by Aldus Marius on Mon Nov 12, 2007 5:49 am
Salvete, amici Romani...
OK, so who's this Ericius chap?
Caius Aelius Ericius was the Nova Roman governor of California when I first became a Citizen there. That means I've known him for going on ten years. I don't remember precisely what drew our attention to each other; but I was posting informative things on the NR Main List (not yet such a battleground), and so was he, so I'm thinking maybe we each read things that the other wrote and liked them.
He often posted notices relating to the Religio Romana. Day-to-day things, like what the Roman day and date were, and who were the patron Gods/Goddesses of the day or month, and the names and meanings of any festivals that fell on that day. This was my first contact with the Religio as a living thing, as something practiced daily by someone I knew. I felt like I was going through the "liturgical year" with him; though I was not a practitioner myself, I liked knowing what might have been going through an ancient Roman's mind on this day or that. It furthered my feeling of connection with the Ancestors. In this way he made the Religio appealing to me in a way that no "pagan fundamentalist", or micronation full of 'em, could have with all their browbeating. (And they did beat brows over that in Nova Roma early on.)
As a result of him being one of the few people I could talk to about the Religio, and of the mutual respect that grew between us even across our respective faiths, and the natural alliances that formed between us on various issues, he became one of only four people in my life whom I have called soul-friend--by whatever name, whether anamchara (the Celtic Christian term) or comespiritu (our homebrew Latin)--he has been a "Friend of my Spirit".
We've even met in person; I swung by Provincia California in July of '99 and met him for a joint-forces book-shopping expedition. >({|:-)
When I was in the hospital, he didn't send me a get-well card; he figured I'd probably gotten a few of those. (Boy howdy, did I ever!) Na, he sent me a chatty letter accompanied by a book about the Roman auxilia, which I'd been looking for pretty much since the last time I saw him. (He said it was an "extra copy" he'd just "picked up"... Gods, I miss San Francisco!!!)
So, yeah, Ericius is kind of important to me. That said, though he only drops by here infrequently, I hope he's become a little more significant to you too.
(He's doing great, btw; they've got him sitting up, walking the hallways with help, standing for short periods. His surgeon will tell him tomorrow how close he is to going home; even afterwards he'll have physical therapy to attend to.)
In amicitia et fide,
Aldus Marius Peregrinus.