The Revelation Of Marcus Sertorius (Η Αποκάλυψη του Μάρκου Σερτόριου)
-From the Meletic Tales.
Marcus Sertorius stood on the marble steps of the Curia Julia, the Roman senate beyond his vision, the buzz of senators passing through the archways behind him. He was still young—just under twenty-eight summers—and the son of a prominent senator: his tunic crisp, his toga draped with elegance, his mind burdened with ambition and questions. The political life beckoned—offices and honours, patronage and oratory in defence of Rome herself, yet an undercurrent disturbed him: a voice quieter than ambition, but as insistent as sighing sea‑foam on the cliffs of Ostia.
He had first heard the whispers in the forum: a stranger from Greece, that legendary land where sages gathered upon hills overlooking azure waters. He’d come to Rome to speak quietly in corners. The old man’s words were not of empire but of the soul. He spoke of inner virtue, of the self as a temple, of silence and attention. He spoke also of To Ena, the One. Marcus Sertorius had listened at first sceptically. A Roman destined for public life, listening to words so alien.
Something drew him back. A certain dusk in the field of Mars, when the sun melted like amber across the nearby Tiber, he found the Meletic sage again. Standing amongst the clusters of rustling olive‑trees, the stranger spoke to a small circle that had gathered.
‘What some call the soul, is not a thing but a living silence. To hear it, one must withdraw from clamour—political clatter, the noise of crowds, the chanting of dogma. There is a quietness lurking beneath the present world’, said the sage. The listeners murmured agreement. Marcus Sertorius' heart pounded. He edged closer, until he stood behind a pillar, hidden by shadow.
After that evening, he sought the sage again and again.
Marcus Sertorius took to walking in the Campus Martius before dawn. He let his senatorial duties sleep for a little—a gift to his soul. Under the earliest violet sky he met the Meletic sage, whose name was Xenagoras. They met before the quiet pagan shrine devoted to Vesta, whose flame he found ironically suitable. Others worshipped there; he bowed to inner flame. Their encounter was that of a man of wealth and position compared to a man of humbleness and virtues.
Xenagoras would begin: ‘Silence is not the absence of sound, young man; it is fullness of presence. The self is not a fortress built around impulses but a listening space: receptive and open’.
Marcus Sertorius absorbed that. At first, he was only intrigued by the teachings of Meleticism, but then he bean to practise sitting in silence, disciplined attention, evening reflections. He reflected on virtues: justice, temperance, courage which were the core virtues of Meleticism—not as public rhetoric but as inner harmonies. Around him, Rome fumed with politics: Christian preachers disputing in the streets, noble houses jockeying for favour, whispers of conspiracies and the rumours of martyrdoms.
Marcus Sertorius lived publicly as a senator’s son, attending assemblies, giving speeches, but secretly he was practising Meletic silence and awareness, withdrewing inwardly, as he sought the contemplation of life.
He wrote in a scroll that he concealed beneath the crates in his father’s study: The soul is not mine. I am the soul’s servant. I listen as one listens to a flute in the quietest hour. The virtues are not tokens to wear but lights to kindle within. He could not show this writing; it was un‑Roman, dangerous to Christian orthodoxy, and disapproved by the patrician code of his society.
Rome’s chaos intensified. The Christian faith—once persecuted—had become gradually entrenched. Some senators embraced it privately even as they spoke against it publicly. Others clashed violently with the old pagan rituals. Marcus Sertorius' own household was divided: his father insisted on traditional cults that were pagan; his mother secretly followed the Christian faith. Marcus Sertorius could not align himself fully with either camp.
One day, a Christian preacher named Clementinus—spoke from the steps of a basilica near the Palatine. ‘True virtue, is granted by grace, not by nature. Man cannot ascend into Heaven, without the salvation of Jesus’. Marcus Sertorius listened, heart beating. He listened to her eloquence, yet felt a coldness in the absolutes she proclaimed.
At home, after an evening meal of olives and bread, he debated his mother Lucia in low tones.
‘You claim that grace alone gives virtue, but then what of courage? Temperance? Are these not virtues?'
She sighed. 'Son, I honour your reflections, but grace is sufficient. Without it the soul is lost’.
'I must disagree mother. Without virtues man abandons the self for the ego'.
'Grace, is the favour of Jesus'.
'And virtue is to guide the self. Why should I seek favours from a god, when I have the means within me to live a virtuous life?'
She looked away. The inner silence he felt with Xenagoras seemed to call to something deeper than dogma or doctrine—an un‑doing of the ego by quietude, yet he could not dismiss the yearning for spiritual assurance that Christian converts described in trembling voices. He knew that he had to deal with them, not by condemnation, but by reason and consciousness.
As the months passed Marcus Sertorius' career advanced. He began to hold minor municipal offices—aedile, curator of games. His speeches in the senate grew more eloquent, but always beneath the surface, Xenagoras' voice murmured: ‘Attend to the self. Not for pride, but for clarity. The soul glimpses truth in silence’.
In the Forum he walked with dignified step. In the basilicas he greeted Christians politely. In the temple of Jupiter he observed sacrifices with ritual precision. All appearances remained impeccable. To the world, he was a prominent Roman, balanced and promising.
Secretly he gathered a few attentive souls—some Romans who felt likewise torn between public obligations and inner longing. He taught a little circle in the portico near his lodgings: seated on steps, he read short passages from the Meletic scrolls of Xenagoras (memorised so as not to have written evidence), and guided them in moments of silence, reflection, shared modest discourse.
They asked: ‘Marcus Sertorius, how shall we act when war erupts?’
'Do what must be done. Act not out haste or raw passion, but instead, act with wisdom'.
‘Marcus Sertorius, is the soul changed by virtue or by grace, as the Christians claim?’
'The soul awakens the self. It is virtue when practised that elevates the soul. The Meletic path is not to claim we have arrived, but to reach the inner light that emanates from To Ena, the One from within us'.
He did not need to defame Christians by name. He described a path of interior listening that transcended Christianity with the truth. His message was not of exclusion, but more of inclusion.
A crisis came when a prominent Christian bishop was arrested, accused of inciting unrest. The emperor’s edict demanded that all officials show loyalty by denouncing heresy and enforcing public conformity. Marcus Sertorius' superiors pressed him to give evidence, sign a statement promising enforcement of penalties. Many of his peers signed quickly.
Marcus Sertorius was called before the procurator. In scribal chambers he sat stiffly. The procurator looked at him, black‑bearded, cynical. ‘Marcus Sertorius, you come from a fine family, yet there are reports you show undue sympathy for the Christians. You will affirm the edict: you will swear that Christians must not meet in secrecy, or you’ll be stripped of your office’.
This was a false accusation levelled against him by his astute enemies. Marcus Sertorius felt his pulse thunder. In that moment he heard within him the silence: un‑condemning, luminous and strong. He remembered Xenagoras' words of wisdom: ‘To attend to the soul is not rebellion—only fidelity to the truth’.
He raised his chin. ‘I affirm obedience to the emperor’s law,’ he said quietly. ‘I believe one must preserve the life of the soul by revelation. I do not condone secret gatherings that defy public order—but I cannot damn those whose faith is interior. I shall not denounce them publicly. Instead, I shall perform the duties entrusted to me by Rome—but not betray the inner lives of men in my city’.
The procurator’s face twisted in rage. ‘You speak cunningly. You pretend to submit, but yield in all things. Sign here, Marcus Sertorius’.
Marcus Sertorius refused. He left the parchment unsigned. The procurator threatened him with demotion, exile and dishonour. Word got back to his father. He came home fuming.
His father sat in the atrium, torch‑light flickering on pietra sera. Marcus Sertorius knelt before him.
‘You risk the family honour,’ his father said, voice low but furious. ‘You would bring disgrace to the family's name and reputation. Why?’
‘I would preserve something more precious than rank,’ Marcus Sertorius replied softly. ‘The soul. The inner silence in every man which no law can compel. I shall stand firm—for the self, for virtue, for the truth which are beyond politics.’
His father raged but his mother Lucia intervened: ‘Son, your father is proud. He fears scandal, but you speak of dignity. Perhaps that is nobler. The sad irony is that we must do, what Rome demands of us'.
Their mother cried, palms pressed to her lips, yet she offered no judgement. In that charged stillness, Marcus Sertorius felt grief and resolve intermingled.
He was stripped of his minor office. His family name was sullied in the courts. He found unexpected support: a few senators who admired courage, and some Christians who whispered gratitude. He had little money; his stipend stopped; his prospects dimmed.
He withdrew into a modest lodgement near the Capitoline. He devoted time to teaching his small circle. He re‑wrote his reflections: The paradox of Rome: building empire by outwards force, losing empire in the inner realm. The Meletic way says: empire of the silence is greater. He worked ink by candle‑light, his hand steady in the quietness. He studied the teachings of Meletic of which he had embraced as his own.
As the years passed, a new emperor came, more tolerant of Christians. Marcus Sertorius was cautiously reinstated—but into an obscure province in the provinces of Asia Minor. He journeyed east. In Ephesus he found both Christian temples and ancient pagan columns. He spoke sometimes from platforms, sometimes in private chambers. He taught Meletic philosophy: not anti‑Christian, not Christian, but a path that honoured the virtues of Meleticism.
He carried two scrolls: one of Seneca’s epistles and one of Xenagora's aphorisms. He had once studied Stoicism, but was more aligned to Meleticism. He quoted to his students: ‘What serenity awaits the soul who hears her own breath as an echo’. And: ‘The virtue of compassion is not given—it arises when one’s attention is free’.
One day a Christian bishop invited him to speak in a modest basilica. He did so. Afterwards a voice from the congregation asked: ‘Teacher, do you claim there is no Christ?’ Marcus Sertorius paused. He replied: ‘I am no one to make you believe in Christ or not, I follow another path. Not of salvation, but of enlightenment'. The congregation was silent. Some members respected him. Others murmured doubt of his incredulity.
He walked out under the olive trees, the warm breeze on his face. He felt the calm of an inner harbour.
Years later news came that his father lay dying in Rome. Marcus Sertorius returned. The city had changed: marble arches newly restored, Christian basilicas rising beside old temples, the politics quieter but more devout. He entered his father’s house. The old man lay pale, gaunt: the senator once full of fire, now weak with age. They spoke quietly.
‘Father,’ Marcus Sertorius said, kneeling. ‘I have walked far—from glory into exile. I have studied the meaning of the soul, and I have never ceased to be your son’.
His father closed trembling leathery eyes. He sighed. ‘You have strayed—but you have returned richer... wiser. Perhaps the philosophy you practise taught you justice and courage. Do not regret any of it'.
He reached out a frail hand. Marcus Sertorius took it. They were silent. The inner world had triumphed over ambition. The outer world still stood—Rome, stormy, glorious and imperilled.
Marcus Sertorius remained quietly in the city. The political tide had shifted; pluralism held uneasy balance. He rose to moderate rank again—not high, but respected by both Romans and Christians. As a Meletic, he spoke seldom in grandeur halls, but often in courtyards of olive trees, in basilicas, in the last pagan groves that remained—speaking of silence, of the self as listening and of virtue as attention.
His scrolls spread: notebooks bearing reflections, fragments of Meletic aphorisms, meditations on the soul’s unity beyond faction. He never claimed a doctrine, only a path. In the quietness of pre‑dawn, in the twilight hours when street vendors slept, he taught: ‘Attend. Listen. Let the silence within your breast answer louder than the voices beyond’.
Over time, a quiet circle formed around him—not a school, not a sect, but a fellowship of seekers: a former centurion haunted by battle, a matron widowed in the plagues, a young rhetorician disillusioned with the flatteries of court. They gathered not to be instructed, but to be reminded of what they already sensed. Marcus Sertorius would speak for a short while—always softly—and then guide them into awareness.
One such evening, beneath the garden canopy of fig and laurel, a woman named Caelia asked him, ‘Marcus Sertorius, how do we guard the silence once we return to the noise?’
He looked at her, his expression steady. ‘By not treating silence as something separate. Let it follow you like a shadow. Do not protect it as a fragile thing, but carry it as part of your bearing. Walk with it, breathe with it. When others speak falsely or cruelly against you, do not react at once. Let your wisdom speak first, before your anger does'.
Another man, Severinus, once a fiery debater in the senate, asked him, ‘Is not action more virtuous than quietude? Have we not duties to justice?’
‘Indeed, but just action is born of undisturbed insight. The rash seek justice to avenge themselves. The still seek it to preserve balance. Listen before you speak. Reflect before you strike. Awareness does not mean inaction—it means the rightness of timing’, replied Marcus Sertorius.
In his modest dwelling, parchment and wax tablets were scattered, not in disorder but in lived use. A boy, the son of a merchant, came to him daily to help copy and recite his notes. He would read aloud: 'To see clearly, remove the noise of want. To act wisely, remove the veil of self-image. The soul’s root is not pride, nor doctrine, but awarness without performance.’
One day, that boy—his name was Julianus—confessed to Marcus Sertorius that his father had wanted him to join the army, to earn honour as his uncle had done.
‘And what do you want?’ Marcus Sertorius asked.
The boy looked down at the floor mosaic. ‘I want to understand. To live by my virtues, not by my ego’.
Marcus Sertorius nodded. ‘Then you are already ahead of most people who wear titles. Let your understanding ripen slowly. The soul does not bloom by command, only by patience. Practise virtues, and you will exile your ego'.
He took on no formal students, yet his presence gathered quiet authority. Monastics visited him—some Christian ascetics, curious about his reflections and philosophy. He welcomed them all. One old deacon, blind in one eye, came weekly and listened to his readings.
‘I no longer see with the outer eye, but I feel your words settle like dew upon a field', the deacon said.
Marcus Sertorius replied, ‘When the soul is moist with listening, even the unseen becomes vivid’.
He refused coins for his teachings. Some offered donations, which he redirected to poor families living near the Aventine. A merchant once tried to pay him with a small statue of Athena, carved in silver.
‘Let it be sold and the coins given to the baker with the limp who feeds three children,’ Marcus Sertorius said. ‘Statues of wisdom are less needed than acts of it’.
His beard grew grey, his steps slower, but his gaze deepened. At times he would sit for hours in the portico, unmoving. Not asleep, not ill—only listening. Once, a concerned visitor found him thus and gently touched his shoulder.
‘Marcus Sertorius, are you unwell?’
He turned, slowly and smiled faintly. ‘Only nearer to the soundless echo of being’.
In a city still pulsing with religious edicts and public festivals, Marcus Sertorius had become a quiet fixture. Children called him ‘the olive man’. Bakers greeted him with warm loaves wrapped in cloth. Former rivals in politics sent letters to him, requesting quiet counsel.
One such letter came from the same procurator who had once tried to strip him of office.
‘I feared silence then. Now I fear what I became without it. If ever I may sit at your garden’s edge, I shall listen as a student’, it read.
Marcus Sertorius welcomed him. They sat for an hour without words. At the end, the procurator said, ‘This is the first hour in ten years I have not regretted my decisions’.
‘Then the soul is not lost,’ Marcus Sertorius answered. ‘It only waited for you to return’.
More than once he was asked if he believed in gods or the Christan god. His answer never changed.
‘I believe the self is a temple whose altar is presence. Whether the gods dwell there—I shall leave that to the believer. I honour To Ena, the One when I honour virtue in myself and in others’.
One morning, he walked to the edge of the Tiber, near the footbridge where reeds whispered against the stone. He knelt, hands folded. A passer-by thought he was a Pagan praying to Neptune.
He was simply listening—to the river, to the wind and to the world within the world.
At dusk that same day, he met with a group who had travelled from Antioch—men and women who had read transcribed notes from his teachings. One asked him: ‘Marcus Sertorius, do you name your path?’
'Yes. It is called enlightenment. It is a path without a boundary. The soul without a wall—only the path that leads one to To Ena’, he responded.
As the night fell, torches flickered in the portico and oil-lamps blinked in and out across the hills. In the silence between song and sleep, he spoke once more.
‘Let your virtue speak more softly than your voice. Let your life be the teaching, your manner be the text. When the world demands you shout, return to the centre. There, you’ll find the answer was always less than a word—and more than one. There, you will find To Ena, the One'.
He paused, eyes glinting faintly in the torchlight, as if seeing not the faces before him but something further—something rooted beyond time. ‘Do not seek to convince,’ he continued, voice low. ‘Seek to understand. Conviction grows from inner awareness, not from victory in debate. The soul listens where pride cannot. When you walk away from argument, do not think yourself defeated—only returned to yourself’. The group around him remained silent, not out of deference, but because they too had begun to hear what cannot be spoken.
Thus, the tale of Marcus Sertorius closes—not with triumphant platform speeches, not with war‑honours or temples rededicated in his name. Instead, with a memorable whisper heard across centuries that was his revelation. He was the teacher who stood for inner virtue, for fidelity to silence in a world of noise. His legacy was not an empire but pockets of attentive souls, who learnt to watch politics without being consumed, to speak truth with humility, to cultivate compassion through inner awareness.
In the great library of Rome a young student later discovered a parchment bearing his words: 'I live by awareness, not to hide from the world, but to bring the soul into clarity. The empire yields a reign within—unchalleneged by turmoil, untouched by creed. For wisdom, the highest virtue is to listen to reason than to act out of spite'.
From that seed, a new tradition grew—not Christian, nor pagan—but one that was understood by consciousness, in which each person found enlightenment.
For more features, such as favoriting, recommending, and reviewing, please go to the full version of this story.