Читать книгу The Journey: How an obscure Byzantine Saint became our Santa Claus - David Price Williams - Страница 20

It was always feared that if they didn’t get their ration of loaves every day, the legions would mutiny, especially since many of the soldiers had joined the army from foreign countries and were not necessarily loyal to the emperor. That was always a potential problem, in particular now when the empire was so weak and emperors arose and fell like skittles in an ale house.

Every June and July there would be a constant creaking of carts from the interior bringing the grain harvest down the roads on either side of the valley to the granaries near the harbour. They were massive buildings and by August they’d be full to overflowing with the threshed wheat ready for export. I knew many boys my own age whose fathers were involved in transporting the grain in bullock carts. They must have had innumerable mills and bakeries in Rome to process such a vast quantity.

The harbour and all its comings and goings were a source of endless fascination for me. I used to sit on the wall near the old bath-house and watch the ships being warped in from the outer roads in the bay. We had many slaves, mainly captured years ago from north of the Pontus, who would strain in long gangs on the ropes thrown to the shore, muscles stretched taut, as they pulled the heavy hulks around the breakwater and into their mooring positions alongside the harbour wall. The harbour inspectors and the gang masters would yell instructions to them, but they knew what they were doing and never made a mistake in their delicate manoeuvres. Each ship

THE JOURNEY