(no subject)
Name of Recipient: 
mikomiyoko18
Type of Gift: Fanfiction
Rating: PG/PG-13
Title: Amor Omnia Vincit (5/5)
Summary: The tale of a great Roman centurion, the slave he would never have willingly chosen, and the greater force that brings the two of them together.
Author Notes: And as predicted, much later than I ever would have hoped. Ah, well. Such is life, right? It's been an absolute delight working on this, and I shall miss it dearly. Thank you again, mikomiyoko, for the wonderful prompt - you cannot know how happy it has made me. :) And now for the conclusion! Enjoy!
The city is everything Ludovicus remembers it as, and clearly more than Felicianus could ever have imagined it to be. He stays especially close to his side as they walk down the bustling roads, his eyes taking in his surroundings with awe and not a little bit of fear. Ludovicus is careful to keep him nearby, to serve as a shield between the younger man and this strange new world.
All around them, the city is thriving - merchants peddling their wares, men giving speeches, others arguing, all living out their lives in one great, swarming bedlam - but Ludovicus can only see Felicianus, and can only ponder the task ahead.
Eventually they wander down the street that leads to Ludovicus’ home, if it can be called that. For all its grandeur, he has been here very little over the past few years, and it feels almost as alien to him as he is sure it does to his companion.
They enter the place together, and Ludovicus gives him a tour: the bedrooms, the kitchen, the dining room and the study and the shrine to the household gods. All the while, Felicianus’ eyes shine, and he clings eagerly to every little bit of information Ludovicus gives him, even as his body begins to sag with exhaustion. Soon after they have seen everything, he asks if he may go to sleep, and Ludovicus responds with a firm nod, and fetches him pillows and blankets from the back room to adorn one of the beds. He assures him that he may sleep as long as he likes, and makes sure he is comfortable before he leaves him to doze off.
When Felicianus is asleep - almost immediately, as he is surely quite weary from the journey - Ludovicus sends out a message to some of his father’s old acquaintances to come to dinner the next evening. There is no running from it anymore.
For the first time in months, Ludovicus lies down to go to sleep alone.
~^~
The next evening, the dinner takes place.
Ludovicus is slightly uncomfortable - these are his father’s friends, after all, not his - but he manages to converse with them well enough, his goal firmly in mind. Felicianus helps to serve the food, playing his part perfectly.
“Thank you, puer,” one of them says, with a somewhat doting smile. He turns to Ludovicus summarily, with an expression as if asking whether he is willing to begin.
“…Felicianus?” Ludovicus asks softly. “Will you recline with us?” Here he gestures to the couch to his right, left open quite intentionally.
Felicianus looks up, somewhat perplexed. “All right!” he replies with his usual smile, after a short pause. He sets down his tray and sits on the couch, mimicking Ludovicus’ posture and managing to recline with a fair amount of dignity, for it being his first attempt. He glances back to him, searching for approval, and Ludovicus gives a small smile and nods to indicate that he has done well.
They dine, and it is delicious. Ludovicus accepts the praise from his guests somewhat blindly, unable to focus on the food in the face of what will come after. Within the hour, the life he has come to know will be forever changed.
Once the meal is done and all has grown quiet again, the gray-haired man across the room looks to Ludovicus, and passes a scroll to him.
Drawing a deep breath, Ludovicus unrolls it and looks over the contents. Everything seems to have been prepared just as they agreed. He takes a quill in hand, and he begins to write carefully: “I, Ludovicus Quinctius Triarius…”
Felicianus is too distracted by the good food at first to notice this, but he looks up curiously as Ludovicus carefully passes the scroll to the man to his left, who also begins to write upon it.
“What strange things the gods do bring to us,” another murmurs. “As if you are not already miracle enough, Ludovicus!”
“Miracle?” Felicianus seems to speak this before he thinks about whether or not he should speak at all, and moves to apologize to the one he addressed, but the older man waves him off, propriety loosened by good food and better drink.
“Your master,” the man continues, “is perhaps the most accomplished freedman in all of Rome!”
Ludovicus feels his face heat, and when he looks over, Felicianus is looking back with every ounce of disbelief a man can have.
“…free… freedman?”
“Has he not told you?” A younger man, a senator, speaks up, as the older man busies himself with the scroll that has just been passed to him. “He was brought from the reaches of the north as a child. Old Aulus took him in, with his father. He passed in a year or two, and Aulus raised him as his own. Set him free when he came of age. He trained and joined the army, and now! You would never guess that the man before you once served at these very tables, would you?”
Felicianus continues to stare at him, seemingly in shock. Ludovicus hopes he understands why he would keep such a thing secret… it was not with any poor intentions, but rather because … because…
… because he did not want to seem as if he were doing this out of obligation.
At last the scroll comes to Felicianus, who stares at it blankly; he can speak Latin, but not read it. “…what … what does it say?” he asks, though his inquiry is higher pitched than it might have otherwise been.
Ludovicus steadies himself again, and then takes it from him with the gentlest of touches. Placing it in front of himself, he reads aloud: “I, Ludovicus Quinctius Triarius, have set free, amongst friends, my sole slave, a man of roughly twenty-one years, Felicianus.”
He hears a sharp gasp, and forces himself to continue. “I give him ten thousand silver denarii in hopes that he may begin a new life prosperously.”
Without looking up, Ludovicus passes the scroll to his left. The older man takes it and reads from it as well. “I, Gaius Caecilius Iucundus, witness this.”
After him, the senator, with a small smile. “I, Titus Vitellius Maro, also witness this.”
And then, at last, the gray-haired man across the table. “I, Appius Claudius Marcellus, also witness this.”
The scroll makes its way back to Felicianus at last, though it rests idly before him. He simply stares forward, unseeing. Ludovicus looks at him, trying to pin down the emotions he sees playing across those familiar features, and yet, for once, he is unable.
The party continues almost entirely on its own momentum; thankfully, the guests are good at chatting amongst themselves. Toasts are made and smiles are plentiful - manumissions always create a feeling of warmth, even for those merely witnessing. Felicianus copies their movements, though dazed.
Some deal of time later, the dinner slowly draws to a close, and the guests leave, offering their congratulations as they go. Once Ludovicus has well-wished Gaius for the last time, he is finally left alone with Felicianus.
He turns to look at him, and finds him mostly as he has been since the ceremony: stunned, as if he has just been woken suddenly out of a long sleep.
After a long silence, Ludovicus speaks up. “Do you understand? You are free.”
Felicianus nods. “I …I know that, but…” He twists the edge of his tunic nervously. “…do… I have to leave?”
Something aches deep in Ludovicus’ chest, and every ounce of his being begs him to reply with a simple no, but it is muddled by the time it makes its way up to his mouth. “You… may do whatever you please now,” he replies, trying to keep his tone from betraying anything. He must give him this chance. He must.
Swallowing, Ludovicus continues. “I am now your patron. As such, I will finance anything you should desire to pursue, in addition to the sum I have promised you. You are always welcome in my home, but there will be land and a house of your own, as well, if you would like…”
“Do you want me to leave?”
Felicianus’ voice is abrupt, hurt. Ludovicus is silenced by it, and can only borrow words from what feels like an eternity ago.
“…you told me once that you wanted to find a way to be happy,” he says, his voice faltering a little. “I want you to find whatever it is that would make you happiest.”
From the look on Felicianus’ face, he can tell that he is about to decide rashly, and so he adds, “Think about it tonight, for me. Please.”
This seems to give him pause, and Felicianus nods in reply. “…I will.”
Ludovicus steps aside to allow him to walk to his bedroom, but he finds arms around his waist instead. Felicianus embraces him tightly, his head again over the now-familiar beat of his heart.
“Thank you, Ludovicus,” he whispers, and in that instant, the warmth of their nights spent together floods back, and Ludovicus holds him in turn.
When he pulls away, his arms slipping from the other’s shoulders, he wears a crooked smile, somewhere between joy and sorrow. “…anything for a friend,” Ludovicus justifies quietly.
That night is the most sleepless of his entire life. Every moment, he wants to run and check on Felicianus, to see if he has decided… and yet, he must not. He tosses and turns on his blankets, trying to fool himself into shutting his eyes. It does not work.
He waits until morning before he allows himself to reemerge from his chambers.
When he does, he finds that Felicianus is gone.
Immediately he tries to stem the bitter tide of loss, jealousy, and perhaps, just perhaps, simple heartbreak that storms him. He moves quickly to find some other task to do, something to keep his mind away from the confusing swarm of emotions that threatens to overtake it.
Hours later, he is working at his desk, arranging the numbers behind Feliciano’s freedom and his presumed choice of land, when he hears someone at the door. Setting down his things, he goes to answer it, picking up a ring that Gaius managed to leave behind - surely he is here to reclaim -
“Salve, Ludovicus!”
The ring falls to the floor as Ludovicus lays eyes, again, on Felicianus, standing before him with a great many foodstuffs in his hands.
“F…Felicianus,” he replies as evenly as he can, quickly picking up what he dropped. “Do you need some help with that?”
“Actually,” he chimes, “I came with a question for you.”
Without further ado, he walks in, setting the various meats and vegetables down as if he is in his own house. He then turns back to Ludovicus.
“…I noticed you had to hire a cook for last night. You do not have one living here?”
Ludovicus shakes his head, and Felicianus’ smile grows. “…I think you could use one.”
The implication hits Ludovicus in a way that makes him look exceptionally dumbfounded, and he replies with a gape to rival Feliciano’s earlier. “…would … you be interested in such a job?”
Felicianus nods, positively radiant.
“But - but you are not my servant anymore,” Ludovicus stammers. “I do not wish you to do this out of - out of a feeling that you have a debt to me that you must -”
He is cut off by Felicianus’ lips against his, soft yet unyielding.
When younger man pulls back, Ludovicus is rendered completely speechless.
Felicianus smiles at him, laughing just a little at the look on his face. “You told me to find what makes me happiest,” he explains simply. “But you see, I have already found that.” His hand strays to Ludovicus’, smaller fingers twining with larger. His other hand strays to trace along high cheekbones, and falls away only as he rests his cheek on his shoulder. “And I would be foolish to leave it.”
It is a few moments before Ludovicus has fully realized what has happened. But when he does, he pulls Felicianus to his chest, and he does not know when, if ever, he will let him go again. He thanks the gods, the fates, anyone he can think of to thank for the fact that, in the end, he did not have to sacrifice that which he held most dear in order to save it.
“You will stay as my equal,” he whispers. “Nothing less.”
This earns him a small, melodic laugh and a nod, and so it is that things change between them forever.
When at last they separate, Ludovicus bends and kisses him in turn, nearly overwhelmed by the sheer novelty of the gesture in this context. He trusts it will grow familiar in time; they have all of eternity ahead of them yet.
For now, he takes Felicianus’ hand, and looks into those beautiful, warm eyes, and together they walk from the hall and into the house that has at last become a home.
-----
A small large sea of additional author's notes:
puer - Latin for "boy," the common way for a citizen to address a slave.
Ludovicus Quinctius Triarius and other three-part names - Names were a big deal in Roman society; hence actual citizens have three, and slaves only have one. The first name is the equivalent of first names in our times, the way an individual was known; the second name was the family name; the third, the "clan" name, or the name of the bigger family to which the family in question belonged.
The manumission, and the manumission ceremony - Hoo boy, there is a lot to be said about this. Appropriately, the word "manumission" is a Latin derivative, from "manu" meaning "hand" and "mittere" meaning "to send," and thus "to send from the hand" or "to free." Manumission of slaves was pretty common in ancient Rome, for a variety of reasons. Here, we see two methods of manumission. The first is subtle, when Ludovicus invites Felicianus to recline with the rest of the guests (remembering that the Romans ate while lying on couches); only a Roman citizen would be allowed to recline at the table, and so inviting a slave to recline is implicitly making him or her a citizen. The second method, of course, is the deed signed by the master himself and several friends, known as manumission inter amicos. There's also a more formal ceremony involving a rod and getting slapped across the face, but I didn't feel like it would quite fit; you can read all about it over HERE
"I am now your patron. As such, I will finance anything you should desire to pursue, in addition to the sum I have promised you." - Ludovicus is being nice about this; in reality, there is a good deal of give-and-take to most patron-client relationships. A Roman patron was a wealthy, often powerful Roman citizen; the patron's duty to his clients would be to provide money, favors, and a sort of quasi-familial protection. A Roman client could be anything, including and often a freedman of the patron, but did have to be a citizen; in return for all these things, the client would provide the patron with his vote and his support in all his endeavors. The more clients a patron had, the more status the patron was perceived to have.
Salve - pronounced "sal-way," a traditional Roman greeting.
Homosexuality in Rome - The Romans did not perceive homosexuality the same way Western society afterwards would. While it was not entirely accepted, and perceived still as somewhat of a perversion, it was fairly common-place, and fairly normal. In fact, in this early Imperial period, gay marriage was not unheard of in Roman society by any means (although legal recognition varied).
Okay, yeah, there's no way that could actually happen. - Oh, but there is. The freedman in Rome had all the power of a citizen, and even more if he had connections to an important individual like Ludovicus did (which was certainly possible). Given that, and the fact that a freedman could do anything, there is nothing historically that would stop a freedman from rising in the ranks of the Roman army and going on to own and manumit a slave of his own! Marvelous, isn't it?
mikomiyoko18
Type of Gift: Fanfiction
Rating: PG/PG-13
Title: Amor Omnia Vincit (5/5)
Summary: The tale of a great Roman centurion, the slave he would never have willingly chosen, and the greater force that brings the two of them together.
Author Notes: And as predicted, much later than I ever would have hoped. Ah, well. Such is life, right? It's been an absolute delight working on this, and I shall miss it dearly. Thank you again, mikomiyoko, for the wonderful prompt - you cannot know how happy it has made me. :) And now for the conclusion! Enjoy!
The city is everything Ludovicus remembers it as, and clearly more than Felicianus could ever have imagined it to be. He stays especially close to his side as they walk down the bustling roads, his eyes taking in his surroundings with awe and not a little bit of fear. Ludovicus is careful to keep him nearby, to serve as a shield between the younger man and this strange new world.
All around them, the city is thriving - merchants peddling their wares, men giving speeches, others arguing, all living out their lives in one great, swarming bedlam - but Ludovicus can only see Felicianus, and can only ponder the task ahead.
Eventually they wander down the street that leads to Ludovicus’ home, if it can be called that. For all its grandeur, he has been here very little over the past few years, and it feels almost as alien to him as he is sure it does to his companion.
They enter the place together, and Ludovicus gives him a tour: the bedrooms, the kitchen, the dining room and the study and the shrine to the household gods. All the while, Felicianus’ eyes shine, and he clings eagerly to every little bit of information Ludovicus gives him, even as his body begins to sag with exhaustion. Soon after they have seen everything, he asks if he may go to sleep, and Ludovicus responds with a firm nod, and fetches him pillows and blankets from the back room to adorn one of the beds. He assures him that he may sleep as long as he likes, and makes sure he is comfortable before he leaves him to doze off.
When Felicianus is asleep - almost immediately, as he is surely quite weary from the journey - Ludovicus sends out a message to some of his father’s old acquaintances to come to dinner the next evening. There is no running from it anymore.
For the first time in months, Ludovicus lies down to go to sleep alone.
~^~
The next evening, the dinner takes place.
Ludovicus is slightly uncomfortable - these are his father’s friends, after all, not his - but he manages to converse with them well enough, his goal firmly in mind. Felicianus helps to serve the food, playing his part perfectly.
“Thank you, puer,” one of them says, with a somewhat doting smile. He turns to Ludovicus summarily, with an expression as if asking whether he is willing to begin.
“…Felicianus?” Ludovicus asks softly. “Will you recline with us?” Here he gestures to the couch to his right, left open quite intentionally.
Felicianus looks up, somewhat perplexed. “All right!” he replies with his usual smile, after a short pause. He sets down his tray and sits on the couch, mimicking Ludovicus’ posture and managing to recline with a fair amount of dignity, for it being his first attempt. He glances back to him, searching for approval, and Ludovicus gives a small smile and nods to indicate that he has done well.
They dine, and it is delicious. Ludovicus accepts the praise from his guests somewhat blindly, unable to focus on the food in the face of what will come after. Within the hour, the life he has come to know will be forever changed.
Once the meal is done and all has grown quiet again, the gray-haired man across the room looks to Ludovicus, and passes a scroll to him.
Drawing a deep breath, Ludovicus unrolls it and looks over the contents. Everything seems to have been prepared just as they agreed. He takes a quill in hand, and he begins to write carefully: “I, Ludovicus Quinctius Triarius…”
Felicianus is too distracted by the good food at first to notice this, but he looks up curiously as Ludovicus carefully passes the scroll to the man to his left, who also begins to write upon it.
“What strange things the gods do bring to us,” another murmurs. “As if you are not already miracle enough, Ludovicus!”
“Miracle?” Felicianus seems to speak this before he thinks about whether or not he should speak at all, and moves to apologize to the one he addressed, but the older man waves him off, propriety loosened by good food and better drink.
“Your master,” the man continues, “is perhaps the most accomplished freedman in all of Rome!”
Ludovicus feels his face heat, and when he looks over, Felicianus is looking back with every ounce of disbelief a man can have.
“…free… freedman?”
“Has he not told you?” A younger man, a senator, speaks up, as the older man busies himself with the scroll that has just been passed to him. “He was brought from the reaches of the north as a child. Old Aulus took him in, with his father. He passed in a year or two, and Aulus raised him as his own. Set him free when he came of age. He trained and joined the army, and now! You would never guess that the man before you once served at these very tables, would you?”
Felicianus continues to stare at him, seemingly in shock. Ludovicus hopes he understands why he would keep such a thing secret… it was not with any poor intentions, but rather because … because…
… because he did not want to seem as if he were doing this out of obligation.
At last the scroll comes to Felicianus, who stares at it blankly; he can speak Latin, but not read it. “…what … what does it say?” he asks, though his inquiry is higher pitched than it might have otherwise been.
Ludovicus steadies himself again, and then takes it from him with the gentlest of touches. Placing it in front of himself, he reads aloud: “I, Ludovicus Quinctius Triarius, have set free, amongst friends, my sole slave, a man of roughly twenty-one years, Felicianus.”
He hears a sharp gasp, and forces himself to continue. “I give him ten thousand silver denarii in hopes that he may begin a new life prosperously.”
Without looking up, Ludovicus passes the scroll to his left. The older man takes it and reads from it as well. “I, Gaius Caecilius Iucundus, witness this.”
After him, the senator, with a small smile. “I, Titus Vitellius Maro, also witness this.”
And then, at last, the gray-haired man across the table. “I, Appius Claudius Marcellus, also witness this.”
The scroll makes its way back to Felicianus at last, though it rests idly before him. He simply stares forward, unseeing. Ludovicus looks at him, trying to pin down the emotions he sees playing across those familiar features, and yet, for once, he is unable.
The party continues almost entirely on its own momentum; thankfully, the guests are good at chatting amongst themselves. Toasts are made and smiles are plentiful - manumissions always create a feeling of warmth, even for those merely witnessing. Felicianus copies their movements, though dazed.
Some deal of time later, the dinner slowly draws to a close, and the guests leave, offering their congratulations as they go. Once Ludovicus has well-wished Gaius for the last time, he is finally left alone with Felicianus.
He turns to look at him, and finds him mostly as he has been since the ceremony: stunned, as if he has just been woken suddenly out of a long sleep.
After a long silence, Ludovicus speaks up. “Do you understand? You are free.”
Felicianus nods. “I …I know that, but…” He twists the edge of his tunic nervously. “…do… I have to leave?”
Something aches deep in Ludovicus’ chest, and every ounce of his being begs him to reply with a simple no, but it is muddled by the time it makes its way up to his mouth. “You… may do whatever you please now,” he replies, trying to keep his tone from betraying anything. He must give him this chance. He must.
Swallowing, Ludovicus continues. “I am now your patron. As such, I will finance anything you should desire to pursue, in addition to the sum I have promised you. You are always welcome in my home, but there will be land and a house of your own, as well, if you would like…”
“Do you want me to leave?”
Felicianus’ voice is abrupt, hurt. Ludovicus is silenced by it, and can only borrow words from what feels like an eternity ago.
“…you told me once that you wanted to find a way to be happy,” he says, his voice faltering a little. “I want you to find whatever it is that would make you happiest.”
From the look on Felicianus’ face, he can tell that he is about to decide rashly, and so he adds, “Think about it tonight, for me. Please.”
This seems to give him pause, and Felicianus nods in reply. “…I will.”
Ludovicus steps aside to allow him to walk to his bedroom, but he finds arms around his waist instead. Felicianus embraces him tightly, his head again over the now-familiar beat of his heart.
“Thank you, Ludovicus,” he whispers, and in that instant, the warmth of their nights spent together floods back, and Ludovicus holds him in turn.
When he pulls away, his arms slipping from the other’s shoulders, he wears a crooked smile, somewhere between joy and sorrow. “…anything for a friend,” Ludovicus justifies quietly.
That night is the most sleepless of his entire life. Every moment, he wants to run and check on Felicianus, to see if he has decided… and yet, he must not. He tosses and turns on his blankets, trying to fool himself into shutting his eyes. It does not work.
He waits until morning before he allows himself to reemerge from his chambers.
When he does, he finds that Felicianus is gone.
Immediately he tries to stem the bitter tide of loss, jealousy, and perhaps, just perhaps, simple heartbreak that storms him. He moves quickly to find some other task to do, something to keep his mind away from the confusing swarm of emotions that threatens to overtake it.
Hours later, he is working at his desk, arranging the numbers behind Feliciano’s freedom and his presumed choice of land, when he hears someone at the door. Setting down his things, he goes to answer it, picking up a ring that Gaius managed to leave behind - surely he is here to reclaim -
“Salve, Ludovicus!”
The ring falls to the floor as Ludovicus lays eyes, again, on Felicianus, standing before him with a great many foodstuffs in his hands.
“F…Felicianus,” he replies as evenly as he can, quickly picking up what he dropped. “Do you need some help with that?”
“Actually,” he chimes, “I came with a question for you.”
Without further ado, he walks in, setting the various meats and vegetables down as if he is in his own house. He then turns back to Ludovicus.
“…I noticed you had to hire a cook for last night. You do not have one living here?”
Ludovicus shakes his head, and Felicianus’ smile grows. “…I think you could use one.”
The implication hits Ludovicus in a way that makes him look exceptionally dumbfounded, and he replies with a gape to rival Feliciano’s earlier. “…would … you be interested in such a job?”
Felicianus nods, positively radiant.
“But - but you are not my servant anymore,” Ludovicus stammers. “I do not wish you to do this out of - out of a feeling that you have a debt to me that you must -”
He is cut off by Felicianus’ lips against his, soft yet unyielding.
When younger man pulls back, Ludovicus is rendered completely speechless.
Felicianus smiles at him, laughing just a little at the look on his face. “You told me to find what makes me happiest,” he explains simply. “But you see, I have already found that.” His hand strays to Ludovicus’, smaller fingers twining with larger. His other hand strays to trace along high cheekbones, and falls away only as he rests his cheek on his shoulder. “And I would be foolish to leave it.”
It is a few moments before Ludovicus has fully realized what has happened. But when he does, he pulls Felicianus to his chest, and he does not know when, if ever, he will let him go again. He thanks the gods, the fates, anyone he can think of to thank for the fact that, in the end, he did not have to sacrifice that which he held most dear in order to save it.
“You will stay as my equal,” he whispers. “Nothing less.”
This earns him a small, melodic laugh and a nod, and so it is that things change between them forever.
When at last they separate, Ludovicus bends and kisses him in turn, nearly overwhelmed by the sheer novelty of the gesture in this context. He trusts it will grow familiar in time; they have all of eternity ahead of them yet.
For now, he takes Felicianus’ hand, and looks into those beautiful, warm eyes, and together they walk from the hall and into the house that has at last become a home.
-----
A small large sea of additional author's notes:
puer - Latin for "boy," the common way for a citizen to address a slave.
Ludovicus Quinctius Triarius and other three-part names - Names were a big deal in Roman society; hence actual citizens have three, and slaves only have one. The first name is the equivalent of first names in our times, the way an individual was known; the second name was the family name; the third, the "clan" name, or the name of the bigger family to which the family in question belonged.
The manumission, and the manumission ceremony - Hoo boy, there is a lot to be said about this. Appropriately, the word "manumission" is a Latin derivative, from "manu" meaning "hand" and "mittere" meaning "to send," and thus "to send from the hand" or "to free." Manumission of slaves was pretty common in ancient Rome, for a variety of reasons. Here, we see two methods of manumission. The first is subtle, when Ludovicus invites Felicianus to recline with the rest of the guests (remembering that the Romans ate while lying on couches); only a Roman citizen would be allowed to recline at the table, and so inviting a slave to recline is implicitly making him or her a citizen. The second method, of course, is the deed signed by the master himself and several friends, known as manumission inter amicos. There's also a more formal ceremony involving a rod and getting slapped across the face, but I didn't feel like it would quite fit; you can read all about it over HERE
"I am now your patron. As such, I will finance anything you should desire to pursue, in addition to the sum I have promised you." - Ludovicus is being nice about this; in reality, there is a good deal of give-and-take to most patron-client relationships. A Roman patron was a wealthy, often powerful Roman citizen; the patron's duty to his clients would be to provide money, favors, and a sort of quasi-familial protection. A Roman client could be anything, including and often a freedman of the patron, but did have to be a citizen; in return for all these things, the client would provide the patron with his vote and his support in all his endeavors. The more clients a patron had, the more status the patron was perceived to have.
Salve - pronounced "sal-way," a traditional Roman greeting.
Homosexuality in Rome - The Romans did not perceive homosexuality the same way Western society afterwards would. While it was not entirely accepted, and perceived still as somewhat of a perversion, it was fairly common-place, and fairly normal. In fact, in this early Imperial period, gay marriage was not unheard of in Roman society by any means (although legal recognition varied).
Okay, yeah, there's no way that could actually happen. - Oh, but there is. The freedman in Rome had all the power of a citizen, and even more if he had connections to an important individual like Ludovicus did (which was certainly possible). Given that, and the fact that a freedman could do anything, there is nothing historically that would stop a freedman from rising in the ranks of the Roman army and going on to own and manumit a slave of his own! Marvelous, isn't it?