The world changes but man himself doesn't change, believe me on that one. No matter how much time passes, or how many awesome technologies are discovered, lost and rediscovered, humanity shall never change. And neither shall I. My name is Abimilki Maharbal, although I go by Abe these days. A lot of people I meet nowadays think it's short for Abraham, and after a while, I stopped bothering to correct them. Let them be, I say.
In the City of Boston, Massachusetts, which is full of people of all hues, I'm just another face in the crowd. And I love it. I'm studying law at Suffolk University, for the American legal system has begun to fascinate me since my resurrection. I have over two thousand years worth of learning to catch up on since I escaped from the tomb where my own brother buried me, eons ago. The world has changed since I was trapped, and it's more fascinating and complex than ever.
I'd like to think that I'm adjusting fairly well to life in modern times. Carthage is far away and a long time ago, but I remain. I'm six feet tall, lean and athletic, with long black hair, light brown skin and golden brown eyes. In today's day and age, I've been called everything from biracial to mulatto or just plain old African-American. In my mind, I am who I've always been. A citizen of Carthage, the last great civilization of the ancient world.
I was born in the City of Carthage, crown jewel of the Carthaginian Republic, around 800 B.C. My father Sahama originally came from the City of Axum, Ethiopia, and my mother Ayzebel Maharbal was born and raised in the Capital region of the Republic of Carthage, to a wealthy Phoenician family. In those days, the Republic of Carthage was a great power in this area of the world and had peaceful relations with Mediterranean and Indo-African powers. I am the son of two worlds, East Africa and Tunisia, as it were.
I led a fairly normal life for the first thirty years of my existence, attending the Royal Academy of Carthage, the school attended by the princes and sons and daughters of the nobility. Now, you modern folks might wonder about what life was like for such as I, born of a tall, dark-skinned father from East Africa and a short, slender, bronze-skinned and raven-haired Tunisian mother. The ancient world was far more progressive along racial lines than today's world, this I swear.
People from a variety of African kingdoms and Asian nations traded with the diverse and enlightened Carthaginians, and these people sometimes intermarried. The Carthaginians weren't just traders, warriors, artisans and statesmen, they were a thoroughly civilized bunch, traveling from Europe to Africa, Asia and the Mediterranean realms, acquiring goods and spreading their civilization and knowledge wherever they went. They were respected, and feared, by many.
My father Sahama was a merchant, traveling from Ethiopia to Tunisia, and the day he met my mother Ayzebel, he knew down deep in his heart that she was the only woman for him. As a wealthy young Ethiopian princeling, he'd done business with Carthaginians and knew of the legendary fairness of their women. Ayzebel affected him like no other. Relentless he pursued her, and they eventually got married and had little old me, along with my brother Zaracas.
Zaracas and I were born of truly unique parentage, to be sure, and Fate, like the cruel mistress that she is, had much in store for us. We were oddities of nature, my brother and I. You see, the night we were born, there was a celestial event. A meteor shower which generated a bright light which flashed across the Tunisian sky, dazzling the hell out of the locals. They praised the Gods, for in those days, they viewed celestial events as a good omen.
When Zaracas and I came into the world, our mother, like the eccentric woman she was, insisted on giving birth on the same hill where she was born. As it happens, the first time we opened our eyes, we saw the meteor shower. Judging by its effect on us, it was no ordinary meteor shower. We grew to manhood as ordinary men, albeit sons of a wealthy and powerful and politically connected, decidedly influential family.
The meteor shower affected Zaracas and I, and these changes became evident as we grew to manhood. We could do extraordinary things. Although only six feet tall and weighing approximately a hundred and eighty pounds, I could lift close to ten times my body weight, if not more. I also recovered quickly from any injuries that I sustained. I was like the Hercules that our Greek allies often spoke of in their drunken rants, a man endowed with extraordinary powers.
"You and your brother were blessed by the Gods," said our trainer, Xaxos, marveling as I stood in the atrium near our father's villa, and lifted a stone bigger than my whole body with an ease that three stronger men wouldn't have managed. I was barely twenty years old at the time, and quite slender, come to think of it.
"I will only use my power to defend our beautiful homeland of Carthage, my friend," I said to Xaxos, then I tossed the stone away, and gently laid my hand on his shoulder. A short, stocky Grecian gentleman, Xaxos had served in the Carthaginian military beside my father, shortly after he married my mother and did the duty of every Carthaginian male and defended our nation in times of war.
"You've got a good head on your shoulders and a good heart, Abimilki, I just wish your brother were more like you," Xaxos said, and we left the atrium and went for a walk about the nearby marketplace. My mother's forty-sixth birthday was coming up and I intended to surprise her by buying her a rare jewel or something to that effect.
My parents villa sat atop a hill, about two kilometers from the City of Carthage's walls, and it overlooked the nearby ocean. We had a lovely house, one large enough for five families, come to think of it, with walled gardens and magnificent stables for our well-bred horses. We had servants who dwelled in modest quarters near the villa but kept no slaves. My father detested the practice of slavery, which he has seen much of in his time as a tradesman.
"Zaracas isn't so bad, he's just headstrong," I said to Xaxos, who smiled and shook his head. Last month, while at a tavern, my twin brother Zaracas got into a fight with some traveling merchants over some bad joke, and he accidentally killed a man. Only my father's wealth and connections spared him the punishment that would have befallen any man who accidentally killed another. Any other man would have had his right hand cut off. Zaracas walked away, unscathed, because the Courts found in his favor when he claimed self-defence.
"Abimilki, your brother shares your blood and your unique talents but he lacks your good heart and good judgement, he's only twenty and has already killed a man and felt no remorse for it, I shudder to think of what he will do next," Xaxos said, somewhat angrily as we approached the tent of a jewel salesman, a stocky Thracian named Xhanatos.
