Aquila:Fuscus at Tapae (Nova Roma)

FUSCUS AT TAPAE

by T. Iulius Sabinus ( english translation : Iulia Caesar Cytheris Aege ).

Each morning when he awakes

Fuscus fetches his armor,

Dutifully, as each and every time

Then, now, like any soldier.

Then his eyes look over the field on which

Rocks and trees, arrows and stones lay

Ordered in a way so difficult to understand

Still the same, after so many years.

The actant of an eternal ritual

Looking at his harsh hands, he comes

And stone by stone, rock by rock

He carefully places them where they belong in the mountain.

And with every stone, every log

Another comrade shows himself from behind the clouds

And Fuscus’ heart beats faster and faster

While his soul mourns for them.

Confident and fiery he carves his steps in the stones

Up and down and going up and down again

With his back bending,

His brow almost touching the earth.

The dacians are used to his presence

They almost do not mind him,

They are as he is wandering shadows on a battlefield

Living their drama until the dusk.

One winter they gave him a warm fur

To cover his body against the cold.

And they gave him a wood mace carved with ancestral signs

To be helpful on his never-ending path.

And so tries Fuscus to rebuild his dream

With every stone he gives back to the mountain

The legion comes back to life and with their shields raised

They hail, friendly salute him.

In the evening they gather there, strange shadows

All those with whom he had began his journey

And others come whom he doesn’t even know

Form his legion or maybe from Tettius’s.

As in a perpetual legend everything is placed and settled

And each morning it begins again

A different Sisyphus here in the Valley of Cerna,

The hero of a myth which he did not trust while being alive.

Only one vision remains when in the evening

He sits down tired and looks at the horizon

Far away, from Ulpia to Forum, upon the scattered ruins

Till the church made up from of them from Densus.

There, sitting still on the walls, with the cup in his hand

Longinus is drinking his poison

Brought by a messenger from Trajan .