The Roman Army, 31 BC–AD 337: A Sourcebook

The army, the local community, the law 175
rather perplexed, and ignorant of Latin, passed on without saying
anything. The soldier, unable to contain his usual insolence and
outraged at his silence as if it were an insult, struck him with the
vine-wood staff he was holding and shoved him off my back. Then
the gardener replied humbly that he could not make out what he had
said because he did not understand his language. Then the soldier
interjected in Greek: ‘Where are you taking this ass?’ The gardener
said that he was making for the next town. The soldier said: ‘But I
need its help, for I have to bring our governor’s belongings from the
nearby fort with the other baggage animals’, and he seized me by the
rein and began to take me away by force… (The gardener succeeds in
overpowering the soldier and escapes to the neighbouring town where
he hides with the ass in a friend’s house; eventually the soldier’s
comrades come looking for the miscreant and put pressure on the
local authorities to find him.) (Section 42) Then there developed a
violent argument between the two sides, the soldiers swearing in the
name of the emperor himself that we were definitely inside, the
shopkeeper constantly swearing by the gods that we were not… (The
ass is spotted as he looks out of an upstairs window.) Immediately a
tremendous uproar broke out and some of the soldiers rushed up the
stairs, grabbed me and dragged me down like a captive. Then with
no further hesitation they searched every part more carefully, and
when they opened up the chest they discovered the poor gardener,
dragged him out, and pushed him in front of the magistrates; he was
led away to jail where he was destined to pay with his life…
(Book 10, Section 1)… The soldier led me away from my stall with
no one to prevent him and in his billet (so it seemed to me) loaded me
with all his baggage and decked me out in a military fashion and then
led me out onto the road. For on my back I was carrying a glittering
helmet, a shield whose polished surface gleamed afar, and an
exceptionally long spear in a conspicuous position. He had deliberately
arranged things like this with a great heap of equipment like an army
on the move, not because of military procedure, but in order to terrorize
unfortunate travellers. When we had completed our journey over a
plain along a good road, we came to a small community where we put
up, not in an inn, but in the house of a town councillor…
(Section 13) But at that moment I was immersed in the waves of
fortune. The soldier, who had got me with no seller involved and had
appropriated me without paying any money, was to set off to Rome in
the course of his duty on the orders of his superior officer to carry
some letters addressed to the mighty emperor, and first sold me for
eleven denarii to two of his neighbours, who were brothers and slaves.