by Andy Stanton
First published in Great Britain MMXIX
by Egmont UK Limited
The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN
Text copyright © MMXIX Andy Stanton
Illustrations copyright © MMXIX Sholto Walker
The moral rights of the author and illustrator have been asserted
First e-book edition 2019
ISBN 978 1 4052 9385 3
Ebook ISBN 978 1 40529 486 7
www.egmont.co.uk
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
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For Polly, Luke and Sonny; and for Clemmy, the greediest cat in Londinium – AS
For Louis. Ut tibi auxillo esse ridiculam – SW
CONTENTS
Cover
Title page
Copyright
Dedication
CAECILIUS AND HIS FAMILY
LIFE IN POMPEII
CAECILIUS AND BARKUS WOOFERINICUM
FILIUS AND SLAVIUS
THE MA-WOL-N-F
AT THE BATHS
FILIUS AND THE CURIOUS OBJECT
THE CHALLENGE IN THE FORUM
LEARN LATIN WITH CAECILIUS
Back series promotional page
CAECILIUS AND HIS FAMILY
Now, back in Roman Times there lived a fat merchant by the name of Caecilius Maximus Panini. Caecilius was so fat that he looked a bit like a large football with a face on top, and this is what the name ‘Caecilius’ means: large football with a face on top. Caecilius had a lovely wife called Vesuvius, which means ‘Woman married to a guy who looks like a large football with a face on top’. And he had a little son called Filius, which means ‘Filius’. Filius was ten years old, or as the Romans said, he was X years old. The Romans were always using letters instead of numbers and do you know why? It was because they were very stupid people indeed.
Now, not only was Caecilius a fat merchant – he was a fart merchant too. You see, like many businessmen of that time, Caecilius was in the fart trade. He would buy farts down the market on a Friderificus morning for two buzzle-swuzzles each (buzzle-swuzzles were the names of the coins in those days), and then on Saturanium – yes, the very next day! – he’d return to the market and sell them back to the same people he’d just bought them off – but this time for five buzzle-swuzzles each.
In this way, Caecilius had grown immensely rich. And he now had over thirty thousand buzzle-swuzzles in the bank. Thirty thousand buzzle-swuzzles! Can you imagine it? That’s nearly five hundred cromps! This meant that Caecilius was one of the richest men alive. And you might be thinking to yourself that this is why he was so fat, you know, because he was always eating fancy foods and having toffees between mealtimes. But shame on you if you thought that. Caecilius was actually a fairly sensible eater, he just had a glandular problem.
Caecilius and his family lived in the town of Pompeii. Can you see how there’s two ‘i’s at the end of the end of ‘Pompeii’ when surely one would be enough? The Ancient Romans were so rich and wasteful that they didn’t even care how many letters they used! Nowadays we’re far more careful with the way we use our letterssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.
LIFE IN POMPEII
Pompeii was a very nice town, there were some impressive buildings and public spaces and a man who could make amazing animal noises simply by getting an animal and pulling its tail really hard – but there was one problem with living there. You see, there was a big volcano right next door to it.
‘I don’t like the look of that volcano,’ said Caecilius one morning, looking out the window by standing near the window and pointing his face in the right direction and looking out the window. ‘It could go off at any moment.’
‘Mother,’ said Filius, who was a bright and curious child, ‘what is the name of that volcano?’
‘No one knows,’ replied Vesuvius, ‘but your father is quite correct about it being a terrible menace. Only the other day I saw some pizzas come flying out of it. And quite a few Mirror-Men into the bargain.’
‘Not those blasted Mirror-Men again, there seem to be more of them every year,’ said Caecilius. ‘Filius, my boy, can you go and fetch my sandals, I forgot to bring them inside and I’m afraid they’re being eaten, or worn, by dogs.’
So Filius went to collect his father’s sandals and while he did so, he thought about the Mirror-Men and about all the other inventions that the Romans had come up with. You see, the Romans were very clever people indeed and they had invented lots of things that we still use today, including: central heating; baths; frogs; roads; pencils with rubbers on the end; Mirror-Men; Mirror-Men with central heating; Mirror-Men with rubbers on the end; frogs with central heating; baths with Mirror-Men sitting in them; roads covered with pencils and frogs; aqueducts; aqueducts filled with Mirror-Men pencils with rubbers on the end; spears; spears with rubbers on the end; Mirror-Men eating spears and frogs; volcanoes; pizzas; pizzas erupting out of volcanoes; pizzas erupting out of frogs; frogs erupting out of pizzas; roads with central heating; Mirror-Men sitting on a giant pizza erupting out of a volcano, near a frog; baths but when you turn on the tap, pencils come out instead of water; togas (which were a kind of robe that everyone wore) and toga-rones (which were a kind of robe made of chocolate and instead of taking it off when you went to bed you just ate it and a new one grew back the next day, I think).
Some of the inventions were useful (e.g. pencils with rubbers on the end) and some were brilliant (e.g. pizzas and frogs) and some were terrible (e.g. volcanoes) and some were a mixture of brilliant and terrible (e.g. pizzas erupting out of volcanoes, because someone could get hurt. Or even if they didn’t, even if the pizza didn’t land on you and burn your face off, even if it landed on the ground, would you want to eat a pizza that had landed on the ground? At the very least it would be quite dusty) and some were just no one really understood them at all (e.g. Mirror-Men).
Most of the time it was brilliant being a Roman because the Holy Roman Empire ruled the world and if you were a Roman you were allowed to do an army and go to any country you liked and kick people. But some of the inventions were more trouble than they were worth. They had gotten out of hand.
The Mirror-Men in particular were very bothersome. One night Caecilius was having a bath and he found about thirty of the things sitting in there holding pencils with rubbers on the end. The next night there were more like forty Mirror-Men in there with him and the night after that there were nearly seventy thousand. There were so many Mirror-Men that Caecilius could hardly fit in the tub to have a bath and he just had to lick himself clean like a cat, or an ice cream that has somehow learned to eat its own body to survive. And to make matters worse, while he was licking himself clean, a nearby volcano (not the main one, but another one) exploded in a shower of pizzas, frogs, central heating, roads, aqueducts and yet more Mirror-Men.
‘Drat and figs!’ yelled Caecilius, kicking the b
athtub out of the window and into the garden, where it landed on Caecilius’s head, even though he was actually the one standing in the bathroom who had kicked the bathtub out of the window in the first place so I don’t know how that happened, probably just physics wasn’t very proper in those times.
‘Ow!’ cried Caecilius, rubbing his head with a pencil with a rubber on the end. You’d think the rubber would be good for rubbing his head, but actually it started erasing it.
‘This day is going from bad to worse!’ yelled Caecilius. ‘Everything exploding all the time! Mirror-Men everywhere! And now I’ve erased most of my own head!’
So that’s what life in Roman Times was like. Good, but they had their problems.
CAECILIUS AND BARKUS WOOFERINICUM
Now, Caecilius’s son Filius had a dog whom he’d found in a bath one day, and this scraggy devil went by the name of Barkus Wooferinicum. He had a horrid pointed snout and you could see his ribs poking through. Caecilius didn’t trust Barkus Wooferinicum but Filius loved him so the dog stayed. Mostly he slept out on the streets.
One morning, Caecilius got up at dawn to try to get the best bargains on the farts at the market, and this is where the phrase ‘the early Caecilius gets the fart’ comes from. He got out of bed, fondly stroked Vesuvius’s hair and put on his toga, sandals and Julius Caesar pendant.
Then he jumped out of the window on to the street below and broke both his legs.
‘Ouch,’ said Caecilius, ‘I wish I hadn’t done that.’
Caecilius took out his magic charm, which had been given to him by a dirty rabbit, and spoke the words:
‘Go back in time, go back in time, go back in time, that’s what I want to do.’
Immediately the magic charm lit up and Caecilius was transported back to his warm bed, ready to have another go at going out. His legs were absolutely fine.
So, just as before, he got out of bed, fondly stroked Vesuvius’s hair and put on his toga, sandals and Julius Caesar pendant. Then he jumped out of the window on to the street below and broke both his legs.
‘Ouch,’ said Caecilius. ‘I really thought I wouldn’t break my legs that time.’
Once more he took out his magic charm and spoke the words:
‘Go back in time, go back in time, go back in time, that’s what I want to do.’
Once more the magic charm lit up and Caecilius found himself back in his warm bed and ready to face the day.
So, for a third time, he got out of bed, fondly stroked Vesuvius’s hair and put on his toga, sandals and Julius Caesar pendant. This time Caecilius decided to walk down the stairs and thus he proceeded outside at last. The sun was coming up over Pompeii. In the distance a small volcano erupted and six hundred Mirror-Men came out, about average for that time of morning.
Caecilius turned left at the end of the road, then left again, then left once more and then finally left again. This meant he had walked around the block and arrived back at his own front door. It wasn’t very useful for getting to the market but, quite by accident, Caecilius had done an astounding thing – he had invented the square! So whenever you see a square, such as a town square or a sandwich or something else which is square, just think – if it hadn’t been for Caecilius, life would have been very different. And this is why Caecilius’s name means ‘The Man Who Invented the Square’. (‘Cae’ means ‘The Man’ and ‘lius’ means ‘Who Invented the Square’ and the ‘ci’ bit in the middle is just there for decoration and glue.) Would you like to see a square right now? Here’s one.
Would you like to see another twenty of them?
Here they are, they’re good, aren’t they? The man who is drawing them is called Sholto Walker. I can make him draw squares any time I feel like it.
On walked Caecilius, laughing as he did so, for he had just thought of a brilliant joke to play on Vesuvius.
I shall put a gherkin in Vesuvius’s shoe when she isn’t looking, thought Caecilius. And then, when she puts her foot in her shoe, she will say, ‘Oh, what’s this? There is something in my shoe.’ And then she’ll look inside and get the surprise of her life when she sees nothing other than – a GHERKIN!
But as Caecilius was chuckling to himself, up rushed Barkus Wooferinicum, who had been lying in wait since the very first line of the story, waiting for just this moment, and now he flew through the air, not real flying but the type of flying that just means he did a big jump, and he sank his strong teeth into Caecilius’s hairy arm.
‘That looks painful,’ said Onlyappearsinoneotherchapterus the candle-maker, who happened to be passing by at that moment. ‘Oh well, see you later.’
‘Ouch! Miserable cur!’ shouted Caecilius and he pulled out a fig and with it he beat Barkus Wooferinicum to death.
‘Get up, you silly dog,’ commanded Caecilius, but then he realised that Barkus Wooferinicum was actually dead.
‘Oh, no,’ sobbed the fart merchant, ‘I never meant to kill the hound, this was nothing more than an over-enthusiastic figging.’
Suddenly Caecilius remembered his magic charm! He pulled it out and said the words:
‘Go back in time, go back in time, go back in time, that’s what I want to do.’
But the magic charm didn’t light up. It had only had two goes in it and Caecilius had wasted them both on saving his own legs.
‘Drat,’ said Caecilius. ‘I’d better not let Filius find out about this, or he’ll be upset.’
So Caecilius quickly stuffed the dead dog under his toga and ran back to the villa as fast as he could, which wasn’t very fast because he had a dead dog under his toga. In fact, I forgot to tell you this but actually he had forty-eight dead dogs under his toga, because before Barkus Wooferinicum had attacked him, forty-seven other dogs had attacked him too – one at a time, each after the other – and each time, Caecilius had beaten them to death with a fig.
As Caecilius was waddling unsteadily through the front door, Filius came out, ready to go off to school.
‘Salve, Father,’ said Filius. ‘I wonder why you have got forty-eight tails sticking out from under your toga.’
‘They are not tails,’ said Caecilius, thinking fast, ‘but hairy loaves of bread which I am keeping warm for our ugly friends, Atrium and Hortus.’
‘Oh, OK,’ said Filius. ‘By the way, Father, have you seen Barkus Wooferinicum, by the way, by the way, Father? By the way?’
‘“Barkus Wooferinicum”?’ said Caecilius, thinking quickly once more. ‘What is that? Is it the title of a new play at the theatre?’
‘No, Father,’ said Filius. ‘It is my dog, do you remember?’
‘Hmm,’ frowned Caecilius. ‘Well, I’ve never heard of him, are you sure you had a dog?’
‘Yes,’ said Filius, ‘I’m certain. I’ve had him for about a year, remember?’
‘Are you absolutely sure though?’ said Caecilius. ‘Memory can play strange tricks of the mind on your mind. Perhaps you only thought you had a dog, when in actual fact you really had nothing more than an ant.’
‘No, he was definitely a dog,’ sighed Filius. ‘Oh, well, I’d better go off to school.’
‘Drat and figs,’ said Caecilius as he waddled through the villa into the back garden. ‘Filius is a bright boy. I tried to fool him into thinking he’d never had a dog but he wasn’t having any of it.’
The next four hours were very boring for Caecilius because he spent them digging an enormous hole in the lawn, using only his big toes. Then he threw all the dead dogs in and covered them over with earth, using only his big toes. But when it was done, he had a horrible realisation, using only his big toes.
Filius will come back from school at lunchtime, Caecilius’s big toes thought to themselves, and he will expect to play with Barkus Wooferinicum. And when the dog is not to be found, he will grow suspicious. And when he grows suspicious, he will grow more suspicious. And when he has grown more suspicious, he will grow even more suspicious and start asking questions. And when he has asked all the questions, we don’t k
now what he will do next, we are only big toes and not that clever.
But still, Caecilius and his big toes were on the right track – if Barkus Wooferinicum were not around at lunchtime, Filius would soon discover the awful truth that his animal friend was no longer of this earth, but was instead under this earth.
Now, at that moment, a dog which looked exactly like Barkus Wooferinicum happened to walk through the garden and this gave Caecilius a crafty idea. In a flash he pounced on the animal and shaved off all its fur, using a fig. Then he stuck the fur all over his own body and waited for Filius to come home for lunch.
Soon Filius came home for lunch.
Exactly what I was waiting for, thought Caecilius.
‘Salve, Filius,’ he heard Vesuvius say from the kitchen, where she was busy sticking together thousands and thousands of pencils with a rubber on the end so that she could reach up into the sky and draw a face on the moon. (It took Vesuvius another week of sticking pencils together but eventually she managed it, and she drew a very fine face on the moon indeed. And even today, if you look up at the moon you will be able to see the face that Vesuvius drew all those years ago! We know him as ‘The Man in the Moon’ but she called him ‘Bobbling Ed’.)
‘How was your morning at school?’
‘It was excellent,’ said Filius. ‘We learnt about a brand-new shape that’s just been invented. It is called a “square”. Now, where is my faithful dog, I wish to play with him – ah, there you are,’ he beamed, as Caecilius came running in to the kitchen on all fours, barking merrily away.
Well, Filius and ‘Barkus Wooferinicum’ played together for the whole lunch hour that day.
And the next day, and the next day too. This went on for over three weeks, and then Caecilius began to get bored.
