the ring lady(upper class ladyin her 40s)m a slave girl with an upper class baby, a Roman solider with a sword, and a horse. those are the ones I know of at the “boathouses.”
So many of the characters are based on specific finds in Herculaneum (and Pompeii). Some were based on finds and then evolved away from them. I’ll make a list. Susan’s made a good start.
Based on (or informed by) specific victims found in the ruins:
• The Soldier: Felix, but then Vibius
• The Ring Lady: Mus’s mother
• The horse: the horse
• A woman thrown from the terraces onto the beach by the blast: Justa, but then Spendusa (but the original inspiration was pregnant)
• The woman locked in a room: Calatoria Themis
• The slave girl with an upper-class baby: Mus’s mother’s servant girl
• Men found wearing heavy cloaks: the Blues
• The people lined up in orderly rows: anyone who encountered Vibius on the beach
• An embracing couple (or groupings that appear to be): Elisa and Menander
Based on a famous lawsuit:
• Iusta and her family
Based on graffiti or other inscriptions and records:
• Helvius
• Caius (Helvius’s apprentice)
• Spendusa
• Figulus (Talicus’s doomed co-conspirator)
• Vibius
• the distributors of kosher fish-pickle
• the ladies of the brothel
• Lucky Sextus the baker
• various other supporting roles
• Mus
And based on the dearth of remains of cats:
• all the cats of Herculaneum
So – Mus’s mother (ring lady) getting skeletonized just behind Josephus (about to be skeletonized) with Vibius in the front, who had every bone in his body broken by the blast (except his eardrums).
then next panel – the horse looking back, going “Dude, where’s my butt gone?” then Menander, unconscious already, Elisa, hiding her face in Menander’s hair, and her little sister squashed between her and menander, I think. There’s going to be quite a queue at the river Styx. I wonder if Charon has an ancient roman ticket machine?
Charon will have to break out the Big Boat for this lot. No doubt Vibius will see it organized nicely. But at least the assorted jewelry and money will pay the fare.
It is sobering to think that these characters are based on real people who lived and died 2000 years ago.
I am also sad, because I always shipped Felix with Elisa and that now will not happen.
Clio, your comment about some names taken from Pompeii’s graffiti made me search and find the “Marcus loves Spendusa” inscription. I wonder why you didn’t put Marcus in the story.
I also had the suspicion that Felix and Iusta were slated for a fiery volcanic death. One of your comments made me suspicious as well as the old Etruscan seer when Iusta asked who should she marry. If I remember correctly the seer told her that if she married Felix she would loose everything and if she married Mus she would keep fer fortune for eternity.
Guess how that came out. Now she lost everything and she was married to Mus.
About Mus. I don’t expect him to survive. In fact I do believe that it is more humane to let him die of his wounds. Or even better yet, killed by the volcano. I think that would be quicker than letting him linger in pain with an irreparable broken body. Even these days surviving being crushed from falling masonry is really hard and the survivor almost always never fully recovers.
And now we come to poor Felix. His very unfortunate name has been his curse. Everytime he finds happines, the gods strive to take it from him. He has lost the only family he knew. The mother of his child and his fiancee.
I wonder if he and Iusta will just decide to remain together.
Where will they go? Best idea seems Alexandria where other members of Joseph’s family reside. There Felix will be safe from Domitian, who is slated to become emperor in a few months.
Thank you for your story Clio. I like it. And now will keep watching the final days of Herculaneum.
Oh. I forgot. Why didn’t you include both Pliny the Elder and Pliny the younger? They were both there and Pliny the Elder died in the eruption, although many suspect that he was killed by poisonous gases from the volcano.
Larry, Felix’s actual name is Marcus Antonius Felix (see the embroidery on his pouch, and regular cracks by other people about the name, the equivalent of naming your kid Benedict Arnold around 1876). Read the seer’s advice to Justa carefully. I believe Klio has pending news for us still.
My favorite character is Vitalis. Telling Calatoria Themis that the local people don’t know her from a tray of spoiled fruit! Ouch. I can see why Stephanus adored her and loved their daughter. (The situation with Caius is weird, though. Wouldn’t he have wanted the son enough to arrange for him to be treated as Justa was?)
> (The situation with Caius is weird, though. Wouldn’t he have wanted the son enough to arrange for him to be treated as Justa was?)
I tweaked the relationship between them to half brothers. There may still be places in the comic where they’re called father and son. My rationale is that by the time Stephanus became master of the house, Caius had already grown up as a slave, trained as a scribe, valued in the household; and that it might have seemed logical to free him in the will. Had Stephanus lived, I’d like to think he’d have gotten around to giving Caius his freedom, even if he didn’t want Caius as an heir.
I stand corrected. I didn’t look for the actual comic. I tend to become distracted. LOL.
So the seer was right. Iusta followed Felix and lost everything but kept her life. If she had remained in town now she would be buried with her fortune for all eternity. I liked that line. 20/20 hindsight can sometimes be marvelous.
Poletopole: ->Larry, Felix’s actual name is Marcus Antonius Felix (see the embroidery on his pouch, and regular cracks by other people about the name, the equivalent of naming your kid Benedict Arnold around 1876).
I always wondered why. At this time of history all the Julians are gone. In fact the original Marcus Antonius was not even a Julian but an Antonian and a pleb not a patrician. His mother was a very distant cousin of Caesar so he was not considered in Caesar’s will. Octavian inherited everything. Neither Titus nor Domitian had anything to fear politically from him. In fact Octavian thoroughly smeared Marcus Antonius name and destroyed his popularity with the Roman pleb during their civil war.
All other things notwithstanding, Domitian was thoroughly, exquisitely paranoid. Our Titus sees Felix as an opportunist who might have gotten uppity ideas from his heritage. Domitian sees Felix as a threat. But then, Domitian probably sees a cheese sandwich as a threat.
So many interesting things to reply to! Some of them have already been taken by other people. 🙂
> I am also sad, because I always shipped Felix with Elisa and that now will not happen.
I only just barely resisted adding in an extra scene for the two of them. It didn’t fit the timeline. But maybe I’ll create it as apocrypha or director’s cut at some point. If I do a printed version of chapter IV. Just to give them a little more time together.
> Clio, your comment about some names taken from Pompeii’s graffiti made me search and find the “Marcus loves Spendusa” inscription. I wonder why you didn’t put Marcus in the story.
I like to think of (Marcus Antonius) Felix taking a moment during his trip to Pompeii to write on a wall.
That inscription was one of the different pieces that drifted together to inspire the characters. Sometimes pieces showed up long after characters had been introduced, but still fit right in.
> I also had the suspicion that Felix and Iusta were slated for a fiery volcanic death.
After all that the historical Iusta had to deal with, at some point I felt that the fictional one should, well, get a break. And not be slated for fiery volcanic death.
> About Mus. I don’t expect him to survive. In fact I do believe that it is more humane to let him die of his wounds. Or even better yet, killed by the volcano. I think that would be quicker than letting him linger in pain with an irreparable broken body.
When you put it that way, it may not have been a mercy for Nonius’s people to attempt to take him to a doctor with a penchant for trying to fix usually-fatal injuries.
> Where will they go? Best idea seems Alexandria where other members of Joseph’s family reside. There Felix will be safe from Domitian, who is slated to become emperor in a few months.
Felix has shown himself to be terribly, terribly bad at keeping his head down and staying anonymously hidden.
> Thank you for your story Clio. I like it. And now will keep watching the final days of Herculaneum.
You’re so very welcome!
> Oh. I forgot. Why didn’t you include both Pliny the Elder and Pliny the younger? They were both there and Pliny the Elder died in the eruption, although many suspect that he was killed by poisonous gases from the volcano.
Pliny the Younger gets a cameo. But I let Pliny the Elder carry on with his noble rescue efforts outside the panel borders.
I stand corrected. I forgot that Felix’s full name is Marcus Antonius Felix.
->When you put it that way, it may not have been a mercy for Nonius’s people to attempt to take him to a doctor with a penchant for trying to fix usually-fatal injuries.
I actually liked that. It shows that the Romans were not robots or some type of amoral selfish people. They were just like us. They helped strangers too even if some did with expectation of payment for services rendered, which happens these days as well. It is just that I did not expect him to survive having nearly a ton of bricks and wood fall on him. Four months ago a small brick wall fell down over some poor guy standing by it, killing him instantly. It was just a 2 meter high wall. Not big in any way, but yet the bricks crushed him to death.
I like to write but have never published anything. I always like to see what happens after the main story is over. As the character in the movie Twin Falls Idaho says: “Although you cannot see it, the life of the characters continues after THE END appears.”
->Felix has shown himself to be terribly, terribly bad at keeping his head down and staying anonymously hidden.
Yes he is, but know he needs to use his head and not his brawn. He has a family to take care of now: A son, a daughter and possibly a wife (if you agree with that).
Possible extenuating circumstances: if the scaffolding formed enough of a cage over Mus to shield him from the worst of the falling tiles and bricks and stonemasons, he might not have been completely smushed. He was still alive enough to survive being picked up. But he was clearly in very bad shape. So… (I just leave an ellipsis, for now).
Having many dependents to protect, rather than being separated from them, will hopefully adjust Felix’s priorities.
Klio: ->Possible extenuating circumstances: if the scaffolding formed enough of a cage over Mus to shield him from the worst of the falling tiles and bricks and stonemasons, he might not have been completely smushed. He was still alive enough to survive being picked up. But he was clearly in very bad shape. So… (I just leave an ellipsis, for now).
And I have to disagree with Charlie Pelligrino. The jolly catastrophes aren’t so jolly when the people in them have names and stories. But what you’re doing is really very powerful, klio, this is really bringing the history alive for me. Thank you. (I hate losing my story-friends, but thank you).
But don’t think I didn’t notice bad Sweetums fibbed back on April 9th! There are no other ladies wearing heavy rings on their left hands! Bad bear, naughty! No legion standard for you!
Sorry Vibius, game over.
If he had any idea he was about to be immolated, he’d probably be pleased that he went out in the line of duty.
Probably he got his sons and “wives” to a boat early on.
I am so sad for Menander and the girls. *** How many of your characters are based on (or informed by) specific “casts” found in Herc. and Pompeii?
the ring lady(upper class ladyin her 40s)m a slave girl with an upper class baby, a Roman solider with a sword, and a horse. those are the ones I know of at the “boathouses.”
So many of the characters are based on specific finds in Herculaneum (and Pompeii). Some were based on finds and then evolved away from them. I’ll make a list. Susan’s made a good start.
(Not a complete list!)
Based on (or informed by) specific victims found in the ruins:
• The Soldier: Felix, but then Vibius
• The Ring Lady: Mus’s mother
• The horse: the horse
• A woman thrown from the terraces onto the beach by the blast: Justa, but then Spendusa (but the original inspiration was pregnant)
• The woman locked in a room: Calatoria Themis
• The slave girl with an upper-class baby: Mus’s mother’s servant girl
• Men found wearing heavy cloaks: the Blues
• The people lined up in orderly rows: anyone who encountered Vibius on the beach
• An embracing couple (or groupings that appear to be): Elisa and Menander
Based on a famous lawsuit:
• Iusta and her family
Based on graffiti or other inscriptions and records:
• Helvius
• Caius (Helvius’s apprentice)
• Spendusa
• Figulus (Talicus’s doomed co-conspirator)
• Vibius
• the distributors of kosher fish-pickle
• the ladies of the brothel
• Lucky Sextus the baker
• various other supporting roles
• Mus
And based on the dearth of remains of cats:
• all the cats of Herculaneum
So – Mus’s mother (ring lady) getting skeletonized just behind Josephus (about to be skeletonized) with Vibius in the front, who had every bone in his body broken by the blast (except his eardrums).
then next panel – the horse looking back, going “Dude, where’s my butt gone?” then Menander, unconscious already, Elisa, hiding her face in Menander’s hair, and her little sister squashed between her and menander, I think. There’s going to be quite a queue at the river Styx. I wonder if Charon has an ancient roman ticket machine?
“Quite a queue at the river Styx” is going to have to be the ALT text for the next comic….
Charon will have to break out the Big Boat for this lot. No doubt Vibius will see it organized nicely. But at least the assorted jewelry and money will pay the fare.
It is sobering to think that these characters are based on real people who lived and died 2000 years ago.
I am also sad, because I always shipped Felix with Elisa and that now will not happen.
Clio, your comment about some names taken from Pompeii’s graffiti made me search and find the “Marcus loves Spendusa” inscription. I wonder why you didn’t put Marcus in the story.
I also had the suspicion that Felix and Iusta were slated for a fiery volcanic death. One of your comments made me suspicious as well as the old Etruscan seer when Iusta asked who should she marry. If I remember correctly the seer told her that if she married Felix she would loose everything and if she married Mus she would keep fer fortune for eternity.
Guess how that came out. Now she lost everything and she was married to Mus.
About Mus. I don’t expect him to survive. In fact I do believe that it is more humane to let him die of his wounds. Or even better yet, killed by the volcano. I think that would be quicker than letting him linger in pain with an irreparable broken body. Even these days surviving being crushed from falling masonry is really hard and the survivor almost always never fully recovers.
And now we come to poor Felix. His very unfortunate name has been his curse. Everytime he finds happines, the gods strive to take it from him. He has lost the only family he knew. The mother of his child and his fiancee.
I wonder if he and Iusta will just decide to remain together.
Where will they go? Best idea seems Alexandria where other members of Joseph’s family reside. There Felix will be safe from Domitian, who is slated to become emperor in a few months.
Thank you for your story Clio. I like it. And now will keep watching the final days of Herculaneum.
Oh. I forgot. Why didn’t you include both Pliny the Elder and Pliny the younger? They were both there and Pliny the Elder died in the eruption, although many suspect that he was killed by poisonous gases from the volcano.
Larry, Felix’s actual name is Marcus Antonius Felix (see the embroidery on his pouch, and regular cracks by other people about the name, the equivalent of naming your kid Benedict Arnold around 1876). Read the seer’s advice to Justa carefully. I believe Klio has pending news for us still.
My favorite character is Vitalis. Telling Calatoria Themis that the local people don’t know her from a tray of spoiled fruit! Ouch. I can see why Stephanus adored her and loved their daughter. (The situation with Caius is weird, though. Wouldn’t he have wanted the son enough to arrange for him to be treated as Justa was?)
Ahh, I see!
If you follow Marcus to the boats, you lose everything. Don’t and you are buried with your fortune for all time.
OOooOooOoo!
CJG: It is funny considering that Iusta married Mus in order to escape her marriage with Felix.
> (The situation with Caius is weird, though. Wouldn’t he have wanted the son enough to arrange for him to be treated as Justa was?)
I tweaked the relationship between them to half brothers. There may still be places in the comic where they’re called father and son. My rationale is that by the time Stephanus became master of the house, Caius had already grown up as a slave, trained as a scribe, valued in the household; and that it might have seemed logical to free him in the will. Had Stephanus lived, I’d like to think he’d have gotten around to giving Caius his freedom, even if he didn’t want Caius as an heir.
That’s my rationale, at least.
I stand corrected. I didn’t look for the actual comic. I tend to become distracted. LOL.
So the seer was right. Iusta followed Felix and lost everything but kept her life. If she had remained in town now she would be buried with her fortune for all eternity. I liked that line. 20/20 hindsight can sometimes be marvelous.
Poletopole: ->Larry, Felix’s actual name is Marcus Antonius Felix (see the embroidery on his pouch, and regular cracks by other people about the name, the equivalent of naming your kid Benedict Arnold around 1876).
I always wondered why. At this time of history all the Julians are gone. In fact the original Marcus Antonius was not even a Julian but an Antonian and a pleb not a patrician. His mother was a very distant cousin of Caesar so he was not considered in Caesar’s will. Octavian inherited everything. Neither Titus nor Domitian had anything to fear politically from him. In fact Octavian thoroughly smeared Marcus Antonius name and destroyed his popularity with the Roman pleb during their civil war.
All other things notwithstanding, Domitian was thoroughly, exquisitely paranoid. Our Titus sees Felix as an opportunist who might have gotten uppity ideas from his heritage. Domitian sees Felix as a threat. But then, Domitian probably sees a cheese sandwich as a threat.
-> Domitian probably sees a cheese sandwich as a threat.
LMAO. Ain’t that the truth?
Larry:
So many interesting things to reply to! Some of them have already been taken by other people. 🙂
> I am also sad, because I always shipped Felix with Elisa and that now will not happen.
I only just barely resisted adding in an extra scene for the two of them. It didn’t fit the timeline. But maybe I’ll create it as apocrypha or director’s cut at some point. If I do a printed version of chapter IV. Just to give them a little more time together.
> Clio, your comment about some names taken from Pompeii’s graffiti made me search and find the “Marcus loves Spendusa” inscription. I wonder why you didn’t put Marcus in the story.
I like to think of (Marcus Antonius) Felix taking a moment during his trip to Pompeii to write on a wall.
That inscription was one of the different pieces that drifted together to inspire the characters. Sometimes pieces showed up long after characters had been introduced, but still fit right in.
> I also had the suspicion that Felix and Iusta were slated for a fiery volcanic death.
After all that the historical Iusta had to deal with, at some point I felt that the fictional one should, well, get a break. And not be slated for fiery volcanic death.
> About Mus. I don’t expect him to survive. In fact I do believe that it is more humane to let him die of his wounds. Or even better yet, killed by the volcano. I think that would be quicker than letting him linger in pain with an irreparable broken body.
When you put it that way, it may not have been a mercy for Nonius’s people to attempt to take him to a doctor with a penchant for trying to fix usually-fatal injuries.
> Where will they go? Best idea seems Alexandria where other members of Joseph’s family reside. There Felix will be safe from Domitian, who is slated to become emperor in a few months.
Felix has shown himself to be terribly, terribly bad at keeping his head down and staying anonymously hidden.
> Thank you for your story Clio. I like it. And now will keep watching the final days of Herculaneum.
You’re so very welcome!
> Oh. I forgot. Why didn’t you include both Pliny the Elder and Pliny the younger? They were both there and Pliny the Elder died in the eruption, although many suspect that he was killed by poisonous gases from the volcano.
Pliny the Younger gets a cameo. But I let Pliny the Elder carry on with his noble rescue efforts outside the panel borders.
I stand corrected. I forgot that Felix’s full name is Marcus Antonius Felix.
->When you put it that way, it may not have been a mercy for Nonius’s people to attempt to take him to a doctor with a penchant for trying to fix usually-fatal injuries.
I actually liked that. It shows that the Romans were not robots or some type of amoral selfish people. They were just like us. They helped strangers too even if some did with expectation of payment for services rendered, which happens these days as well. It is just that I did not expect him to survive having nearly a ton of bricks and wood fall on him. Four months ago a small brick wall fell down over some poor guy standing by it, killing him instantly. It was just a 2 meter high wall. Not big in any way, but yet the bricks crushed him to death.
I like to write but have never published anything. I always like to see what happens after the main story is over. As the character in the movie Twin Falls Idaho says: “Although you cannot see it, the life of the characters continues after THE END appears.”
->Felix has shown himself to be terribly, terribly bad at keeping his head down and staying anonymously hidden.
Yes he is, but know he needs to use his head and not his brawn. He has a family to take care of now: A son, a daughter and possibly a wife (if you agree with that).
Possible extenuating circumstances: if the scaffolding formed enough of a cage over Mus to shield him from the worst of the falling tiles and bricks and stonemasons, he might not have been completely smushed. He was still alive enough to survive being picked up. But he was clearly in very bad shape. So… (I just leave an ellipsis, for now).
Having many dependents to protect, rather than being separated from them, will hopefully adjust Felix’s priorities.
Klio: ->Possible extenuating circumstances: if the scaffolding formed enough of a cage over Mus to shield him from the worst of the falling tiles and bricks and stonemasons, he might not have been completely smushed. He was still alive enough to survive being picked up. But he was clearly in very bad shape. So… (I just leave an ellipsis, for now).
I’ll wait for your judgment of Mus’ fate then.
Personally I’m waiting for a few more sandals to drop.
Klio always has something up her sleeve.
Why, yes, I always keep spare sandals up my sleeve 😀
Also, for someone who complained about not being able to draw a horse, you sure know how to draw the insides of a horse!
Who knew that drawing the insides would be so… “fun” isn’t the word I’m looking for. “Fascinating,” I think.
Drawing the insides should make it easier to understand drawing the outsides, when it comes time to draw a real pony again!
Oh not Elisa & Spendusa too! 🙁
And I have to disagree with Charlie Pelligrino. The jolly catastrophes aren’t so jolly when the people in them have names and stories. But what you’re doing is really very powerful, klio, this is really bringing the history alive for me. Thank you. (I hate losing my story-friends, but thank you).
But don’t think I didn’t notice bad Sweetums fibbed back on April 9th! There are no other ladies wearing heavy rings on their left hands! Bad bear, naughty! No legion standard for you!
You’re welcome!
And Sweetums sends apologies from a safely distant beach.
Commedy tomorrow, tragedy tonight? 😛
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-hZhr2k2hk
Every time that song comes up, I get it stuck on endless loop in my head for days 😀
Comedy tomorrow! Or perhaps next week. But eventually, yes.
Just so you know Klio. I am blaming your for me not being productive this day. Since instead of working I am watching a documentary about Herculaneum.
Just in case somebody has not seen it: https://youtu.be/3_wfTPdp3_k
Sounds like an excellent use of time to me!
I’m tempted to check whether it’s one I’ve seen before and watch it too, but I’ll save it for a reward after I get a few hours of work done 🙂
did you do anythign about the sick boy, leftin a room with a plate of chicken?
I briefly substituted Calatoria Themis for the boy in the sick room but, in the end, I didn’t come up with a way to fit him in :/
at least some of them died in orderly rows.
Just as any true Roman would wish…a well-organised demise.
)-: This is so depressing, although I’ve seen it coming since the beginning.
There’ll be at least a little hope amongst the ashes….