Olivia of Tropea

Tropea, Bruttium, 203-201BC.

For years Hannibal the Carthaginian general has rampaged over Roman territory but now he is confined to Bruttium, in the toe of Italy. Roman armies are closing in.

Perched atop an almost vertical limestone cliff the small Greek town of Tropea looks out onto the blue of the Mediterranean Sea; in the distance the volcanic island of Stromboli smokes gently from its cone.

At the house of Julia Pompona Nerva, wife of the garrison commander, it was the hour of the bath.

Her slave girls Olivia, Marcella, and Sophronia had carried the water, heated it and now poured it into the stone bath until it was warm but not too hot.

They disrobed Julia Pompona and she slid into the water. The girls gently scraped her body with a strigil and a sea sponge then massaged scented olive oils into her skin.

A woman of thirty two, Julia had a haughty elegance. She was from Rome and she liked people to know it. Bruttium was still being conquered from the Greeks of Magna Graecia. Tropea city had quickly fallen, through its port, but the Roman garrison only held the town and the harbour.

The girls, as befitted their standing as body slaves, were simply dressed in linen chitons; ankle length tunics.

It was warm and humid in the bath house and the perfumed oils made the atmosphere heavy with aroma.

The reverie was broken by a slave girl bursting in and breathlessly relaying something in a loud voice to Julia Pompona,

“The Carthaginians are attacking – your husband sent me.”

Julia Pompona was an experienced soldier’s wife. She had been under siege before. She thanked the messenger and continued her bath.

“Be calm girls, we have a strong garrison, and high walls, they will be repulsed.”

Olivia shook with fear. She was a bonded slave, but from a high born Greek family. Her father had been in the palace guard and had been killed when the Romans took the citadel. Julia Pompona had taken pity on the family, Olivia was pretty, ideal for a body slave. Olivia’s mother was allowed to leave the citadel for relatives further inland.

But

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Texte: alastair macleod
Bildmaterialien: alastair macleod; "Greek Girl" purchased from Dreamstime royalty free photos; by nemesisinc
Lektorat: alastair macleod
Übersetzung: cover typeset in goodfish
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 02.11.2016
ISBN: 978-3-7396-8151-1

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Widmung:
To the peoples of Calabria and to Olivia