The Slaves of Atticus Lucius Tiburcus

[Wragg]

A very loooooooong time ago (Sep 24 2011, to be precise) I posted a series of not-very-good pencil sketches concerning the crucifixion of a slave named Diana:

https://cruxforums.com/xf/threads/when-to-strip.220/post-15537

I recently put some other pencil drawings of Sasha to the AI sword, and I started by thinking that I might do the same for Diana:



Well, they are a bloody sight better than the pencil drawings, I'll say that for them, and 0022 shows off Diana's posterior in a manner that @Apostate might appreciate, but 0026 illustrates that it can all be a bit hit and miss - if you mention blood then you get red nipples, and it struggles with what is cross and what isn't.

AI is pretty hopeless at complex images, too. It's no good telling it there's a nude blonde haired woman and a dark-haired man wearing a grey coat, because you'll get any combinaton of blonde or dark hair and grey clothing and nudity across the image. Plus, as so many know all too well, AI has not got the foggiest idea hown many fingers and toes a huan should have nor who has dangly bits and what those dangly bits should or shouldn't look like!

So instead I have gone for generating the elements of the image using AI and then using my trusty Paintshop Pro to make up the image. Other photomanipulation software is available, and I have no financial interest in PSP nor in deep-image.ai which I use as my AI engine.

The story of Diana in 2011 was weak, so I needed a new tale woven around here, and here I must tell you that I have not touched Chat GPT or anything like it. I need all the help a computer can give me with image making, but I enjoy stringing words together all by myself.

@Zephirantes, over on the ethics thread, wondered what ordinary citizens made of crucifixion. In a world where (according to advertisments painted onto a wall in Pompeii) you could have your slaves crucified for thirty Sestercii or so, presumably crucifixion was a kind of waste disposal system for unwanted slaves. Got your slave pregnant? Send for the carnifex. Slave's got too old? Hang on a moment, I put thirty sestercii in a pot the other day. You'd have to be a bit of a hard hearted citizen not to feel a bit sorry for a slave nailed to a cross just for tripping over the cat?

And what about the slaves who found themselves purchased by a carnifex? There they were, industriously nailing their fellow slaves to crosses, knowing that if they made one false move they'd be getting a taste of their own medicine.

After 'Jasmine', I swore I'd never do another illustrated story again. Well, this won't be like Jasmine - no speech bubbles here - it will be text supported by images. But I've tried to illustrate most of the key points in the story as best as I can.

Anyhow, if you enjoy it, great, if not, I'm sorry, but I've enjoyed doing it!

@Madiosi - I'm happy to look after the archive version, if you like. So I won't be using 'To be continued' but I'll put 'The End' at the end.

 

[Loxuru]

After 'Jasmine', I swore I'd never do another illustrated story again.

But that was a masterpiece!

You'd have to be a bit of a hard hearted citizen not to feel a bit sorry for a slave nailed to a cross just for tripping over the cat?

"Just for tripping the cat?" I made some inquiry about this matter!

Anyhow, if you enjoy it, great, if not, I'm sorry, but I've enjoyed doing it!

Looking forward to it, Wragg!

 

[Wragg]

"Just for tripping the cat?" I made some inquiry about this matter!

Oh, Gawd... If Claws the Cruxton Abbey cat gets to hear of that faux pas he'll rip my Chesterfield sofa to shreds!

 

[fallenmystic]

AI is pretty hopeless at complex images, too. It's no good telling it there's a nude blonde haired woman and a dark-haired man wearing a grey coat, because you'll get any combinaton of blonde or dark hair and grey clothing and nudity across the image. Plus, as so many know all too well, AI has not got the foggiest idea hown many fingers and toes a huan should have nor who has dangly bits and what those dangly bits should or shouldn't look like!

So instead I have gone for generating the elements of the image using AI and then using my trusty Paintshop Pro to make up the image. Other photomanipulation software is available, and I have no financial interest in PSP nor in deep-image.ai which I use as my AI engine.

That is what inpainting or regional prompting is for. Although the latter isn’t supported by most online services, inpainting is widely available.

Also, try Flux variants if the service you’re using offers them. They are far superior to SDXL when it comes to understanding complex prompts and depicting hands. I heard that recent SD3 models are comparable to them also but I haven’t tried them yet.

 

[Wragg]

That is what inpainting or regional prompting is for. Although the latter isn’t supported by most online services, inpainting is widely available.

Also, try Flux variants if the service you’re using offers them. They are far superior to SDXL when it comes to understanding complex prompts and depicting hands. I heard that recent SD3 models are comparable to them also but I haven’t tried them yet.

Flux variants. Right.

Superior to SDXL. Awesome.

Me, I'm at the level of wondering why the heck, when I upload an image with four fingers and a thumb, it comes back with seven fingers...

 

[Barbaria1]

My fav image so far is the first one. Not sure why exactly. I think it’s the expression on her face. Just captures my imagination.

 

[thehangingtree]

My fav image so far is the first one. Not sure why exactly. I think it’s the expression on her face. Just captures my imagination.

...and she asks "Are you certain I must be naked when I am crucified?"

 

[Wragg]

Atticus Lucius Tiburcus was dead.

And, I couldn’t help but feel, good riddance to the old bastard. Not that I knew him personally, but by reputation he was a deeply unpleasant man whose only redeeming characteristic was that he was rich. Rich but parsimonious – he kept a household of only three slaves, and to be a slave of Tiburcus was a virtual death sentence as he was a regular and satisfied customer of my own master, Gnaeus the Carnifex.

He had no wife, the only one he’d had had drowned herself in the Ivarus river rather than spend another day in the company of this odious man. Since then he’d always kept one ‘special’ slave to satisfy his individual and eccentric tastes – which included watching as we crucified them, and gods help any of us that got in his line of sight as we did so. I gather he paid Gnaeus a bonus if we all did it right.

His current household consisted of a gardener and handyman named Aemillius and a cleaner and cook named Aedilia. His third and ‘special’ slave had survived longer than most, he called her ‘Diana’ after the goddess of love, and he’d found her about three years ago in the slave market where she’d been brought after her capture during a raid on a Teuton settlement somewhere to the north of here.

Much Roman blood had been spilt in the Cimbrian wars against the Teutons and some Celtic Tribes (including the eponymous Cimbrians), so there was no love lost between the Romans and the Teutons.

As for Diana, rumour had it that Tiburcus had paid the price of a small villa for her after a frisky bidding war with a couple of wealthy merchants and she was, and remained, his most cherished possession. On the rare occasions when I’d seen her outside his villa her striking looks and long blonde hair gleaming in the sunlight had caught my eye and filled my dreams.



Today Gnaeus had announced that he was off ‘to see Atticus Tiburcus about a job.’ I was his oldest and most trusted slave, and he permitted me the occasional liberty.

“Diana?” I asked, hopefully.



“No, Aemillius,” he replied, equally brightly. His preference for the male of the species had become painfully apparent to me in the early days of my servitude to him. “I suspect he’s been making eyes at Diana.”

“Then I’m sure he’s guilty.” I grunted. Not that it mattered whether he was guilty or not. If Tiburcus wanted him crucified, and if he was happy to pay the thirty sestercii or so that Gnaeus charged for the privilege, then that is exactly what would happen. “Lukas and I will grab a patibulum and some stuff and meet you outside his villa shortly.”

“Good,” he said, and departed.

I smiled to myself. I might at least catch a glimpse of the lovely Diana.

Lukas was in the workshop fashioning a mortice into a beam of wood. We had the beams delivered from the timber yard but it was up to us to maintain the posts and beams so that they would fit together to make a robust cross. It was up to each individual carnifex such as Gnaeus to devise a method of crucifixion which worked for them and their team. Of course we recycled what we could, but there came a point quite quickly when the beams had just too many nail holes in them and needed to be replaced. And the uprights, or stipes, stood out in all weathers in their sockets on our execution ground outside the city. Sometimes they would swell in the wet and not drop in or pull out properly, in which case Lukas or I would plane them, but sometimes they just rotted, and we’d cut them up for firewood at the earliest sign of rot.

As for eroding the wood with nails, roped crucifixions were cheaper for the client, but nine out of ten wanted us to use nails, and every crucifixion on behalf of the city officials needed nails. ‘They don’t pay us to leave thieves out there sunbathing and enjoying the view,’ Gnaeus often pointed out to us.

It wasn’t him who had to lug great chunks of wood around the countryside, but it wasn’t for us to ask questions or fail to do what he asked. Lukas’ predecessor could not make decent mortices to save his life. Literally. Two wobbly cruxes, then I had to show him for the umpteenth time how to do it properly, before Gnaeus and I nailed him to the result and left him screaming while we went to the slave market where we found Lukas.

Lukas, worryingly, was a better carpenter than even me.

“Hi Aulus,” Lukas looked up from his work as I approached.

“We’ve got a job, Lukas. Tiburcus Villa.”



He grunted an acknowledgement, replaced the hammer into a loop in his belt, picked up the bag of nails and tied that to the other side of his belt, then we each grabbed one end each of a cross beam – a patibulum, and off we went.



We could have carried the beam on our own – candidates for crucifixion have to, but they are quite heavy, and a burden shared is a burden halved. Besides which, clad only in loincloths and sandals as we (and most male slaves) are, if I’d carried the beam by myself and he was following me with a hammer people would assume it was me going to my death. Methods, as I say, may differ, but a lone person carrying a beam of timber through the streets meant only one thing – and unless the weather was totally foul, such a spectacle always drew a group of spectators along behind.

Even encumbered as we were, it didn’t take long to get from our yard to the Villa Tiburcus. Oddly, there was a Roman soldier on guard outside.

I nodded in respect. Slaves have to know their place. “Hello, sir,” I said, as we leaned the patibulum on a wall. “Does this one need an armed guard?”

He looked at me with contempt, but deigned to answer me. “No. That slave has disappeared, along with one other. There has been a murder.”

“Oh… my Master Gnaeus was coming here?” Surely nobody had murdered him? What would become of us if that happened? Actually, I knew bloody well what would happen. Slaves of murdered masters were crucified. Worse than that – if Gnaeus was dead I’d be crucified by some ham-fisted lug of a Roman soldier who hadn’t got the faintest idea how to do it right. I’d seen, and tut-tutted at, Roman military crucifixions, bent nails, nails dropped out and victims with one arm or one foot free – Roman soldiers were rank amateurs at crucifixion. I’d heard stories from Judea (where all crucifixions were courtesy of the Roman army) that some guy had got up and strolled off three days after being crucified. See what I mean? Total incompetence.

To my vast relief, Gnaeus appeared at that moment, with Diana, one hand grasping her upper arm. She looked terrified. She was wearing the kind of robe that rich women wear after they’ve got up but before they dress properly. And that robe had bloodstains on it.



“Aulus, at last! Did you take the scenic route?”

Yes, he permitted me some liberties, trusted me even, but I tactfully refrained from asking him how quickly he’d have done the trip himself carrying a large piece of timber. So I kept my reply more respectful.

“I’m glad you are okay, sir. The officer here tells me that there has been a murder, and that the slave Aemillius has run off. Shall we return home and await your instructions?”

“No. It is Atticus Lucius Tiburcus himself who has been murdered.”

I gasped. No wonder he was tetchy. That was a major income stream, gone. “That’s terrible, Master Gnaeus!”

“I found him. I need to stay here and speak to the centurion, and then we must find the two missing slaves. Unfortunately these soldiers have only just arrived in Juvavum and would not recognise them, so I must help them search.”

“Yes, sir. Shall I help you search?”

“No. Do you think you could crucify this Teuton wench by yourselves? While I help find the others?”

 

[Barbaria1]

Mmmmmm … what a hunk he is!!!!!

(nice writing too)

 

[Loxuru]

I’d heard stories from Judea (where all crucifixions were courtesy of the Roman army) that some guy had got up and strolled off three days after being crucified. See what I mean? Total incompetence.

Does anyone still believe that old urban legend?

Wtitten from the viewpoint of an executioner! Good start, Wragg!

 

[Wragg]

Does anyone still believe that old urban legend?

I thought it was the AI that gave the Roman soldiers five thumbs

 

[bobinder]

Unfortunately these soldiers have only just arrived in Juvavum

This place is called IVVAVVM...? Seriously? I think you're making this up.

I’d heard stories from Judea (where all crucifixions were courtesy of the Roman army) that some guy had got up and strolled off three days after being crucified.

I remember this - that time I got so hammered, I woke up three days later in some cave...

A highly entertaining tale in the Chronicler style, and the artwork appears to be quite successful. Good start, Wragg!

 

[Wragg]

IVVAVVM.

IUVAVUM

 

[bobinder]

IUVAVUM

I always write 'U' as 'V' in latin. It looks like a bigger number that way.

Actually, why not call it MVVAVVM and make it a palindrome?

 

[SirMGBZ]

Flux variants. Right.

Are they anything like a flux capacitor?

IVVAVVM

You are pedantically correct. I took Latin back many decades ago, and the original Latin alphabet didn't have G, J, U, W, and Y. But I will confess to using the modern Latin alphabet, unless I am writing something that is set in that time. ;-)

I remember this - that time I got so hammered, I woke up three days later in some cave...

Reminds me of the T-shirt: "Easter's cancelled. They found the body."

I always write 'U' as 'V' in latin. It looks like a bigger number that way.

Good on you!

 

[Wragg]

“NOOOOOO! Oh please, no! Have mercy! Not the cross! I did not harm the master! Dilla killed him – not me! You have to believe me!”

My own head was spinning slightly at this turn of events. I was quite used to dealing with crucifixions without any input from him, but how could he pass this slave to me with such indifference? Not that any reply I could have made would have been heard over Diana’s pleadings.

Gnaeus shook her, roughly, and she fell silent. He spoke. “You have blood on your robe. I found you with your master. But in any case, you are a slave and your master has been murdered. By law, you should be crucified.” He paused. “Unless, of course, you know where your fellow slaves are?”

I could tell from the look on her face that she hadn’t got the faintest idea where they were. “I… I….” she stammered.

“You must tell me before I count to ten, and then I will hand you over to Aulus. One… two…”

“They might be in the wood shed!” She was guessing, desperately.

“We’ve searched the wood shed already, sir.” The soldier chipped in.

“Oh, fuck it. We’re wasting time.” Gnaeus did not even have the patience to count further. “You have no idea, do you?”

“They were close – they will be together!” In a desperate attempt to save herself, Diana tried telling Gnaeus what she did know.

“I’d worked that out for myself, thank you. Go ahead, Aulus.”

Lukas and I grabbed the patibulum, and put it across the wailing girl’s shoulders.

“I didn’t kill him! I didn’t kill him! Please! Let me go! Owww! That’s so heavy! No! NO!”

I looked at Gnaeus. “I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t bring a whip.” His was stashed in his belt.

“Never mind. Just give her a good slapping if she gets uppity.”

“Yessir. Come on, Lukas, let’s get going.”

Lukas led the way, and I walked behind with Diana. I looked at her. Yes, she’d had three years of Tiburcus’s treatment, but she could still have fetched a good price in the slave market. But she didn’t belong to Gnaeus, and she sure as hell didn’t belong to me. Although part of me wanted desperately to take her somewhere and fuck her, I knew that Gnaeus wouldn’t tolerate such a thing. And Lukas wouldn’t co-operate, either. He was Gnaeus’ pet - where I had tolerated Gnaeus’ attentions, I think Lukas quite enjoyed them, or, at least, used his body to curry favour.

“So you say you didn’t kill him.” I said, conversationally.

“No! I just found him… like that… when I went to take him a drink.”

“So why did you stay? Why didn’t you run off with the others? You knew what would happen if you stayed.”

“Did… did he say… you name was Aulus?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t… blend into a crowd… like they would, Aulus.”

“That was ‘courageous’. And you are Diana.”

“That’s what he called me. My mother called me ‘Gerda’.”

My mother had named me ‘Axrotallus’, which Gnaeus couldn’t pronounce, so I’d been ‘Aulus’ since I’d been in Juvavum. I waited while she negotiated some steps that led up to the street that led through the gate towards our execution ground. “’Diana’ will do, though,” she added.



She was puffing a bit as we passed a temple. A priestess was standing by the roadside. She looked shocked when she saw Diana. Sometimes we made ‘tituli’ – notices to tell bystanders who the condemned were and what they’d done, but there hadn’t been time this morning. So I did the job myself.

“Morning. I’m afraid that her master has been murdered.”

“Did she do it?”

“NO!!!” stated Diana.

I shrugged. “She might. They’re looking for the other slaves.”

“I’ll pray for her soul!”

I smiled as she joined the group of people following us. “When she gets back from watching your crucifixion, she’ll pray for you, Diana.”

At this, Diana stopped and knelt on the flagstones. The patibulum clattered to the ground behind her.



“Let me… rest…”

I looked at her. “Ten seconds. Then we must get on.”

I gave her maybe half a minute. Lukas began tapping his foot. I nodded to him, and we replaced the patibulum.

“Come on, up you get!”

But she couldn’t, not with the patibulum across her shoulders. So Lukas and I took the weight while she struggled to her feet. I gave her a sharp smack on the backside to get her moving, which it did, even though it was slightly softened by her robe.

We didn’t tend to strip them for the journey to their cross. In summer or clement weather, most male slaves live in a permanent state of near nudity anyway, women usually wear a kind of a tunic called a chiton. Here in the northern reaches of the Empire it gets extremely cold in the winter, so we all get animal furs or woollen blankets. Today, in late summer, it was cloudy but mild. But any clothes, by tradition, become the property of the carnifex to dispose of as he will. Leaving them on the condemned for the journey simply gave us less to carry.

They were always taken before crucifixion, though, summer or winter. Winter crucifixions seldom lasted more than an hour, even with our bonfires a nude man or woman on a cross succumbed speedily to the bitter cold of winter in Noricum. But year round, clothes could fetch a few sestertii in the market, once Gunter had cleaned the shit off the loincloths.

Gunter was another Teuton, he couldn’t speak Latin, and he couldn’t hit a nail straight so not much good for anything technical but he could sweep and clean and lift heavy weights – which included lifting loaded crosses. He was also good for getting rotting corpses down from crosses so we could re-use the wood and sell the used nails as amulets. Some believed that they had healing properties. I slept with one under my bedding. Just in case.

We came through the gate and ahead was our crucifixion ground with our crosses and posts. Three were occupied, but the slave we’d crucified the day before yesterday looked dead. And Gunter was up there, he’d brought the horse and cart up there and he was doing his thing taking down corpses and collecting crosses. I was glad to see him – crucifixion was easier with him around.

“Gunter!” I yelled, and motioned with my forearm for him to take down a post. There were three in a group nearer the road and I pointed at the middle one. If they found the others then the slaves of Atticus Lucius Tiburcus could keep each other company.

Diana saw what was ahead. And she’d been thinking.

“You left your master behind. You’re a slave like me.”

I grunted in affirmation.

“You know you will probably end up on a cross yourself?”

Of course it had occurred to me. I’d crucified hundreds of people, and always the possibility of my own crucifixion hung over me. But I had been useful to Gnaeus, and he had grown to trust me.

One day a Roman citizen had fallen into step with me as I led a convict to his doom. “You’re Gnaeus’ chief slave, aren’t you?” When I told him that I was, he’d told me that he’d been chief slave to Gnaeus’ father, and he’d been freed when Gnaeus senior had handed over the business to his son. Of course, as a homosexual Gnaeus had no sons but he was now grey-haired and at least twenty years my senior, so I’d set myself to be like a son to him, in the hope that, when the time came he’d retire and free me to run the business. That seemed to me to be an easier way to earn a living than eking out an existence farming, as my father had done, among the mountains east of here.That would have been my destiny until the day that I, at eighteen, was out by myself and found myself captured by a slave trader who promptly took me to Juvavum and sold me.

None of which was any of Diana’s business, nor Lukas’ for that matter, so I just said, “I might, but then again I might not.”

“We could run away and I could make you that happiest man in the empire. I could have your babies.” These were not just the usual panic-driven pleadings of the condemned, this was a well thought out offer by a woman used to getting her own way through her sexuality. I bet she’d had Tiburcus wound round her little finger.

I won’t say I wasn’t tempted. I was strong enough to kill Lukas, and Gunter would not interfere. Part of me did not want to harm this woman, even though I’d dreamed of this day.

We stopped, and Lukas took the patibulum and began his carpentry. He was still alert, though.

I looked around. The twenty or so people behind would be less co-operative, though. This was Roman occupied Noricum. I doubted if we could even cover a mile. I’d even reserved two crosses for the other two slaves, that’s how much I rated their chances of avoiding the inevitable.

Anyway, she was a Teuton and I was a Noric Celt. Our peoples had been at war for centuries, but luckily, in this one kingdom, now a province, we’d always had the Romans on our side. Lovely though she was, I had trust issues with Diana.

I stood in front of her. “No deal, sorry, sweetheart. Gnaeus has been a good master to me, and I’m not about to betray that trust.”


Her shoulders dropped, and her head bowed. “Fuck you, then. Go ahead, do what you must do.”

 

[Loxuru]

IUVAVUM

Salzburg!

“We could run away and I could make you that happiest man in the empire. I could have your babies.”

A once in a lifetime offer, you have to let it pass!

 

[Wragg]

Salzburg!

and the River Ivarus is the Salzach.

A once in a lifetime offer, you have to let it pass!

Once in a very short (but happy) lifetime!

 

[Loxuru]

Once in a very short (but happy) lifetime!

Nevertheless, during the narrative, Aulus, although being a slave, gives evidence of a lot of pride and satisfaction about his work and his skills.

 

[malins]

I really like this, the matter of fact way Aulus deals with the situation, always aware of the fragility of his own position while making the best of it given the situation.

He'll give small mercies where he feels them to be affordable...

Diana stopped and knelt on the flagstones. The patibulum clattered to the ground behind her.
“Let me… rest…”
I looked at her. “Ten seconds. Then we must get on.”
I gave her maybe half a minute. Lukas began tapping his foot. I nodded to him, and we replaced the patibulum.
“Come on, up you get!”
But she couldn’t, not with the patibulum across her shoulders. So Lukas and I took the weight while she struggled to her feet. I gave her a sharp smack on the backside to get her moving

soo we don't have the stereotypical raving sadist crux-thug.

Though it's clear also he'll also very much enjoy some special fruits of his labor ... and since the only way for him to get his hands on someone like Diana is by way of her being sentenced to the cross, and him carrying that out, ...that is his favorite imagination ... a bittersweet dream now coming true.

As a slave both the idea of freedom as well as the vision of his own doom on a cross are ever-present at the back of his mind, circling, and feeding each other... if it wasn't for this and that and another thing he might take Diana's notion of escape seriously but what he makes is a rational judgement weighing the outcomes. He doesn't laugh in her face though! All in all a well described character.

As for Diana we may find out more about her but so far she seems to realize that after making the best of her life as a slave for a few years now she must make the best of her end, and there's no point in making a scene...

My fav image so far is the first one. Not sure why exactly. I think it’s the expression on her face. Just captures my imagination.

I like that one too, a lot of the ones leading up to the crux work pretty well!

For a depiction of the crux itself you'll need to have the hands and feet in precise places and poses and if you're working with a global prompt only that's very tricky (I've played around a bit with a local setup). A few come out reasonably well as they match common modeling or dance poses but those wild, squirming scenes are hard to get, unless you dig into 'controlnet', inpainting etc. as @fallenmystic mentioned