The Roman [antikvár]

BOOK IAntiochI WAS seven years old when the veteran Barbus saved my life. I remember well how I tricked my old nurse Sophronia into letting me go down to the banks of the river Orontes. The rapid swirling current attracted me and I leaned over the jetty to look at the bubbling water. Then Barbus approached me and asked in a friendly way:"Do you want to learn to swim, boy?"I replied that I did. He looked around, and grasping me by the back of my neck and the crotch, he flung me far out into the river. Then he let out a wild cry, calling on Hercules and the Roman Jupiter the Conqueror, and flinging his ragged cloak down on the jetty, he plunged into the water after me.People flocked to his cry. They all saw and unanimously testified to how Barbus, at the risk of his own life, saved me from drowning, carried me ashore, and rolled me on the ground to make me spew up the water I had swallowed. When Sophronia arrived, crying and tearing her hair, Barbus lifted me in his strong arms and carried me all the way home, although I struggled to get away from his filthy clothes and the smell of wine on his breath.My father was not particularly fond of me, but he plied Barbus with wine and accepted his explanation that I had slipped and fallen into the water. I did not contradict Barbus, for I was used to holding my tongue in my father's presence. On the contrary, I listened as if spellbound as Barbus modestly related how, during his time as a legionary, he had swum fully equipped across the Danube, the Rhine and even the Euphrates. My father drank wine, too, to calm his fears, and was himself disposed to relate how, as a youth at the school of philosophy in Rhodes, he had wagered that he could swim from Rhodes to the mainland. He and Barbus were in complete agreement that it was high time I learned to swim. My father gave Barbus some new clothes so