We take for granted what writers of fiction do. They have had to learn how much can be done with written words.
At the end of CHAPTER FOURTEEN, a legate tells Artorius (time traveller):
"'The Emperor in Rome shall hear of you service to the State.'" (p. 213)
From its opening sentence, CHAPTER FIFTEEN is narrated from the point of view of Imperator Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus in Rome. (Names of earlier Emperors are confusingly used as a mixture of titles and additional names.)
The Emperor receives reports about Artorius and converses with Galen who has corresponded with Artorius.
They are impressed by Artorius' mixture of knowledge and modesty. He claims to know much that turns out to be true but also acknowledges that there is much that he does not know. The Emperor is impressed with Artorius' clever derivation of distillation from distillare!
Marcus Aulerius and Galen deduce some of the structure of English from Artorius' written Latin: use of capital letters; spaces between words.
Artorius and his companions have strange powers but are prepared to use them for Rome and mankind. Marcus Aurelius will go to where Artorius is. The mountain will go to Muhammad.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I reread Chapter Fifteen more than once with keen interest! If Marcus Aurelius was even only half as able and conscientious an Emperor as described by Stirling, then he was a truly rare and admirable ruler.
In our real world, Marcus Aurelius did go to personally command the war against the Marcomanni, a conflict which devastated the Pannonian provinces and parts of NE Italy. The Emperor did win his war and even temporarily conquered what is now the Czech Republic, but the struggle exhausted him and the Empire (and probably hastened his death). Unfortunately, Commodus withdrew from his father's conquests.
Ad astra! Sean
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