do this, for Orontidia,” Rogatus said, a bit more excited that I expected him to be.
“But I’m here, I can’t go there, like the author of the Periplus did,” I said and I could feel both Rogatus and Aegidius looking at me like I was an extreme idiot just for saying that.
“Of Orontidia and the eastern coast of the Viridian Sea, people write for the past two centuries. We have many scrolls and tomes here at the library on them. Read them, analyse what is important and present to us its society and that will be your thesis,” Rogatus said. I thought of it for a bit. I dreamt of seeing the world and was fascinated by that area. I would love to do that.
“But I need to get the approval of the biology professor,” I say. “I will speak to him and you will have it, but tell me everything there is important to know of the Orontides and I will ensure you graduate and go back to Vallum or to a military academy,” Rogates said. I nodded in approval. I really liked the idea.
For the rest of the class, Rogatus was telling the story of the foundation of Sestinum and its early wars of expansion. I was most beset by the map behind him. Looking at it, I really believe Rogatus was the one who drew it. I was following the lines of the Great Viridian Sea and looking at the map of the Empire’s great roads, following the writing where I could see Sestinum, Vallum, Bagragas and of course, the great cities of the Orontide Empire too: Pentapolis, Rhapta, Sarepta. At the far end of the map there were the shores of the Aghbanian sea and I remember further to the east of the Orontide Empire stood the Domains of the Saka people, another great state, that we know off mostly through trade on the Pepper Road. To the south stood Meridia, the arid continent, with its Sabian tribes, and the two kingdoms that were trading with us, Pakhoras, in the east and Tingi in the far west. I would love to see them all, instead of going back to Vallum or to a military academy. There are so many false prophets around moaning about the end of the Empire and the Sun either scorching us to death or extinguishing itself up, that I would just want to leave them all behind and see this damned world… write a Periplus about this world like none other.