by Aldus Marius on Tue Aug 12, 2003 3:30 am
Salvete amici!
Okay, fellow Ro-maniacs, here's a question for ya's: How and when did each of us discover that we were Romans?
For me, I've been a history freak all my life; I remember wanting to be a history teacher when I was nine years old, so who knows how long before that I'd been bitten by the bug? --Anyway, I found that my studies tended to jump me back in 500-year increments: I began with the Renaissance, because Leonardo da Vinci was my total hero when I was a kid; then took on medieval Europe because that's where my favorite fairy-tales were set. A six-year detour through U.S. history got me through high school and well into my Air Force career; then, in '87, I developed a fascination with the historical Arthur--who, as near as can be determined, seems to have been a Romano-British warlord who did his best to fend off the Saxon invasions in the century after the Legions left Britain. So there I was, on the threshold of the Roman era...maybe it was only a matter of time.
It didn't hit me until '91, when I got back from Desert Storm. What brought it on was, of all things, a science-fiction novel; Richard ben Sapir's The Far Arena, about a Roman gladiator who is discovered and revived in the twentieth century. The Roman's flashbacks made for an excellent historical novel, but as a science-fiction story it was only so-so. Being a writer myself, I thought I could do a better job with the same theme...but first, I needed to do a little research...
Maybe two books into the stack of Roman stuff I brought home from the library, something began to sink in: There was more going on inside me than 'research'. It was the oddest feeling, like I was reading about myself... I completely identified with these people; the things that were important to them also mattered to me; the virtues they tried to emulate were the same ones the pursuit of which had long driven my own life; and as I got to know them, I missed them terribly sometimes. It was a bit of an epiphany, really; all at once I understood a lot of things--like why I'd been such a disciplined child, even as a teen, and why I'd never quite fit in as an American. So here I was, fresh back from the war, and facing--Gladly!--the fact that I wasn't an American in spirit at all; I was a Roman!
Not long after that, the dreams began...dreams of Rome the City, and the ruins there. Understand a thing: I'd never been to Rome, or so much as peeked inside a tourbook; I did not, in my conscious mind, know my way around the City. But when I got to look at a map, I found that my dream-topography was spot-on...! That kind of thing happened a LOT in the couple of years that followed, where my Roman...intuition, I guess...led me to make dozens of spectacularly-accurate guesses about everything from locations of veterans' colonies to the probable date of my Legion's birthday; and that same intuition led me to the spot in southern Oklahoma--seven hills near a bend in the Red River--that I still hope to use for a Roman living-history park.
The third year I began collecting my Roman armor and accessories. I was homeless in Riverside, CA at the time; but you can save a heap of money when you're *not* paying rent in southern California--so I paid for my gear with the proceeds from my three jobs and college benefits, as well as from selling books out of my storage-space. Once I had enough of my kit to parade around in (a couple of years later), and donned the whole thing for the first time, something in me felt indescribably complete. I knew myself by then for a Roman, a Roman of the Provinces, a Roman of the Legions; and my friends, co-workers and classmates all knew it too.
And the rest, as they say, is history...so now ya know.
OK, your turn--! >({|:-)
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Aldus Marius Peregrinus.