Character study: Pliny Beleanius

There was no use in begging his new masters for a blanket or rags to cover himself because he was shamefully naked and cold, or for the chain of his dog collar to be let looser just a little so he would be able to lie down to sleep. There was no use in spilling any tears. The men who had locked him in this dark prison wouldn’t stop beating him if he did. He was no longer Plinius Beleanius, the pampered son of a wealthy and respected senator, but Cuniculus, or whatever they called him now to mock and ridicule him. He was someone’s property, a brothel slave, the lowest of the low, to be exploited and chastised and whipped at their leisure. After 3 hellish months of unfathomable suffering, Pliny finally understood that if he did not start to act like a slave very soon, he wouldn’t survive his new life for very long.

- excerpt from Vagabond