“You barbarous lot, you can never appreciate good poetry,” said Caesar, waving the parchment in the sea breeze.
The men surrounding him guffawed at his reaction to their vulgar remarks. Disgusted, Caesar flung the parchment away. A brisk Mediterranean wind got hold of it, twirling it higher and higher, away from the group of seafaring men.
“It is not the poetry, but the Roman hand that wrote it,” said a small, sunburnt man, who appeared to be the leader. “The very hand that may soon part from its body if you keep up your impudent ways.”
This brought forth a new wave of raucous laughter.
Pirate scum!
….. It was the beginning of the winter of 75 BC, and Julius Caesar was a prisoner aboard a pirate galley. Two weeks ago he had set sail towards Rhodes. Caesar’s mission: to study rhetoric from Apollonius, the Greek. But the mission was doomed to failure. As his ship neared the coast of Asia Minor, it was attacked by pirates and Caesar was captured.
As Caesar seethed under the imminent threat of his hand getting severed, the galley beneath his feet pitched and rolled against the choppy waters of the Mediterranean Sea.
“Last night, the Roman asked us to stop singing as we drank wine. Why?” said a pirate, about to burst with laughter. “Because his sleep was getting disturbed.”
While the others collapsed in throes of laughter, their leader looked sternly at Caesar and expelled a barrage of pungent air.
“It is time we discussed your ransom, Roman,” he said. “Twenty talents.”
“Twenty?” Caesar couldn’t believe his ears.
“Too much, Roman scum?”
“I have never been so insulted,” said Caesar, his nostrils flaring. “A day will come when I will be the first man in Rome. Yet you price my head at twenty talents?”
The laughter around him stopped abruptly. The leader stared at Caesar and a gasp escaped him.
Caesar thrust his chest out and raised his chin slightly. “I am worth fifty talents. Not twenty. Fifty.”
Fifty talents weighed about 300,000 coins of silver: a fortune. The pirates stood shell-shocked. After this incident they treated Caesar with respect. As their prisoner-guest, they let Caesar share their food and join in their exercise regimen. Many pirates even pretended to appreciate his poetry.
Meanwhile, Caesar sent some of his men to raise the coin for his ransom. Few weeks later, the ransom was paid — fifty talents, as promised.
“You will be missed, Roman,” said the pirate leader, on releasing Caesar. “Never again will such an esteemed prisoner set foot upon our galley.”
Caesar clasped the pirate’s arm, leaned in and smiled. “We will meet again,” he whispered into the hairy ear and stepped off the pirate galley.
Even though the pirates had treated him well, Caesar was furious. Pirates were the scourge of the Mediterranean Sea. Caesar was determined to get rid of the menace. He immediately raised a small army, and trained them.
And then Caesar set sail to meet the pirates….
Why did Caesar insist on paying a much higher ransom, one that he felt befitted his station — was it hubris? Or bravado? Nonetheless, Julius Caesar was a man who knew his worth. The lesson I learnt from this story is: Despite the adversity, know your worth and stay true to it.
Thank you for joining me this weekend, folks. I extend a very warm welcome to everyone who took the time to read this story, especially to those of you who have subscribed to my blog.
Q: How can I read this ebook?
July 31, 2015: An updated version of this story (+9 more stories) is now available in the FREE ebook It Happened In Ancient Rome. To make your experience more exciting, all stories in this ebook are linked to an interactive, online map of Ancient Rome. Click here to explore this Ancient Map.
Q: How can I read this ebook?
~ A David Singh
A new perspective on the history, and kudos for the lesson learnt, ADS.
ReplyDeleteThanks Alwish. Great to hear from you, as always. David
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