by Ken Parejko
I held the box for a moment, like a chest unexpectedly bobbing up to the surface from a ship lost in the depths of the sea. I untied the string and carefully opened the lid. Inside was a blank piece of papyrus, folded many times. I handed the box to Caecilius , unfolded the paper to reveal two small cloth bags. The first contained a handful of seeds, and a tiny piece of paper, written in weak hand: my silphium. My God, I thought, these may be the last laserwort seeds on earth. I looked first at Quintus, then at Caecilius, who awaited some explanation for the joy emanating from my face.
“He’s left me a treasure, worth more than gold. They are seeds, laserwort seeds.”
“Laserwort?” Quintus asked. “I don’t understand. I can buy laserwort in the market.”
I held the bag as I might the ashes of my own father. “That’s not real laserwort. It’s another plant, a fraud. The healing powers of real laserwort, and a taste for it in cooking, became so popular laserwort was driven to extinction. Or, so I’d feared...”
Carefully I retied the tiny bag, returned it to the box.
I opened the other bag. In it was a walnut-sized lump of resin. I lifted and smelled it. It was reddish. Carefully I broke it open, saw its white center, and as I squeezed it it oozed a clear liquid. I turned to Quintus. “Laser!” I said, incapable of containing my joy. I showed the lump to Quintus, then to Caecilius. “It’s real laser! Your uncle,” I said to Quintus, “must have grown enough silphium to make some laser!”
A poorly-educated man of little curiosity, Castor’s nephew was puzzled by all this excitement over a few seeds and a lump of laser.
“Did your uncle ever talk to you about his plants?” It was possible some of the silphium plants were still alive.
Quintus smiled “I didn’t visit often. He was, well, hard to get along with. But he never talked about anything else. He didn’t have anything else you know, no children, only a few friends.” The man closed his eyes half shut, made a face and said quietly, “At the end of his life as he was dying they asked me to come take care of him. Always, it was his plants. This plant and that plant, it made my head swim. Half the time I couldn’t understand him. He had names for them, like people, and he would go on and on how they’d taken care of him when no one else seemed to care. You know, I think he was a little crazy.”
“Did he ever mention laserwort?”
The man shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Back in the far corner of his garden, there was a special stand of plants, tall, fine-leaved,” I tried to describe the silphium-grove. “Do you remember?”
Castor’s nephew shrugged. “Perhaps. I don’t know.”
“Do you recall if you sold those plants, or who bought them?”
Quintus stood a moment, staring at the black and white tiles of the floor. “He didn’t let us into some parts of the garden, when we were children. When I moved here he was dying, and many of his plants died with him. The ones you speak of, I don’t know, I think they died too.”
Yes, the silphium required constant care. Most likely in the confusion of the old man’s illness, they’d wasted away with him. But it is possible, I thought, that they had survived, and were bought up with all the other plants.
I sighed. I’d get the word out. I knew all the amateur botanists in the city. If silphium was stuck back in a corner of one of Rome’s private gardens, I would find it.
I remembered the Theophrastus papyrus from which I’d first learned of Aristotle’s description of the wild silphium in Cyrene. It was the only copy I knew of. “What happened to your uncle’s library, all his books?”
“I sold them, soon as I moved in.”
“Who bought them?”
“Different books, different people. I didn’t take names.”
I felt my soul being torn in different directions. What a wonderful thing to hold real laserwort seeds, and real laser! But the garden, the lovely garden, was all gone, and the books, too, a treasure of natural history scattered like chaff in the wind.
I turned to Caecilius. “Do you mind if we go somewhere?”
The boy replied. “I don’t mind.” The day was already a great adventure.
“Where is your uncle's memorial?” I asked Castor’s nephew.
“In the necropolis of the Appian Way. It’s right along the road, big red marble, carved with acanthus. You can’t miss it.”
I touched the man’s shoulder. “Thank you,” I said, returning the precious laser to the box.
As our sedan carried us down the narrow streets of suburban Rome out toward the necropolis I recounted to Caecilius the story of laserwort, how I’d become dependent on it while in Germany, how but for the few seeds in this box the real plant is likely now extinct, how this last lump of resin was worth a hundred times its weight in gold, how Aristotle claimed patches of it grew far back in the hills of north Africa.
We passed under the arch of Drusus, built to commemorate the victories which I'd memorialized in my History of the German Wars. I recounted my dream of Drusus to Caecilius. We passed through the Porta Appia, and the wide, busy road carried us through Rome’s largest necropolis. I stopped the carriers often and declaimed to Caecilius about this man or that, who I’d somehow known or had seen at a banquet or standing alongside Nero or who I'd fought alongside in Germany or Judea. History, I said, is like a ship that carries you across the waters of time; one stands like Odysseus clinging to the mast, as the known world speeds past.
We paused at so many monuments that Caecilius began to wonder if I’d forgotten why we’d come. But at last there it was. Castor’s nephew was right. The red marble structure, decorated with carved acanthus, stood out among the staid geometrical forms around it like a flower growing in a quarry.
We were gently lowered and dismounted. I walked slowly to the monument. “Antonius Servius Castor,” it said. Then, in Greek: The Gods are not more perfect than a simple plant.
Caecilius studied the monument. It was covered with fruits and flowers, leaves and tendrils all carefully sculpted into fine red African marble. Likely Castor himself had designed it. Though Caecilius could identify many of the plants some had him stumped. He pointed out papyrus, and the Italian pine, and laurel, and myrtle, and...this plant, growing in a little garden beside a pool of water.
“Uncle, what is that plant?” He turned to ask, and was shocked to see me standing quietly before the monument, tears running down my face.
Caecilius looked away. In the distance, rising above the great field of stone which was the necropolis, he could see the Capitoline Hill and atop it the shining and recently-rebuilt temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. So this was Rome, he was thinking, this present and this past, and all these men now only ashes had built her, and I know so little about it all. Quietly he moved beside me, and took my hand into his. We stood a long time, while I remembered the glorious gardens and encyclopedic knowledge of the simple, misunderstood old friend who would never be again, the tragedy of the loss of the gardens and doubly so the knowledge inside the old man’s mind.
The midday sun beat down on us. The slaves who’d brought us grew hot and thirsty; but even while lost in my own meditations, I knew that Castor and his plants needed time to grow in the soil of my nephew’s soul. Hot as it was, we would stay until I felt certain the seed of respect for good men, and for knowledge which led to wisdom, was properly planted. And years later Caecilius would tell me that as we stood there holding hands in the silence of the necropolis he’d found a deep respect for me, and that it seemed to him at that moment that I could comprehend in my mind all Rome, its power and the glory of its present and its complex history from the past.
I awaken that night into a dream.
A German warrior lies fallen in a forest, his torn and bloodied furs and tunic splayed against the stark white snow. His head and face are cold as blue marble, over which a dark shadow, a swooping raven, falls. The bird alights, hops forward.
Now I am the dead warrior, with open eyes staring deep into the infinite blue
depths of the sky. Suddenly the black bird towers above me, filling my field of view. It cocks its head, our eyes meet. Like a blade the raven’s beak slices deep into my eye. There is no pain; only I see it, its beak now slathered with shards of my flesh. Again, and now again. More birds have come, a dozen black souls raucously throwing up fine clouds of snow. They gather round, noisily. One hops closer. There is something in the bird's dark eye that looks familiar, as though a reflection of myself.
I call the bird my father. Another I name my mother. Now they argue over me. I call them to me. There, Vespasian, Caecilius, Little Sparrow, Castor...and Agrippina. There is another, whose face I have seen before, who seems familiar, but cannot name.
I have kept one eye closed, to save it. One by one they fight over the other, until it is gone. Now I offer the second, so they might see as I see.
Chapter 16
Cyrenaica (modern Libya)
826 in the Roman calendar (73 C.E.)
Apollo had not seen a troop of dancers
more like gods, nor had he a Temple
as fine in any city as Cyrene....
Callimachus, Hymn to Apollo
12 May, 826
My dear Caecilius:
Our ship has just left Fair Havens, on the south coast of Crete, and I have time to write. Helios shines in all his glory over the lovely Mare Nostrum. The winds are in our favor, and we expect to make landfall by morning.
I must tell you how hard it was for me to leave you in Rome, but that is where you belong. You have been left in good hands. When I considered who to place you with, Quintilian came immediately to mind. Happily, he agreed to take you on. He is semi-retired and was looking for a little something to do beyond writing his memoirs. I think you will find him in every way equal to the great Pomponius who served me so well as tutor. Only do what he says; it may not make sense at first, but you are young yet, and have much to learn.
I could not pass up this procuratorship of Cyrene. It is a step up from subprocurator, as I was in Syria and Hispania Tarraconensis. When I step off the ship, I shall be governor of Crete and Cyrenaica. Did you know that Vespasian was quaestor here, more than three decades ago? It came up while we were discussing what appointment I would like after I'd left Spain. I could hardly have designed a better job for myself. It is not only a step up in my career, but has special attraction to me for other reasons, which I will make clear to you in time.
Now to you and your future. There is no skill more useful in the cursus honorum than rhetoric. Quintilian, just granted by Vespasian’s wisdom an endowed chair in rhetoric, certainly did not need the income from tutoring you. He agreed to take you on as his only student out of love for his country and with the hope that you will carry his legacy into the future, for the betterment of yourself and Rome. Some rhetoricians have become famous through their florid fawning style which, like the honey gathered in certain seasons along the Black Sea, lies especially sweet on the palate but poisons the body. But Quintilian has taken a more principled stand, following Cicero’s lead in turning oratory not to personal ambition, but to civic and ethical ends. His style, like that of Julius Caesar’s, is precise and direct. I was also impressed because in his textbook on how to teach rhetoric he praises a quiet and compassionate pedagogy, unlike the more common use of the rod. I believe Vespasian may have put a kind word in for us with Quintilian. No young man in Rome has a better rhetoric teacher than you. With study and diligence some day you may write and speak as well as he.
So you see that though your mother has remained in Como overseeing your grandparents’ estate and I am across the Mare Nostrum in North Africa, we have left the further development of your character in the very best hands. Your mother and I will be in close contact with one another and your mentors. I promise to write you often, and expect the same of you -- which you may take as an invitation to show off what you have learned.
Until later,
Vale,
Uncle Gaius
Cyrene,
26 May, 826
Well done, Caecilius!
Yes, none better than Cicero! I am reminded of the last sentences in his essay on friendship: Virtue is always first, but second only to it friendship. So I remind you to be careful in the friends you choose, that they possess and nurture the virtue you would find in yourself. For my part, I have been most fortunate in my friendships, as much out of good fortune as of choice. I claim no better friend than Vespasian himself, who along with Titus not only demonstrate the highest of virtues, but are now in a position to use them to the great betterment of our people.
Now let us set rhetoric aside and turn to geography. I will tell you a little of Cyrenaica, as I found it waiting here for me.
The first I saw of the continent of Africa was the high peaks of the mountains called the Gebel Akhdar, with a light blanket of snow thrown over their shoulders. As the liburnian which brought me from Crete approached the land the mountains rose higher and higher, and I began to make out details of the countryside.
The city of Cyrene lies ten miles inland and is not visible from the harbor. Our ship was towed into harbor by two rowboats with slaves straining at the oars. Many of them are Jews, by the way, imprisoned after the recent Jewish uprisings here. Waiting for me on the dock was a welcoming party of local officials. Investiture of a new governor is for them no small thing. As you might expect, they embarrassed me with their fawning and flattering. “Oh, Plinius,” they whined, “we are ecstatic to finally meet you. We have heard so much of you.” They referred to me as “Your eminence, lofty and noble governor” and many other kinds of foolishness.
After enduring the blare of rustic trumpets, martial drums and poured libations of very inferior Marmarican wine, finally, finally we were on our way. They had decked out a sedan-chair for me with garlands of vines and flowers and manned by the best Nubian porters I’ve ever known.
As you know, I usually prefer to read or write while riding, but this was the first time I was seeing the landscape of a country I would be governing, so I sat back and watched the countryside pass by. It was not an unpleasant past-time. Along the coast Cyrenaica is one of the most beautiful lands you can imagine. The sea here is lovely, rising in steady waves to kiss the rocky shoreline. Off to the south one can see the high mountains, lightly touched with snow, though in winter I am told covered with heavy white tunics. Between the sea on the one hand and the mountains on the other is a rich and lovely land, with fields of grain, gardens full of vegetables and fruit, and pastures thick with cattle and sheep.
The houses I encountered along the way are mostly simple earthen huts, some roofed with no more than palm leaves. Now and again one sees a more substantial dwelling built of the local yellow limestone. I stopped to have a piece of the stone brought to me. It is soft and full of shells of a kind I’ve never seen before. I have it before me here on my writing desk, and am anxious to show it to you when next we meet.
An escarpment of this limestone runs along the road leading from the harbor to the city, rising now twenty and again forty feet. The road follows the cliff, whose shade as one travels provides some relief from the heat of the sun. Many of the tombs of the Cyrenian necropolis, at the edge of the city, are cut back into the escarpment. Not believing the common superstition that reading the names on tombstones causes memory loss, I scanned them carefully for names I might recognize. When we found the tomb of Cornelius Lentulus Marcellinus, the first governor of Cyrenaica, I again asked the litter-bearers to stop. Lentulus’ monument is a deep niche carved into the limestone cliff and like many others features a large white marble seashell set into the wall beside the sarcophagus. The shell is modeled after the shells found in the limestone.
Though I consider most religiosity to be silliness of the worst sort, it touches my heart when the simple creatures of the earth -- flowers, seashells, birds -- make their way into the cults. For as far as I’m concerned it is they deserve our worship, nothing else.
I stayed within the tomb for a
few moments, reminded of the rapidity with which our own lives leave us. Then we left the necropolis and soon passed by the aqueduct which Lentulus had ordered built, which still carries cold, clear water from a mountain spring into the city. The natives along the way stopped to gawk at their new governor. Some bowed graciously, others winced to see a conqueror, while most simply stood and watched, their simple hard lives as shepherds or farmers enlivened for but a moment by my passing.
The city of Cyrene itself is one of the five great cities known as the Pentapolis, and is already at least seven hundred years old. Its existence depends on the regular rains which fall here along the coast, and nourish the crops and grasses as rich and lovely as any I’ve seen. The local people, called Garamantes, say of this flat land between the mountains and the sea, that it is here that the sky leaks. If so, let us hope Jove does not repair it.
Though Cyrene is the capital of the province it is actually the second largest city, after Leptis Magna. But next to Carthage, which as you know for centuries until Scipio’s victory was one of the greatest cities of the world and a serious threat to the empire, Cyrene is the intellectual center of Roman Africa. I could use up my supplies of ink and papyrus, I think, in detailing the gifts, in her sons and daughters, that Cyrene has given us. You already know, I imagine, that from here came the great poet Callimachus, and Socrate’s student Aristippus, who with his daughter Arete were the founders of the Cyrenaic school of philosophy. Their teaching that there is no greater good than physical pleasure I find most repulsive. And perhaps greatest of all, the mathematician, historian and librarian at Alexandria, Eratosthenes, who among other things has estimated the diameter of the earth.
I have already this night burned enough oil. In the morning I must once again greet the line of well-wishers and sycophants who would claim me a minor god, if only the more to reap my blessings. My eminent position has opened a view onto the world I was never before privy to. It does not reassure me about humankind. We are, you will learn in the course of your life, an odd and oft-times disturbing species, sharing a great capacity for love, and equally, cruelty. And for every virtuous man practicing the former, Nature seems to provide another at least as adept at the latter.