Post by Briseis of Carnia on Jun 14, 2009 17:54:11 GMT -5
Briseis was born the daughter of the slave Ceres and her overlord Adonis Cassius. Because Carnia forbid men of stature to acknowledge children born of slaves, Briseis could not be acknowledged as his child and so had to live the life the same as her mothers, a slave.
When Briseis was five, her mother caught a deadly fever and died but not before beginning Adonis to protect Briseis as the little girl was quickly beginning to look more like her fair haired father then her dark haired mother and Ceres dying fear was the wrath of Adonis's wife.
Adonis did the only thing he could think of in fulfilling the dying wishes of his daughter's mother. He took her to his best friend's Octavius Romulus estate and swore his friend to secrecy of Briseis parentage and her well being. For ten years Briseis lived as a simple house slave of the Rumulus home. She could not say that life was bad nor hard, the hardest punishment of slave was death and that was for trying to run away, in a slave's eyes, a fair punishment. As far as Briseis was concerned, life was good to her though she was never aware that her load of work was always much lighter then the others.
One night, when Briseis was thirteen she saved the life of her master, Octavius when he had fallen asleep in bed with a candle lit and the curtains had caught fire. He swore then that he would find some way to repay her. Freeing her was not an option as it would create suspicion especially considering she had once been a slave of the Cassius home.
When Briseis was sixteen she was tricked into partaking of the Rights of Mother Rome, a ceremony that had all eligible women chosen by accompanying men to be bedded that night while the city celebrated in the hopes they would become with child and bear men, who in the future would be soldiers for Rome and once again take victory over the world as the first Caesar of Rome wished. Briseis did indeed become with child. Yet the Gods did not see favor in that Briseis child should live and within her third month, she lost the child quite violently. The blood loss alone made them all think Briseis would never conceive again. In this Octavius saw a chance to fulfill his promise to Briseis and 'sold' her to the midwife who had tended her.
So Briseis had met her destiny, as the assistant of the midwife of Carnia. She learned all about pregnancy and childbirth from the woman and as the years moved on and she grew and the woman grew older, she knew she would in the woman's death and replacing her as midwife, would finally be free.
Briseis suspicions and hopes came true when at twenty-three, the woman whom had taken her in at Octavius request and had practically raised her, and had given her the education needed for when she would be on her own, died. For five more years she stayed in Carnia as the head midwife, babies were delivered healthy under her watch except for the ones the Gods and Goddesses deemed fit to die were taken from them but most of the families that lost, eventually conceived again. Briseis had found a calling beyond being a slave, she enjoyed bringing in new life or helping those who lost, were healed. Finally she found the strength to leave, to start on a new path, though she would always be a daughter of Carnia.