(Rome, early January 81 BC)

Lucius was too shocked to offer much early resistance whilst two burly and strong uniformed legionaries grabbed him. However, the boyishly handsome 18 year-old began to put up a stiffer fight, primarily with his shaved legs, when a third soldier started to shred with his sword the young plebeian’s heavy woollen winter tunic with the unusually frilled cuffs.

Unfortunately, such resistance was short-lived, being quickly subdued by a vicious punch to Lucius’ gravely endangered balls and then the holding, wide apart on the stone floor, of his ankles by two other legionaries. The lovely low-hanging shaved scrotum containing his now grieving testes was also rapidly exposed, as the soldier stripping him swiftly competed his task by cutting the cord that held in place the very attractive young plebeian’s last cover, which was his loincloth underwear, or ‘subligarium’.

A loud croak of approval could then be heard emerging from the lips of the watching and highly amused and sexually stimulated Sulla, as Lucius’ completely smooth and nicely proportioned but currently anguished shaved genitalia came into view. This appreciative grunt was followed by a cruel sarcastic comment from the Dictator.

"I see, plebeian slut," Sulla remarked, "that you like your genitals shaved. Well, we’ll now embellish your tastes by shaving away your balls!"

Sulla, who had been sitting behind a desk, then stood and approached the agonised and tearful Lucius, just as the legionary returned his sword to its scabbard after successfully stripping the young plebeian and unsheathed a dagger instead. The soldier then knelt and harshly grasped the 18 year-old’s nicely dangling scrotum around the base, in readiness for the act of castration.

"Wait!" the intensely sexually aroused Sulla then commanded, as he arrived just behind the kneeling legionary. "I want to have some fun with the boy, as you castrate him," the cruel Dictator then advised, "as he is, after all, only a plebeian slut!"

Sulla then proceeded to walk to Lucius’ rear, where he without ceremony pulled up the front hem of his general’s purple tunic, or ‘tunica’, and tucked it under his military belt, or ‘balteus’, along with his ornate studded hanging apron, or ‘cingulum’. The Dictator then removed his own subligarium to expose his substantial erection.

Sulla next prised apart Lucius’ lustrously smooth and curvaceous buttocks in order to introduce his engorged cockhead to the 18 year-old’s now revealed virgin sphincter. "Slowly slice the plebeian slut’s balls off whilst I fuck him," the Dictator then ordered of the kneeling legionary, in a very crude and sadistic manner that belied his supposed superior nobility.

Lucius, now immovably restrained by four legionaries firmly holding his hairless limbs, whilst another painfully gripped his scrotum, could do nothing but scream in agony when Sulla then thrust his long and thick unlubricated cock resolutely forward. The 18 year-old’s suffering was compounded by shame that he was being subjected to sodomy, which was a disgrace no free Roman male, even of the plebeian class, should have permitted.

Lucius’ shrieks continued, along with occasional ignored entreaties for mercy, whilst Sulla proceeded to fill his young rape victim’s previously virgin tight rectum to the hilt, before partly withdrawing to repeat the deflowering procedure. In the process, the Dictator’s cock gained lubrication from the anal blood now being shed by the mortified and pained 18 year-old, who could now regularly feel his rapist’s pubic hair brushing his sublime buttocks.

Lucius’ screams and pleas subsequently intensified further when he felt a knife beginning slowly to slice through the base of his scrotum, above which he had not yet noticed that his own cock had incongruously hardened. Meanwhile, tears started to drip from his beautiful face onto his equally gorgeous but now grievously tormented body.

In his excruciation, Lucius was hardly aware that Sulla’s lips were emitting more grunts, this time of increasing intensity and regularity, as the man brought himself close to climax. However, the young plebeian realised that the Dictator had finally achieved orgasm when he heard his rapist suddenly gasp loudly in obvious pleasure and felt several copious spurts of cum flow into his ravished and hurting insides.

Lucius’ subsequent immediate feeling of acute shame and disgust was then very short-lived, as his anguished mind refocused on the knife still slowly and painfully emasculating him. The young plebeian’s body then again tried to escape the tight restrictions imposed on his limbs by the quartet of legionaries restraining his movement. However, the hold of the four soldiers proved resolutely firm and the gradual castration process proceeded unaffected.

Despite the noise Lucius was making, he next noticed that Sulla’s cock exited his violated and no longer virginal rectum with a loud popping noise. The young plebeian also appreciated for the first time, as he glanced downwards towards the legionary who was castrating him, that his own penis was amazingly and shamefully fully erect and drooling precum.

Lucius’ groin then began to experience a strange mix of feelings, the foremost of which was incongruous sexual ecstasy. The young plebeian’s gorgeous body subsequently began to shake visibly within the tight confines of the legionaries’ manual restraint, and the 18 year-old’s cockhead eventually exploded with a stream of cum that splattered onto the face of the soldier performing the castration.

In response, the legionary told Lucius that he was "Plebeian scum!" The soldier also then happily stood up to show the appalled 18 year-old the severed scrotum that he now held in one hand, whilst the other wiped the new eunuch’s last ejaculate from his face.

Sulla had already redressed and returned to his chair and he now commanded that Lucius’ severed scrotum be placed on his desk for him to examine. The cruel Dictator then picked up and weighed the bloody object, as well as inspected the two white testicles within.

Sulla next ordered the use of an oil lamp for the crude cauterisation of Lucius’ appalling genital wound before the new eunuch’s blood swamped the stone floor. The Dictator also instructed a legionary to stuff the severed scrotum down the young plebeian’s throat to stop the screaming.

The hot flame of the oil lamp, when applied to Lucius’ severely damaged groin, and the brutal insertion of his own severed scrotum into his mouth, subsequently caused the young plebeian to faint. When he later finally woke up, he found himself still naked and in a gutter in a street outside, which was deserted apart from one other person.

(Farm of Marcus Atius Balbus, near the small town of Velitrae on the southern edge of the Alban Hills, south of Rome, a few days later)

Deianeira was in tears as she tended to Lucius’ terrible wound. The farm slave could not believe how anyone could perpetrate such damage on such a nice boy, whom she had first met a decade previously when she had repaired other injuries on his lovely body, along with those on the other 8 year-old with whom he had been fighting.

That other boy was now a decade older as well, and was as morose as Deianeira about Lucius’ castration at the behest of the evil Sulla. Gaius was also present in the relatively safe sanctuary of the farm belonging to the father of his brother-in-law, Marcus Major, to where he had fled with his best friend after seeing him dumped naked and grievously injured in a Roman street gutter.

Instead of ordering Gaius’ immediate execution for refusing to divorce Cinna’s daughter, Sulla had amazingly and rather curiously let the 18 year-old patrician go free. The mystified young recipient of the Dictator’s apparent mercy had subsequently left the building in which he had been incarcerated and, whilst walking quickly away along the street outside, had glanced back to ensure that he was not being followed.

Gaius had then seen Lucius, who had not spotted him, entering the building, to which the young patrician did not want to risk returning. He therefore furtively stayed outside instead to await the departure of his best friend, whom he presumed was attempting to visit him, not knowing of his release.

Gaius was naturally subsequently aghast at seeing the dreadful state in which Lucius did eventually emerge from the building. The young patrician was also horrified that he had been the cause of his best friend’s terrible mutilation and rape, with his consternation worsened by the fact that the young plebeian’s fateful audience with Sulla had been unnecessary.

Gaius was also deeply beholden that Lucius had shown admirable selfless bravery in seeking a meeting with the gruesome Sulla in order to petition for his release. After the young patrician had subsequently summoned up all of his strength to lift his best friend out of the gutter and begin to carry him to safety, he asked him what he could ever do in repayment.

Gaius received the stuttered answer "Never….fail….to let me….be….at your side….whenever possible!" The young patrician not only agreed to Lucius’ plea but also thereafter honoured his agreement for the rest of his life and beyond.

Given what had happened to Lucius, Gaius had subsequently been and remained perplexed as to why Sulla had shown completely different merciful consideration towards him. He had also decided, even before discovering what had been perpetrated on his best friend, on the wise precaution of immediately fleeing Rome. He did not trust the cruelly vengeful Dictator not to change his mind, or to have alternative murderous intentions for him. In fact, the latter notion was the correct one.

Sulla had perceptively fully recognised how dangerous young Gaius could someday become, given his clear potential, bravery and important family affiliations, and would therefore normally have had no hesitation in ordering the young patrician’s immediate execution. However, one particular consideration had intervened to prevent the utterance of such a command.

The Senate had previously elected Gaius to the position of Flamen Dialis, although he had not yet been inaugurated. Sulla’s dictatorial powers could overturn the appointment and have the previously designated post-holder executed. However, such action could be considered by some people to be an act of impiety against the gods, particularly Jupiter.

If such an attitude became popular amongst the Roman masses, perhaps inflamed by Sulla’s escaped political opponents, serious disaffection and trouble, and possible revolt, could result. The Dictator therefore decided that the public execution of Gaius was not worth the risk.

Sulla instead released Gaius, whilst proposing to have him quietly murdered later, in a way that placed the blame on the likes of common robbers. However, the young patrician’s distrust and quick flight to the Alban Hills had temporarily thwarted the Dictator’s plan.

(Rome, over 1 year later, early spring, 80 BC)

After Sulla’s initial desire for bloody vengeance against his political opponents on his return to Rome had eventually been sated, the Dictator became superficially amenable to entreaties for continued clemency from Gaius’ mother and other relatives. Consequently, he postponed his plan to murder the still hiding young patrician.

Sulla instead granted permission for Gaius to enter the year or so of active military service abroad, which was customary for young patricians of his age and during which the Dictator hoped the young patrician would be killed. However, if he survived, he would then be attached to the staff of a provincial governor, which the current ruler of Rome proposed to ensure also involved highly dangerous duties.

Sulla was now prepared to be patient and wait either for Gaius’ death abroad or for his eventual return to Rome, when he would then have him murdered.

(Port of Puteoli [modern Pozzuoli], Gulf of Naples, shortly afterwards)

- Sulla’s warning to those seeking to save Gaius’ life, as reported by Plutarch and in which the Dictator refers to the young patrician’s formidable late uncle

Gaius had spent over a year hiding on the farm belonging to Marcus Major’s father before leaving his friends and family, which now included a daughter, Julia, to travel for his military service to the eastern Mediterranean, where further imperial conquest was proceeding. Continuing to take precautions against Sulla’s still possible perfidy, he sailed on a ship from Puteoli on the Gulf of Naples rather than from a port closer to Rome.

The now 19 year-old Gaius, however, did not leave all of his friends behind. As the young patrician was entitled to retain a servant even when in the army, he took the similarly aged and fully recovered Lucius with him.

Lucius was ineligible for similar short military service because of his low social status and permanent genital disfigurement. However, as he was keen to be constantly at his best friend’s side despite the end of their shared sex life because of his castration, he was happy to accompany the young patrician in the role of personal servant.

Lucius’ father had not objected. He still loved his elder child, despite his castration, but he was now concentrating his hopes for future family betterment on the younger son, the now 17 year-old Marcus Minor, whose wife was already pregnant.

The aspirations of Lucius’ father were eventually to be met in the form of Marcus Minor’s grandson.

(Nicomedia, capital city of Bithynia, a few months later, early summer, 80 BC)

Gaius had been sent by his commanding officer, Marcus Thermus, to the Roman client state of Bithynia to borrow a naval squadron for use in conquering some of the currently independent Greek islands of the eastern Mediterranean. The young patrician, now dressed in his smart military uniform, was, with Lucius as usual at his side, granted an audience with the local monarch, Nicomedes IV, immediately on his arrival in the kingdom’s capital city of Nicomedia.

Gaius and Lucius were amazed at the opulence of Nicomedes’ palace. They were also stunned by the king’s overt display of his liking for beautiful boys and youths.

Whilst the audience proceeded, Nicomedes, bearded in the Greek fashion and very richly dressed in colourful flowing robes, with a gold diadem on his head, was constantly fanned by two boys positioned on either side of his throne. The two youngsters, who were both aged about 12, more nothing except minuscule tight golden silk thongs, which nicely revealed virtually the full shape of their barely covered genitalia. Their gorgeous bodies glistened, as they had been smeared with sweetly scented oil, whilst blue mascara had been applied to their eyelids and a delicate covering of rouge highlighted their rosy lips and nipples. The nails on their hands and feet had also been painted red.

Similarly sparsely attired and exotically decorated beautiful boys and youths stood or lay quietly nearby, apparently ready to obey any command from their enthroned king. Some were equipped with musical instruments, whilst others carried trays with jugs and goblets or dishes of snack food on top.

Gaius’ cock, hidden under his red military tunic, rapidly became hard at the sight of such delicious young creatures and he had no hesitation in accepting, at the end of his audience, an invitation from Nicomedes to dine with him that evening. The still boyishly very handsome young Roman sincerely hoped that some of the king’s catamites would be on the menu.

Gaius did not realise, however, that Nicomedes quite fancied his young Roman guests and that the king was not only proud of his ability to seduce, which had resulted in many conquests for his bed, but also was rarely denied what he wanted.

(Nicomedia, capital city of Bithnyia, next morning)

When Gaius woke up, he found himself lying naked next to an equally unclothed and still sleeping Nicomedes on a huge bed in the king’s vast luxurious bedroom. On the other side of the man was a somnolent and similarly nude Lucius.

As Gaius, apparently suffering from a hangover, subsequently tried to recall how he and Lucius had arrived in this worryingly compromising position, he felt a sharp pain inflicting his curvaceous bottom. He therefore reached round with his hand to try to confirm the reason for such physically and mentally disturbing discomfort. The young Roman had already guessed a possible cause but prayed to the gods that he would be proved incorrect. However, the deities were not on this occasion on his side, as his fingers returned from his posterior to prove to his appalled eyes that extraneous semen was spilling out of his rectum. He would later discover that his best friend was exhibiting similar evidence of disgraceful overnight activity.

Gaius’ anguished mind then recalled that during the course of the previous night he had amazingly voluntarily put aside all thoughts of Roman honour and cultural proscription against being the subject of sodomy. After enjoying some of Nicomedes’ boys in a wild orgy in the king’s bedroom, he had buggered his beloved Lucius before allowing himself to be similarly seduced by his lecherous host, who then perpetrated similar on the young eunuch.

The appalled Gaius could not believe that he and Lucius could have demeaned themselves so much just as a consequence of drinking too much wine. In fact, he was correct in his assumption.

Having satisfied himself that he would personally be unable to seduce the highly attractive Gaius and Lucius without help, despite the clear attraction the pair had shown for the male body when viewing Nicomedes’ catamites, the cunning king had had the wine of his young guests drugged. The drinks were laced with a special aphrodisiac, imported from elsewhere in Asia Minor.

The Carian city of Aphrodisias was famed for love potions and the one that Nicomedes fed in their drinks to the pair of gorgeous young Romans had two major effects. The aphrodisiac not only significantly increased sex drive and need, even in a eunuch, but also temporarily eliminated all forms of reticence and restraint.

The aphrodisiac was aided in the performance of its duty by the alcoholic effects of the wine and by the scantily-clad or nude beautiful boy acrobats and dancers, whom Nicomedes had arranged to entertain his young Roman guests whilst they dined. Consequently, by the end of the lengthy meal, the intoxicated Gaius and Lucius had been desperate to indulge in sex and readily unthinkingly accepted the king’s invitation to participate in an orgy.

News of Gaius’ seduction by Nicomedes was difficult for the young patrician to suppress and, after finally reaching Roman ears, the affair was to be used regularly over the years by his later political enemies to defame his character. He was less troubled by the fact that the incident also affectionately became the subject of a bawdy marching song sung by his own legionaries.

Gaius also came to forgive Nicomedes after the monarch later bequeathed his kingdom to Rome.

(Mytilene, island of Lesbos, Aegean Sea, a few months later, later summer, 80 BC)

The now 20 year-old Gaius, former designate priest of Jupiter, was participating in the siege of Mytilene, which was the port capital of the Aegean island of Lesbos. Despite not having a formal military role, Lucius was as usual at his best friend’s side.

Despite wearing heavy armour, Gaius subsequently unhesitatingly dived into the waves from the ship on which he had been posted to help the assault of Mytilene’s well-protected seawalls. The young patrician was currently trying to save a man who had fallen overboard after being hit by an arrow shot from the crenellated fortifications.

Gaius was closely followed into the sea by Lucius and between them they managed, whilst under fire from more arrows, to rescue the wounded marine from drowning. However, only the young patrician was subsequently awarded the prestigious wreath of oak leaves called the ‘corona civica’, or ‘civic crown’, for his bravery in saving a fellow Roman citizen, an honour that meant that people sitting at public games had to stand if a wearer passed.

Lucius did not mind that the award only went to Gaius. He was now fully prepared to remain in his best friend’s shadow, as the young patrician advanced his status in life.

(Cilicia, Asia Minor, 2 years later, 78 BC)

Gaius and Lucius had enjoyed an exciting two years on the staff of the governor of the province of Cilicia, during which they had spent most of their time dangerously combating pirates in the Eastern Mediterranean. Despite the fact that Sulla had retired from being Dictator of Rome to enjoy his sexual pleasures in a villa near Puteoli, both 22 year-olds had considered a return to Italy too dangerous. However, this view now changed.

News arrived in Cilicia that the old rake, Sulla, had died, allegedly after becoming too excited whilst enjoying a sexual perversion. Gaius and Lucius therefore fatefully decided that a return to Rome was now appropriate.

The two close friends shortly afterwards sailed for Rome to fulfil the destinies the gods had planned for them.

(Rome, over 35 years later, 13^th September 45 BC)

"Do you think that I’ve done right?" the now 55 year-old Gaius asked of the similarly aged Lucius. The two close friends were leaving the house of the priestesses of Vesta, the Roman goddess of the hearth and household, ten days before the 18^th birthday of the eponymous equestrian great nephew of the patrician. He had just lodged for protection his revised will with the Vestal Virgins, as was appropriate for such an important person as himself.

"I’m sure that the boy will prove a deserving heir," Lucius replied to Gaius, whose only daughter had sadly died childless almost a decade previously and whose young son by a foreign queen was ineligible for any inheritance under Roman law. "I wasn’t thinking in terms of the young equestrian’s worthiness," the patrician responded, "but of creating unnecessary trouble for him. Perhaps he would best be left in relative obscurity."

"I don’t think so," Lucius retorted, "as he seems to me to possess all of the attributes necessary to become a splendid leader like his great uncle, apart perhaps from good health. He even has his own excellent ‘shadow’, in the form of my own great nephew!"

"He also looked quite at home," Lucius continued, "when you allowed him to ride in a chariot behind your own during your recent well-deserved triumphal parades through the streets of Rome. I could tell that he planned sometime to lead his own similar procession!"

"May the gods therefore grant him success," Gaius commented, "for not only his worthy sake but also the future wellbeing of Rome!"

(Rome, 6 months later, 15^th March 44 BC)

The building that normally housed the Senate was being refurbished. Consequently, the next scheduled meeting of the legislature was to be held, three days before the proposed start of the campaign against Parthia, in a theatre commissioned by the late Pompey.

Lucius could not attend the meeting because he was not a Senator. Nevertheless, he accompanied Gaius as far as the theatre entrance and then left the protection of his best friend, who had declined to have a military escort, to his much more publicly prominent supporter, Marcus Antonius.

(Rome, next day)

Lucius was quietly lying naked in a bath in the large residence he had discreetly shared with his beloved Gaius and the patrician’s foreign queen and, in Roman eyes, young bastard son. However, the 55 year-old eunuch was not washing himself, as was evidenced by the fact that the warm water covering most of his body was becoming increasingly red in colour.

Grief-stricken Lucius had cut his wrists with a dagger and was now waiting to die because he had promised to be loyally at his best friend’s side wherever he went.

(Apollonia, Dalmatia, 4 days later)

"Please prepare yourself, Sir, for there is some dreadful news in this letter I bring from your mother," the just rapidly arrived maternal freedman advised Gaius. In response, the beautiful but normally rather pale face of the young equestrian turned an even whiter shade, whilst, after unscrolling the message and placing it on a desk, he instinctively held out his now quivering hand.

Marcus, whose descriptive third name, or ‘cognomen’, referred to the fact that he had caused his mother much pain during birth, needed no second invitation to hold his best friend’s hand in comfort, as Gaius read the letter. The written message from the young equestrian’s mother referred to a recent shocking happening in Rome.

"I regret to inform you, my son," Gaius’ mother had written, "that your great uncle has been assassinated on the floor of the Senate in Rome, to where you are urgently summoned!"

(Rome, same time)

Five days after his assassination, Gaius’ body was being ceremonially cremated near the Regia, which was the official residence of the Pontifex Maximus, a position he had held, and was situated on the eastern edge of Rome’s Forum. Lucius’ corpse would be similarly but far less publicly burnt elsewhere later.

Antonius had accepted responsibility for the arrangements for both funerals. He subsequently also complied with the request contained in a secret codicil to the late Gaius’ will.

Lucius’ ashes were mixed with those of Gaius, so that the assassinated leader’s ‘shadow’ could forever be at his side in continued fulfilment of a promise made 36 years previously.