The story of gracchus

Š Copyright Vittorio Carvelli 2016

warning: this section features nudity and sexually explicit text and images do not view if you may be offended

Š Copyright Vittorio Carvelli 2016

featuring 'Markos' the slave-boy

INTRODUCTION The story of Gracchus, which features the slave-boy Markos, is set at the time of the Roman Empire - and begins just before the end of the reign of the Emperor Nero (left).

After the collapse of the Republic, the Empire, under the leadership of Gaius Octavian Augustus (right) - the Princeps (emperor), - had enjoyed a sustained period of peace, prosperity and growth, (the 'Pax Romana'), and this continued under his adopted heir Tiberius.

There then followed the brief, but in some ways chaotic reign of Caligula, followed by the relative peace and stability of the Principate of Claudius. More disruption, however, followed with the reign of philhellene, Nero.

This period - from Augustus to the death of Nero - is usually referred to as the 'Principate of the early Empire', to distinguish it from the Republic, and the even earlier Kingdom of Rome.

It should be borne in mind, when reading this account (the fictional 'Story of Gracchus'), that the culture of Rome, while superficially familiar to us, was in fact radically different in many aspects to European and American culture as they stand today.

THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE MEDIA Part of the blame for the superficial familiarity that our awareness engenders when we think of Rome is the result of plays (from Shakespeare to Shaw, and beyond), books (Lloyd C Douglas, 'The Robe' and Wallace's 'Ben Hur') (right), and of course the plethora of films, from Cecil B. De Mille right up to the appalling 'Gladiator'.

The nearest that any works, either in drama, film or literature has ever approached to the 'real Rome' has been the film by Fellini of Petronius' 'Satyricon', and television series, aptly named 'Rome' - created by John Milius, William J. MacDonald and Bruno Heller.

The 'Satyricon' (left), of course, is based on a 'fantasy novel' in the first place, but it's depiction of Roman society at the time of Nero is vastly more accurate than, say, 'Quo Vadis' or 'Barabas', which are basically 'plugs' for protestant Christianity, and the 'American Way'.

'Fellini Satyricon', or simply 'Satyricon', is a 1969 Italian fantasy drama film written and directed by Federico Fellini and somewhat loosely based on Petronius's work 'Satyricon', written during the reign of the emperor Nero and set in imperial Rome. The 'Satyricon liber' ("The Book of Satyrlike Adventures), is a Latin work of fiction believed to have been written

by Gaius Petronius, though the manuscript tradition identifies the author as a certain Titus Petronius. The Satyricon is an example of Menippean satire, which is very different from the formal verse satire of Juvenal or Horace. The work contains a mixture of prose and verse (commonly known as prosimetrum); serious and comic elements; and erotic and homo-erotic passages. As with the 'Metamorphoses' (also called 'The Golden Ass') of Apuleius, classical scholars often describe it as a "Roman novel", without necessarily implying continuity with the modern literary form.

More recently, the television series 'Rome' 1 and 2, (right) has depicted the Empire in a slightly earlier period, at the time of Julius Caesar and his nephew, Gaius Octavian.

Although its chronology was not quite right, and some of the events were, on occasions, invented, its general depiction of ancient Roman culture and society, particularly the aspects of Roman politics, sexuality and violence, was far more accurate than any previous depiction of Ancient Rome.

The Roman Empire, of course, was a preChristian society, and was the last great flowering of Classical Civilization.

CHRISTIANITY AND THE EARLY EMPIRE all images Š Copyright Vittorio Carvelli 2016

During the time dealt with in this story (The Story of Gracchus) there were, of course, Christians in the empire.

These were mainly of two kinds the Jewish Christians, whom most people today would not recognize as Christians.

These Jewish Christians worshipped in the Synagogues, and in the Jerusalem Temple, and it was only their conviction that the Messiah (Joshua) had finally come that distinguished them from their co-religionists.

The other Christians, that could be found in small numbers in Rome, some towns in Italy, and some of the cities of Asia Minor would be equally unrecognizable to today's Christians.

These 'Followers of the Way' were part of the religious phenomena referred to a 'mystery religions', which were a prominent feature of Roman and Hellenistic society.

Their religious writings (those surviving are among the writings of the Hellenized Jew, Paul of Tarsus) made no reference to Nazareth, Bethlehem, 'wise men' from the East, Shepherds, or the long and involved 'passion narrative'.

Their 'Jesus' (a Latin name), was a young god who died and then rose again, like Osiris, Dionysus, and Attis (right).

When they painted his likeness, they did not depict a Jewish rabbi, with long hair and a beard, but a young, cleanly shaved, short-haired god, looking suspiciously like 'Sol Invictus' (left), or the Hellenistic Helios (below), or they represented him as an equally young, Hellenistic looking god tending his sheep, like the Phrygian god, Attis - and they did not use the symbol of the cross.

Early Christian Wall-paintings Art is silent for the first 150 years of Christianity, with no Christian images being made - but no one knows why there is this lack of imagery. Christian images first start to appear in the 3rd century, in Rome, (long after 'The Story of Gracchus') in the form of funerary art – sarcophagi, wall and ceiling paintings in the catacombs. However, this art concerns itself with the afterlife, not with possible events from the life of Jesus. From its onset, and for its first 200 years, Christian art deliberately avoids the subject of crucifixion. The very first work of art portraying the crucifixion dates to the 5th century CE.

The numbers of Christians in the Empire however, for a number of centuries, was so small that, contrary to popular imagination, they had very little impact on the social mores of the people in general, and you may be relieved to know that no Christians appear in the 'Story of Gracchus'.

So ..... during the period covered by the 'Story of Gracchus', the Empire is a pre-Christian, 'pagan' society and, as such, is very different from our own society.

Paganism is a term that developed among the Christians of southern Europe during late antiquity to describe religions other than their own. Throughout Christendom, it continued to be used, typically in a derogatory sense.

The original word is Latin slang, originally devoid of religious meaning.

Itself the word derives from the classical Latin 'pagus' which originally meant 'region delimited by markers', 'paganus' had also come to mean 'of or relating to the countryside', 'country dweller', 'villager'; by extension, 'rustic'.

The later use referred to people who followed the religion of the traditional classical gods of Greece and Rome, along with the mores and morals associated with such beliefs.

RECONSTRUCTING ROMAN SOCIETY In order to produce a believable and, where possible, a realistic story, it has been deemed necessary to reconstruct Roman society.

This, however, is a task fraught with difficulty.

It was the elite of the Empire, - the emperors, senators, equestrians, and the local elites, - (the magistrates, town and city councillors and priests), who produced almost all the literature and the material culture which we think of as being, essentially, 'Roman'. ● The Roman Senate was, initially the council of the republic, and at first consisted only of one hundred Senators chosen from the Patricians. They were called 'Patres', either on account of their age or the paternal care they had of the state. The word senate derives from the Latin word 'senex', which means "old man". Therefore, senate literally means "board of old men." ● The Equites (Latin: eques nom. singular) constituted the lower of the two aristocratic classes of ancient Rome, ranking below the patricians (patricii), a hereditary caste that monopolized political power during the regal era (753 to 509 BC) and during the early Republic (to 338 BC). A member of the equestrian order was known as an 'eques' (plural: equites). ● Roman magistrates were elected officials in Ancient Rome. Each vicus (city or town neighborhood) elected four local magistrates (vicomagistri) who commanded a sort of local police force chosen from among the people of the vicus by lot. Occasionally the officers of the vicomagistri would feature in certain celebrations (primarily the Compitalia) in which they were accompanied by two lictors It was the 'Imperial Elite' who stood at the summit of the Roman socio-economic pyramid.

To qualify as part of this elite a person had to be worth more than 400,000 sesterces.

The Sestertius, or Sesterce, (pl. sestertii) was an ancient Roman coin. During the Roman Republic it was a small, silver coin issued only on rare occasions. During the Roman Empire it was a large brass coin. The name Sestertius (originally semis-tertius) means "2 ½", the coin's original value in Asses, and is a combination of semis "half" and tertius "third", that is, "the third half" (0 ½ being the first half and 1 ½ the second half) or "half the third" (two units plus half the third unit, or halfway between the second unit and the third). The Sestertius was also used as a standard unit of account, represented on inscriptions with the monogram HS. Large values were recorded in terms of 'sestertium milia', thousands of Sestertii, with the 'milia' often omitted and implied.

The hyper-wealthy general and politician of the late Roman Republic, Crassus (who fought in the war to defeat Spartacus), was said to have had 'estates worth 200 million sesterces'.

Among the possible 50-60 million people in the Roman Empire, at the time of our story, there were probably 5,000 adult men (women were not counted), possessing in excess of 4000,000 sesterces.

An average of 100 adult males in each of the 300 or so cities or major towns in the empire would provide another 30,000 odd very wealthy individuals.

Because of the steep socio-economic gradient in the Roman world, thee elite probably held in excess of 80 percent of the total wealth of the empire.

As has been said, it was these individuals who wrote Roman history, either as literature, or in the form of architecture and art - and it is from them that we gain our (possibly distorted) image of ancient Roman civilization.

This story ('The Story of Gracchus') focuses, for much of the narrative on the lives of slaves, and those who have little power or influence - tutors, Roman officers, freedmen, slave traders, gladiators and the like.

There is some information about such people, and with some research we can, to a reasonable extent, reconstruct the lives, hopes and fears of such individuals.

THE MOTIVATIONS OF THE EMPIRE Rome was originally a small village on the banks of the River Tiber.

As the years passed, the sheer aggression and drive of the original settlers forged a vast Empire (which in the end they were completely unable to control or direct).

The reason for Rome's aggressive and thrusting rise to power lay in the Roman attitude to morality, which they had inherited from the 'heroic age' of the Hellenic world.

In this 'heroic' morality, (perfectly described in the wrings of the German philosopher Frederich Nietzsche - left) ‘good’ picks out exalted and proud states of mind, and it therefore refers to people, not actions, in the first instance.

‘Bad’ means ‘lowly’, ‘despicable’, and refers to people who are petty, cowardly, or concerned with what is useful, rather than what is grand or great.

Good-bad identifies a hierarchy of people, the noble masters or aristocracy, and the common people. in Rome the patricians and the plebeians.

The noble person only recognizes moral duties towards their equals; how they treat people below them is not a matter of morality at all - and this, of course lies at the basis of slavery - a key theme in the 'Story of Gracchus'.

The good, noble person has a sense of ‘fullness’ – of power, wealth, and ability.

From the ‘overflowing’ of these qualities, not from pity, they will help other people, including people below them.

Noble people experience themselves as the origin of value, deciding what is good or not.

‘Good’ originates in self-affirmation, a celebration of one’s own greatness and power.

They revere themselves, and have a devotion for whatever is great.

But this is not self-indulgence: any signs of weakness are despised, and harshness and severity are respected.

A noble morality is a morality of gratitude and vengeance.

Friendship involves mutual respect, and a rejection of over-familiarity, while enemies are necessary, in order to vent feelings of envy, aggression and arrogance.

All these qualities mean that the good person rightly evokes fear in those who are not their equal and a respectful distance in those who are.

This struggle between masters and slaves recurs historically.

According to Nietzsche, ancient Greek and Roman societies were grounded in master morality.

The Homeric hero is the strong-willed man, and the classical roots of the Iliad and Odyssey exemplified Nietzsche's master morality.

Historically, master morality was defeated as the vicious 'slave morality' of Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire.

ROMAN SLAVERY Central to the 'Story of Gracchus' is the concept of slavery.

The general Latin word for slave was 'servus'.

Slavery in ancient Rome played an essential role in society, and the economy.

TYPES of SLAVES Besides manual labor, slaves performed many domestic services, and might be employed at highly skilled jobs and professions.

Teachers, accountants, and physicians were often slaves.

Agathon appears in the 'Story of Gracchus' as a Greek slave, employed as a physician by Gracchus.

Greek slaves in particular, (and Markos was thought to be a Greek slave) might be highly educated.

Unskilled slaves, or those sentenced to slavery as punishment, worked on farms, in mines, and at mills, or were used in the arena.

Their living conditions were brutal, and their lives short.

LEGAL STATUS of SLAVES It is important to understand that slaves were considered simply as property under Roman law, and had no legal 'person-hood'.

Unlike Roman citizens, slaves could be subjected to corporal punishment (whipping and beating), sexual exploitation (both female and male prostitutes were often slaves), torture, and summary execution.

Roman slaves could, however, hold property which, despite the fact that it belonged to their masters, they were allowed to use as if it were their own.

Therefore, highly skilled, or educated slaves were allowed to earn their own money, and might hope to save enough, eventually, to buy their freedom.

Such slaves were often freed by the terms of their master's will, or for services rendered.

Rome differed from Greek city-states, and other ancient societies, in allowing freed slaves to become citizens.

After 'manumission', a male slave, who had belonged to a Roman citizen, enjoyed not only passive freedom from ownership, but active political freedom (libertas), including the right to vote.

A slave who had acquired libertas was thus a 'libertus' ("freed person," feminine liberta) in relation to his former master, who then became his patron (patronus).

Terentius appears in 'The Story of Gracchus' as a slave who has undergone manumission.

Being a freedman, he appears in the story as a 'client' of Gracchus (who is his 'patron'), and in this situation, Terentius is expected to work for Gracchus - in this case as his secretary and the supervisor of Gracchus' slaves.

If, however, a master freed a slave in his will on death, and left no heirs, but rather allowed the freed slave to inherit the master's wealth and property, then the newly freed citizen (the 'ex-slave') could choose a patron, if he so wished - and would be truly free.

SOURCES of SLAVES and BUYING and SELLING A major source of slaves had been Roman military expansion during the Republic.

The use of former soldiers as slaves led perhaps inevitably to a series of en masse armed rebellions, the 'Servile Wars', the last of which was led by Spartacus.

During the 'Pax Romana' (see above) of the early Roman Empire (1st–2nd century CE), emphasis was placed on maintaining stability, and the lack of new territorial conquests dried up this supply line of human trafficking.

To maintain an enslaved work force, increased legal restrictions on freeing slaves were put into place. Escaped slaves would be hunted down and returned (often for a reward).

One of the problems regarding the re-capture of slaves was the fact that slaves were not immediately identifiable in the general population.

Normally they wore no special clothing (except some slaves of high status masters, who might wear the master's livery).

Some masters, (like Gracchus in 'The Story of Gracchus'), required slaves to wear a distinctive 'slave collar', (usually thin and made of iron).

Silver Slave Collar of Gracchus © Copyright Vittorio Carvelli 2016

The slave collars used by Gracchus, however, (in The Story of Gracchus), were unique, in being very heavy, and made of silver, with a distinctive medallion).

Markos Wearing his Slave Collar © Copyright Vittorio Carvelli 2016

It is also worth noting that the majority of household slaves were allowed to mix with the general population in the towns and cities of the empire, and were not confined the master's domus or villa.

New slaves were primarily acquired by wholesale dealers who followed the Roman armies.

Many people who bought slaves wanted strong slaves, mostly men.

Julius Caesar once sold the entire population of a conquered region in Gaul, no fewer than 53,000 people, to slave dealers on the spot.

Within the empire, slaves were sold at public auction or sometimes in shops, or by private sale in the case of more valuable slaves.

Slave dealing was overseen by the Roman fiscal officials called quaestors.

Prices varied with age and quality, with the most valuable slaves fetching prices equivalent to thousands of today's dollars.

Usually, around the neck of each slave for sale hung a small plaque or scroll, describing his or her origin, health, character, intelligence, education, and other information pertinent to purchasers.

Roman Slave Market © Copyright Vittorio Carvelli 2016

Adult slaves were expensive, but the highest prices were paid for teenage slaves of both sexes, and in particular, well-educated, handsome young boys.

Because the Romans wanted to know exactly what they were buying, regardless of age or sex, slaves were presented naked.

The dealer was required to take a slave back within six months if the slave had defects that were not manifest at the sale, or make good the buyer's loss.

MASTER and SLAVE RELATIONS Sexuality (see below) was a "core feature" of ancient Roman slavery.

Because slaves were regarded as 'property' under Roman law, an owner could use them for sex or hire them out to sexually 'service' other people.

'Markos is Sold' from 'The Story of Gracchus' - Š Copyright Vittorio Carvelli 2016 The letters of Cicero have suggested that he had a long-term sexual relationship with his male slave Tiro.

The Roman 'paterfamilias' (father of the house) was an absolute master, and he exercised a power outside any control of society and the state.

In this situation there was no reason why he should he refrain having sexual relations his houseboys.

But this form of sexual release held little erotic cachet.

In describing the ideal partner in 'pederasty' (sex with boys), Martial prefers a slave-boy who "acts more like a free man than his master," that is, one who can frame the affair as a stimulating game of courtship.

One particular class of male slave was the 'puer delicatus' - a handsome slave-boy, chosen by his master for his boyish beauty.

Unlike the freeborn Greek eromenos ("beloved"), who was protected by social custom, the Roman 'delicatus' was in a physically and morally vulnerable position.

The "coercive and exploitative" relationship between the Roman master and the 'delicatus', who might be prepubescent, can be characterized in some cases as pedophilic, in contrast to Greek paiderasteia.

The boy was sometimes castrated in an effort to preserve his youthful qualities; the emperor Nero had a puer named Sporus, whom he castrated and 'married'.

The Beauty of the Pueri Kritios Boy

A somewhat more mature version of the 'puer delicatus' was the emperor Hadrian's 'Antinous', who mysteriously died before he reached maturity. (see left) Pueri (boys) might be idealized in poetry.

The beauty of the Pueri was measured by Apollonian standards, not too muscular, with smooth, pale skin, and absolutely no bodyhair, with relatively small (obviously uncircumcised) genitalia, but with beautiful wavy hair, if possible fair in color.

'Antinous' The mythological type of the 'delicatus' was represented by Ganymede, the Trojan youth abducted

by Jove (Greek Zeus) to be his divine companion and cup-bearer. © Copyright Vittorio Carvelli 2016

Ganymede In Chapter VIII of 'The Story of Gracchus', Markos is given the title of 'cup-bearer' - like Ganymede - by Gracchus – (see left).

In the Satyricon, by Petronius, the tastelessly wealthy freedman Trimalchio says that as a slave-boy he had been a 'puer delicatus', servicing both the master and the mistress of the household.

In 'The Story of Gracchus', Markos is given a younger slave boy, Cleon, by Gracchus, as his 'puer' (boy with whom he is permitted to have penetrative sex) Cleon © Copyright Vittorio Carvelli 2016

A slave's sexuality was closely controlled, and normally slaves were no permitted to engage in sexual activity without their master's permission or knowledge.

In the 'Story of Gracchus', Terentius instructs the Greek physician, Agathon, to fit Markos with a metal 'penis cage', in order to prevent him for engaging in penetrative or oral sex, or even masturbating, however, this device is removed so that Markos can have sex with another young slave, Cleon, who has been specially selected to 'service' him at regular intervals. © Copyright Vittorio Carvelli 2016

Slaves had no right to legal marriage (conubium), though they could, with permission, live together (contubernales).

An owner usually restricted the heterosexual activities of his male slaves to females he also owned; any children born from these unions added to his wealth.

Cato, at a time when Rome's large-scale slave economy was still in early development, thought it good practice to monitor his slaves' sex lives, and required male slaves to pay a fee for sexual access to their fellow slaves – male or female.

Despite the external controls and restrictions placed on a slave's sexuality, Roman art and literature perversely often portray slaves as lascivious, voyeuristic, and even sexually knowing.

ANCIENT ROMAN SEXUALITY Š Copyright Vittorio Carvelli 2016

Interestingly, at the root of this virile 'master morality' was the Greco-Roman concept of sexuality.

It is essential to note that Roman society was 'patriarchal' and 'phallocentric', and 'masculinity' was premised on a capacity for governing oneself, and others of lower status, not only in war and politics, but also in sexual relations.

'Virtus', "virtue", was an active masculine ideal of selfdiscipline, related to the Latin word for "man", 'vir'.

It should also be noted that sexual attitudes and behaviors in ancient Roman culture differ markedly from those in later Western societies.

Roman religion promoted sexuality as an aspect of prosperity for the state - prostitution, both male and female, was legal, public, and widespread - and what we today would consider to be 'pornographic' art was featured among the art collections in respectable upper-class households.

It was considered natural and unremarkable for men to be sexually attracted to teen-aged boys and girls - and pederasty was condoned as long as the younger male partner was not a freeborn Roman. Š Copyright Vittorio Carvelli 2016

"Homosexual" and "heterosexual" did not form a part of Roman thinking about sexuality, particularly as no Latin words for these concepts exist.

No moral censure was directed at the man who enjoyed sex acts with either females or males of inferior status (usually slaves), as long as his behaviors did nor infringed on the rights and prerogatives of his masculine peers.

Most significantly, Roman attitudes towards sexuality were grounded in the terms 'penetrator' and 'penetrated'.

Male Roman citizens were, by definition, expected to take on the role of 'penetrator, and never be 'penetrated'.

Roman ideals of masculinity were thus premised on taking an 'active role' that was the prime directive of masculine sexual behavior, as well as political, economic and cultural behaviors for the Roman male citizen.

Š Copyright Vittorio Carvelli 2016

The impetus toward action might express itself most intensely in an ideal of 'dominance', that reflects the hierarchy of Roman patriarchal society, and the aggression that was responsible for the creation of the Empire.

The "conquest mentality" was part of a "cult of virility" that particularly shaped Roman 'male on male' practices.

It is no accident that one of the most common slang terms for the penis was 'gladius' - the name given to the Roman sword carried by legionaries, and used by gladiators, and male sexual activity was seen as essentially aggressive.

Roman male sexuality should therefore be seen in terms of a "penetrator-penetrated" binary model; that is, the proper way for a Roman male to seek sexual gratification was to insert his penis in his partner.

Allowing himself to be penetrated threatened his liberty as a free citizen, as well as his sexual integrity.

It was expected, and socially acceptable for a freeborn Roman man to want sex with both female and male partners, as long as he took the 'dominating' role.

CONCLUSIONS So ..... when reading the 'Story of Gracchus', it is wise to take into consideration the great differences between Roman society in the early empire and current European and American society.

What may seem to us to be immoral, and maybe cruel and sadistic was, to the Romans, simply normal and acceptable behavior.

This story, therefore, makes no attempt to criticize, condemn or ignore Greco-Roman mores and values, and the narrative accepts, and presents unreservedly the cultural 'status quo' of the times.

If you have any qualms about this, then perhaps this is not a story for you..... if not... then read on for a raunchy, realistic and, a far as possible, an historically accurate serial novel, featuring the adventures of young Markos. Š Copyright Vittorio Carvelli 2016

So far we are up to Chapter VIII - but we've only just begun !