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

by Edward Lucas White

There I passed a miserable winter. Our prison was not unlike the ergastulum at Placentia; ill-designed, damp, cold, filthy, swarming with vermin and crowded with wretches like myself. I was despondent in my loneliness and found harder to bear my shiverings, my fitful half-sleep in my foul infested bunk, the horrible food, the grinding labor, the stripes and blows and insults of the guards and overseers and the jeers of my inhuman fellow-sufferers. This time I had no chance of becoming cook's- helper or of easing my circumstances in any other manner. I spent the entire winter haggard for sleep, underclad, underfed, overworked, shivering, beaten and abused.

Conditions in that ergastulum were more than amazing. It was so utterly mismanaged that, in fact, very little effective work was done, though the inmates were roused early, set to their tasks before they could really see, lashed all day, given but a very brief rest at noon and released only after dusk. Half the prisoners judiciously directed could have ground twice as much grain. As it was, the superintendent and overseers had far less real authority than a sort of dictator elected or selected or tolerated by the rabble. He had a sort of senate of the six most ruffianly of the prisoners. These seven ruled the ergastulum and their power was effective for overworking and underfeeding, even more than the generality, those whom they disliked, and for diminishing the labors and increasing the rations of their favorites. The existence of this secret government among the rabble was in itself astonishing, its methods yet more so.

Unlike the ergastulum at Placentia the watch at the ergastulum at Nuceria was very lax and haphazard. It was effective at keeping us in; there were but three escapes all winter. But communication with the outside world was fairly easy and was kept up unceasingly. Many of the inmates had friends among the slaves of Nuceria. The gate-guards were so remiss that, daily, one or more outsiders entered our prison and left when they pleased. The henchmen of the dictator even managed to slip out and spend an hour or more where they pleased in the city. This, however, was possible only if they returned soon, for the superintendent was keen on calling us over three times a day.

Through the activities of those inmates who arranged to get out and return, and of their friends who entered and left, since the weighers of the grain and flour were careless and their inspectors negligent, the dictator and his friends drove a regular and profitable trade in stolen flour, which they exchanged for wine, oil, dainties, stolen clothing and such other articles as they desired; they even sold much of it for cash, and not only the dictator but each of the six senators had a hoard of coins, not merely coppers, but broad silver pieces.

In this traffic and its advantages I had no share. In fact, of all his fellows, I think the dictator hated me most; certainly he bullied me, made my lot harder in countless petty ways, and abused and insulted me constantly.

After mid-winter I became aware of a traffic not only in dainties and wine, but in implements and weapons. Many daggers and knives were smuggled into the ergastulum, not a few files. The senators had a small arsenal of old swords, regular infantry swords, rusty but dangerous. Gradually I heard whispers of a plot. The conspirators were to file through the bars of more than one window, plastering up the filed places with filth and earth to conceal the filing, leaving a thread of metal to hold the filed bars in place. Then, when all was ready, they planned to murder the guards, overseers and superintendent, break out, sack the town-arsenal, loot shops and mansions, and then, well-clad and fully armed, take to the mountains and join the bands of the King of the Highwaymen. Two of the senators claimed to have been men of his before their incarceration and promised to lead the rest to the haunts of his brigands.

The date set for their attempt was the fourteenth day before the Kalends of April, a few days before the Vernal Equinox. My gorge rose at the idea of the burning and sacking of Nuceria, even at the slaughter of our cruel guards, overseers and superintendent. The more I thought the matter over the less I liked the prospect. I had every reason to hate the dictator and senators. I saw no likelihood of betterment for myself if I were carried off with these riffraff as one of a band of looters, murderers and outlaws, loose in the forests.

I contrived to disclose the plot to the prison authorities. As a result the ergastulum was entered by the town guards, rigorously searched by the aldermen and their apparitors, under the aldermen's eyes, all the sawn bars, files, knives, daggers and swords discovered, the suspected men tortured till the ring-leaders were identified, the dictator and his senators flogged and manacled, and the management of the ergastulum renovated.

I was conducted from the prison, given a bath, clothed in a clean, warm tunic and cloak, provided with good shoes, abundantly fed and put to sleep in a clean bed in the house of a freedman who watched closely that I did not escape, but did everything to make me comfortable.

The next day the chief alderman of Nuceria interrogated me at the town hall, praised me, declared that I had saved the town many horrors and much damage and loss, and asked me what reward I craved.