by AM Kirkby
****
It was odd to have new names; Lucius, the sound was strange to her, like a snake hissing after the lisping softness of Lauchme. And when he became better known they called him Tarquinius, after the city from which he came, Tarchna in the Rasenna tongue and Tarquinia to the Romans. He found it ironic, calling a half-Greek barred from office after the Etruscan city that had forced him into exile; and in his bitterness he forgot he'd never been forced, but only persuaded, by her.
She had a new name too; Tanaquil, three tripping little syllables, since the Romans couldn't manage the rich consonants of her true name Thanchvil. It felt as if she'd become someone else; she didn't recognise herself in her new name, she found herself as ill-fitting in this place as her name was odd in a Latin mouth.
It wasn't difficult being an Etruscan, as such; Rome was a young city, open to migrants. There were Faliscans, Sabines, Hellenes from Great Greece in the south; besides the Etruscan nobles, there were many Etruscan workers who had fled oppression in the federated cities, and come to Rome. (None from Tarchna, though; she felt a modest pride at that. We at least know how to treat our people well, she thought.) They made a good living in the pottery and jewellery trades; the bronzeworkers too were Etruscan, usually.
But there was always a political edge to relationships between Roman and Etruscan. They always wanted to know which side you were on; whether you were truly a Roman, or whether you'd support an Etruscan city if there was a war. Rome had already been taking noble hostages from some of the Etruscan cities - and some of the Sabine towns; it was a formality, no doubt, but when she met one Veiian prince she was disconcerted to find he'd been tailed by his two minders.
Lauchme was still a delight to her; his doubts, his hesitations, seemed to enrich him. Next to him, she felt herself incomplete; too shallow, too well trained to be real. Only that single moment when she'd seen the eagle struck her as the reality for which she was always striving; otherwise, she felt hollow. She always knew exactly what she would do in any given situation; whereas Lauchme was unpredictable, a challenge to her. Sometimes when she lay with her head on his chest, and her hair spread out across him after they'd made love, she wondered what he was thinking.
“Are you glad we came?” she asked him once, about a year after they'd arrived in Rome.
“I don't know.” His eyes looked sad. “It's different from what I expected. I wanted to find my place here; but I don't seem to have a place.”
“We're doing well enough in the wine trade. I know you said they'd only buy the cheap stuff, but...”
“Yes, we make enough out of it. But I wanted so much more. Just to get rich, I could have done that in Tarchna.” He looked down at his hands, turning them over so he could inspect the nails. One was dirty, and he began to pick at it. “And you're not happy here.”
She shrugged. “It's been different from what I expected. But you've achieved something, in a year. As for politics here, it's just about finding the right way in. When they need something from the Rasenna, it's you they'll ask.”
Yet she continued to find Rome difficult. Roman women were spineless; gods, they were even nameless - simply named after their fathers, or given numbers as daughter two, three, four. No Roman would ever have his mother's name carved on his epitaph; no Roman woman would ever claim her own fame. Some days, in the streets, it was hard to believe Roman women existed; they hardly went out, and when they did, they were muffled in veils and mantles, and shuffled along the streets timorously, as if they had no right to be there.