Messina: A Young Girl in Young Rome

Messina

"Where are you, Floppy Ears?" Messina cried out, "Where are you?"

Messina was nine years old and lived at the edge of a village that would become Rome. It was on a hill named Palatine. The other hills that would become Rome were nearby, but occupied by other tribes, or not permanently occupied at all.

There were no walls around the settlement yet, but there was The Large House, where their chief lived. His house was very large, with many rooms, built of logs from the biggest trees around there. He was getting along in years, much older than most people lived at that time. He would tell tales about how he and his brother were raised by a she wolf.

Sometimes a tribe that lived on nearby hills they called Quirinal and Esquiline, would attack, and everyone would head into The Large House until the attack was over.

Messina had an older brother, named Lucrecio, because he was born right as the sun was rising, and she had a younger sister, Verda.

Messina's pet rabbit, Floppy Ears, would keep away from everyone else, but would allow her to get close. She would go out early in the morning to look for it. It would often be near the house, and she would feed it vegetables from the garden. Lucrecio saw her with it once, and had wanted to kill it for a meal. She went screaming to her father, who would scold the boy, telling him to leave her alone and get back to his chores, and to do his hunting away from the village.

"If you don't have enough to do, I can always find more for you to do. By the way, Miss. Messina, why are you not helping your mother?"

Messina could remember only once when they were attacked. She was very young; it was before Verda was born. She was playing in the front yard, when Amnicado, who lived by the river separating the hills, ran by. Messina did not realize the meaning of it, but her mother ran too, picking her up, carrying her to The Large House, plopping her to the floor when they got there.

Messina started to ask, "What is going on mama?"

"Shush," she was told.

She could hear men shouting and battling outside, Lucrecio had a small branch from a tree, a switch they called it, and was mock fighting the air with it, until his mother said,
"Settle down, Lucrecio, you are driving me crazy, it is bad enough with what is going on outside. I just hope your father is all right."

The commotion died down in a while, and the men came back into The Big House. "Pick up everything, and the kids, we are going back to our house, hopefully they did not destroy the house or garden and left the goats alone.

Messina went into the house after the upbraiding she had gotten from her father, "What can I help you with, mama?"

"You can pick up any dirty clothes, and bring them down to the stream with me, and help with the wash," her mother said. The other women and I decided it would be a good day to wash, and the men will stand guard.

"Why do the men get to stand, while we work?" Messina asked.

"They are standing watch, and might be killed. While they are fighting, we can get away," the mother replied, "So do a good job, and hope your father does too, so that he not only protects us, but lives for another day."

At the stream, Messina started washing clothes. Then a boy about her age came over to her, splashing water on her.

"Cut it out," Messina said, a little indigently.

The boy kept it up, Messina started to laugh and then splash back. Her mother kept a wary eye on them, but let them play for a while. After she was done with the wash, she went to them and said, "Come on children. It is time to go back home."

Messina had never had so much fun. She was not allowed to have much fun is seemed to her. Today was a little different for some reason. She had a lot of fun.

"You got along with Gordianus quite well today. That is just as well. You will be married to him someday."

"What?"

"Normally, betrothals are made at birth. Betrothed at birth, you were, but the boy you were to marry died when he was very young. I talked to the mother of Gordianus a few days ago, and she spoke to his father. They both agreed that this would make a good marriage."

"But ma...," Messina started.

"Don't, but ma me young lady," her mother continued, "Your father wanted to marry off to Gorgone. He is almost as old as I am. We would have gotten a good dowry, but I just could not see my baby married to that clod. Your father was very angry with me, but I held out. Gordianus's family does not have as much wealth, but we will still get a good dowry. More importantly your father agrees with me."

"I just don't like boys," Messina continued.

"I didn't like boys at your age either, but that will change, besides you seemed to like Gordianus enough today."

"Well..., that was different..."

"Sure it was. Now go out in the garden and bring me in some onions, garlic; no wait, I have enough garlic, but bring in some lentils, and beets too, so I can start supper."

She went out to the garden to get the vegetables her mother asked for. When she got there she looked for her rabbit, but it was nowhere in sight. She pulled the onions, laying them aside, picked enough lentils to make a good meal for them, then tried to pull up some beets. The beets just broke off at the ground line, so she got the shovel made from the shoulder bone of a deer. The bone broke, but not until she had loosened enough soil to get the beets she needed. She cleaned the dirt from them, then took them with her.

When Messina got back to the house her mother was just finishing butchering a goose, and was hanging it up to cook over the fire. The mother took the vegetables and put them into the ashes around the fire. They also had a small cauldron that would sit on some rocks in the fire pit. The fire pit was just outside the house, but not too close. When they were not cooking, the fire was covered with peat that was not too dried out, it would allow the fire to smolder under it, not going out, but not burning very much either.

If the fire went out, either because it had burned up all of its fuel, or because it had been covered up too much, one would have to restart it. Normally restarting a fire might take hours, but usually in a village such as theirs, someone always had a fire. It was, in fact, the redundancy of the fires that kept everything running as smoothly as it did. If heavy rains came, they would cover the fire mounds with animal skins to keep the water out. Many of the fires still would go out, but usually some fires would still be going.

Normally their big meal would be around noon. Today, however, everybody was down by the river all day, so they had their big meal in the evening that day.

The next morning, Messina got up about sunrise as usual, going out to the garden looking for her rabbit. It was there in the far corner of the garden, nibbling on some of the new growth lettuce.

"Oh, Long Ears, you will get into trouble yet. There is plenty to eat without getting into the new lettuce," she said, putting some of the cooked beets close to the rabbit. The rabbit really liked cooked beets and parsnips, though it would not touch them raw, at least not when there were many other things to eat. There were also parsnips, cabbage, lettuce, asparagus, onion, garlic, radishes, lentils, and turnips in the garden. They had to be careful with the parsnips, because water hemlock was also common in the area, and looked much like parsnips, and water hemlock was poisonous. Messina learn to tell the difference when she was three years old; now it was second nature.

She went back into the house. Her mother was getting ready to grind some grain. "We are just about out of flour, so we will make some today." They had to make flour about once a week or so, though in those days they did not measure time in weeks, only days, phases of the moon, and the seasons.

"I hate making flour," Messina said, "You make me push the grindstone around, and around and around until my arms feel like they will fall off."

Her mother said, "Well, you talk, and you talk, and you talk until your lips fall off."

Messina was strong though. Even a farm boy in the 1800's her age probably would not be able to beat her up, but this was normal for all children at the time.

The flour was really more of a mutilated husked wheat that they called far. They would make porridge for breakfast from that. They would separate some of the finer far, and made that into bread. This usually was a flat bread, but sometimes some yeast would get into the dough, and if mold or other contamination did not get into it also, they would have leavened bread. There was a communal oven in the village, and several households at once would get together to bake on given days. They would sometimes sweeten the bread with honey when they had it. They always had goat cheese. They also had goat milk, but considered milk too disgusting to consume.

When they were though baking the flat bread, Messina set the outside table. The only tableware they had were some wide bowls made of baked river mud, and some spoons with long pointed handles.

"My father made me these spoons as a wedding present," said the mother.

No two spoons were exactly alike, some shorter used by the children, others longer used as cooking tools. The pointed handles were for digging out marrow from bones, and shellfish from their shells. Most things were eaten by fingers.

They usually ate just one large meal in the day. A breakfast might be some pasty gruel made from the far, along with some honey, or maybe berries. Supper, in the evening, would generally be some leftovers from the main meal, usually eaten in the early afternoon. Ordinarily they would have goat meat, but often would have fish or game birds, sometimes a deer, more rarely bear. Occasionally they would kill a wild pig.

They tried domesticating the pigs, but just did not have the fencing needed to keep pigs close. The pigs would 'root' themselves out, and then disappear into the surrounding brush. Generally, on their way out they would raid any garden they could find.

That evening the men told stories about the old days. How they would have to move every day, to be chased out of some places, and to chase people out of other places. Stories were told about great hunts and great hunters. Stories from times long before any of them were born. They would also tell stories about Jupiter, Miranda, Mars, and Venus. They would drink wine, sometimes mead or even a kind of wheat beer when they had it.

After a long day, Messina went to bed on her deerskin padded with grass. As she dozed off Messina thought about her rabbit, and wondered what it would be like when she got married to Gordianus, and if she would have babies, and what her children would be like, and what...