Victrix

It was just the tiniest little sigil. The legend LEGIO XIV under a Capricorn could faintly be made out with a magnifying glass. Around it centered one of the bits of family lore. According to my great-grandfather, our family’s founder marched out of Pannonia in the early fifth century with the remnants of the famous XIV Legion. Described as the twinned legion and as Martia Victrix, it had been founded in Cisalpine Gaul by Julius Caesar. The Legion endured centuries of service. Then, at the final collapse of the West, he and his friends escaped as a tiny remnant.

The remnant, a bare company of legionaries serving as marines on the Danube, fought their way free with their dependents. Barely forty strong, the group was small enough to slip through the chaos. But it was large enough to fight even a larger, but less organized, barbarian grouping. Over the years, they straggled westward and reached the western borders of old Hispania, and what would become known as Provence. There they settled.

Pax Optima Est

By the tenth century the family was centered in what was becoming the County of Barcelona. Family members were among those who joined as mercenaries in the adventures of the Great Catalan Company in the Byzantine Empire. Only a few returned to tell the tales of plunder, betrayal, victory, and defeat from Asia Minor to Athens. They were victors and victims.

Thereafter, the family motto was a modest one: “Pax Optima Est.”

After centuries of warlike professions, they now leaned towards being jewelers, mariners, gardeners, carvers, and other trades. From the Costa Brava, they embarked on a dispersion that first took them to Cuba, Puerto Rico, and on to New York.

Always, the little sigil was passed on. The stories told, and the history repeated as though it were a magic incantation. Every Christmas time at the family party, a senior family member would direct a dedication of a portion of the evening’s feast to those who had hungered on the long march home. An empty place at the table was always set for one who might be a late arrival to the party.

The force of tradition

There were few, if any, mentions of the family tradition in any other month. Many outside the family didn’t believe that there was any power in the curious family customs. But the curious ritual seemed to hold the family together through the generations. This year, the sigil has come to our household, as part of the migratory circuit of ritual binding us all together.

Once again, all of us, women, men, and children, will stand in a line stretching back to our distant ancestors. My grandfather has told me that on occasion, the power of our love and dedication can make our past, present, and future material. A line unbroken by time.

The family legend continues.