...and doubtless never to be written, so relax. The scenario that came into my head was Strato of Sardis in Domitian's Rome; I think I can place him there, which would surely make him an acquaintance of Martial and perhaps a pal. I have the vague idea in my head of a story in which they hunt werewolves or solve crimes or... something or other yet (and perhaps never) to be determined.
All the details and incidents would be out of ancient epigram, a genre so brimful of wonderful weirdness that bits of the story would write themselves. This sketch of an opening sets up for an epigram by Martial about a boy run through by an icicle that fell from a leaky aqueduct, a poem I've blogged about in connection with the TV show Bones. Anyway, here it is and I hope you like it.
....
Via Lata, [DATE]
The boy had not seen it coming. I crouched and checked him over. There was less blood than one might have thought, and I wondered if the cold had shocked the arteries, cauterising even as it ran him through. I waited with him and watched meltwater seep from the dreadful punctures at shoulder and groin. Dressed as he was, he could not have come far; in some wealthy household of the Viminal or Quirinal a housekeeper was already missing him and calling in panic for searchers. Someone would be along.
I would have to tell Marcus. My tastes run older, with a warm embrace, and epitaphs were never my style; this boy’s fate would fascinate him and his verses would fix the moment for posterity. The boy would rise from the grave in next year’s instalment of my friend’s never-ending elegiac miscellany of Roman street life.
From a side-street, an intake of breath and a sudden wail. A mother had come. I covered the boy with my cloak and stood back. Above my head the rusticated arch was leaking itself a new tooth.
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