Even before Lucius had given word to my feelings, I had learned that for a poor but ambitious junior officer, the Legion’s permanent barracks, just outside Rome, could not be considered the most hospitable of postings. And if that officer gambled a bit too much, and was heavily in debt, his plight was even worse. I was restless, increasingly desperate, hating my poverty, and thoroughly bored with camp life. A few days earlier, when I had been ruminating about my fate, 1 happened upon a slave caravan. Such long lines of fresh captives were quite common in Rome in those days. Day or night one could find them bound for the slave markets, wending their ways through the streets of that decadent city, a city insatiable for ever more human flesh.

I watched as two long rows of dusty naked captives, mostly men, trudged past me, their eyes downcast, their tread slow and dull. From their long unkempt hair, powerful builds, and scarred, hard-muscled bodies, it was easy to see that these must have been barbarian fighters, once-proud warriors whose spirit had been broken by defeat at the hands of Rome’s invincible legions. Now they were being led by overseers, who found no need to use their whips on their dazed and beaten captives. The shuffling men moved their feet mindlessly, hands manacled before them, chained to one another in loose coffles of eight men each.

There were lines of captured women, too. And although these were fewer, I studied them with more interest Many were stocky, heavily built barbarians, clearly destined to end up as field slaves or, at best, house slaves, although occasionally there was a well-made body that might elevate its fortunate owner to work in the bedchamber or in one of the city’s pleasure houses.