Juno’s What?

CW: Gore and mentions of death in historical context

Juno’s What?

Everyone at my school dreaded sixth grade, because it meant you got Old Mrs. Crump. 

“She’s been there so long, she was my dad’s teacher!” I told my friends.

We all dragged our feet on the first day. The bell was already starting to ring when Sam Travers got close enough to see the new name on the door. He stopped so suddenly that we all practically plowed into him.

“I’m not even gonna try to say that!”

Mrs. Kjærgaard. (I copied that off the school website. That squished-together a+e thing looks so cool!) 

Sam kind of cautiously opened the door, and we peeked in. It was Miss Penney!

Last year she was a student teacher for Mrs. Pietzsch (it’s pronounced peach like the fruit, in case you’re wondering), so we already knew her. But we didn’t know she got married over the summer. We also didn’t know that Old Mrs. Crump had retired. Grownups don’t bother telling kids stuff like that — even sixth graders.

But Mrs. K is a pretty awesome teacher. She tells us a lot of cool things. 

“Just call me Mrs. K, so you don’t use up all your brain cells trying to pronounce my new name,” she told us. “You’ll need those brain cells in junior high, and it’s my job to prepare you for that.” 

So anyway — we’re almost halfway through the year now, and we’re starting social studies reports on a historical event. We need to include at least one other concept we’ve learned about so far this year. I knew right away what I want to do!

Mrs. K had to approve the main topic, but we can choose how to present the report. As long as we include all the important stuff and make it exciting, she says.

Trey Donovan wants to do a manga-style comic, which I think is uber cool, because he draws crazy good. I can’t draw, so… sticking with written.

Here goes. I’m doing the story of the Romans and the Gauls. It’s pretty wild, and nobody even knows how true the stories are because of that time Rome got sacked and all the records were burnt – which I’m going to tell about – and they had to write it all down again from memory. 

So by the time the stories got to us, more than two thousand four hundred years have gone by. Mind blowing! Right? 

They went from ancient Latin to — what? Modern Latin? (I don’t even know if that’s a thing) to probably Italian, I guess, and then to English. Even the English back then was so different we couldn’t really understand it now. 

Some stuff got messed up along the way, probably. So I’m working with what I have. My mom’s always saying, “Truth is stranger than fiction, you know.”

I guess maybe the weirdest parts of the story are the truest.

Back then, groups of people were invading other groups of people and taking their land. They do that now, too, but then it was practically everybody invading everybody. The Roman soldiers ran around doing that, but the other Romans were living their lives, being patriarchs and plebeians. 

Patriarch means kind of like father. That sounds like they would have been real nice to the others, but actually they were just kind of bossy.

Mrs. K told us that there weren’t very many patriarchs, but they were the ones with all the money and social status. I guess they were like celebrities, for whatever reason. So they got to be senators and make most of the rules. The rest of the people were called plebeians, which was just their word for ordinary people. Only a few of the regular people got to be rulers.

They didn’t have emperors yet, so they had somebody in charge until they didn’t like him anymore and let somebody else take over. That’s kind of like modern times too, I guess. 

One of the patriarchs, named Camillus, was the leader until they didn’t like what he did, and chased him out of Rome.

Then the Gauls came charging in looking for a place to take over. They were big, strong, fierce dudes from the north. To the Romans, the Gauls were kind of trashy people. They were rough and didn’t care about fancy things, like the Roman patriarchs did. The Romans didn’t want them around, so they battled them. Or, they sent the soldiers to battle them. 

Those Gauls knew how to fight! They had all kinds of strange weapons that they made. They were extremely excellent at working with metal. They used super wicked double-edged long swords that could slash through armor, and awesome battle axes that they threw. They also wore chainmail armor, which they invented, that kind of moved with their bodies because it was a bunch of hooked-together rings and was really good at protecting them. So they were slaughtering the Romans like crazy. 

Here’s one of those funny things about history. My grandma always wants to know, 

“Funny ha-ha, or funny peculiar?” 

In this case I mean funny peculiar. Even the ancient historians, the ones who had to write down everything again after it was all burned up, didn’t know for sure what year it happened. They knew the specific day though. Weird. But it was because they were all into making a big deal about the solstice. We just learned about that. It’s the time of year when the days are longest or shortest. This battle happened exactly on the day of summer solstice, which was July 18th.

They met by the Allia River. The Gauls had a fierce leader named Brennos, who must have been a sneaky dude. They just kept slashing and throwing axes until it was all a bloody mess! The Romans lost tons of men, and the rest decided to take off back to Rome. They were so scared, they forgot to shut the gates of the city behind them. 

You’d think that was a bad move, right? Well, it worked out to confuse the Gauls. “Don’t be fooled!” Brennos told his men. “It’s a trick! They must be lying in ambush.”

 Lying in ambush. That’s such a cool phrase, I need to use it in my report.

So anyway, the Roman soldiers were terrified that the Gauls were coming any minute and they sent off most of the people to other places. Especially the women and children. 

The senators and other important people took off up a hill called Capitoline. It had a really steep cliff. The old patriarchs said,

“We can’t get up there. You all just go ahead, and we’ll sit here in our marble chairs in the forum and wait for whatever happens.”

That sounds super uncomfortable. Marble is hard, and old people have achy bones. They must, because they all complain about it. You should hear my grandparents and their friends. But these old guys managed to sit super quiet and still.

After a couple days of hanging around outside Rome, the Gauls decided maybe the Romans really had deserted the place. 

“All right, men! Let’s go!” Brennos wanted to check it out, but his warriors were still kind of worried.

They went real slow, staring at all the marble statues and vases or whatever was there. It must have been a little spooky, all those super fancy things in the empty city. Like a ghost town, except the ghost town I’ve been to is full of tourists and what my dad calls commercial junk. 

Here's where it starts getting interesting though. The Gauls got to where the old men were sitting very still in their chairs, like statues. When my grandpa sits for a long time, he has a hard time standing up. He says he gets stiff. I guess they did too. So they just sat there, and the Gauls couldn’t tell if they were statues or real men. Couldn’t they see them blink?

One of the Gauls reached out and tugged the beard of a patriarch.

“Let’s see if it’s real!” 

That was a big insult! 

“Hey!” 

The old man struck out with his staff and whacked the Gaul a good one in the head! Even though he was way older and weaker, and the Gaul was wearing armor with a helmet, it probably still hurt some. But it was more of an insult than anything.

The Gaul struck the old patriarch with his sword and killed him. Then the others ganged up on the rest of those poor old guys and killed them, one way or another. They went all through the city and carried off anything they could, then set Rome on fire. That’s when all the records got burned up.

They knew there were people hiding out on the hill, and they figured that pretty soon the food supply would run out. So they stuck around and kept watch. They tried climbing up, but the Romans threw stones down at them. Then they even threw loaves of bread at them, and the Gauls were like, 

“Hey! If they can waste bread, they must not be running out of food!”

Brennos told them, “Chill, bros. We’ll wait them out.”

Meanwhile, Camillus (that’s the patriarch that got run out of Rome) was hanging around not too far away with some of his buddies. 

“Camillus! Look — Rome is burning!”

“It’s the barbarians,” Camillus guessed. That’s what they called the Gauls. 

“We’ll find out where their camp is.”

They did, and attacked them at night. Believe it or not, they won! 

The news got to some Romans who had escaped to another city before the sacking. They decided Camillus wasn’t such a bad leader, and begged him to take charge again.

Well, he must have been the kind of guy who sticks by rules, because he said, “Nope! I can’t do it without permission from the senators.”

That was a problem, because the senators were up on Capitoline Hill.

They were so desperate, they sent a young guy across the Tiber River at night. I’ll call him Appius. So Appius sneaked up the hill to where the senators were staying. 

“Rome needs Camillus! Will you give the thumbs up?”

“Why not? Our situation can’t get a whole lot worse.”

Here comes my favorite part. I’ve already written a little scene for my report. There’s some real people and some I made up for the story. I wonder if Mrs. K would let us do a skit. That would be fun! Anyway, here it is:

When Appius went back down the hill, the Gauls spotted him. 

“Brennos — Look!” Caturix pointed at the cliff. The men saw a shadowy figure.

“If he’s coming down that way, we can go up the same way,” Brennos told them.

“You go up first then. Show us the way!” 

“Yeah, you go!” 

Pretty soon they were all shouting.

“Quiet, you dolts!” Brennos scowled, jabbing his spear into the ground. “The plan is to take them by surprise while they’re sleeping! Quit whining like sick puppies — they’ll hear you and attack us first!”

Suddenly he raised his spear and stuck its tip under the chin of Carmanos, in an open spot of the armor.

“Weasel! You’ll go first!”

On Capitoline Hill, Favian was not asleep. The hot summer day had turned into a warm, still night. All was quiet, and he sat staring into the darkness. The dogs were supposed to be watching, but they were fast asleep. So were the human guards.

Only Favian and his companions did not sleep. Something was wrong. There was a faint noise in the distance, like men shouting. 

Carmanos was climbing, with the others following. It was hard to be quiet while wearing a metal suit! He was almost to the top when — Clang! He bumped the rocky cliff and the noise rang out. He froze in place, hoping the Roman senators didn’t hear.

Favian heard it and sounded the alarm.

“HONK honk honk HONK!” 

He flapped his wings and ran toward the sound with his head down. The rest of the flock was close behind, adding their own calls.

“HONK honk honk HONK!” 

One of the men, Marcus Manlius, woke up to the terrible noise.

“Juno’s geese! Something’s wrong!” He raced out into the night, following the goose flock glowing white in the moonlight.

“HONK honk honk HONK!” 

The Gauls were startled. No chance of taking the Romans by surprise! A shower of rocks came down and knocked them off the cliff. Some fell to their deaths, and others were injured. Of course, Brennos survived.

The patriarchs were angry with the dogs and punished them. They also punished the guards for falling asleep. And that’s the mostly true story about the geese who saved the Romans from the Gauls.