AN AUGUSTAN BUST I am Juba The Second, king of Mauretania. Its vast savannahs as well as Anthony’s daughter Cleopatra Selene were mine by decree. They called my father The Great Furious. The day Numidia fell, he told his truest slave to swing the mighty sword against him. I was five – By Caesar’s escort, I was taken all the way to stony Rome, where I grew up to chart our losses to the Greeks and Romans. Africa was taken down in my geography of words and hugged in three large volumes, lost to your late mourning. – With a Christian era dawning, friends, what shall I say? |