Andromache from Book 3 of the Aeneid
After the end of Cloak and Stola
The evening meal was done, and Procerus was playing with his three-month-old daughter in front of the hearth of their apartment in Capernaum.
Sophie looked up from the scroll she was copying on the table. “Don’t swing her around so much, dilectus1. I don’t want her to be restless.”
“I’m wearing her out,” he answered. “I don’t want her to be restless either. She’s just gotten worse when you try to keep things so quiet in the evening. I’m tired of spending the night on the rug on the floor.”
“You and me, both,” she smiled, then sighed. “This doesn’t make any sense.”
He walked over, dancing around with the baby and making faces at her. “What doesn’t make sense?”
The word had come down from the centurion. Anyone hoping for promotion beyond decanus had to be able to read and write, at least in Latin. While he could write his name, and put the initials that meant “in return for favors granted” on a religious offering, he didn’t seem to be making much progress beyond that.
Sophie, on the other hand, was fascinated by letters. She’d started by reading the certificates they kept at home, one showing her status as a Roman freedwoman, and the other that she was Procerus’s concubine, over and over. And now, the centurion was passing around scrolls with the emperor’s favorite poem. She was copying the third scroll now, where Aeneas was telling Dido about his sea travels before getting blown off course to Carthage.
“This says Helenus is ruling Greek cities, because he’s gotten possession of Pyrrhus’s ‘coniuge’ and scepter. But then it says Andromache has a ‘maritus’ from her own country again. So does that mean she was the concubine of Pyrrhus, like I am with you, and now she’s the uxor of Helenus?”
“Like you’ll be when I retire?”
She nodded.
“Widowed uxor of Hector, then Pyrrhus’s concubine, then uxor again, this time of Helenus.”
Sophie continued copying. “She still weeps for Hector.”
“That’s Andromache. Some stories even say Pyrrhus is the one who killed her son by Hector, Astyanax.”
“That’s awful!” she said. “That’s not in these scrolls, at least so far.”
“You’re not going to cry again, are you?” he asked, gently. Sophie hardly ever cried for herself, but she would for other people. Even for people in stories, who were long dead. She sniffled, but shook her head, and continued writing.
The baby finally stopped fidgeting and rested her head on Procerus’s chest.
“Okay, this makes no sense. You said she was Pyrrhus’s concubine, but here Aeneas asks her if she’s still married to him. He uses the word ‘conubia.’ I know what that means.” It was what Procerus couldn’t do for another ten years or so.
Procerus rubbed his daughter’s back, and then looked over Sophie’s shoulder. He could make out some of the letters, but they still didn’t mean much to him. “Is that what it says? I’m pretty sure it was concubine. Some old-fashioned term, maybe?”
“Yes, it must be. She’s a captive, and she had to share his bed, because he was her victorious – something. Eri?”
“Erus. Dominus. Definitely old-fashioned. Only in stories. So lord and master, but she’d call him that anyway, uxor or concubine.”
“I don’t call you that. Should I call you my erus?”
He grinned. “Maybe. Not dominus, or people will think I’m an officer or something. But erus? Maybe …”
She bowed her head slightly, grinning back. “My erus.” Then, “Andromache must really hate him.”
“Yup. That’s the way the story goes. But I feel kind of sorry for him, too. It’s not like he chose her. She fell to him by casting lots.”
“Servitio? She bore him children in slavery? I thought she was his concubine?”
“Greeks,” he answered, then he handed her the baby. “She’s rooting.”
“You did it. She’s quiet.” Sophie put her to her breast.
“I’ve got a way with women.”
“How many?”
“Just the one.” He bent over and kissed the top of her head, while she continued writing and the baby nursed.
“So now, after she’s borne him children, he gives her to Helenus. So she’s his uxor, we know that, but it doesn’t say that here. It says she’s the possession of Helenus, not even coniunx. But it calls both of them house slaves.”
...
“Oh,” Sophie said. “That means they’re contubernales. That’s how we started.”
“Um-hmm. Except in our case, it wasn’t famulos and famula. It was erus and famula.”
“So now he’s going for Hermione ….”
“Daugher of Helen and Menelaus,” Procerus filled in.
“So he wasn’t too cruel. He gave her up to someone she didn’t hate.”
“Well, they had three kids first,” said Procerus, remembering other stories, “so he didn’t exactly rush. And then he stole a woman promised to another man. There’s a lot of that in these stories.”
Sophie put down the quill, and left the scroll to dry on the table. She set the baby, who was asleep now, in her basket on the rug next to the bed, and went over to bank the fire.
“Still, he must have adopted Helenus,” she said, “or a least freed him. It says that after Orestes killed Pyrrhus, part of his kingdom went to Helenus. A slave can’t inherit anything. And if she’s his uxor now, one of them freed her as well.”
“What?! Read that to me.”
He listened, and then thought for a while, quietly.
Finally, he said, “They must have left something out. Or the nobles acclaimed him. No way I believe Pyrrhus freed them, let alone adopted Helenus.”
Sophie came back from the fire, and hugged Procerus. They got into bed and kissed, but didn’t go to sleep right away. Still, they managed not to wake the baby.
Excerpt from: “The Thought of Astyanax Beside Iulus”, By Mrs. S. M. B. Piatt
(After reading Virgil’s story of Andromache in Exile)
Last stanza
Yet when I see his mother fold The pretty cloak she stitched with gold Around another boy, and say: “He would be just your age to-day, With just your hands, your eyes, your hair” – Her grief is more than I can bear.
From “Children Out-Of-Doors: A Book of Verses”, By Two in One House, John James Piatt and Mrs. S. M. B. Piatt, copyright December 1884
S. M. B. stands for Sarah Morgan Bryan
Iulus is the other name given to Aeneas’s son, Ascanius, in the Aeneid. And yes, the quoted part is a pretty good translation of that part of the Aeneid. And the part she translates is also included in the script of the image by Wenceslas Hollar above. This is her translation in the notes to her poem:
Just such eyes, just such hands, just such features he had, and he would now be growing up in equal age with thee. -- translation of the Aeneid by S. M. B Piatt in her note to her poem "The Thought of Astyanax Beside Iulus"
In Cloak and Stola, Procerus buys Sophie as a slave to be his contubernales since rank and file Roman legion soldiers aren’t allowed conubium marriage. He frees her and makes her his concubine. They live in Capernaum in an apartment in a building close to the garrison.
I had “amicus” before, because it is the masc form of amica, which means darling or dear. However, the masc form is closer to “friend” than darling or dear. The more appropriate masc counterpart appears to be dilectus, literally, beloved.