Chapter Text
The sound of screaming rose over a formerly quiet and picturesque patch of forest in the Hellenic countryside. So frantic and desperate was it that had any passersby overheard they would doubtless be compelled to rush to the poor screamer’s aid. But there were only three people in those woods that day; two of them had no good intentions for the unfortunate third.
“No! Untie me this instant! Do you have any idea who I am? I am the son—Don’t touch me! I am the son of King Phaedimion, you can’t do this to me! Release me now—”
The young prince Endymion gasped as his words were cut short by a stinging slap, one delivered so powerfully his head snapped to the side, his cheek tinged an instant rosy red, and he fell back to the ground. His wrists and ankles, bound with lengths of rope, were unable to catch his fall and he tumbled onto the dirt, the back of his head coming to rest on an out-jutting rock. His face flushed, not with pain but abject humiliation. He had come out to the forest, to his family’s forest, for a stroll and to hunt for wildflowers, only to be suddenly accosted by two disgusting brutes. Two brutes, a man and a woman, who now leaned over him, prodding his body with dirty fingers. Some feet away, his silk chiton, embroidered with threads of gold, lay in a torn up heap on the ground; it had been torn off him in the struggle, much to his captors' delight.
Now his entire naked form was on display. They leered at his plush chest and belly, his beautiful face wrenched in grief, the pink hairless cunt between two plump thighs. They already knew that such a beautiful specimen would keep them well fed for years on end, for the right price. His biology, so unsuited for the rigors of kingship, would fare perfectly as a plaything for a wealthy man or matron.
The woman grinned at him. She was tall, all sharp lines and muscular arms, a cruel sneer danced across her face. It wasn’t merely a sexual thrill of domination that delighted her, no. “Quiet, little princeling . If that’s indeed what you are. Why, for just a mere boy wandering alone in these woods, who’s to say you aren’t merely a runaway little slave? Am I wrong, Diamanus?” She looked at her partner.
Diamanus hadn’t even torn his eyes away from the boy, and now between his legs a distinctive tent was being pitched in the crotch of his robes. Endymion wanted to hurl . “Of course not, it would be cruel of us to leave such a pretty thing out here alone. Someone might come along to take advantage.” A hand reached out, Endymion recoiled as far as he could but then the man’s hand was on him , touching him, caressing his face with greasy fingers and untrimmed nails. “No, it would be best for us to ensure he makes it to a good and proper owner. Little slave things don’t belong in forests all by themselves.” At once, he turned serious and met his partner’s eyes. “We should go before anyone notices, this might be difficult to explain, especially if the boy starts getting uppity. I called the sailors to start preparing the ship this morning, they’ll be ready as soon as we get there.
Endymion sobbed, the full gravity of his situation only pressing harder and harder on his delicate constitution. He knew full well about roving gangs of slavers, pressing random helpless victims into slavery, whisking them away to far-off lands where they would never be seen by their families again. He knew if he was forced aboard that ship, he might never see the forests and mountains and valleys of his beloved home ever again. He writhed desperately in his bindings. “No! No no no no! They’ll kill you! My father will have all of you killed for this! My brothers and sisters will gather an army and comb every inch of Boeotia, you’ll be thrown from the highest cliff in the kingdom and your bones will be left to the dogs. If you force me on your ship, you’ll have an entire fleet chasing you within the day. Let me go, and no one will have to know about this.”
The nameless woman grabbed his face in her steely hands, squeezing his hairless cheeks. A strange fire burned in her eyes, a mad rage. “Or how about this, bitch . We’ll take you where we damn please, and you will shut up and take it. Or else, by the time we’re done with you your father won’t even want to take you back, if by the grace of Hades he finds you alive. And, if they look anything like you, we’ll take your brothers and sisters next.”
Endymion’s throat seized, his fear catching on his lips until all that could be heard was a weak rasp. Satisfied, the woman gave a hmph and released him. “Alright, let’s go. We should set a good pace if we want to get out of here quickly. I’ll carry the boy.” Without a second thought, she hooked her arms beneath his armpits and hauled him up and over her shoulder with as little effort as one might lug a half-full sack of grain. The two of them, their prize in hand, marched through the forest towards the coast.
He tried to struggle, he really did. He thrashed in his bindings, kicking as much as he could the woman in her chest, beating her back with impotent fists. It was like picking a fight with the walls of Troy. She was as if she was an Amazon, blessed with divine strength and sent to ruin his life. When she grabbed one of his legs and started to squeeze, squeezing so hard Endymion began to fear she might crush his leg entirely, he stopped. He let out a pathetic whine into the cloth folds on her back, and went limp. Useless…
They hiked for the entire day towards the coast in the distance, not that Endymion could see much. He could only feel the ground beneath them slowly slope downwards towards the sea.
Behind him, if he dared look up from the ground, the man would occasionally give him a smile, so full of cruelty (at least as Endymion saw it) that it made him shudder and drop his gaze back down again.
Finally, just as the sun began to dim, Endymion, half-unconscious from his stress, noticed the soil turn to sand and pebbles beneath the woman’s feet, and he could hear waves crashing against shore. Then, numerous voices. At last, the woman called out. “Heron! Board the men, we’re leaving now. I would like to be back in Rome within two weeks.”
There was a flurry of activity just out of view, and the next thing Endymion realized, his captor had carried him up a gangplank and dropped him roughly onto the wooden deck of a ship. For a moment, he was still, before wrestling with his bindings—he felt much like a fish out of water, flopping around on the deck—until he had managed to wrangle himself into a sitting position.
“Stay there, hm?” The woman laughed, then moved to leave.
“W-wait.” Endymion’s voice came out soft and scratched, his throat felt torn to pieces after an entire day out under the sun without a drink. “P-please, can I have something to drink?” He could already feel his face starting to heat up, exposed and kidnapped as he was and now having to beg for a sip of water or wine. But to his surprise, the woman’s face softened just a touch, and she gave a nod. She marched down the gangplank out of view, and returned a few moments later with a drinking cup.
She held out in front of him, with a taunting look on her face. “Well, here you are.” She feigned a look of surprise and a laugh, “ah! Yes, I forgot. Here, let me help.” She kneeled down with the cup, but as Endymion craned forward his neck she stopped. “Now what do we say?”
Endymion stared at her. At first, perhaps from dehydration, he was confused. It dawned on him slowly, just what she was asking. And a flash of anger jolted him. His immediate instinct was complete refusal, after debasing him so much today he drew this as his completely arbitrary line in the sand. He couldn’t beg, not again. She held the cup quite patiently, nonetheless. “Well? You said you were thirsty, no? This wine,” she brought it to her lips and took a deep gulp until a drop of dark liquid trickled down her chin, “is good stuff, fresh from Lesbos. You’re sure you don’t want any?”
Lesbian wine. What little fluid was left in Endymion’s body pooled in his mouth. His hands clenched angrily around nothing.
“I’m sure you’re very thirsty. But if you don’t want any, that’s perfectly alright. We might need to moisten you back up once we reach Italy, but that’s no big deal. I’ll just take the rest of this—”
“Please.”
She stopped, a slow smile spreading on her face. “Please—? What?”
“M-may I please have a drink?” Endymion clenched his eyes as tears pricked at the corners.
The woman coaxed him on in a slow, mocking tone. “May I please have a drink…? M—Miss—”
“—Mistress?”
She was beaming, genuinely. “Good boy, that wasn’t so hard, was it? You’ll need to get used to that kind of thing now, you know. Here, drink up.”
She lifted the cup to his lips and tipped it over, filling his mouth with wine as quickly as he could drink it down until it was overflowing down his chin and chest. Endymion, as he drank, could only grow even sadder that this wine really was good, and it reminded him so much of the wines he drank at home, wine which he may never taste again and a home he may never return to. He had been bluffing earlier; their city, which lay many miles in the heart of Boeotia, had no navy, at least no significant permanent one. Comb the lands though they might, they would never find him. His only hope would be the good graces of a random stranger or… or whomever purchased him.
The cup was empty, and as the woman pulled away Endymion slumped back, his grief overwhelming him until all he could do was curl up on the deck. Behind him, the sound of activity grew louder as sailors hauled supplies onto the deck and barked orders to prepare the ship for launch. At last, everything was ready and the gangway was hauled up from the sand, and Endymion could hear the ship’s hull scrape against the bottom as it pulled away from the coast, and the sail was full with a strong breeze. Not even Zephyr deigned to rescue this poor prince.
“Well, what have you brought for us today, Amalthea?” A deep, masculine voice spoke with partially broken Greek, in an accent he had never heard before.
“New merchandise, so unless you’re looking to buy it, hands off.”
“Huh, well it is quite a pretty one. You won’t even let him put on a show for us?”
“If these winds keep up, we’ll be back in Rome within two weeks. And we’ll have to stop at some point along the way for supplies. You’ll have all the shows you want then.”
Rome . She’d said that name before, and Endymion thought little of it. Some distant land he’d never heard of. But no, he had heard of it, only under a different name. He could remember! His father had received messengers of the fall of all the poleis in southern Italy to a country called Rome. The cities of Neapolis and Taras were overrun and almost all of their people massacred or sold into slavery. Endymion knew very little of these Romans , strange peoples who lived in far off Italy and worshipped their own strange gods, but If that was where he was going… a land where clearly they had no love for the Hellenes. Somehow, he felt the chances of him being rescued or found became even slimmer.
The sailor scoffed. “Fine. Should I put it down in the hold with the rest?”
She hummed for a moment. “No, keep him up here. I think I can fetch a good price for him, I’d like him to stay a little healthier. Besides,” there was no small amount of amusement in her voice, “we can always look at him.”
Lulled by the rocking of the waves and exhausted after a long day of stress and hardship, Endymion crashed out at just about that moment, curling a little tighter into himself and tugging at his bonds before slipping tearfully into the realm of sleep.
The winds held up well throughout the journey, pushing along the sleek merchant ship further and further west towards the heel of Italy. Only a few times were the sails stowed away and the men forced to take up the oars, though it never lasted long. And throughout the journey, Endymion could only sit on the deck in glum silence, hugging his knees to his chest without a scrap of clothing to preserve his dignity. The sailors, men and women alike, leered at him with eager and perverse gazes, and talked quite freely about what they would do to him if only they could. They likened his body, curvy and well fed from the easy life of a prince, to the statues of Aphrodite and nymphs carved by masters, even down to his small, apple-sized breasts piled on his chest. And though marble and bronze in the hand of a master might look soft and supple, Endymion’s pale flesh actually was.
Endymion, more than once, peered out through a port on the ship’s side at the churning wine-dark sea below and wondered if, in his bindings, he could throw himself off the side of the ship before anyone could stop him. He reasoned even drowning, in service of his own dignity, would be more merciful than what awaited him at his destination. He never went through with it, though. Whether because he deemed it impossible without proper use of his hands and legs, or out of fear, he couldn’t say.
And, for what it was worth, his captors, the woman who kidnapped him at least, did seem to value his preservation. If only for the gold and silver she might make off his sale. But she nonetheless sat by him and always kept any lecherous sailors from getting too close. They kept him shaded beneath the covered portions of the ship, hoping to keep his fine complexion intact. She brought him food in the mornings and evenings and plenty of water and wine to wash it down with. The food itself was awful; all salted meat and hard flatbread that needed a hammer and chisel or an hour soaking in broth before it was edible. The sailors ate it with relish, but to Endymion—used to meals cooked by the most skilled culinary slaves in Hellas and lavish banquets of roasted pork and beef and fresh game—it was food fit only for dogs. Only the desperation of hunger could force him to choke it down.
They sailed so far, even under favorable winds it took thirteen days and fourteen nights, with a stop for one night in a port city by the name of Tarentum—formerly Taras—for additional food and water. Endymion spent the time in periods of agonizing boredom and sheer terror, having nothing, no games or books, to occupy himself with. The sailors, other than eyeing him up like children to a piece of honey cake, ignored him, which Endymion didn’t mind. He at least had the fortune of being kept on deck. There, he could at least see the sky and feel the sun, and at night gaze up at the endless tapestry of stars above. It helped just a little. For the several dozen other doomed souls held captive aboard this ship, though, they weren’t so lucky. Other slaves carried in from other far-off lands and packed below deck in the darkness and filth with barely enough room to sit up, and only fed once a day—if they were lucky. Endymion wondered if any were like him; unfortunate innocent people who found themselves alone in the company of the wrong people at the wrong time, now lost to their homes and families forever. He tried not to think about it too much.
When dawn broke on the fourteenth day, the lookouts finally spotted their port of destination not much farther up the coast. While the sailors cheered for home and his captors eagerly awaited their fortunes, Endymion only felt a deep chasm opening in his gut.
They arrived at the port by noon. Encircled by an artificial wall around its perimeter, the port was by no means very large, but it easily had the most ships Endymion had ever seen in one place. From boats big enough only for two or three and a few pounds of cargo to hulking transports three or four times as large as the one Endymion was on, there must have been hundreds, even more than he saw on one trip to Piraeus. And as his ship approached, navigating around the breakwater and guided to a free berth in the inner harbor, the activity only increased.
By the time the ship jostled roughly against the pier, and sailors hurried back and forth to tie it down, he could see hundreds, if not thousands of people scurrying like ants all around. Sailors milled about their ships, preparing gear and loading or unloading cargo, men worked huge cranes to lift out loads of crates and jars, teams of donkeys hauled around overloaded carts or pulled boats from shore around the harbor and to the mouth of a nearby river, and administrators stood at every occupied pier marking down ships, people, and cargo in clay tablets(of which those like Endymion consisted of the third type).
He was knocked out of his shock with a firm smack to his back, causing him to turn and find his kidnapper standing there with a firm look on her face. “Come on, time to go. We’ll be heading up the Tiber river to Rome. Let’s go.” She grabbed him by the hands and dragged him up. In front of them, the rest of the “cargo,” perhaps three dozen men, women, and children were being led out of the hold and, on legs wobbly from malnourishment and disuse and eyes unaccustomed to the sun after so long, they were brought off the ship. Endymion felt ill watching them, they looked starved and half-dead and how easy would it have been for him to end up just like them. Instead he received all the food and drink he needed, and even all the kindness he could expect as a slave.
The bindings on his wrists and legs, loosened on the ship on account of there being nowhere to run to, were tightened again until he could barely move his hands and was forced to essentially hobble forward in tiny steps. His kidnapper manhandled him off the ship and down onto the pier, following closely behind the other slaves. It was then he noticed something else entirely off about his surroundings: not a single other person in the crowd was nude like he was. No slaves(other than himself), no old men on uncomfortable strolls, no young boys playing in the streets, everyone was dressed in cloaks and tunics and dresses and everyone seemed to stare at him. Even the other slaves from the ship still possessed scant dirty rags to cover themselves, but not Endymion. When they had torn his chiton off of him in the forest—which seemed so long ago, now—they had never replaced it with anything else.
They all looked at him, some with undisguised contempt, others seemed more excited. His face heated and he pressed his arms against himself, trying to shield his nudity. But his tied-up arms meant he couldn’t both hide his chest and his cunt at the same time, forcing him to reveal one or the other to the audience. He stumbled, until his captor shoved him forward with a violent push and forced him back onto his feet. It was only when they reached a small river boat at the mouth of the river, the Tiber he recalled, that he was finally given some relief. The boat was already lashed to a team of donkeys for the trek upriver, and he and the other slaves were hustled on and below deck for the journey.
No one spoke in the dark confines of the boat. At least he knew how it felt now, though. Around them through the thin hull they could hear continued activity, and eventually the boat lurched around them as they were dragged upriver. The hull scraped against the sandy bottom as, outside, the donkeys plodded along. They jostled against the other boats which crowded them, a massive traffic jam winding down the river all the way to the sea. It took hours, hours sitting in darkness with only a brief sob or cough punctuating the silence now and then.
It was mid afternoon when they reached their berth on a small dock jutting out into the river. One by one, each of them was hauled out of the hold and onto shore. They wobbled on their sea legs like newborn deer and stood in awe of the sights that unfolded around them.
This city was nothing that Endymion had ever seen before in his life. Even the splendor of Athens was closer to the mud brick huts of northern barbarians than the expansiveness of Rome . Before them, just beyond the wooden piers of the river stood a towering wall of roughly hewn stone, not unlike the one built around Endymion’s own city, but already the city seemed to spill beyond its own boundaries in every direction. Even outside the walls, buildings sprawled almost endlessly, most three if not four stories tall. And within the walls themselves, building after building towered many times higher than even the grandest Hellene city house. In the far-off distance, he could see tall hills, each capped with grand temples and other well-decorated buildings. Countless inhabitants of all ages milled about through the cobbled streets, carts and draft animals pulling loads to and fro warehouses, dogs and cats prowled between their legs for mice.
He barely noticed when he and the others were dragged along, bound in ropes, down the street.
The narrow roads of Rome were long, winding, and in many cases dark. The buildings on either side towered so high that the sun’s rays could not peer down to the street level. All around them, inhabitants free and enslaved moved about their daily lives, most barely looking up at the congregation of fresh slaves marching past. Only a few stopped to look at Endymion, before inevitably turning back to their tasks.
As they walked, with a destination known to no one but their guards, Endymion could see many different sights, each grander and stranger. Tall, regal looking buildings and towering monuments topped with gold and bronze statues and a colossal stadium far larger than he was used to and an alleyway occupied by dozens of nude men and women which nearly gave him hope until he realized that was, in fact, a brothel, and so many other things he could neither describe nor remember. It was almost overwhelming on his exhausted, drained psyche and the only thing which forced him along was the steady plodding of slaves in front and behind him.
They reached a large, open space paved with stone and lined with great buildings and temples and towering columns. Stalls cramped the edges of the space, and hundreds milled about, buying and selling goods or in conversation with their peers or merely wandering about. Endymion immediately recognized this as some kind of agora , a gathering place and market for the city. And exactly, surely, why he was here as well.
The crowd of slaves broke up here, small groups taken off by individual sellers, each providing their compensation to the woman in exchange for their pick of merchandise. Only Endymion and a few others remained, led further and further through the forum.
“Come on, after me now.” The woman herded them to a sizable stall on the edge of the agora. There was another attendant and a handful of slaves already there, a few being inspected by passersby. One by one, Endymion watched his fellows tied down or chained up to the stall. Some hung from the low ceiling by the bindings on their wrists, others immobilized by their legs. Finally, she dragged Endymion forward, ignoring his pathetic whimpering as she did the latter, tying the ropes around his ankles to an iron peg lodged in the floor. At least he could sit like this, though every time he tried the woman would swiftly cuff him around the ear and force him to stand again.
All around them, the city passed. Most didn’t stop to pay attention to the slave stand before them, far too poor as they were for much more than their daily meals of coarse bread and cheese. A few, clearly wealthier, stopped for a look. They conversed with the seller in a language he couldn’t understand, some bartering and haggling and even one girl, about his age, finally being led off after an exchange of coins. Another, an older man with well built muscles, shortly followed. And more after that. A few took interest in Endymion, looking him up and down and kneading his flesh and talking to the seller, but something always drove them off, usually with no small amount of shock or disgust. It almost rankled him, in a strange way. Was he not good enough? Already he had been so debased by his literal kidnapping from his home and rightful station as a prince and now even these Italian barbaroi didn’t want him? It was a silly thought, but how could he stop himself?
It was getting late, the sun was dimming and even before setting completely the great cluster of buildings all around meant it was dark enough to be hard to see. Endymion wondered if they would be left out here in the night as, presumably, their seller went off to lounge about in her home or an inn. Worse still, he began to feel hungry. Still, he didn’t dare move or complain.
Just as the sun was beginning to set, his seller shouted out into the crowd and waved a hand over her head. Moments later, another person slipped out of the throng of people in the direction of the stall. It was another woman, this one tall and regal. She was dressed in a clean white, long robe, trimmed around the hem with red, much like the ones he had seen on other wealthy folk in this city. It was, like the others, so long around her that it curled in great folds and she held out one arm crooked by her side to hold it up. Overall incredibly impractical if she was forced to constantly keep an arm occupied like that. Occasionally a flash of arm or leg would appear from behind the folds of wool and reveal strong, lean muscle and tanned skin. She held herself high and haughty, and he didn’t even need to look at the gold and silver rings dazzling on her fingers to understand that this was a very wealthy woman. Behind her, she was flanked by two towering brutes, a man and woman even taller than she and built like Heracles, and dressed in simple tunics that came down about their thighs that showed off every inch of quivering muscle. They were unarmed, but they held themselves unmistakably like bodyguards.
The trio stalked through the crowd towards us, the two bodyguards holding themselves behind their master close enough to drive away anyone who got too close, though the crowd seemed to part around them of their own volition. The woman and his seller began to talk, and Endymion tried to follow their conversation though he wasn’t able to understand their language. They talked quickly and easily, casually like they knew each other well. Or at least he assumed, he still couldn’t understand them.
Eventually, the seller waved the noblewoman over to him and the other slaves, and she heaved an exaggerated sigh and began inspecting them, though she was still smiling and talking while she did so. The seller said something, and she laughed before skipping straight over the bulk of the slaves and beelining straight for Endymion. And then she was before him.
She was tall. Of course he noticed as soon as he saw her but only standing directly in front of her did he realize that she was tall . If his kidnapper had been tall, she was an Olympian in stature. Endymion was, to be sure, quite short but the top of his head didn’t even reach her chest, and he was forced to crane up his neck to look at her. Was she, if only in part, a Scythian by blood? Or Celtic? A few of them had filtered in and out of his father’s court as slaves, and only they approached the height of this woman.
She kneeled down, coming level with his face as she grabbed his chin with a forceful but merciful grip. She turned his head this way and that while he tried to stay calm. Her eyes roamed lower still. When finally she spoke to him in that alien tongue, and he didn’t respond beyond a confused and bashful look, she turned back to the seller and exchanged a few words. And then she broke into Greek.
“What’s your name, sweetheart?”
Endymion was momentarily so stunned that only a weak croak slipped from his throat. Her Greek was difficult to parse, it wasn’t native to his own Boeotia—perhaps it was from Athens? He hadn’t heard much Attic before but it was familiar—but she spoke it well enough that he could make out what she was saying, and even her accent wasn’t so strong.
“I— Endymion, ma’am.” He lowered his head out of deference.
“Mh… tell me, Endymion, who are your parents? Did Venus herself take your father as a lover? Or perhaps Apollo bade your mother to his palace? Or did your father encounter a delicate nymph on a mountain path? I can think of no other reason to account for such divine beauty. If you are not of the gods, then at the very least you have been blessed by them more than any other.”
He almost wanted to laugh in her face, had he been a more bold person. Blessed by the gods? Is that why I’m here now? A slave kidnapped from my home and sold to the highest bidder? To be used only according to the whims of my master? He could feel his face burning. Though to be compared to the beauty of a god was rare—and dangerous. He gritted his teeth. “No, m-ma’am.” He gathered his wits and spoke as clearly and formally as he could, “I am the son of King Phaedimion and Queen Polydora of Thebes. I was taken from my rightful place in my father’s court and reduced to- to a slave.”
Her brow rose up her forehead and she took up his face in her hands again. Her touch was warm, but her fingers were calloused and tough. “Really? A prince brought to Rome? Oh, talk about blessings! Lady Fortuna—” she broke off, and asked a hasty question to the seller, who simply nodded in return. A rapid exchange followed, though Endymion only managed to pick up on it when the woman pulled out a sack from the folds of her cloak and weighed it in one hand. It jingled with the unmistakable sound of coin. Bartering .
Endymion felt his blood chill in his veins. Of course he knew his fate as a slave was to eventually be sold to an owner, but was it happening now? He was more than nervous, he was scared .
Eventually, the woman thrust out the entire bag of coins to the seller, who immediately fished one out to reveal a large, golden coin. Apparently satisfied, the seller moved to untie him. He was still a little stunned when his arms came free, only to then be grabbed by the woman—his new owner…
Endymion yelped when she gripped his hand and heaved him into the air, until they were face-to-face. Her grip was painfully unbreakable and it felt like she nearly tore his arm from his shoulder. “Now listen, little prince. I’m your new owner now, understand? I know you’re hardly used to serving others, but I think you’ll come to learn quickly. My name is Octavia, but you will call me master.”