Andivius Hedulio | Page 2

face of
unimaginable difficulties. An experience so notably without a parallel
seems peculiarly deserving of such a record as follows.

BOOK I
DISASTER
CHAPTER I
AN UNEXPECTED GUEST
When I look back on the beginning of my adventures, I can set the very
day and hour when the tranquil course of my early life came to an end,
when the comfortable commonplaces of my previous existence altered,
when the placid current of my former life broke suddenly and without
warning into the tumultuous rapids which hurried me from surprise to
surprise and from peril to peril. The last hour of my serene youth was
about the ninth of the day, nearly midafternoon, on the Nones of June

in the 937th year of the city, [Footnote: A.D. 184. See Note C.] while
Cossonius Marullus and Papirius Aelian were consuls, when
Commodus had already been four years Emperor.
It was not that misfortune then suddenly overwhelmed me, not that,
sharp as a blown trumpet, I heard the voice of doom blare over me; not
that, as one sees the upper rim of the sun vanish beneath the waves
where the skyline meets the sea, and knows day ended and night begun,
not thus that I recognized the end of my prosperity and the beginning of
my disasters. That moment came later, as I shall record. It was rather
that; as, in certain states of the weather, long before sunset one may be
suddenly aware that afternoon is past and evening approaches; so,
though I had no intimation at the moment, yet, reviewing my memories
I realize that at that instant began the chain of trivial circumstances
which led up to my calamity and enmeshed me in ruin.
And just here I cannot but remark, what I have often meditated over,
how trifling, how apparently insignificant, are the circumstances which
determine the felicity or misery of human beings. I was possessed of an
ample estate; I was, in most difficult conditions, in unruffled amity
with all my neighbors, on both sides of the great feud, except only my
hereditary enemy; I was high in the favor of the Emperor; I was in a
fair way to marry the youngest, the most lovely and the richest widow
in Rome. In the twinkling of an eye I was cast down from the pinnacle
of good fortune into an abyss of adversity. And upon what did my
catastrophe hinge? Upon the whims of a friend and upon one oversight
of my secretary. I should have had no story to tell, I should have been a
man continuously happy, affluent and at ease, early married and
passing from one high office to the next higher in an uninterrupted
progress of success, had it not entered the head of my capricious crony
to pay me an unexpected and unannounced visit, had he not arrived
precisely at the time at which he came, had he not encountered just the
persons he met just where he did meet them, had not his prankishness
hatched in him the vagary which led him to give quizzical replies to
their questions; had I not, carried away by my elation at my prosperity
and fine prospects, been a trifle too indulgent to my tenantry.

Even after, as a result, the nexus of circumstances had been woven
about me and after I found myself embroiled with both my powerful
neighbors, I should have escaped any evil consequences had not my
secretary, than whom no man ever was more loyal to his master or
more wary and inclusive in his foresight upon every conceivable
eventuality, failed to forecast the possible effects of a minor omission.
When my story begins I had already had one small adventure, nothing
much out of the ordinary. Agathemer and I were returning from my
final inspection of my estate. As we rode past one of the farmsteads we
heard cries for help. Reining up and turning into the barn-yard, we
found the tenant himself being attacked by his bull. I dismounted and
diverted the animal's attention. After the beast was securely penned up I
was riding homewards more than a little tired, rumpled and heated and
very eager for a bath.
As we approached my villa we saw a runner coming up the road, a big
Nubian in a fantastic livery which when he reached us turned to be
entirely unknown to me. My grooms were just taking our horses. The
grinning black, not a bit out of breath after his long run, saluted and
addressed me.
"My master has sent me ahead to say he is coming to visit you."
"Who is your master?" I asked.
"My master," he said, still grinning goodnaturedly, "enjoined me not to
tell you who he is."
I turned to Agathemer.
"What do you make of