h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Easter Slave - A87752398
Author: GregPius - U13648184

This is only the first draft. I still have to edit it and correct the typos.

Nice job, Greg.

It makes me wonder at the end: what did he see that changed his life?

With a little more work, this would be a moving Easter story.

I suggest that you give the slave, and one or two other key characters names. If you can, provide a few descriptions of the garrison and the crucifixion site. Make it live for the reader.

Thanks that's what I was going for by making it a bit of a mystery. It is still a bit rough,I will work on it and try to give it more substance.

That is good advice. I am a bit reluctant to describe the garrison, never having seen one except in Hollywood movies. But I will do a bit of research and try to make it as authentic as possible. The slave comes from "a far western" civilisation. I was thinking he may have been a Celtic pirate. Some more research here will be necessary to get the spelling, of his name, right. If he was a slave maybe he had the same name as his master. What legion was in Judea at the time of Tiberius's reign and Pilate's governorship? More research again. Hollywood has already put too many inaccuracies into modern fiction, I will try to keep my names and description true to the times.
Thanks again for the feedback.

I think it was this legion:

http://www.livius.org/le-lh/legio/vi_ferrata.html

I will spare you the Carolina re-enactors' homepage. Lord, Roman re-enactors...worse than Confederates...

Yeah my research indicates that it was soliders drawn from the Legio VI Ferrata and the Legio X Fretensis. The Prefect would have drawn a bodyguard for Pilate, who was probably only a procurator (an Italian born Roman citizen of the equites order). If I can get away with using auxilliaries from the Legio X Frentsis then it will fit into my story better. Legio X Frentsis was known as the legion "of the sea straits" because it had been stationed to guard the straits around Messina. My pirates may have tried to raid this rich Roman colony. In a conflict with the Roman Legio, slaves would have been taken by the victorious Romans. Irish pirates certaily raided Cefn yr Ogof (on the Welsh coast) and then Belgic Gaul. So a sole raid on Messina is not beyond the realms of possibilities.
I am having less luck with a description of the Roman garrison. It would have been built by legionaires but would not have been a Roman fort or camp. There would be a jail in the Roman style-basically a pit. Probably a torture chamber attached to the procurator's residence. But after that I am flying blind.

I'm not much help there, though those darn re-enactors might be.

We did see the town jail in Phillipi, but we couldn't go in. Earthquake damage. (See Acts of the Apostles for why this was funny.)

My brother is going over there in two weeks. I will get him to see if there is anything on the Roman garrison.