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Cologne and create more headaches for Rome.  Adding to all this instability was a mass bloodlust to persecute the treasonous followers of the Jesus god. Their refusal to acknowledge the deity of the Augustus Caesar, a shocking denial they made worse by saying the Jesus was the only god, had kept the empire’s executioners busy for a decade, lining the roads with the crucified and creating in the arenas the great spectacles of blood and death that delighted the mob.
     
    “Christians? Don’t even think about joining those god-botherers,” Cenhud growled at Carausius one day as they tacked their small ship up the wide Scheldt River, against the tidal flow.  The scow was carrying home a cargo of amphorae of good Rhenish wine, the tall terracotta jars packed upright in sand to stabilize and protect them.  Cenhud warmed to his discourse. “A woodworker, as your only god?” he sneered. “Makes no sense. There are plenty of fine gods, not just one, and every one of them has his own purpose.”
    ‘My favourite is Mithras,” said the youth. “I’ve seen his temple. In Eboracum, there was a shrine of polished stone to him on the great road.”
    “He’s a soldier’s god,” agreed Cenhud, “a good god, and he has high moral standards that even some merchants like, so he has plenty of shrines here, too, built by those who can afford them.” 
    He could see why soldiers wanted the gods to keep them safe, but why, asked Carausius, did the merchants spend so much on gifting the deities?  “Simple, it’s for profit,” grunted the shipmaster, neatly dodging a naval galley winging along under its blue canvas sails. The warship’s beaked ram threw up a plume of spray as it travelled fast upstream under sail, oars and the push of the incoming tide. The sound of the coxswain’s hammer taps came clearly across the water as he kept the 30 rowers in unison, the oars rising and falling like white wings.  “Bloody knee-deep sailors, they’re as useless as a bread breastplate,” Cenhud grumbled. “Anyway, why sacrifice? Well, those who give to the gods want their favour, just as they want more money.  Give the god some honour, he’ll favour your venture. You just have to know which god to ask for what.
    “If you want your crops fruitful, sacrifice to Ceres, goddess of grain.  You want your ship kept safe at sea? Call on Neptune. For myself, I give the nod to Manannan mac Lir. He’s the Celts’ god of the oceans, and we Celts have sailed further than anyone,” he said proudly. “We tell people we were pilots before Pontius. We even established settlements in Hibernia, west of Britain.” The seaman stopped abruptly, remembering that his young listener had effectively been orphaned by raiders from that green isle, but Carausius was following his own thoughts as he watched a group of young women washing at the river’s bank.
    “Some people ask the gods for other things,” said Cenhud, quickly changing the subject. “They ask for people to be cursed.” Carausius looked around, interested. “They write requests on bits of metal, little scrolls of lead or pewter, asking for revenge on someone. Say you go to the baths and leave your sandals and tunic outside. You come out and the bathhouse slave has nodded off in the steam, and your best leather sandals are missing. Now, it could be the slave sold them to someone, or it could be he’s been sleeping, and they got nicked. Getting him a beating won’t bring back your sandals, but asking the gods to help certainly can.” 
    The victim, explained Cenhud, could ask a god’s help to get the sandals back, by threatening doom on the thief. To improve the chances of the god taking an interest, the victim would transfer ownership of the missing goods to the god. “If you’re a thief and you read on a lead scroll nailed up in the baths that the god Mercury, whom the victim chose because he had golden winged sandals, will destroy you within nine days unless you return his