The Story

 

Where did the gold coins of Legionnaire Tiberius disappear?

More than a decade ago, a Roman gold-finding turned up in Katafa in the former military campsite. The treasure consisted of coins made after Emperor Nero’s monetary reform, and they were hidden in the 160s during the markomann wars. Legends speak about several hidden gold treasure. Gold coins hidden by Tiberius Legionnaire are particularly often mentioned.

Professor Havasi has been looking for decades for treasure hidden by the Romans in Hungarian ground. I have asked him about the legends and his latest researches.

• My professor! Is there a reality that the legionnaire Tiberius, who has been mentioned in a number of legends, hid a considerable collection of coins?
• Not only the legends but also my latest researches refer on a legionnaire called Tiberius, who hid his gold coins because of Nero’s monetary reform.
• Why did he have to hide the coins? Why didn’t he use them to ensure his better life?
• The weight of the coins was decreased considerably in the monetary reform. Hiding the finding’s – and presumably also its collecting – may be connected with the reform. The heavier coins were not officially withdrawn – although we don’t have accurate dates about this –, but it is sure that the owners hid these heavier coins.
• Do we have any information where on the territory of the former Savaria the legionnaire hid the coins?
• We can only guess. According to the legend, after hiding the treasure Tiberius Legionnaire wrote the most important dates on the back of a mirror, and gave the “secret” to his elder son.
• What happened with the mirror?
• According to the legend, the demon of Savaria seized the mirror, broke it into pieces and scattered it on the territory of the colony before the grandchild could have got to know it. This is why the descendants weren’t able to know the location of the treasure.

Zoltan read the interview. It keyed up the interest of his fellow mates, and they decided to make an action plan on the other day for the quest of the treasure. Zoltan, who particularly enjoys fantasies, considered the treasure looking as a great challenge. He mentioned that he had also heard from his historian father about the legend.
While talking, Andras looked at the film about the survival tour, and said under its influence:

- We shouldn’t miss this opportunity. We have to search. Let’s find the treasure of Samaria.

Also the girls, Vera and Julia agreed, and started to write a diary the same evening. They put on paper their off-hand ideas, and the notes got more with the days. At the end of the camping they had a research plan, which only had to be accomplished.
After the camping, Sultan and his friends carried on with the preparation. They made use of is father’s private library. They put their diary and researches on computer, and they also attached their accessibility.

On the 8th day after the camping, Zoltan got a message:

The children got excited about the news, but they couldn’t do anything with it yet. So they continued the research, and began to organize their trip. Some friends of Zoltan’s parents live in Szombathely. They allowed the children to put up their tents in the garden.

The four treasure-finders arrived on the soil of Savaria, where they were seen very friendly. They immediately set the first stages connected with their action. They were about making a full-day sightseeing tour when they got a message from the Patron:

The surprise arrives in the arts room in the Bola Secondary School at 7.45, 7th May 2007. Wait silently in s dark room. I ask for your sympathy because of the mystery.’

As the surprise seemed to be very close, they decided to wait until its arrival. The day came, and the children were waiting silently and in darkness. On the display of the room a clock appeared, and showed 7.44. The children got more and more excited. Punctually at 7.45 the surprise arrived. The Patron appeared on the display, and it seemed as if he would have been greeting the children from a space rocket.

The Patron said goodbye, and after the countdown the children heard a whizzing sound, and under flashing lights the time-machine arrived. A rural environment was on the display, and the clock indicated 1895.

 

Village on the range of the town

The time-machine has left the children on the main street of a village. A sad child comes towards them, and tells them that a feast is being organised in the village, but the local squire is fretting and fuming in his anger. He would like to eat trumpet loaf, but they have only a scanty recipe. It is to be feared that the entertainment will be cancelled. Sultan and his friends meet a couple who inherited some equipment, but it is of little avail to them. If there is no recipe, there is no dough, nothing to be baked, and to fulfil the squire’s wish. Vera, who enjoys baking peculiar cakes, immediately takes control in her hands. Each member of the team sets about to acquire the recipe, in his own way, with his own device. After some minutes, they can complete the scanty recipe, and give it over to the village people. The couple asks the children to help them preparing the loaf. They send from the tasty crispy loaf some titbit to the squire, who immediately becomes relent, and while eating it, he draws up his message to his folk: enjoy yourselves, and record the procedure of the preparation so that others can prepare the tasty cake another time too.

He asks two of his court counsellors to make a cheer. ‘Where are the musicians?’, the squire asks, and he immediately thinks that the children-group will beat up the musicians. The musicians are practising at home in their own house. Their music can be heard also in the street. Vera begins to dance on the music filtered out of the houses, but they have to hurry, as the entertainment in the village begins soon. The children could identify the instruments in several minutes, took photos of the musicians, allocated their location and invited them to the feast. First, the children were only observing, but then on Vera’s invitation, they joined the village people’s dance, and Andras took photos of them. He recorded the atmosphere in the dancing house and the dance of a couple. After a stormy dance for an hour, the musicians made a break. They engaged in conversation with the strange children-group. Zoltan and his friends told them what brought them there. The musicians put their heads together and only said that the children should pay particular attention to the text of the last song, as it would give them a prompt.

The children also got an illustration. From the tune of a familiar adaptation of a folk song and from the materials linked to them, they guessed where their friends had directed them. The children hurried to the watermill, where they fond a mysterious advertisement.

‘I am looking for crooked photographers and video makers to prepare my brochure’

Some puzzles could be seen close to the advertisement. After the children discovered the potter’s name and the house in the puzzle, they set to him. The potter greeted the treasure-finders with love, as he heard of them and their exploits in the feast. He started to work, as usually. He put a ball of clay on the disc, and the shape of a pot rose.

As there can be several pieces of the mirror on the territory of the village, the children turned to the satellite of the time-machine for help, to find the coordinates of the pieces. The satellite gave them the coordinates, and they found the piece that contained the word ‘pot’. The piece of mirror activated when the children seized it. They had a cheerful dance on the main square of the village, when suddenly the time-machine covered them. It broke with a great crash the place- and time-net, and flew them away.

 

Walking along the paths of the nature

Well-known faces from the history appeared among the sweeping shadows. Only the movement of the time-machine was more unusual than the rush of the pictures. As imitating the flying of a fly, it rushed, changed direction, or stopped for a moment. The children felt as if they got into a tornado before they landed. It was not a chance, because they witnessed a destruction of a storm after the time-machine put them on the ground. The clouds of the storm moved away, and a rainbow appeared on the raindrops.

The storm moved away, but the children-group was worn-out by the landing. They were walking on the muddy road between battered rhododendrons. Animals escaping from the storm left their footsteps on the swamp, and birds flew under the rainbow on the clear sky.

The girls hooked on the boys, so were they draggling on the path. They saw a cottage in the distance, and an old man who tried to restore the damage of the storm. Uncle Nadasi, the warden of the arboretum, was pleased to see the unexpected guests. The children told him that they came from a rural feast, and they travelled 50 years in time.

As the children saw the trouble of uncle Nadasi, they offered to help him. He took this offer with pleasure. He told them that the storm broke the board with the prayer of the tree, and scattered it around the cottage. He asked the members of the team to collect the pieces of the prayer, and put them to the root of the ‘king of the pine trees’. After they had collected them and put them to the root of the ‘king of the pine-trees’, the pine thanked them in a song. While listening to the song, the children got an sms from the Patron: ‘I saw you got in a storm in the arboretum. I can see silhouette of flying birds on my display. Help me identify them. I am sending the silhouettes of the birds living in the arboretum and of them surviving the storm. Thank you on behalf of the local ornithologists.’

Andras, a nature-photograph has often seen the birds that appeared on the Patron’s pictures. They could identify them, and after comparing them with the birds living in the arboretum, they noticed that two birds disappeared in the storm.

While they were identifying the birds near the pine, uncle Nadasi appeared at the end of the path. He was looking at the ground and drawing something. When he came nearer, they could see his piece of paper with pictures of footsteps. At first, he children didn’t understand why was uncle Nadasi looking for something, but he told them that an animal happened to come into the arboretum, and ate the acorn from the bread-basket near the cottage, and a piece of a mirror that he left on the bottom of it. Hearing about the mirror, the children’s eyes kindled, and they asked him about its origin. Uncle Nadasi told them that he found the little piece while cleaning the lake, and he found it mysterious because of the script on it. He put it away, but he spilled the acorn over it when the storm came, and left it outside in his haste. After the storm he noticed that the acorn disappeared, and also the piece of the mirror. The children immediately started to interrogate him about the script.

Uncle Nadasi would have helped the children, but he couldn’t tell the secret because of a superstition, as it would cause misfortune to him. But he offered them his help for their action after the storm. He showed them the drawings of the footsteps, and wondered which animal the children would think of. He suggested to fire on the unbidden animal, and they may find in it the mirror with the script.

‘Which may be the unbidden animal?’, the children asked among themselves.

The old warden could help by briefly characterising the animals living in the arboretum. After the children had exclusionary chosen the footstep of the boar, they asked the satellite for help to find the location of the animal. The satellite gave the coordinates in a short time.

Uncle Nadasi brought the bows out of the shed close to the cottage, gave them on the children who rushed away on the path. Zoltan, the navigator, noticed a gazing boar on the near clearing after a few minutes research. He waved them to be silent, and gave them the bows. They decided that after a given sign they would fasten their bows at once, and shoot on the boar. Everybody was concentrating on the target, and the arrows flew almost together. On of the missed the target, but the others lodged into the animal’s body, and it died after a short suffering. The children’s face reflected dismay as well as pleasure. After they woke up from the surprise, they anxiously went to the dead animal. Vera collected her braveness, and cut the stomach of the boar with a sharp stone. Under the acorns the mirror sparkled, and the script on it was ‘Claudius’.

 

Travelling in the baroque city, on the way of embourgeoisement

The shell of the time-machine was placed as a colourful tissue on the children on the island of the arboretum. Accompanied by a whistling sound, they moved away from the weather-beaten path. The pictures appearing on the wall of the time-machine cited the beginning of the19th century. The children was wondering where they would be put in time and space.

As the time-machine put them on the ground, their feet trembled. The shell flew away, and the children were on the street of the 18th-century Szombathely, in front of a grocery. The bearded shop-owner was smoking a pipe in front of the shop. A beggar was struggling with his instrument. He noticed that the children standing round him. They were listening to the melody, when they heard shouting from the distance: flood, flood!

Let’s flee, the Perint is flooding. The children turned their eyes in the direction of the sound, and they saw the water flowing at the end of the street, and the waves were coming towards them. They became pale, and the beggar put his instrument away. The people running out of the houses could ascertain that it isn’t a false alarm. The frightened company helped the beggar, Julia hold his crutches and Vera his violin. They were at a loss.

A chaise approached in the twilight. The water overtook them. ‘We are in water, my lord’, shouted the coachman to the passenger, who looked out of the window. Meanwhile, also the children and the beggar were in water up to their knees, and the water rose. The flood flowed, and covered the street.

‘Get on’, shouted the coachman.

He stopped for a moment, they put the beggar and the girls into the chaise, and the boys sat to the coachman. The horses rammed towards the rising flood, they jumped in heir fear, and the coachman needed all his strength to hold the chaise. He hit between the horses, and after a few seconds, the company cold escape from the flood to a higher point of the street.

The beggar hoped that the flood hadn’t put away his humble bevy. He offered the children to spend the night with him. It dawned. The catastrophe was more frightening in the darkness. The people tried to escape from the dangerous zone on boats and carts.

The beggar’s house was on the nearby hill, where they arrived soon. They said goodbye to the coachman and the passenger of the chaise, and went to the beggar’s house in the knee-reaching water. Fortunately, only a part of the yard was covered by water, so they could settle when they stepped on dry ground. In the humble house of the beggar, the tired children flopped down on the rug, and tied to elaborate the events of the last minutes. They put on a candle, and started to chat. They told the beggar about the 21st century and their time-travel. They talked about the beggar’s fate, he previous floods, and than the buildings operations in the town came up. The beggar told them that he had earned his living as a stonemason, but an illness brought him down.

The children were interested in building technique. The beggar told them how the dome of a nearby church was built, and called their attention to the buildings in town, especially to the church. He suggested the children to visit it, and than they could study on the place the conditions of building a huge cathedral. He referred to their escape the previous day, and meant that although his eyesight is bad, but in all possibility the bishop and his coachman rescued them from the flood.

After a long talk they went to sleep. In the morning they went in the street to see the traces of the flood. There wasn’t any water, but a lot of river drifts where the waves of the flooded brook were flapping the wheels of the chaise and the horses’ hoofs the precious night.

The beggar thanked the children, and gave them a sacred image as a memory, on the back of which a citation was to be read:

The architect invited the curious children onto the staging, and they were proud to follow them. They got to the vault on building, where they were able to see the whole building.

The workers were greeting somebody loudly at the entrance.

‘Who might be the person who is appreciated so much?’, asked Andras.

‘The first bishop of the town, Janos Szily. He is the builder of the cathedral, and visits the building almost every day’, answered the architect.

After the regular introspection, the bishop reached the floor where the children were. He recognised the children, and also the children greeted an acquaintance in his person, their rescuer. They engaged him in conversation, and meanwhile Bishop Szily admired their devices. He talked with the time-travelling children about the building operations, and he said that he would have been happy hearing the opinion of the descendants and seeing some photos about his buildings. As a return, they cold get the foot-stone of ‘Thalia’s home’.

The children told him that unfortunately only they are allowed to travel by the time-machine. But if also the time-machine wants, they could travel back into the 21st century for a few minutes, and make a brochure in several languages about the Cathedral. Meanwhile, a sound could be heard: ‘Go to the square in front of the cathedral. Be careful that no strangers are about. The time-machine is going to arrive, and carries you away.’ As it happened earlier, the time-machine put a coloured shell over them, and the pictures were rushing, squeezing decades into seconds, into the 21st century.

After making the brochure and taking the pictures, the time-machine flew them back into the past, close to bishop Szily. They handed over the greetings of the descendants and the photos. As a return, Bishop Szily gave them a stone on which he wrote: ’To Thalia’s priests’. He added: ‘If Thalia’s sanctuary will be built in the town any time, this stone should be the foot-stone with God’s blessing.’

The children were proud that they could please the great town-builder. They stroked the stone that could be once a lionized item of a memorable event. The time-machine thought suddenly –maybe on the impact of the stone- to fly the children to a new place. Vera noticed that rotating the stone she was able to direct the time-machine. Also the others noticed that, and all of them tested navigation. While they were rotating the stone back and forth, they got lost. They were helpless what to do. They decided that it was better to leave navigation to the time-machine. Than suddenly the time-machine landed, and its counter indicated that they were in2007. It put them down, gave them the coordinates, and the shell disappeared as usual.

‘Where did we come’, asked the children. The coordinates directed them to a newer building, on the wall of which hey could see a plaque that referred on the home of Thalia’s priests.

The team dissolved the mystery, the meaning of the word. They proved the solution with a photo about the plaque. They got a scanty material from the archives. Based on the coordinates, they got the surname of the lady that was addressed. They complemented the missing letters.

As a return for Emilia’s surname and for the photo of the plaque, the children can sit into the time-machine to bring Bishop Szily’s present to the putting down the foot-stone of Thalia’s home.

They get in the time-machine, and are careful with the stone not to get lost again. They rely on the stone which solved its mission quickly. Geographically they are in the same place; they only had to travel back 130 years in time.

All acquaintances. This was their first impression. They could see the squire and his family, the potter with his wife, and also the dancers in the crowd. They were waiting for the foot-stone of Thalia’s sanctuary that -according to the legends- was offered by Bishop Szily. So not a casual stone, but his time-traveller stone was put into the ground in a ceremony.

The squire remembered the children with love, so for this noble gesture he invited them to the opening ceremony, on behalf of the town’s glorifiers. He asked them to popularise the theatre of the town by performances and reading poems on the varnishing. The time-machine came, took them away, and returned them after squeezing several years in minutes.

The town woke up on a memorable day. The children didn’t forget the squire’s request. Following the signs, pictures and scripts in the street they got to the place that the squire suggested for reading poems. The children started a cheerful comedy and read poems. At the end of the performance, the nation’s famous actress stepped up to them. Going to the ceremony, Markus Emilia found time for listening to the children. She promised to leave a present in the shop of one of her friends. She gave up her favourite property, her mirror, from which it turned out that the children were looking for it. She had got this mirror as an amulet from her great-grandmother, but she thought that it would have a worthy place with the young actors. She attached her 13 most favourite words. She asked the children to take these words, and organise a poem-contest after 50 years, using the words.

The children got new information through this mirror, they accomplished their task, and the time-machine flew them to a new place.

The lovely border of my motherland

50 years have passed away since opening the theatre. Local people heard of the legend that Markus Emilia put 13 words in an envelope, and sent them with the time-travellers into the future.

‘Who may be they?’, the children guessed. They heard first the poem ‘The Shop of Tales’ than ‘Hawthorn’.
The participants of the contest took place behind the decorated tables. The time-traveller children, who brought Márkus Emilia’s words with them, enthusiastically joined the feast. The lionized poet, Weöres Sándor opened the contest, and showed the golden pen that he had offered for the winning team.

The aim of the contest was, as the speaker said: ‘Chiselling the playful brain with the help of words. Challenging the participants in teams and individually, with the tools of poetry and singing.’

Weöres Sánor, being a playful brain, started the contest with a funny task. He picked at from one of his and one of the present Gazdag Erzsi’s poems, and created a new poem. A big guessing started, as their poetry has lots of common features, still their style is different. Long minutes had gone, until the contestants could divide the two poems.

The atmosphere was cheerful in the square but the crowd got silent when the words of the next task were told, and the creative work began. The contestants started to write an eight-lone poem which than they showed the honoured audience. It is fast incredible to build (write a poem) from given words, so that they carry a different meaning. While the children-poets were engaged in poetry, the bards were tuning into their contest.

They sounded the poems of Gazdag Erzsi and Weöres Sándor accompanied by guitars. The participants of the bard-contest were seen with great pleasure.

While the competition continued, Derkovits Gyula and his friend Hincz Gyula illustrated poems in a doorway, and they inspirited the children to perpetuate their favourite poem. Weöres Sándor and Gazdag Erzsi visited the artists and the children. Weöres Sándor handed over Derkovits a gilded envelope which contained birthday felicitations. Derkovits opened the envelope a few minutes after is friend left. The artist was seized by fear why he had deserved so many curses he got from his friend.

The children saw Derkovits’s dismay, and they offered their help to explain the lines of the poem. Zoltan took a pair of scissors, cut the poem in two, and put the parts in a different order together. Hearing the poem in this way, the artist smiled, and he forgave his friend for imposing the poem in a ‘wrong way’.

The artist and the children got friends in the doorway. He offered his brush for their intimate and truthful drawings, but an unexpected event disturbed their conversation. The time-machine appeared, but the children didn’t know why, because they wanted to stay with the artists for a while. The time-machine took them away, and on the shell they could see Derkovits working, and his creations were drawn on the blank canvases. After a few minutes, the memories of Derkovits disappeared, and the children were dropped into present time. The time-machine joshed them, as it brought them back on the main square. 70 years were gone. The people have been replaced, and the image of the square has considerably changed. The children hoped that they will be able to acquire the artist’s brush.

‘Where should we search it? What should we do for it?’, they guessed. They got a puzzle from the time-machine, before it left. The children got off based on the coordinates hidden in the puzzle, and they got to the gallery that was built as in honour of the great son of the town.

Lots of information arrived from the Internet in pictures and in text, while the co-workers of the gallery realised that they were the time-travellers. The historian of art knew that the artist’s brush was deposited in the gallery. In return, he asked the children to help in research and restoration.

The works waiting for restoration have fallen in pieces during the American bombardments in the Second World War. The children re-enacted these pieces with the help of the information that their mates got from the Internet.

Later they helped in testing a gallery art game. The gist was that they had to identify paintings based on brief characterizations. The historian of art gave the Derkovits’s brush as a reward for their efficient work. The time-traveller children noticed a piece of mirror in a display cabinet where they could see the artist’s personal items. He had found it when he was apprentice, and he had esteemed it and kept it as in an amulet. It was one of the most ardent wishes of the galley to acquire the artist’s brush, and they were pleased to change the piece of mirror for the brush. The children took the piece of the mirror in their hands, turned it, and they saw the script ‘money’. As they were looking at the mirror, and thanked to the historian of art, the time-machine appeared, and it flew them to a new place.

 

Travelling in Saint Martin’s footsteps

Dark shades appeared on the shell of the time-machine. The atmosphere of wars was followed by red battles. The pictures recited war times, but people got through this period, and more peaceful times set in. The technical development was obtrusive. Before the time-machine brought the children back into present times, it put them down on the soil of Savaria at the end of the 20th century.

They got into the whirl of a fair. Local people who respect traditions, paid tribute to Saint Martin’s memory.

‘What kind of memories? Only to his spirit, or are there sculptures or paintings of him?’, the children put questions like these, and they immediately started to look for it in town or in the Internet. They were eager to know how his birthplace commemorated about the legendary bishop.

‘Who was the famous sculptor who commemorated about him and his mother?’, the children asked among themselves. After denominating the sculptor, they got the coordinates that led them to the sculpture. They took photos to prove the success of their action. In the colourful whirl of the fair they found the sculpture composition that displays dignified persons. ‘Which scene is depicted in it?’, asked the children, and they started to search for the story in the spot and in the Internet.

After successful research, they mingled with the crowd in the fair, while the loudspeaker mentioned repeatedly folk costumes with a raspy voice.

‘Who doesn’t eat goose on Saint Martin’s day, will hunger all year.’ People prophesied the weather from the breast bone of the goose; if it was white and long it indicated winter with snow, and if it was short and brown it promised that the winter would be muddy. According to the folk custom, the more they ate on Saint Martin’s day the stronger they got.

They were looking around in front of the tent of a gun maker, and listening to a little scanty guide. The merchant asked the children to complete the information. Zoltan was looking at a sword, when he realised the merchant reaching a sword to him.

‘Here you are. This is my present for your help’, the merchant said.

‘Many thanks’, said Zoltan. He lifted the sword prideful.

The children walked farther along the tents, and enjoyed the traditions connected to Saint Martin. There were carving a lantern from pumpkin, making lampions, and lots of other amusing programs. While walking, Vera discovered a call for composing a live sculpture connected with Saint Martin’s deeds. They enthusiastically applied at the organisers, who told them that the participants need to acquire the props for themselves.

‘We have sword already’, said Zoltan. ‘We only need clothes.’ Wile thinking about how they could get the clothes, Andras notices an advert: ‘I give clothes in return of Saint Martin’s relics.’ Now Vera remembered that they got a picture of Saint Martin from the beggar. They thought it is a proper opportunity to change it for clothes. The merchant found the old sacred picture especially worthy, and gave them some cloths to prepare the live sculpture.

The creators were busy with their work in the casual sculpture park when the children arrived leaded by Julia. They perpetuated Saint Martin’s meeting with the beggar. The team-members inside helped them with information collected from the Internet. A large crowd gathered to the announcement of results. Zoltan and Andras depicted Saint Marton and the bagger. They had a great success, they were also awarded. The rewards were offered by an antique dealer. The merchant congratulated the children, and brought them to his tent. Hundreds of antiquities queued on the shelves. The old glasses, earthen pots and musical instruments captivated the children.

‘Which should we choose?’, they asked among themselves. After looking for a while, Julia caught sight of a number. It seemed as if it were painted on a piece of glass. She asked the merchant to turn it. They heaved a sigh of relief, and pointed almost together on the piece of glass:

‘We would like to have it as a reward’, they said touched. Hardly had they fondled it when the time-machine appeared. It rived them off, and flew them to a new unknown place.