Chapter 2

It happened unplanned. Resentments simmered but the soldiers kept the slaves and the locals down. Any resistance to Roman rule was treated severely. Not only Boudicca’s daughters were raped. When the master of Villa Magna near Veronicum was found murdered, it was assumed that a slave had done it. All the male slaves were castrated, then disembowelled. The women slaves were raped by the legion, then they, too, were disembowelled. Not killed, you’ll note, just disembowelled and left. It could take hours to die. A few days later the authorities realised that his son had killed him. The son was in Gaul by then. But then they were only a bunch of slaves, so no harm done. That was what we had to deal with.

Many of the slaves were foreign as well, so they had nowhere to run. At least the locals could hide if they needed to. Where could a Spanish slave run to? His only language might be Latin, and that would not endear you to the locals.

When the Romans decided that the village of Gentford needed to learn a lesson, it was because of some minor trading infraction. The honest traders would have supported punishing the man who was using dodgy weights, but instead the Romans decided to burn the village. It was the wick for the candle. The small band of Romans found themselves surrounded and beaten. One died. That meant major retribution and somehow the locals decided to get their retaliation in first. The local fort was small, under-manned and not well-defended. Once those soldiers had been killed, the locals were armed, and the seeds had been planted. There was no going back.

The local under-governor had a body guard of strong, well-fed, slaves. Some of them had been gladiators before being recruited by the governor. They were fanatically loyal ... until they weren’t. They had seen their food decline in quality, they had seen one of their number decapitated for an imagined slight on a visiting dignitary. The governor had picked the wrong time to have a rebellion in the locality. As he stood in front of his phalanx of body guards, facing off the crowd of armed locals, a sword point came out of his front, followed by much blood. He stood, surprised apparently, and then his head bounced from his shoulders.

The slaves were revolting! They all laughed at the joke. The Romans had said how revolting slaves were so often. Now they really were. The flames spread.

Villas are not castles. They are not particularly defensible. The outer wall was not that strong, though it provided a boundary wall. Gricolus realised there were two options. The slaves, his slaves, could join the rebellion and he and all his family would be cut down; or the slaves, his slaves, would continue to take his orders and help defend their loved master and his family.

There was a third option. I talked to the other male slaves, we were approached by a female - I forget her name - who had some leadership qualities. She was older and wiser than many of us, she was more of a mother-hen than a leader, but we all need a mother sometimes. What would we do? We agreed on our actions and then no-one did a thing; that was often the way with mobs, no-one would be first. To rebel alone was to guarantee a slow, very painful, death so no-one wanted to be first. Antigones was a male slave we all remembered for his slow, painful death being eaten alive by dogs. Finally I took the lead and raised a cudgel at the master. “We demand, no, we take, our freedom. We are not owned, we are free.” There was more in this mode, others cheered and shook sticks. Gricolus Androclus Ulgria stood his ground, he was brave. But he knew he was lost, I could see in his eyes. He advanced on me with a knife, intent on cutting out the poison, he said. I had a limp and a twisted arm (twisted, but not unusable, it just hangs oddly), but I was strong and lithe. He went down with a punch and I hit his hand with the stick; the knife clattered on the tiled floor and his defence was over.

Somehow, me disarming the master made me the leader. Some of the slaves were for violent revenge, others for running away. Others still asked me what they should do, it would take a while for them to think for themselves.

“No revenge. Put the family in one room –I don’t know [this to a slave who wanted to know which room] the master’s room – you two guard it. No one out or in without my say so.”

“What if they need to use the lavatorium?” asked Grantus. Give him his due, he wasn’t cowering in a corner, shitting himself.

“Tough shit!” We all laughed crudely at the joke. The family were ushered and pushed away. I was keeping them prisoner, but keeping them alive might save our lives if this went badly. And some of them I had no gripe with.