Andivius Hedulio: Adventures of a Roman Nobleman in the Days of the Empire

by Edward Lucas White

We discussed this find a good deal. We agreed that the coins were of no use to us and could be of no use to us. As we meant to pass ourselves off for Sabine cattle-buyers until we were out of Umbria, as we meant to press on to Aquileia, as soon as the weather was warm enough, as we meant to pass ourselves off for runaway slaves, if we were arrested and questioned gold coins in our possession would have been most dangerous to us. We agitated the idea of sewing a few into the hems of our tunics and into the ends of our belts; but we came to the conclusion that any attempt to exchange a gold coin for silver would be very dangerous and much too risky a venture.

We also agreed that if the master of the place returned he must not suspect that we knew of his hoard. So we replaced the jar as it had stood, effaced all signs of its having been moved and refilled it with olives, taking them from another jar, which proved to contain olives only, all the way to the bottom.

This find led Agathemer to investigate every jar on the place, running a long rod of tough wood down into each as a sounder. In another jar of olives he found a similar hoard of silver denarii. Of these we took as many as were necessary to replenish the store of coins Chryseros had furnished us with. Even of silver we dared not carry too much. The hoard was so large that the handful of coins we took was unlikely ever to be missed.

The little girls, early in our stay, became entirely accustomed to us and utterly trustful of us. In the chests Agathemer found other tunics, warmer than those they had on when we came, which were suited to them. But there were no cloaks small enough for them to wear. With our precious scissors Agathemer cut in two the smallest warm cloak he could find and, with the needles and thread Chryseros had given us, he roughly hemmed the cut edge. The two awkwardly-shaped cloaks, thus made, the children wore till spring.

We could find no shoes for the children and they went barelegged and barefooted all the winter. They did not seem to mind it, except on the most bitterly cold days, when the wind howled about the hut, roaring through the pines and naked-boughed oaks, blowing before it the snow in silver dust. Then they kept inside the hut all day. But, on sunny and windless days, they ran about barefoot in the snow and seemed entirely indifferent to the cold, though they always appeared glad to dry and warm their little pink toes at the fire, after they returned to the hut. Agathemer, more knowing than I, would not let them approach the fire until they had bathed their feet in a crock of water he kept standing ready inside the hut door and had partially dried them afterwards. He said that otherwise their feet would puff and swell and perhaps inflame. They seemed happy-hearted little beings and Secunda was bright. But Prima was very dull and less intelligent than her younger sister. We concluded that she was, while not anything like an idiot, certainly a very backward child, lacking the wit of a normal child of her age.

After the first snow fell we had no more trouble with violent outbreaks from the sick woman; or, at least, very little. Her next fit of raving came about ten days after the first snowfall and began in the daytime, when both Agathemer and I were in the hut. We forced her back into her bed and then Agathemer had an inspiration. He bade me hold her where she was and he took down his flageolet, from where it hung on a high peg on the partition, and began to play it.

The woman quieted at once and seemed to sink to sleep. After that her fits, which recurred at frequent intervals, took up little of our time, as upon each we had only to get her back into her bed and compose her by means of Agathemer's music.

It was well along towards spring, certainly far towards the end of the winter, when Agathemer made his most astonishing discovery. By that time the animals gave no more milk than sufficed for the five of us; there was no surplus to feed back to the best milkers. Also we had a little reserve of firewood and did not have to drive ourselves so unremittingly to escape death by freezing if our fuel gave out.

I was chopping wood in a leisurely way, and enjoying the exercise. The little girls were inside the hut at the moment, after playing about most of the morning. Agathemer came out of the store-house, glanced around, and beckoned to me: together we went inside. There he showed me where he, led by a very slight difference of color, had dug into the earth floor and come upon a small maple-wood chest, like a temple treasure-box. It was, outside, perhaps a foot wide and about as high, and not over a foot and a half long. He had forced it open with the hatchet and a heavy knife, like a Spartan wood-knife. The wood of the chest was so thick that the inside cavity was comparatively small. But it was big enough to have held, say, two quarts of wine. And it was almost full of jewels; opals, turquoises, topazes, amethysts, rubies, emeralds and sapphires.

Agathemer shut the store-house door and fastened it so the little girls could not open it if they should chance to try. Then he spread his cloak on the earth floor and dumped the contents of the chest on it. Most of the gems were small, at least two score were very large, and there were many, of notable, though moderate, size. We could see them fairly well, though the store-house was dim, since, with the door shut, the only light was what came through chinks. We ran our fingers through the heap of jewels, picked up the largest and held them to the light and gained a general idea of the value of the hoard. We put them all back into the chest, shut it, and reburied it. It showed no marks of Agathemer's dexterous attempts at opening it, for the lid was held down only by a clasp outside, and by the swelling of the inside flange of wood against the overlapping rim of the lid.