Chapter1

When I was a small child my mother, Cornelia Secunda, told me I came kicking and bawling into this world. She worried I would not survive. I came a month early and was a scrawny infant who did not go to her breast at first. What made matters worse was that she did not let down enough milk once I did latch on and a wet nurse had to be found. I am not embarrassed to admit that as the youngest of four children I was her favorite. She often recounted how, once I had determined to live, I grasped life in my tiny fists and held on to it tightly and grewquickly.

I was born during the first consulship of Quintus Fabius Maximus Varrucosus, seventy-one years ago. It was a time of peace in Latium and the gates of the temple of Janus in Rome remained closed for most of my childhood. I am the son of Lucius Latinius, who was always called Marinus due to his service as a centurion of marines in the first war with Carthage. This was long before I got to know him. When I came along our family lived on a farm in Latium where we grew wheat and some olives and ran a small flock of sheep. There was also a small orchard of figs my mother had planted. The land had been in the family for as long as anyone could remember. Unlike other farmers in our district, however, Father also owned two seagoing merchant ships and a warehouse at the port of Lavinium. This was in part due to his connections with the patrician clan Cornelii. One might say we were prosperous, with patrician connections. As a child I expected to be a farmer and to have some share, with my older brothers, in our family’s growing import and export business. Fate had otherplans.

It has been a year since a dispatch rider from Tarraco arrived at the family villa in Saguntum. He carried a letter under military seal from thepraetor in Tarraco. As is customary, he asked for a drink and something to eat. After drinking some wine mixed with water and eating a fig cake he indicated to the steward that he carried a letter that was to be placed only in the hands of the prefect. And so he was shown to the veranda that serves as my private study and office. This is what I read after breaking theseal:

“His Excellency, M. Latinius Martialis, Prefect, Martialis, it is with regret that it is my sad duty to inform you that your son, M. Latinius, first centurion ofhastati, was killed in fighting against Celtiberian and Lusones forces at the Manilian Pass on 14 Lunius. All wounds were in thefront.

T/S Q.F. Nobilitor, Praetor, Hispania Citerior,SPQR.”

As I read this document slowly, not wanting to understand its meaning, the dispatch rider stood quietly with the same grim e