Life: Fate (Part 2 of 2)

Circa 2nd century CE, Athens, Greece

Sophia’s husband, Lycus, hung a freshly plucked olive branch outside their door, informing the neighborhood that Sophia had bore a boy. Despite a difficult labor, Sophia had recovered well, succumbing neither to fever nor heavy bleeds. She spent the first week with her son entangled in affectionate embraces, stroking his newborn skin with her fingertips, filling his face with a flurry of kisses, and feeding him milk from her heavy breasts.

Lycus’ relationship with his child was of a very different nature. He spent no time coddling the newborn, preferring to stare at him from a distance with a scrutinous eye that spoke more of skepticism than love. While it was the burden of the father to determine an infant’s worthiness in the first seven days after birth, Sophia found his treatment harsh in view of the circumstances—their child was neither illegitimate, unhealthy, nor deformed, and he was male. It was a blessing. Still, Sophia worried, for even on the day of their son’s birth, her husband had taken on a strange demeanor that foretold bad tidings. She prayed that by the seventh day, Lycus would smile upon their son.

The first week of life was a period of uncertainty, the burden of birth and life outside the womb being too heavy for many infant hearts to bear. For this reason, seven days were allowed to pass before newborns became recognized as individuals—bestowed a name during a family festival around the hearth that signaled their inclusion into the family and society. For infants who survived, and who were deemed worthy by their fathers, the festival was an occasion of great merriment.

Sophia imagined their home’s exterior being covered with olive branches. Friends and relatives would arrive once daylight had faded, bringing gifts of cuttlefish, marine polyp, and wine. Sophia imagined herself, along with her mother, sisters, the midwife and her attendants, undergoing a purification ritual, ridding themselves of the pollution of birth. Sophia would then dance around the family hearth, lifting her newborn on high, presenting him to the gods above, while the name of the child would finally be said aloud. Sophia imagined all this with intense longing, but in actuality, she could do nothing to help these events transpire for her son’s thread of life had already been drawn.

At the moment of each man’s birth and in counsel with the gods, the Fates—three sisters kneeling beside the throne of Zeus—busily draw man’s thread of life. The first sister, who oversees birth, spins out his thread from her distaff onto her spindle; the second sister, in charge of life, measures his thread with her rod; and the third sister, decider of death, cuts his thread with her shears. And in this way, the sisters, relaxed in white robes, spin, measure, and cut each man’s thread the moment he is born, determining his fate—his birth, his life, and his death.

Sophia sent innumerable prayers up to the Fates, hoping they would greet her by the hearth on the seventh day. But it seemed her prayers were muttered in vain. Lycus ordered their son be immersed in ice-cold water, so testing his temperament. “If he remains silent, he shall be called my son, but if he cries, he is not worthy,” he said. As the infant began weeping, Sophia shed tears to match, draining her bottomless grief.

“He is to be exposed,” Lycus ordered. Sophia opened her mouth to protest, but could only produce shrill shrieks from the depths of her throat. She threw herself onto her son, defying his fate, but Lycus promptly ripped her off.

“Stop your mad freak, woman!” he said, enraged. “Expose him, now!” he roared.

The family’s attendants quickly placed the child in a clay pot, carried him to the outskirts of town, and deserted him along a roadway—common practice for those not wishing to keep their babies. In this way, the parents bear no responsibility, for the child dies of natural causes—dehydration, exposure to the elements, or an attack of wild beasts. Some exposed infants were rescued by passers-by, adopted and raised as children or as slaves, though many were left for dead.

When he returned, Lycus found Sophia splayed out on the floor, patches of hair missing, having been ripped from her head in a show a grief. In whispers, she issued abuses against the gods, her voice growing bold as she addressed the Fates themselves. “His thread was cut almost as quickly as it was spun!” Sophia cried aloud before falling silent, lying limp and defeated.

But her temper was unwarranted, for her son’s thread of life was not cut short. A traveling caravan, having spotted the clay pot, took the infant into their care. They intended to raise him as a slave, though they would find the child so enjoyable he would, in time, become their adopted son.

Lycus would wonder for years to come whether the gods, insulted by Sophia’s slanders, had ordered the Fates to redraw her thread, for Zeus was known to intervene in the pre-ordained fate of man from time to time. But he surmised the gods knew she would react in such a callow manner and that, in fact, Sophia had died that day of a broken heart. For on the day her son was exposed, she had fallen to the floor, overcome by her sorrow, never again to rise. “It was her fate,” Lycus would say.

Life: Caesarian (Part 1 of 2)

Circa 2nd century CE, Athens, Greece

When Sophia keeled over, clutching her belly while calling out to Artemis, goddess of childbirth, the household immediately knew what was to come. Sophia’s mother and sisters quickly began smearing the house with black pitch to protect against evil spirits; her husband sought out the midwife and her attendants who would oversee the delivery, and also informed their physician, Soranus, who would be called in case of emergency.

“I pray I do not hear from you again today,” Soranus said.

The day was a blessing Sophia feared would never come. She had surmised herself a woman of barren womb, having been betrothed for three years with no signs of a rounding belly. And besides, she possessed a smaller than average-sized head (for she was a woman of petite stature) and, upon closely inspecting her features in a mirror, she noticed her forehead protruded, albeit ever so slightly—these were both markers of infertility.

When Sophia consulted Soranus, lamenting her inability to conceive amid a gush of tears, he calmly explained the inner workings of her body, noting that all the body’s canals opened to the stomach. He advised her to conduct a fertility test, one devised by the pyramid-building Egyptians, which entailed inserting a piece of garlic into the vaginal canal.

“If your breath does not reek of garlic by morning,” he said, “then you may have a blockage inhibiting conception. But if the smell of garlic emanates from your mouth, a baby you can bear.” The following morning, to her delight, Sophia’s lips smacked of garlic.

Three months thereafter, Sophia believed herself pregnant, having exhibited traditional signs of pregnancy—shivering after intercourse, a heaviness of limbs, swollen and tender breasts, and a cessation of menses. She was overjoyed and immediately called back Soranus to help her determine whether she was, indeed, pregnant. He had her drink a solution of honey and water at bedtime; a distended belly and cramps indicated pregnancy. Though the aftereffects were mild—her belly appeared slightly bloated, and she felt minor discomfort in her abdomen—a wide grin overcame Soranus.

“Be of good cheer! You are pregnant!” he said. Sophia burst into salvoes of shrieks and laughter, happiness bubbling out riotously from her every limb.

“Excite not too much,” Soranus quickly warned. “You must take precautions in order that your husband’s seed not dislodge.” Strong emotions, including her current jubilance, as well as sudden movements such as coughing, sneezing, and falling down, were all forbidden. She was also warned not to sit on hard chairs, leap, or lift heavy weights.

As Sophia entered into the second phase of her pregnancy, which began at forty days, Soranus told of bizarre food cravings that typically inflicted his patients—a desire for charcoal, earth, tendrils of the vine, and unripe fruit. And when the third phase of pregnancy came, he prescribed increased exercise, food, and sleep in order to build up Sophia’s strength. He also wrapped linen bandages around her belly for support, which she removed only to take baths of wine and sweet-water, said to calm the expectant mother’s mind.

When the pangs of labor began, in Sophia’s 42nd week of pregnancy, the household was well prepared. The midwife came equipped with an array of tools for delivery: olive oil for lubrication, goose fat for injection to soften the genitalia, warm water and sea sponges for cleansing, wool bandages for swaddling the infant, strong smelling herbs in case of fainting, and a birthing stool.

After a half day of laboring, the baby had begun its descent. Sophia was given a drink sprinkled with powdered sow’s dung to help ease the pain, and she drank it with haste. She was then placed in the birthing stool, a backless seat with a crescent-shaped hole through which the baby would be delivered. One assistant stood behind her, acting as a back support against which Sophia could comfortably push. The midwife, covering herself with an apron, stood before her. Sophia clenched the armrests and, once it was time, pushed. And she did so for three hours while the attendants pressed down on her abdomen, and the midwife spoke words of encouragement, offering instructions on breathing and pushing, and massaging her genitals to help ease the pain of delivery.

When, after the third hour of pushing, the baby’s head was still not in view, and Sophia looked pale and fatigued, her limbs shaking violently, Soranus was called to assist. He rushed through the door, looking most concerned, and feared the worst for his patient. He took Sophia’s husband aside and spoke in whispers of a procedure called a Caesarian that entailed cutting into the abdomen of the mother in order to rescue the baby, its name having derived from the great emperor Julius Caesar himself who was said to have been delivered in this manner.

“This procedure is typically done in cases where the mother has died, though it has been performed on living mothers who are in grave danger. None that I know, however, have survived,” he frowned. “Though the baby will surely be saved.” Sophia’s husband slumped in anguish.

Many centuries before, when the Greeks dominated the globe, they refused to perform such procedures, despite their god Asclepius having been extracted from the womb. The same taboo existed for the Romans. Shortly after the founding of Rome, a law had been passed requiring a mother to be dead before cutting a child from her womb. In time, however, Caesarians were performed on living mothers, but only in the final month of pregnancy, the danger to the mother being so great. As Rome came to rule the Greek-speaking lands, Caesarians became acceptable in places such as Athens as well.

“The crown!” the midwife yelled.

Soranus rushed to the midwife’s side. Together they encouraged Sophia to push with all the might she had left.

“Wrap your hands in papyrus or cloth, whichever you have brought with you,” Soranus said to the midwife. “Lest the slick newborn slip right through your hands!”

The midwife did as she was instructed and, after a few more pushes that left Sophia drenched in sweat, the baby was born.

“It is a boy!” yelled Soranus with delight. The room came alive with merriment.

The midwife swaddled the infant and cut the umbilical cord. She cleansed the baby, sprinkling him with a powdery salt to soak up the birth residue, and then rinsed the child thoroughly. All the while, the attendants cleared mucus from the nose, mouth, and ears. They smeared olive oil on the infant’s eyes to clear away any remaining birth residue, and placed a piece of wool soaked in olive oil over the umbilical cord stump.

With Soranus peering over her shoulder, the midwife inspected the boy, looking for deformities, ensuring the child had a robust cry, and then made the assessment that the child was healthy. Over the next seven days, however, Sophia’s husband would further inspect their son, making the ultimate decision on whether to keep the boy, or expose him.

To be continued…

Seeing the Light

360 BCE, Athens, Greece

“Shut your eyes. Make certain your lids do not flutter; let no light seep in. I want you to imagine on a black canvas, envisioning the tale I am about to unfold against an untainted backdrop,” Solon said.

Cyrus closed his eyes without a flicker of hesitation. He relished in Solon’s philosophical parables, learned while attending the exclusive Academy of Athens where he studied among giants such as Plato, Aristotle and Eudoxus.

“Darkness abounds,” Cyrus said with an air of impatience.

“This tale was conceived by Plato himself. I am certain that, upon hearing it, you will gain a deeper understanding of our nature, and the nature of the universe.”

“Carry on, then,” Cyrus insisted.

“Very well. Imagine people living in an underground, cave-like dwelling deep beneath the earth, its mouth open to the sky,” he began, lowering his voice in a theatric manner. “These people have lived there since infancy, held captive by heavy, iron chains, their stiff backs fixed against a wall, their heads and necks fettered so they can see only straight ahead, never side to side, their dispirited stares constantly fixed upon the wall before them.

Above and behind them, an enormous fire constantly burns, and between the prisoners and the fire lies a dirt path with a tall ledge. Now imagine, behind this ledge there are people carrying a menagerie of objects—statues of people and animals made from wood, stone, and every other sort of material. These people hold their objects above their crowns so, while they themselves are hidden by the ledge, their objects rise above it. In this way, they are like puppeteers holding up their puppets. With the fire blazing behind them, these objects cast shadows on the wall before the prisoners, creating a fantastic shadow play, the figures moving and talking as their puppeteers move and talk.

All their lives, the prisoners have watched shadows cast by men whom they cannot see, and they have listened to their echoes—this world of shadows is the only world the prisoners know, for they have never seen anything besides. It is reasonable, then, to conclude that the prisoners would believe that the truth is nothing other than those objects shadow-playing on the wall, is it not?” Solon asked.

“That is a reasonable conclusion,” Cyrus nodded.

“Imagine, then, what would transpire if one of these prisoners was released, set free from his fetters, and ascended out of the cave. Upon seeing the light, he would be cured of his ignorance.

He would wish to tell his friends, but when shouting down to them from the mouth of the cave, he would appear as a grotesque, unfamiliar shadow on the wall, his echo bouncing about the cave, its sound strange and muffled. The prisoners would not recognize their friend, nor comprehend what he says. And because they will not make the same ascent out of the cave, they will never know the truth of the world—they will never see the light. But, though they will not know that world, it is not any less real.”

“That is certainly so!” Cyrus said with exuberance.

“Herein lies the lesson,” Solon said. “Now listen close. The prison dwelling represents the material realm. The material world consists of the things we apprehend with our senses—but like the shadows in the cave, it is not the real world. It is a mere reflection, a cast of shadows, whose existence can be attributed to something much greater, namely, an unseen world. This unseen world can only be accessed through an upward journey of the soul, like the prisoner’s upward journey out of the cave from darkness to light, and comprehended not by way of our eyes and ears, but through our intellect.

And this is our truth, my dear Cyrus: Seeing the world’s material shell alone is like living in darkness, never apprehending the world’s true essence. And so, we must all strive to see beyond the material realm to grasp the true nature of things, to see the world itself rather than its shadows, and hereby, we too will see the light.”

Excruciating

Jerusalem, Judea, 70 CE

The Roman Army approached Jerusalem with fury, intent on razing the city to its foundation. As they approached, the populace fell thick into the throes of panic—even the dead were felt trembling in their sepulchers. The city’s fate had been set uncompromisingly for war.

Four years prior, the region had been excited into rebellion as a result of religious tensions between the Greeks, who ruled the province of Judea under the auspices of the Roman Emperor, and the Jews. One incident in particular—the sacrificing of birds before a local synagogue—incited the Jews to throw stones and fists at their pagan compatriots, the sacrifice having been judged an abomination.

Rome chose to ignore Judea’s quarrelling, and the Jews responded in kind—Jerusalem’s High Priest ceased prayers to the Roman Emperor. Shortly thereafter, when the vexing issue of Rome’s taxation came up for debate, Jewish cries of outrage and injustice grew louder, and bolder. The Jews began taking out their wrath upon ordinary citizens, and the Roman Emperor retaliated with force, sending troop reinforcements from neighboring lands to squash the Jewish uprising. In this way, the province of Judea was thrust into full violence.

The Roman Army had been ordered to take the capital city of Jerusalem, though victory did not greet them, and they failed to bring down the city’s defenses. The legions set up camp just outside the city walls, busying their hands by polishing their helmets and whetting their spears until, finally, their general hatched a masterful idea.

“Dig! Dig!” chanted the general, having commanded his soldiers to dig a trench around the city walls, which would then be encircled by a new wall. “Any cowards seeking to escape our siege will fall into this trench and be confined by walls on either side,” he boasted. “No rebel will escape his fate!”

When Roman soldiers began building a rampart to access Jerusalem, the Jews foresaw their slaughter. Under the protection of darkness, they began scaling the city walls, swarming like bees, seeking to escape their deaths. But they became entrapped, falling straight into the trench, caught between two sets of walls before being fished out by teams of Roman soldiers clutching them by their collars.

“You solicited your death when you defied Rome!” the general sputtered. “And now you shall meet it,” he said, waving the shackled prisoners toward a long series of vertical, wooden beams pegged against the newly built wall. It was there that they would be hung—crucified—like the vilest of criminals.

“Forget not to strip their clothes!” the general yelled, bringing a huff to the mouths of his soldiers. While urinating and defecating in public added to the shame of crucifixion, the soldiers suffered as well, being forced to endure the stench, and teeming flies that flocked to it.

After stripping them to their bare skin, the soldiers first beat the legs of their prisoners with iron clubs. They either broke their limbs or rendered them unusable so there was no fight left in them. The prisoners were next paired with a large, horizontal beam of Acacia wood, along which each prisoner’s arms were outstretched. Amid screams of pure agony, the soldiers drove tapered, iron nails just above their wrists, between the two bones of the forearm, and into the beam. The beams were then attached to the vertical planks suspended along the wall, and the feet nailed down for good measure. In this way, the Roman Army encircled the holy city of Jerusalem with crucified Jews.

Crucifixion had been practiced in ages of old, long before the Roman Empire, and the empire of the Greeks before it. Some 800 years before, in fact, the Persians were said to have crucified captured pirates, believing the earth was sacred and the burial of tarnished, criminal souls would desecrate the ground. Alexander the Great, who overran the Persian Empire, adopted several Persian customs, crucifixion among them. It was rumored that he crucified a discordant general, as well as a doctor whose treatment failed to restore life to a friend. But his most extravagant display of crucifixion came after a battle at Tyre, a Persian stronghold on the shores of the Mediterranean. Alexander had 2,000 combative Tyrian citizens crucified, their bodies hung with nails along an expansive stretch of sand, punishment for their refusal to surrender after an unusually lengthy and frustrating battle. But it was from the Carthaginians on the northern coast of Africa, where crucifixion was commonly imposed on generals after suffering massive defeat, that the Romans gained their knowledge of this practice, and throughout the Roman Empire, slaves, criminals and rebels—the dregs of society—were often forced to die in this most disgraceful way.

In the eyes of the rebels, the cruelty of their situation was amplified by the fact that Jewish law allowed only four modes of execution—stoning, burning, strangulation and decapitation—with crucifixion being strictly forbidden; their last breaths were drawn while defying their God’s law. The non-Jewish citizens of Judea beheld a cruelty of similar weight, being forced to witness Roman soldiers, who sought to amuse themselves, hang prisoners in different, compromising positions. Some were hung upside down, with their heads to the ground; others were pegged to an X-shaped cross with their legs wide open; and still others had their genitals impaled.

Commotion overtook the city as the crucified issued high-pitched howls, their pain excruciating (literally, “out of crucifying”). All the while, the soldiers reveled in laughter.

“Perhaps they should be thankful they will not be alive to see what is to come,” one soldier quipped. He cuffed his hand to his mouth, as if about to whisper, and then yelled, “Seeing that their Temple is now to be razed!” The howling along the wall grew louder, reaching a deafening pitch, compelling the soldiers to quickly build small fires along their path, the smoke asphyxiating the crucified, quieting their uproar as fast as it rose up.

Barbarians at the Gate

Rome, Italia, 452 CE

Valentinian III was the son, grandson, great-grandson, cousin and nephew (twice over) of Roman Emperors, but to his family’s chagrin, he inherited little, if any, of their kingly attributes. He was neither a great ruler nor a fine general, but he did, nonetheless, ascend the throne, becoming the Roman Emperor of the West. To the people’s delight, and their great luck, Valentinian’s mother proved a strong ruler, and his Master of Soldiers was well-endowed with military talents, desperately needed in the empire’s struggle against barbarian warlords who were attacking from every angle.

The empire had already been divided in two – the East and the West – each assigned its own emperor who found ruling a smaller swath of land more manageable in the face of barbarian encroachment. The emperors offered the barbarians land on which to settle in exchange for cooperation in military matters. But one tribe coming from the Far East, the barbarian nation of the Huns, seemed less interested in alliance, favoring conquest instead.

“Oh, mother, perhaps you worry too much about Attila. He was, after all, unable to take Constantinople,” Valentinian said, spitting a grape seed to the floor as he lied long on a plush, purple couch with ivory legs. His mother marched toward him with haste.

“If the heart of the Eastern Empire eludes him, would he not turn to the heart of the West?” she exclaimed, her cheeks burning with anger.

Atilla and his people had emigrated to Europe with malicious intent, using mounted archery and javelin throwing to overtake many lands, their dominion stretching from the Ural River in the east to the Rhine River in the west, and from the Danube River in the north to the Baltic Sea in the south. But when they marched upon the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, Constantinople, they were forced to admit defeat, unable to penetrate the city’s double walls. Rome’s fortification, however, was weaker.

“Offer them land in Italia’s northern provinces and be done with it,” Valentinian quipped.

“Have my words fallen upon deaf ears?” his mother cried. “Atilla does not want to be appeased. He wants to conquer!”

Valentinian snapped back, his tone over-bearing. “For now, we know he is occupied in Gaul where he is on the losing side of luck. So let us not worry until there is a rightful reason to worry.”

His mother sighed with discontent.

“In any case, I have not called you here to talk of Atilla,” Valentinian said, softening his voice. “I have great news to share regarding my lovely daughter, Honoria. I have arranged for her marriage,” he said, smiling sweetly.

His mother cocked her head with surprise.

“She shall wed a wealthy Senator, Aelius Grata.”

“And what does she say of this arrangement?”

“It is not her place to say anything, but as you know, Honoria’s stubborn heart could not help but raise a protest. She has barricaded herself in her room. She is weeping, I am sure, about all the injustices of her royal life,” he smirked.

On the opposite end of the palace, in a spacious, cylindrical room, Honoria sat hunched over a roll of parchment, furiously scribbling as she wept. With such sumptuous apple cheeks and foe-like eyes, she could have any man of her choosing. Aelius Grata, with his beastly appearance, was nowhere near her heart’s desire. To remedy her situation, and to spite her father, Honoria would write a letter to Atilla the Hun, asking him to come rescue her.

Upon receipt, Atilla shrieked, “We must march toward Rome!” He read Honoria’s letter with delight, interpreting her request as a marriage proposal whose dowry would entitle him to the Western Roman Empire. Atilla gathered his troops in Gaul and began marching south toward Rome.

When they arrived at the city’s wall, made of brick-faced concrete piled fifty feet high, Valentinian’s mother began panting, panic having seized her mind. “Oh Heavens! I warned of this!” she bellowed while racing like a maddened woman up and down the palace corridor.

Valentinian rushed to the window. “Barbarians at the gate! Barbarians at the gate!” he shouted.

Being utterly unprepared, for Rome’s troops were engaged elsewhere in the empire, Valentinian was forced to send three envoys, the Bishop of Rome among them, to negotiate peace with Atilla. The bishop spoke of divine punishment, which had been executed before on barbarians seeking to sack the great city of Rome. The bishop’s words stirred Atilla’s superstitious soul and he peacefully retreated, leaving Rome with a bitter heart.

Two years later years later, Atilla met his death. But it was not long after – less than twenty-five years – that the Western Roman Empire fell to a barbarian tribe. And when a man of Hunnic descent became Italia’s first barbarian king, divine wrath was nowhere to be felt.