And now there was just a long stretch. The hardest part was that I could not sleep. My mind was never off; there was no rest. But eventually I realized that I had resources.
My mind wandered back through time; I thought about the way my life had been blessed. I thought about the years of good harvests, the wine and bread. I thought of my sons, strong and healthy, and my daughters, sweet and beautiful images of their mother. And of course I thought of my wife. My mind wandered through the joys of those times and I took the whispering presence with me. In gratitude I offered back to Jove each blessed moment of my life.
I remembered my time in the army. The difficult and careful training designed to help me survive — though no training could have brought me through the disaster at Cannae. I remembered my pride at being named Centurion, and the cheers of the men I would lead. I grieved long, remembering each of them, knowing that I had led them to their deaths. More and more I prayed to Jove, laying at his feet, as best I was able, the spirit of each of my men.
As time went on my thoughts grew more abstract. I started trying to penetrate behind the surface of what I remembered. At first it was a game, something to occupy my mind. And I never was certain that anything I thought really mattered.
I remembered the process of tending my vineyards. I remembered touching the soil. I saw myself looking at hillsides to pick the one that best caught the sun. I thought of the rain that came sweetly and in time, and I started to think about where it came from. I thought of springs and rivers and the clouds that were the storehouse of the rain, and the ice that was upon the highest mountains. I thought of sea creatures and the sea. Romans did not fear the sea, exactly. But we tried our best to turn it into land. The grapples we used in ship-to-ship fighting made it possible to fight like soldiers instead of sailors.
Then I thought of the wind that pushed ships to far places. I wondered about how those ships could sail against the wind. I knew it was difficult and tedious to sail into the wind but I was amazed that it was even possible. I spent a long time trying to figure out how such a thing could be done. I started to think of the air as a kind of fluid and I thought about how water would flow faster in tight places.
Eventually it occurred to me that air that was moving slow could spend more time pushing than air that was moving fast; fast air had no time to spare on side tasks as it hurried to its destination. I thought of the curved sails and how the wind would have to travel farther to get around the curve than to go straight across the other side. Thus it would have less time to push on the curved side — and the air on the other side would push the ship forward. I was absurdly pleased with myself for some time after I thought of this, playing the sequence of thoughts over and over in my mind, though I had no certainty that it was true.
Thinking of the wind led me to the breath of life. I remembered that a man who did not breathe could not live. I thought also of blood — if a man lost his blood he could not live. Life was fragile — there were so many things that could make a man not live.
As a soldier I had seen the insides of a man. I had seen the muscles and bones that lay beneath the skin; the lungs that seemed like bellows and the heart that throbbed with life. I thought of how piercing the heart would cause blood to spurt, then quickly stop.
I had also seen the weird and twisted meat that was in a man’s head. I knew that when that meat was harmed, a man would be changed for the worse in a way that was different from other wounds.
But I knew that seeing the insides of a man was not to see a man — such a man was usually dead. Somehow the bloody organs and strange flesh within a man became the noble offspring of Jove, the strong and brave soldiers of my command, or even the foolish leaders who led them to their deaths.
And I thought of myself — stripped of the flesh and bone that gave a man the power to act, drifting around aimlessly in a dark, shadowy existence. Spirit they called us. Breath — the breath of life. Yet that breath was futile and empty without the material body that it indwelt. “The glory of young men is their strength,” said a proverb I had heard from some wise man in my youth.
And what can be said about women? The mystery of birth, bringing a new person into the world — I thought of how the sad work of the soldier undoes the wonderful labor of women. I wondered that the act of love would be the means that the God chose to bring forth his offspring in mankind.
I gradually learned to take more and more pleasure in these thoughts. There was only so much to my life; I realized that the many books I had not read would have been a treasure could I have recalled them now. But the few I had read became the company that the vague shadows that were in the dungeon with me could not give.
… To Be Continued ….