Sententiae de Historia Romae

[Marcus Quintus 0]

Sententiae de Historia Romae

Thoughts on the Roman Past

 

Marcus Quintus' face flickered into a small, pleased smile as the communications-screen blinked off. That had gone... remarkably well. He didn't think that his nerves had shown through when he'd talked to the off-worlders. They hadn't noticed any shake to his voice, or a hesitation to his answers - aside from the delay as his mechanised translators stumbled to put together coherent interpretations of the Federation's unfamiliar language. No matter, though, even if they had. It wasn't every day when a man - consul or not - interacted with the aliens who could actually have been his people's distant relatives.

 

Nor had he, or any other Roman, Marcus supposed, really been so close to a chance at... truth. Nobody except the foolish few who had preceded him and who had encountered the other Earthmen had ever been granted the opportunity to know for once and for all whether or not their origins truly lay out there, among the stars, as so many legends claimed. His predecessors had decided that it was better to scorn their first opportunity at knowledge, sending the offworlders into the arena to die like rebellious slaves or true barbarians rather than learning from them and welcoming them. In a way, it was to make up for their first, foolish mistakes that Quintus had initiated the program to contact the Federation.

 

Marcus hadn't learned of the earlier "encounter" with the "barbarians", the Earthmen from Enterprise when it was transpiring, nor for years afterwards. He had, however, been involved with some of the other "barbarians" who had, in reality, been more of the Earth-offworlders from the first ship that wrecked near their planet, the Beagle. It had not taken too much effort to discern their otherworldly nature during the process of acculturating them and placing them in Roman society, helping them to adjust to their bizarre and new surroundings.

 

And perhaps not all that bizarre, he reflected, thinking of some of the reactions to their culture - or the absence thereof. It had been difficult to bring them into their world, of course and even harder to keep them from the whims of the greedy, intolerant eyes of the then-proconsul, but a few, at least, had managed to be saved from Claudius' torments. But... they had adapted remarkably well, as if much of what they were seeing was familiar to them in some form or another. It didn't really seem the natural reaction of aliens to an entirely foreign situation or civilization.

 

Quintus, frankly, suspected that they were, indeed, one and the same - or had been, at least, many years ago. Some of those to whom he had spoken certainly looked as if they could have been the same species. The captain - Septem, was it? - would have been indistinguishable from one of their own (perhaps one with a bit of Germanic blood), and even the language of the humans had echoes of Latin interspersed with the odder sounds. It was all... quite fascinating.

 

Deep down inside, he wanted to beg the Challenger Federationers for their stories and histories and books, and see if his hopes could be so easily confirmed. But he scolded himself, forcing himself to be patient. Time would give him al of the answers, and then there would be no more need for needless speculation. He - and his empire - would know the truth.

 

That thought jarred the earnest look and boyish curiosity from his eyes, replacing them with a scowl (and the beginnings of a headache). In theory, the mob would be happy to hear more of their glorious past, hopefully exploring origins more ancient than they possibly could have imagined. But hte mob was a fickle thing, and how the people would react was difficult to predict at best. The Romans had a strong sense of pride and a stubborn will, so he didn't fear too much. It was no blow to Roman identity or pride to learn that there were "others" out there. They were, after all, past such superstitions as to believe that the universe revolved around their planet, and they were already quite comfortable with a firm schism separating "Roman" from "barbarian" (and always had been). It would be little hardship to reinstate a concept of "noble foreigner". Tradition had always held that there were other civilizations that had come before Rome, and until they had conquered their planet, the Romans had always believed that peoples of comparable strength to their own existed. But the only discoveries ever made were of people that matched... none of their stories. Barbarians, they had called them, and thought nothing more of it. A shame that they had never thought more on it...

 

Such ponderance, however, had to wait. Dusk was soon approaching, and as the head of the state religion as well as holding the consulship, Marcus had duties to perform even before seeing to his guests from offworld. Saturnalia was ready to begin, and until the people knew that there was something else to be excited about, the usual traditions had to be upheld. Then he could see to he very special guests.

Edited December 28, 2009 by Marcus Quintus