Sons of Antiquity

Prologue Part 1



Dusk was his favorite time of the day. Perched high above the surrounding houses, he closed his blue eyes and allowed his senses to show him the things hidden from his sight. He could smell meats and breads being prepared for evening meals, along with the rich scent of the woods used in the cooking fires. A hint of incense and spring flowers drifted past his nose and he resisted the urge to sneeze. Somewhere, a baby was crying. The arguments of a group of men, presumably drunk on spirits, drifted up to assault his ears before dying away as they wandered off further into the city. The iron of the railing he leaned against was still warm from the heat of the day’s sun, but it was quickly cooling now that the sun was retreating into the western hills, and beyond that, the sea. A gentle breeze lifted up from somewhere to ruffle his short, dusty black, almost bluish colored hair as he opened his eyes again to watch the daylight’s retreat.



Every evening he always made certain to be out either lounging in the solarium built on the roof of the atrium of his family’s home, or out on the small veranda that had been built for him as an extension of his bedchamber. He preferred the latter if only for the noise reduction, since it was higher. The veranda was built out over the roof of the second story of the house, and was therefore farther from the street, and farther from the din of horses and citizens and carts traveling through the narrow city streets. The entire building was actually three stories tall; rather unusual for private Roman houses, but the home itself was only two stories. It had been built into the gentle slope of a large hill, the first story represented by two large rooms built on the street level, which were used for his father’s trade business. A small entrance hallway in between the two rooms lead up to the second story by way of stairs that led into the atrium, the formal hall of the family’s house. Beyond that was the courtyard, with living quarters, dinning rooms, a study, and a private bath arranged along its perimeter. More rooms had been built in a second story addition to the courtyard, including his veranda.



Which was where he found himself again this evening. Voices within the house caught his ears, and he leaned out over the railing, thinking somewhere in the back of his mind that it wasn’t a terribly intelligent thing to do considering he was already feeling the wine a bit. He arched his neck to look out over the solarium, through the large rectangular opening in the ceiling of the atrium, called the compulvium. It was a standard part of any atrium, meant to let in air and light and allow rainwater to collect in a shallow pool in the middle of the atrium floor, but it also allowed him to sometimes see visitors from his vantage point. He heard the unfamiliar voices drifting up from inside, and wondered who would be calling at this hour.



He sat down on a chaise that served as the only furnishing on his veranda, laid back and stretched lazily, and waited for the stars to begin appearing one by one. Whether it was the wine, or the pleasant weather, his mind began to drift nostalgically back in time as he remembered the histories of his family and the events that had brought him to the world in which he now found himself.



His grandfather, a well-known member of the equestrian upper class in Rome, had been a ruthless and savvy businessman. He was fascinated by the civilizations to the east. No sooner had a new city to the east been conquered, than his grandfather had traveled to it, anxious to see what business opportunities it held. This had the end result that he spent more time out of Rome and away from his family making a name for himself than in his own home city. These ventures made him extremely wealthy and popular with the upper class of Rome, who could afford to buy the exotic products he always returned with.



He was as much an explorer as he was a businessman, and taking long journeys into new, potentially hostile territories didn’t dissuade him. On his most ambitious trip, he traveled all the way to China, instantly earning favor with the Chinese emperor who was fascinated with the modern western civilizations, and returned to Rome soon after with a fortune’s worth of silk. He gave some as gifts to his own emperor, and the rest he sold for exorbitant amounts of money. More demands from the citizens arrived, who desperately wanted to share in the luxury of this rich, exotic new fabric. While silk was known of but still extremely rare in Rome, there was no steady reliable supply due to the lack of trade routes to the Far East.



Demand was so great, that he offered his son and three of his son’s most trusted friends (who, although still young, were extremely promising business men as well) to join in his venture to develop a trade route between outlying Chinese cities and Rome. They agreed and, promising to supply silk to the rest of the empire, left their own families behind and ventured out toward this new opportunity. The idea was scoffed at by his grandfather’s colleagues, who cautioned him that he would loose every ounce of money he had on this “fool’s ambition”. It was true, it would have been an almost impossible feat at the time if it wasn’t for his grandfather’s good relations with the Chinese emperor, who had agreed during their first meeting to do everything he could to aid in the export of silk from his country if it meant that a trade route might open between his country and the foreigner’s.



It was easier said than done though. Getting there was a one-year journey across both land and sea. They faced the hardships of primitive travel, language barriers when they arrived in China, as well as finding the labor to run the caravans and employing ships when they arrived at ports. It took a total of six years for the caravans to be able to reliably ship cargo back and forth from China to Rome, and his grandfather lost almost all of his fortune in the process, risking not only his family’s wealth and reputation, but also the reputation of the three other young men who accompanied them. But once the silk actually began arriving in Rome, he began to turn profit so quickly that it astonished the heads of business in the counting houses of Rome, who quickly offered to help finance his efforts now that it had been proven possible. His grandfather wisely refused them however, and maintained a strict hold on the importation of silk to Rome.



The fabric was so highly sought after that people were willing to pay exorbitant amounts of money to make entire wardrobes for themselves. Every shipment that arrived in Rome sold almost immediately. His grandfather quickly earned back all the money he had lost and then continued on to profit three times as much as he had when he’d first started out with his already large fortune. He split the profit five ways between himself, his son and the three other men. Now that they had set up a reliable trade route and made the money they had wanted and more, they were able to hire employees to do most of the traveling and supervising of the caravans that they had done themselves over the past few years. After eight years, they finally returned to Rome as a group. His grandfather made the decision at that time to retire to his country villa far to the south of the city and enjoy his wealth until he reached the end of his life.



His son and his three friends had other plans however. They still had control of the silk importing business, and had no plans to leave it behind. They all married adventurous and feisty young wives and enjoyed the fame that their wealth and success had brought them, but during their stay in Rome they realized just how much they missed the land they had lived in over the past few years. China was breathtakingly beautiful, the culture rich and flourishing, and they enjoyed just as my celebrity there as they did in Rome, since the business had helped to put quite a bit of money into the people’s pockets. The Chinese were fascinated by the men’s speech, their clothing and their customs. They had been treated as if they were emissaries from their country, and enjoyed the privileges that came with that status. They soon came to an agreement to return to China to live there for a while. They packed up their wives, household staff and slaves, and began the long journey back.



The men settled back into their old lives easily, living in houses and eating meals better than even what they had in Rome as part of the upper class. They supervised their business through trusted employees, happy to be away for once from the politics and competition for business they faced back In Rome, able to let others do their work for a while while they enjoyed the profits. Their wives, while at first open to but weary of the idea of leaving everything they knew to travel to some far off land they had barely heard of, finally accepted the fact that they were far from home and would not be returning anytime soon. They soon grew accustomed to their new lives and, shortly after settling in, they were all four expectant with child.



Throughout that year and into the beginning of the next, one healthy baby boy was born to each of the men. Not only was this a joyous thing for all four families, this was seen as such a tremendously auspicious thing in the eyes of the locals (male children were highly prized in their culture), that they revered all four of the babies as if they were members of the emperor’s own family. They were raised with the local customs, taught to speak the language expertly as they grew, and once they started walking, the emperor’s own court troupe began teaching them the art of acrobatics.



Around this time one of the wife’s Chinese attendants became gravely ill. Her husband had been killed a few years earlier in an accident and once she died it would leave her son, who was the same age as the other boys, an orphan. The wife, upon hearing this, asked her husband to let them adopt the child. He was already a playmate to the four other boys and was by this time seen as part of the family. Her husband readily agreed and adopted the boy once his mother had passed.



While each boy had been given a Roman name at birth, they were so often referred to by playful and endearing names from the locals that eventually their roman names were never used. Instead, their parents used a blending of their given names with the local language. The boy whose grandfather had begun the importing business was called Touma. The boy whose father had adopted the attendant’s son was called Ryo, and his brother kept his given name of Shuu. The two others received the names Seiji and Shin.



The bond these boys shared amazed their parents. While they did fight like little boys do, they never acted viciously or hatefully towards each other. They shared their possessions with each other, helped one another, and encouraged each other, especially in their studies. They were exceptionally good at the acrobatics they were taught, and soon the emperor had to find new performers to teach the boys new tricks, since they so quickly mastered the skills of his court’s troupe. The court’s musicians also taught them to play various instruments to accompany each other as they performed.



Once the boys reached age seven, the men insisted their sons be taught how to fight and defend themselves in the styles of not only the roman culture, but that of the Chinese as well. They learned how to fight with their hands as well as with weapons, Ryo being taught in two-handed swords, Shin in pole arms, Touma in the bow and arrows, Seiji in one-handed swords, and Shuu in staves. With these new skills the boys began to blend together their skills in acrobatics as well as their weapons training. They would choreograph exciting displays and acts utilizing all of their skills, which they would then perform for their parents, towns people, and eventually the emperor and his dignitaries. The emperor was delighted that these boys whose bloodlines started in such a far off place took so easily and eagerly to the customs and pageantry of his own country.



~Continued in Prologue Part 2~