Amelia harris 1 2 latin life in pompeii

Life in Pompeii As Bea

My day in the Forum.

Today I went into the Forum to start my day's trading. "Slavē Bea!" Cried a banker. (I was well known in this part of Pompeii). "Ego sum Caecilius!" Luckily, I speak the Latin tongue, and knew that this was Caecilius, my uncle.

He pointed at a slave dealer who was shouting at a slave, who was running away. "servus currit! Mercātor est īrātus!" "Ubi?" I said back. Caecilius shrugged his shoulders and turned away to his next costumer.

I wandered around a bit untilI found a good spot to set up my jewellery stand. I carefully laid out my precious gems and bracelets on the table, setting them up as necklaces at the back, earrings at the front. My gems were sparkling in the morning sun and soon I had a big crowd.

One woman bought two pairs of earrings and a ring, another a bracelet and a necklace. I had sold a great deal of stock by afternoon.

One spoilt girl pulled her father over.

"Ecce!" She screamed, pointing at one of my necklaces, "menus!" Before anyone could say anything she snatched the necklace from the table and forced it over her head, without undoing the clasp. The necklace snapped under the strain, sending the beads scattering over the table. My poor necklace! I told the girl firmly that she had been very silly, and would have to pay for the damage.

She didn't look sorry though, just impatient to get away.

Her father was most certainly sorry when I told him the price. He swallowed and loosened his toga from around his neck. I felt bad for him, but not that bad. It was he who spoilt his daughter in the first place.

After he handed over the money, the pair turned and walked away. I was turning away myself when I stopped, and looked back at the girl. Something was not quite right. I had that uneasy feeling, flowing all over my body. Why were they hurrying to get into the crowd? I noticed that the sun was glittering off her dress. That was odd. Unless she had a jewel..... A jewel! The truth hit me just as they slipped round and headed to Caecilius' stand. That girl had stolen from me! I did a quick check on my stall and noted that the had pinched the most expensive gem bracelet, that I had reserved for Metella, Caecilius' wife, who was the most sour tempered woman I know. Things weren't looking good, for me in particular.

I had to tell Caecilius about the girl immediately, before she stole anything else, but how could I leave my stand? Anything could easily be taken without me or a responsible person to mind it. But then if I didn't go, the girl would get away. I decided to take a gamble. I called the slave dealer over and handed him a sack of coins. His eyes lit up. I told him if he watched the stand, the sack if coins could be his. Then I left and ran towards Caecilius. A bad-looking man brushed past me. I remember not thinking of it, at the time. How wrong I was. I saw the girl, looking at me smugly. I went over to confront her, when she said "There! There she is!" I looked behind me. Was she talking to me?

Caecilius came over, looking very stern. What was going on?

He told me to ďżźhand over the bracelet. "But I didn't take it!" I protested, "Well, why don't you check your dress then, bea?" Said the girl. I reached into my pocket and my hand closed over something cold. I bought it out and gasped. It was the bracelet!

Slowly, I pieced it altogether. The man who brushed past me must of been paid by the girl to slip the bracelet into my dress pocket. I felt my cheeks flame red. How did I not notice before? Meanwhile Caecilius went over to a brown-haired girl. "Mirellie!"

I croaked. She could speak English as well as Latin. Maybe she could unravel this mess? "I got blamed for a theft from my own stall! Tell Caecilius I could not steal it as it was mine in the first pl...."

I stopped mid-sentence. The man! He was going back to my store, probably planning to steal more jewels! If Mirellie could catch him red handed, I would be in the clear! "Mirellie, that man! He put the bracelet in my dress!

It was him!"

But Mirellie was already walking away.

"Don't worry!" She said airily as she sailed away, dress billowing out behind her, "Who ever stole it is guilty, not you!

Tell Caecilius you are innocent and I'll back it up!" Poor Mirellie. She might be pretty, but she's not that bright. How can you back up a claim without any proof? I decided to go after the man myself, but first I had to break free from the crowd surrounding us. I saw a man at Caecilius' stall. "Look!" I screeched "Thief! Uncle, he's stolen!" That was it.

The poor man looked up, bemused at all the people running and shouting. I wriggled from the crowd and sprinted away. Where was he? I gasped. There he was! He was taking to a man, who was firmly gripping the girl by the arm.

She was sobbing, hot tears rolling down her cheeks, shuddering with each breath she gulped. I noticed that Caecilius went over to join them. As I ran forward to join them myself the girls father came over.

The man who was paid was Xavier's dad, who was a good friend. He reported the girl who had stolen from me. As everything was being cleared up, Xavier wandered over to where I was standing. Mirellie had given up trying to teach him English ages ago, but I have not dropped it. He can speak pretty well now, and we can have a good confiscation. "You were lucky that time, Bea! My dad did very well to stop de girl!" Well, not quite there yet. "Firstly, it's 'the girl' not 'de girl' and yeah, he did do pretty well!" He grinned. "You'll be happy to come to the restaurant around the corner, right?"

The food was the best. I had stuffed dormice, a real delicacy. Xavier had the same. Mirellie failed to turn up, goodness knows what she got up to. After our meal, we went our separate ways. Xavier went out the market and made his way down the road. I turned left and went into Jupiter's temple before heading home. I could see Vesuvius in the background. I must confess, I wasn't expecting a day like this!

Slave life As Albany

I woke to the sound of screaming and crying.

Our house was blazing bright, and it didn't take long for me to realise we were under attack. I jumped off the bed and ran over to the door. I gently pulled back the part which wasn't on fire. I could see our Celtic warriors struggling to hold back the mysterious invaders. Despite the poor light, I could see the Orange and red of the fires flickering over their shiny armour. Suddenly one rushed over to the ruins of my house. I immediately leapt back, shrinking into the shadows. He shouted something in a strange tongue, and more men followed him. then, they all grabbed as much of the family belongings as they could find. My mothers necklaces, my fathers remaining weapons that he hadn't taken out to fight. I wanted to scream at them to stop wreaking my home but I couldn't. I would of been killed instantly. It must of been nearly midnight before the remaining soldiers went out. I ran over to find any treasures they might of left behind. Something that was worthless to them but a memory to me. There was nothing. I sank to the floor in grief, failing to notice the

flames leaping higher and higher around me. Then the roof caved in. I still feel the pain I felt on that day as a burning log fell from the roof of the house and crashed onto my leg. I howled in agony. The fire was creeping up my leg, and, to my horror, caught fire to my dress. I was withering about on the floor, screaming in pain and fear, desperately trying to put out the fire and shift the log which was slowly crushing my leg. Then, strong, tough arms pulled me out from under the log and batted the fire away, and pulled me out of my burning house. I turned back to watch the walls fall down. The house was nothing but a burning pile of wood. I let out a weak sob. I turned to thank my saver. I shrieked. It was a invader!

I whipped round and sprinted through the crowd of wailing citizens. After about five minutes I stopped running for a moment to see how far I had run. I faced the remains of the village and started walking backwards.

Voices! I darted behind a bush. I saw the same invader who had saved me. He was with another invader who seemed quite cross.

They were talking in a strange tongue that I couldn't understand. I leaned further forward to try and make out what they were saying. Suddenly I felt rough hands round my neck and felt my self being lifted clean out of my hiding place. I kicked him, but not before I heard a click and felt a cold ring of metal around my neck. The attacker cursed as I wriggled free and started to sprint down the hill. But the ring of metal jerked me back. I landed on the floor but got immediately up and tried to tug the metal off my neck. The invaders came over, laughing, and pinned me down on the ground. They put more metal hoops around my hands and more around my feet. I squirmed until they let me go. Dazed, I got slowly to my feet. The metal rings had chains on them, trailing off to other children who were tied up like me. At the crack of a whip, the children started moving forward. I stood there until I realised I was chained to them and then followed them. Goodness knows where we were bound. Behind me I heard the invaders laughing,

but they started shrieking like banshees when I kicked a couple of stones at them, really sharp ones too.

We must of been walking for about two hours before we saw the sea. We were loaded onto a ship and taken out to sea, leaving Britannia behind. What about my family? Well, I just had to hope they were ok. After two days in that disgusting boat we boarded strange shores. Wasn't I pleased to get of that ship! I looked around. Invaders everywhere! They didn't give the other slaves a second glance, but they all stared at me. I was the only Celtic slave, let alone the only person in the whole place with flaming locks of auburn hair. I held my head up high, cold and proud. So what If I was different? The invaders leading us took us..well, dragged me, over to to a raised platform. I felt timid and scared, with about 130 invaders looking at me, but I mentally kicked myself and thought "You are a Celt, Albany! You will never surrender to anyone.

Make Britannia proud!" I glared at any one who caught my eye, specially a weedy girl with brown hair. I think she took my stare of anger as one of pleading,

so she said to an ugly old toad of a man, "Maybe we can get that one?" And then wandered off. Huh! What a strange way to make a Celt feel welcome. I sniffed, and continued my glaring, until the ugly man went over to the invader who had kidnapped me.

He handed a small sack, and then the invader came over to me, with something hot in his hand. He grinned wickedly and put the hot thing on my arm. Ouch! I'll show him who's boss, I thought as I bit him. Hehe. What fun it is being a rebel! I half expected him to lash out and hit me, but he just winced and bared it. Odd. Then he started undoing the chains and metal rings. What was going on? Keep calm, I thought to myself, pretend you know what's going on. So I stood patiently and waited until I was free. I was about to make a break for it when the ugly man spoke English.

"Hello young lady! My name is Ace, and I am your new master. You are my slave now, so I expect you to work hard for me and in return I will treat you kindly." Stupid invader. I don't want him to treat me kindly, I want him to leave me alone! And what was all this about being a slave? Surely I was a prisoner, not a slave, whatever that was. I said nothing, and let him take me away. We arrived at a massive house, called a villa, Ace said. It would me my home from now on. That's a scary thought. That I'm never going back to Britannia. I turned my attention back to the villa. Ace was going inside a archway, so I followed him. The house was grand, with mosaics on the walls and food lining the tables. I whistled and shook my head. Ace grinned at me and said I had to start by cleaning the floor, then dust away the cobwebs and tidy the mistress' jewels. Why did I have to do all these jobs? Surely, since it was his house, he should be the one cleaning the floor and dusting cobwebs. And the mistress should tidy her own jewels. I didn't want to do it.

I was about to protest, but I thought better of it. Fine, I'd clean his floors. They were spotless any way. Just a quick scrub here and there and then I could pretend to dust the cobwebs. I got down on my hands and knees and started cleaning. Hum, this is quite hard, I thought to myself. Still, he didn't say to clean all the floors. Just then a muddy dog ran over my freshly cleaned floor, leaving brown muddy paw-prints all over my hard work. "Oi!" I shouted. The dog proceeded to bark. I leaped up with my brush, brandishing it around, fiercely defending the remains of clean floor from the foul beast. I was just about to bring my bucket of water down and tip it over the dogs head, when someone said "Crispin! Come, boy!" I muttered to myself that I'd get him back when the same brown haired girl from the market came in, with another girl, about the same age. They were chatting and laughing with each other, but stopped when they saw me. Then one of them smiled kindly and said "Hello. You must be Albany. First day huh? Always a challenge." I smiled weakly.

Perhaps I'd underestimated this weedy invader. Then the other one ruined it by saying "do you want anything to eat or drink?"

Of course I did! But I was determined to make an impression, preferably a scary rebellious one. So I said: "No you invader cow, go away and leave me to scrub my floors in peace."

Her face crumpled. The two processed to walk down the corridor. "Oh yeah," I shouted after them, "And keep that mangy dog of yours under control!"

Since then on, the brown haired girl (who's name was Mirellie) tried to avoid me, until one day she plucked up enough courage to talk to me. "Hello, Albany, I was thinking, you seem a bit out of the family, so we'd like to invite you to a dinner, which I've prepared especially." I was about to turn down the offer as rudely as possible when I suddenly thought to myself, you could do with some good proper food, Albany. So I said I would love to come, as politely as possible without choking on my sweet words. "Just don't poison it." She laughed weakly, not knowing if I was being serious or not.

Sitting at the table, listening to Mirellie gabble on about how lucky I was to have 'gorgeous curls' as she put it, was my worse nightmare.

The food was disgusting. My leg had cramp from sitting at the table for to long, my mouth had cramp from fake smiling for to long, and my head had cramp too,for goodness knows what reason.

Now I'm dusting the candlesticks. What a pointless job, dusting candlesticks. They don't need to be dusted because the family never use them. Just as I was polishing the last one, I heard a slow, deep rumble, and the candlesticks wobbled. A vase fell on the floor and smashed. Huh! And after I'd dusted it as well. Typical. I thought nothing of it and went on my way.

After food, Mirellie and I went to bed. I was starting to feel attached to Mirellie, and Amabel, Ace's daughter. As I was lying down in my cold bed, I heard strange noises. Crash!

Rumble! I could hear people screaming and instantly thought back to the time we were first attacked by the invaders. I jumped out of bed and shook Mirellie awake. When she heard what was going on she screamed and started running around the room. I kept calm.

I had seen it all before. Amabel ran in, followed by Ace and Crispin the dog, who snarled when he saw me. I growled back.

Everyone was frantically shouting and screaming. Wimps, I thought to myself.

Screaming as loud as I could because they were making such a racket, I told them to go outside and find shelter. "Shouldn't we get on a boat and flee the city?" Asked Amabel. "No time" I said back.

We were out the villa and in the city. Things were worse than I thought. Ash and rock were falling from the sky and people were choking.

"What now?" Said Ace. Everyone looked at me. For once I was in charge, not the slave.

"There!" I cried, pointing at a cave. We ran in and I rolled the bolder over the entrance.

Boom! Crash! I crouched on the floor with my hands over my ears. Then everyone was blasted backwards.

I must of been unconscious for about two hours when I woke up. I lay, groaning, on the floor and feeling very sorry for myself. The others were ok, so I made an extra big effort to make myself seem as weak as possible.

They started to fuss over me. "Oh you poor thing!" Cried Amabel "but you saved us all!

Shame you couldn't save the whole of Pompeii." Even Crispin rested his head at my feet. This is the life! I thought to myself.

Mirellie and I are free slaves. I felt so proud to be honoured in this way. Mirellie says she will live in a nearby villa. And I? I will go back to Britannia, my home. Oh yeah, and Crispin will be coming! We became very close after the explosions. At the moment, we are packing up from the farm we have been staying at for the past few months. The family say they'll come to wave me off at the docks. I am so excited and so is Crispin! He is leaving muddy prints everywhere but I don't mind, not anymore. I think staying in Pompeii has softened me a bit! We are now at the docks and I am just about to board my ship, a much nicer one this time. Mirellie, Amabel and I are all crying and I think I saw a tell tale tear come to Aces eyes. "I'll come and visit, I promise!" I told Mirellie. And with one last hug I was on the boat and waving frantically as Pompeii disappeared into the horizon.