Harry Potter’s Morning Light

Chapter 3124 viaticum (2)

 Since James got married, he has never played with a broomstick.

Minerva is a Quidditch fan, and James was once the Quidditch captain and seeker of Gryffindor, although he did not join the professional league after graduation.

This can be understood as him "growing up". After all, it was a war at the time, and he felt that he had a more important "mission" than chasing the Golden Snitch. What's more, Sirius's flying motorcycle has a tow truck, and it's the same for him sitting in the tow truck. They all move together anyway.

 Or maybe Sirius "pityed" James. If he didn't buy a motorcycle with a trailer, James would never be able to enjoy the "feeling like flying" again.

 Everyone saw this matter, and no one said anything. After all, this was James' last "dignity."

Pomona returned to his office, took out the butterbeer he had hidden, and drank it down.

When the drink was almost gone, she took a deep breath and wiped the foam off her lips with the back of her hand.

The last time she saw Harry at Petunia's house, he looked like an abused little pitiful boy, without the confidence of a child from a good background.

Penny was the two sisters who grew up with Lily. Pomona expected that even if Lily raised Harry himself, his character would not be much better than it is now. His father had already become like that.

 But James is a married man after all, and of course he is different from a bachelor.

After putting down the wine glass, Pomona looked around secretly, took another pack of cigarettes from the drawer, and lit one. After taking a hard puff, she was able to enjoy the calmness it brought more skillfully. .

This office is full of "children's" things, but she is not a child after all.

 The bar is also filled with smoke. The only difference lies in the guests coming in and out. For example, during Prohibition, New York's speakeasies were populated by "the most beautiful girls in the world," and they wouldn't date boys who couldn't drink.

She blew another breath, and the smoke ring turned into the shape of an eagle in the air, not as plump as the one she blew out with bubble gum that day.

Livy once mentioned a centurion in his Roman history. While he was serving, the crops in the fields were ravaged by the enemy, the fields were burned, all his property was robbed, and the livestock was driven away. When he was desperate, the war taxes pressed him again. His debts increased greatly because of the heavy interest. As a result, his ancestral farm was deprived of his ancestral farm, and later his personal freedom was deprived. He became a debt slave and was He was imprisoned in a dungeon and tortured, and he even showed everyone the new wounds on his back from being whipped.

Hannibal's destruction of Rome and Italy in the Punic War made many Roman citizens like the centurion. These small farmers were inherently fragile. Whether it was natural disasters or wars, even if a cow died, they were unable to engage in and survive. With the same scale of production, not to mention loan sharking, they would become landless peasants even if they did not become slaves like the centurion.

By the time Tiberius Gracchus came to power, Roman citizen soldiers were already facing a shortage of soldiers. Citizen soldiers in ancient Rome set property restrictions, and they had to purchase their own weapons. This does not mean that individuals can join the army. of.

  Ancient Rome was similar to Sparta in many places. A country established by force needed to use force to maintain its rule. Especially since the territory of ancient Rome was so vast, it needed more soldiers.

The number of eligible citizens has been relatively reduced, and the demand for the military has been increasing. Originally, the service life in ancient Rome was 29 years, from 17 to 46 years old. You can retire after 46 years old. Due to the shortage of soldiers, the number of years of retirement has been extended. At the same time, Anyone who is old enough to serve can also enlist in the army, but Octavian was under that age when he enlisted.

 However, this puts a greater burden on citizens. Small farmers work together as a family, and freemen are hired when farming is busy or when there is important farm work. The work that was originally done by four people became three people because someone went to join the army. Very few people can live to retire at the age of 46. If it is delayed further, he will only be able to support himself when he comes back, and will not be able to do farm work at all.

According to the book Pomona just read, according to the rules of ancient Rome, tribunes were elected once a year, but such a large land reform was impossible to complete during Tiberius's term, so he ran for tribune again Official, this has no precedent in Roman history.

 After Tiberius's death, due to the pressure of public opinion, his land reform policy was not abolished, and the number of citizens increased by nearly 80,000 in 6 years.

In order to increase the childbearing population, the Senate tried every means and even banned Roman citizens from being single, but that had no effect at all. After the fall of Carthage, Rome became the hegemon of the Mediterranean. Countless rare treasures were shipped to Rome, so many new and interesting things. Yes, who is in the mood to go home and take care of the children?

The Food Law of Gaius Gracchus was promulgated. In fact, Rome was not so short of food, but short of "cheap food." Through the excavation of Pompeii buried under volcanic ash, it was found that the food of the ancient Romans was very good, and there was a lot of food in the garbage dump. Less meat and bones. The less you spend on food, the more money you have to spend on other things. Citizens of ancient Rome would wear a robe called a toga, which had different styles depending on the level of the citizen, but it was generally made of wool.

Free people were not allowed to wear togas according to the rules. Rome was a highly hierarchical society. This does not mean that one level cannot enter another level, but there are many conditions that determine a person's social level. Money is not the only one, although they are often entangled in Together.

Wealthy freemen bought their own toga and even knight's robes, and mingled "as equals" among the Roman citizens who had a higher status than them. Once this transgression was discovered, they would be expelled from their seats.

 The wool comes from the sheep, and many of the wealthy people who occupy the common land are engaged in animal husbandry. Among the three-man council formed by Tiberius was one who claimed to be "the man who drove the large herdsmen from the public lands for the benefit of the peasants."

 Compared with wheat, grapes and olives are cash crops, which are managed by large estates. The food shipped from the provinces will not necessarily have the same impact on local agriculture as the British did when the Corn Laws were abolished.

“All roads lead to Rome.” Before Gaius Gracchus and Augustus built the roads to Rome, the loss of grain transported to Rome would be great, not to mention that these roads were not just for transporting grain.

 The province's grain was mainly shipped to the garrison, so Rome did not need to transport grain to them from the mainland. Anyway, the grain was "tax in kind". There was a saying in Rome at that time, "Be as cheap as the Sardinians." After the fall of Carthage, they were like the Trojans. Everyone in the city became slaves, so that the price of Sardinian slaves was very cheap in the Roman slave market. Shipowners even paid sailors with grain, because it was "as cheap as the Sardinians" and didn't cost much in silver coins.

When Caesar became consul, he distributed the land to "fathers of three children". There were 20,000 of them. Even if not all the children were boys, there were close to 30,000 peasants who could become citizen soldiers.

 He also gave soldiers who had made great achievements in battle the opportunity to put on a toga or knight's robe and sit in the Senate to vote. That soldier may feel like he was a whipped debt slave in his previous life.

The Law of the Twelve Tables stipulated a debt limit, which should not exceed one twelfth. However, the Roman nobles strictly abided by the civil law. The civil law stipulated that they could make profits from usury, which was legal. Roman commoners and nobles had been fighting over the issue of usury legislation.

7. 800 sheep, 10 people are enough to look after them. Due to usury and other means, a large number of Roman citizens lost their land, and then they flocked to the city.

At that time, there were many slaves engaged in handicrafts in Rome, especially slaves from the East who also had advanced textile technology. How could those landless Roman citizens win the competition?

If you want to join the army, you must also have property restrictions. Although it has been reduced again and again after the reform, there are still some people who cannot meet the standards. Just like those Spartans who cannot afford to pay for public meals, they cannot obtain full citizenship and earn glory for themselves through military exploits. .

However, the army was indeed short of men. Later, when it was their turn to perform military exploits and obtain colonies as promised by Caesar and Octavian, the land that had been forcibly acquired by the "original land owners" who cried in the Roman Forum was really Was it passed down from "his" ancestors?

 In Shakespeare’s story, Romeo and Juliet come from two feuding Italian families. However, the hatred between the two families will not be resolved by their love. Instead, the young lovers became a tragedy.

In order to destroy Carthage, the Romans not only invested a lot of wealth, but also many Romans, including sons of wealthy families, died in the battle. Judging from the relics in the museum, the Roman legionnaires wore red wool as well as undyed woolen fabrics. In the pre-industrial era, Roman soldiers accounted for one-third of all men. This is a very astonishing number.

"Born in Rome", if their father, a citizen, had no money, the three children would have to work with slaves when they grew up.

When he was numb from the torment of life, he saw a woman dressed in jewels and crying on the street. He watched with others, and after careful questioning, he found out that this was a rich widow who had found a lover after her husband died. But that lover abandoned her after he found a new love, and now she is crying.

He and this lady live in different worlds. He doesn’t understand her troubles, just like she doesn’t understand his. The law stipulates that citizens are not allowed to be single, but who will marry him?

Molly and Arthur met at school. They got married after graduation and had their first "home" at the Burrow, which has not changed for so many years.

 Their lives would not improve much if they had fewer children, because Arthur's salary was meager and the children had their own allowances. They didn't have to worry about going hungry, they just couldn't get everything they wanted like Draco, and it was double the price.

 Pomona took another drag on her cigarette, this time she didn't blow smoke rings.

Both Queenie and Irene lived in places like Brooklyn and Spider End because of love. They don’t care, but will their children wish their mothers had made wiser choices?

 “Pomona.”

 She was startled and her breath was held in her breath.

“You are nearby,” Snape said. “Otherwise the mirror would not respond.”

 “What are you doing?” she said carefully, stamping out the cigarette butt.

 “They found ‘aliens’,” Snape said.

Pomona felt like she was hearing alien words.

 “Who are they? What aliens?” Pomona asked.

“A Muggle sent a photo to the newspaper and said he had captured aliens.”

Pomona found the two-way mirror from the desk drawer. Snape's pale face was in the mirror.

 “Let me see it!” said Pomona.

 Snape placed a picture in front of him.

It was a color photo, but it was as blurry as the Loch Ness Monster. There was a strange creature standing on a hill. It had eyes as big as tennis balls, was gray all over, and had very big ears. It looked like...

 “Whose house elf got out?” said Pomona.

“The elf used magic on the Muggle who was taking the photo, making him levitate,” Snape said.

 “What? Why did he do that?” Pomona asked quickly.

 “They asked me to investigate,” said Snape.

 Pomona heard "them" again.

 “Who are they?” she asked.

 “I can’t tell you..”

 “Have you entered the special situation unit?”

"I can't tell you," he repeated. "It needs to be kept secret."

"congratulations…"

"Can you do me a favor and find this house elf." Snape interrupted her politeness.

 “How can I find it?” she said subconsciously.

 “You know so many house elves.”

"Okay, send it to me." She said weakly, "But I can't guarantee that the school elf will know him."

 “Are you in school?” He frowned. “What’s with the cigarettes around you?”

 “I’m burning herbs.” Pomona waved her hand, creating wind to blow the smoke away.

“I’ll pass it on to you,” he said, pointing his wand at the photo.

 She saw that the photo changed into a group photo of her and her students, and then she looked at the original frame of the photo, and the photo of the "alien" appeared in it.

“How did they get that picture?” Pomona asked, getting up to get the picture.

 “Spy catcher,” he said.

 “Are you in MI5?” Pomona asked, holding the photo.

 He still didn’t answer.

"When did they take care of domestic affairs?" She returned to the double-sided mirror.

"Remember what I asked you to do." After he said that, the mirror went dark. To be precise, he disappeared, because he was originally in a pure black space.

 “Who do you think you are!” Pomona said angrily, flipping the mirror upside down on the table.

He was right. She knew a lot of house elves, but if a house elf violated the International Statute of Secrecy, what would be the penalty for using magic on Muggles?

 Before she figured it out, she felt that it was better not to rush into this favor, even though it was what he asked for and she agreed to it.

 “It’s so boring!” she complained and left the office with the photo.

 (End of this chapter)