I returned from the wars sixteen years ago

We raised cities, took our plunder there.

Already a young man, boys died in my arms.

Barbarians gurgled and fell, no longer whole,

from my bloodied blades.  I lost an ear

when my helmet fell off, and returned to Rome

an earless hero.  How the women fell for me,

each craving a piece of someone they thought me to be.

They looked w/ adorning eyes and I learned

nothing eradicates female jealousy like celebrity.

The flocks grew thin, and now I have

my patrician wife and money enough

to buy what once came free.  But still --

still I think on those cities raided in Ionia,

where we slaughtered and enslaved, and where

against the rubble, no daughter went unraped.

We were brothers taking turns.  Parents watched.

Any young girl could be taken -- and was,

would cry as we held her down, could slap her,

let loose our every ambition upon

purely disposable flesh.  We fucked and killed,

laughed and mocked as men, as men unleashed.

I am respected, even idolized by some;

I have my villa, my fortune -- but still

those whores cost money and have rules,

and all seems a pale staging,

a play in which the actors fail to lose themselves.

The whole world knows my name

and still I dream of Ionia.

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