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Marcus Flavius (320-264 BC)

The first “me” was born 320 years before Christ was, in the days of the Roman Republic. I came off a wheat farm just outside Laurentum, a coastal fishing village just south of the port of Ostia.

I lead a normal life for my time. I remember the rustic, rustic Latin my parents spoke around the house, and I still remember a few lewd songs in it I learned down at the tavern. But, still….

My family always knew I was special, especially my old grandmother. I have deep, deep blue eyes, just like my Great-Great-Grandfather, my maternal grandmother's paternal grandfather, who never aged and ran away when my grandmother was a girl. Every one else in my family had dark brown eyes except for the two of us.

I married my first wife, her name was Claudia. She was the most beautiful girl I've ever seen (and trust me, in 2,300 years I've seen a lot of girls), with luscious black hair, pale skin and soft gray eyes. She was smart, gorgeous, and her flaring hips mesmeriesed me. I married her for love, which was considered bad luck at the time, but I didn't care. We had 6 children. I raised them on the farm. They grew up, some mustered into the army, all married off and had there own families, but I was still here.

In my 50s, my wife died, but still I was young, I looked at felt 25. I thanked the gods for that as my children helpers left my farm.

But people view me with distrust as Claudus and Clepsina became Consuls (around, oh, 270 BC? Sounds about right). I was too old to be so young. Too old. Murmurs that I was evil, and a vane demigod spread from city to city, town to town, village to village, farm to farm. I knew I must do something.

It was my grandson's birthday, in 264 B.C. Whispers of war with the Carthiginians in Sicily were being heard. I left my home that night, with all my money and most of my belongings. I wandered around the countryside for weeks. Drinking in taverns, working odd jobs, never staying in one village or on one farm for more than a couple days. I wandered my way down to a medium-sized town in Campania, that I know today as Capua, and I was broke. I needed a purpose and more importantly, a source of income. I decided to muster into the Legions. The War in Sicily was picking up, and Rome needed more and more men.

The bored-looking clerk sitting at the conscription table yawned and said “Name?”

I stuttered. What was my name? I knew it wasn't Marcus Flavius anymore. But I wasn't anyone else. Well….until now.

“My name's Lucius Julius”

So began my second life.

Lucius Julius (264-204 BC)

I headed out for the Punic Wars as a young, frontline soldier, tough and ready for battle. I shocked some Carthiginian foot soldiers as they threw perfectly aimed spears, or slashed perfectly aimed swords at me, yet still missed. I knew I couldn't die of natural causes, nor could I get sick, but it came as a bit of a surprise to me that I could not be killed with sword, spear or arrow.

I traveled around Sicily, eventually becoming an officer in charge of a small group of men by the end of the war, but all things must come to an eventual end and I wound up out of the army in the middle of rural Sicily with no home, family or means of income.

I did what I did before I joined the Army; various odd jobs on farms. I ended up having a good unstanding of Sicel, Greek and Phoenician as well as my native Latin, as my employers were Roman, Carthiginian or Greek settlers as well as native Sicilians.

My general direction was east, towards Messana, Syracuse or another seaport that could take me to Greece, Rome or even Egypt to start anew. I did eventually end up in Tauromenion, a beautiful Greek colony under the shadow of Etna with high cliffs and amazing views. I stayed in Tauromenion for a while, I had a steady stream of money coming in from my new work as a builder.

I was walking down the street once and saw a beautiful raven-haired Greek girl named Aphroditia. Damn me if the name didn't fit her. We settled down, had a couple kids and raised them. My eldest son Philippos Julius helping me with my building work.

My wife grew old and died. I mourned and Philippos became suspicious. This had happened before. I grew paranoid and left in the middle of the night.

This was in the Secons Punic War. I'd had a rough enough time in the first and had no intention to fight again. This was in about 204 B.C. Scipio Africanus had gotten the upper hand and the Battle of Zama was approaching as I went to Messana. I found quick work as a sailor, bound on a ship, headed for the Greek isles and Cyprus. I signed up as a native Sicilian Greek known as “Alexandros”

My third life, third identity “Alexandros the Sailor”.

Alexandros the Sailor (204-152 BC)

I sailed across the Greek isles from 204 to 199. Those five years were some of the happiest of my life. Lifting blocks of marble and crates of olive oil, sponges, wine and salted fish bound for Athens, Rome, Carthage or Alexandria was kind of mundane, but I was strong and tanned and could handle it.

At first I hated the sea. I had never been in boat before, except for occasional fishing trips with my father or my sons in Laurentum and Tauromenion and my brief shuttle to Sicily before the First Punic War. I was sick at first, but then grew used to it and loved the smell of the sea air and curiousity at what I would find in every port.

I grew wealthy from my various jobs, I had a reputation as a hard worker and almost 150 years of saving money let me buy my own ship, the “Delfina”. I traded across the Mediterranean. Phoenician dye, Egyptian wheat, marble from Greece, wine from the Italian backcountry, and various raw materials from Gaul.

I grew bold and went on a massive trade expedition, leaving Tarraco in 166 B.C. to head north to trade with the Britons and Germans of the North Sea. Battered by storms, we turned back midway up Britain's coast, but acquired a lot of tin, a valuable metal in those days. I grew extremely wealthy and sold the Delfina and bought a farm in the rich Campanian plains. Under the shadow of Vesuvius, outside Pompeii, my glorious estate, the Villa Delfina was created.

I adopted a new name and yet another life in 152 B.C. I was Publius Pollius Felix, “the lucky”, a wealthy Campanian farmer.

Publius Pollius Felix (152-80s BC) and Klajunas (80s-52 BC)

I assumed the identity of Publius Pollius Felix for a short time until my family got on the wrong side of Sulla in the 80s B.C. I don't remember much about my life as Felix except I did a lot of business deals and had a lot of parties on my estate near Pompeii. I had a virtual private army of freedmen, and my wife was an elegent blonde from Herculaneum named Pinaria.

But, like I said, I ended up on the wrong side of Sulla and his armies. My villa was burned down. My wife raped and killed. My daughters dead in the fire. I should have burned to death, but again, I didn't. I was overcome with grief and ran east. I wandered through village after village, mainly as a drunkard. I did the occasional odd job, but got by generally by saved money through Lucania, Apulia and the Marches. I continued to head north, and walked for months and months through the territory of the Germans. The Germans weren't sure what to think of me, they had nothing to offer me, I had nothing to offer them. Never spoke to them, never traded. Unlike the Balts, they didn't have a name for me.

I continued to wind me way across Europe, never settled, the closest I came to settling was wandering about a small and relatively unpopulated region in what is probably in either the Czech Republic or Slovakia these days. Can't be sure. I moved north across Poland into the land of the Balts. I hunted in the woods near what is now Kaliningrad and Lithuania.

I would sell my furs and salted meats, along with any fish I could catch, minerals I could find or roots I could dig up to neighboring communities, but never stayed in one place very long. I was known as “Klajunas” or, the wanderer. I became sort of a legend to the Balts.

I continued to trade, but I gradually began to drift north and east. I continued to trade with the Venedae, the proto-Slavs. They still called me Klajunas, hearing about me from the Balts. I even went by the name Klajunas, I though of myself as Klajunas even.

But I went further into Russia. It was barely populated. With no people around, I grew bored. It was about, 52 B.C. and I went to sleep one summer evening. And I didn't wake up. For ten years.

Yusnere (42 B.C.-22 A.D.)

Waking up in 42 B.C., in Russia, I was lonely. I knew little of the local people and language, it had, after all been 10 years since I was in the region. I wanted to go…home. The Roman Republic, for more or less, through thick and thin was after all, my country, my home. I had no idea of the situation at home (turns out it wasn't so great), but I was bound there anyway. I went south along the Ukrainian plains. I settled down for a few years with some of the locals who called me “Yusnere”, or Southerner, because my olive skin reminded them of the Greek traders who would come north to trade olive oil or fine goods for wheat.

I settled down there eventually. Starved from my wandering, I forgot about my intended goal of going to Rome. I took a wife from the local people, a beautiful blonde woman and had several children. All were dark haired like me, and had her blue-green eyes. Except for my youngest son. He had my dark blue eyes. I realized with a start that that meant he would be like me, an eternal.

He was the only person I've ever told my secret to. He tried to drown himself but failed. He ran for the west, I suppose to Britain, because went I told him stories of Britain, he was always intrigued. I wouldn't be surprised if many of you were his, an indirectly my, descendants.

But on the whole, my life on the Ukrainian plains was uneventful. I farmed wheat. I participated in religious ceremonies. I fought a battle with the occasional hostile tribe.

I was there about 30 years when there was a massive flood. Thankfully, it didn't touch my tribe much, but other tribes were gravely affected and it prevented Greek traders from coming north to trade with us. We didn't have much wine or oil for about 20 years after that. The Greeks seemed to have forgotten we existed.

I had been there about 60 years when a trading group returned. My wife had recently died and my children (except for my youngest) were beginning to age. I still spoke fluent Greek from my time in Sicily. I talked to the traders, I told them I was a trader like them, stuck north during a flood a few years back and wanted them to take me back home. It was 22 A.D. I pretended to a Roman, and they filled me in on events from the Empire (I was shocked to find out it was no longer a Republic). I told them my name was Marcus Julius Cato, and that I was a citizen.

When I got to Greece, where the traders were bound, I mustered into the Legions in Corinth. I was a assigned a mundane task, a Centurion in a garrison in Judaea, near Jerusalem.

Birth Name: Marcus Flavius
Birth Date: October 10, 320 BC
Birth Place: Central Italy
Status at Birth: Peasant
Relation to other Eternals: A boy in what is now Ukraine who possibly moved to Brittania
Current Pseudonym: Mark Faire
Past Pseudonyms: Lucius Julius, Alexandros, Publius Pollius Felix, Yusnere
Current Home: Springfield, IL
Past Homes: Ostia, Tauromenion, wandering eastern Europe
Current Occupation: Lawyer
Skills: Farmer, Soldier, Lawyer, Politician
Languages Spoken: Latin, Greek, English, German

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