The Shield of Rome

by William Kelso

  The Alta Semita was just another section of the ancient salt road which had existed before the city had been built. It ran straight towards the forum and on to the cattle market, the forum Boarium beside the Tiber, but he was not ready to enter the forum yet and he turned left at the first chance and then right into the Long road, the Vicus Longus.

  Adonibaal turned his attention to the soldiers he saw in the street. Boys and old men the guard at the city gate had told him and the man was right Adonibaal thought. The Senate was scraping the bottom of the barrel. As he strode along, from beneath his hood he studied the soldiers he saw, observing the way in which they carried their weapons, the state of their armour and shields, the looks on their faces. Amateurs, he concluded. They would flee at the first sight of Maharbal’s cavalry. But cavalry alone could not get past a wall like the one that surrounded Rome and he had to give them credit for one thing. They had not given up. Somehow they had found the courage, these old men and boys, the courage and strength to keep on fighting despite the hopelessness of their situation. He had to admire them for that. Hannibal was right. To win the war the city did not need to be occupied, they only had to break the morale of these amateurs.

  Up ahead he could see the forum and he abruptly turned left into a side street. Immediately he found himself in another world. The Subura, the low lying valley squashed between three hills was the poorest and most dangerous neighbourhood in Rome. The street narrowed dramatically until it was barely a yard or so across. Tall Insulae, some five stories high, their balconies nearly touching each other across the narrow street, lined both sides of the alley. A couple of children without shoes ran past, brushing against his legs and a one armed beggar sat on a door step holding out his hand in miserable silence. Stinking rubbish lay in heaps and water stains on the walls marked the places where the gutters had crumbled.

  Adonibaal headed deeper into the tangle of narrow alleys and crumbling apartment blocks. A woman’s voice called out a warning and he had just enough time to step into a culvert as a bucket of piss and shit landed on the paving stones close by. He didn’t look up as he hurried on. The smell in the Subura was what most shocked visitors, that and the rampant poverty and malnourishment. The valley in which the neighbourhood was situated had once been a swamp until the kings had constructed the great drain, the Cloaca Maxima which now carried all the cities effluence down into the Tiber. The Cloaca however ran directly through the Subura and on hot days the smell seeped out and lacking the cool winds that people enjoyed on the hill tops, it lingered.

  Adonibaal knew his way around and soon he emerged from the squalid slums and made his way to the junction of the Appian and the Sacred Way. As he approached the junction he noticed the half finished Insulae that lined the street on his left. Piles of building material had been left behind together with the scaffolding used by the workers. He halted, glanced up at the building sight and then back along the street ahead of him. The junction where the Sacred Way turned right towards the Forum was only twenty or thirty paces away. He grunted thoughtfully and continued on down the street.

  The Appian Way took him in a south westerly direction, skirting the Palatine hill to his right and the Capena gate and the city walls to his left. At the start of another street he paused and gazed up at the Aventine hill which was his destination. He felt his heart thumping in his chest. Up till now he had not been afraid, he had been in control, but now the most dangerous part of his mission was approaching, the only time where he would be at the mercy of the unknown, where he had to put his life and trust in the hands of strangers. Oh how he hated not being in control. It scared him like nothing else.

  He climbed the steps towards the main street on the Aventine, the Clivus Publicus and paused to study his surroundings. The Aventine was considered to be a new neighbourhood in Rome and apart from the temple of Diane, people joked, there was no real reason to go there unless you wanted to learn a foreign language. The Aventine was the district where all the foreigners lived because the housing was cheap. The people were highly multi-cultural, mainly poor Latin farmers from the country to the south of Rome and Samnites and Etruscans from the mountains who had flocked to Rome in search of jobs, food and security. Yet the city had also been swollen by recent refugees from the north since Hannibal’s invasion of Italy and Adonibaal could hear a multitude of different languages being spoken in the streets. He drew his hood closer over his head. If Rome was on the look out for spies, this would be where they would be looking.

  As he made his way towards the temple of Diane he felt a cool wind on his face. He glanced up. The sun was beginning to set on the horizon. He would have to hurry. On the tiled roof tops birds sat in long rows watching him. He was approaching the temple of Diane, the huntress goddess, when there was a sudden commotion. Someone screamed and there was a scuffle in the street a few yards ahead of him. Adonibaal fingers tightened around “Centurion”. Up ahead the crowd parted and three men burst towards him. They were dragging another young man along by his arms. The man’s legs kicked at the paving stones in a vein attempt to escape. Adonibaal stepped aside as the men passed by with their screaming prisoner.

  “Another bloody runaway slave who thought the goddess would protect him,” a man next to Adonibaal muttered shaking his head.

  Adonibaal glanced towards the great temple of Diane with its bright white stone steps, soaring pillars, sloped roof and huge porticoes on either side. The building dwarfed everything around it. The goddess Diane was not even a Roman goddess but a Latin deity. Her presence on the Aventine explained why so many Latin settlers had come to live here. He smiled as he remembered his tutor telling him the story of how Rome’s crafty elders had used the great temple to bind the Latin tribes into a political and religious bond with Rome that they would never dare break. The temple was a symbol of the eternal unity between the Roman and Latin people. A bronze statue of Diane gleamed at the entrance to the temple and beneath it someone had left an offering of food.

  “Bloody runaways,” the man next to Adonibaal continued, “Always causing trouble. If it isn’t the slaves then it’s the women, coming to the temple to offer the huntress their leftovers they do, and here is I who have to clean it up after them. No consideration whatsoever. And then there are the funeral societies, now there’s a spectacle to cheer up a hard working man.”

  Adonibaal turned on the man, “Do you know where I can find Demetrius the Macedonian,” he said.

  Chapter Fourteen – The Subura

  Titus was covered in dust. It was smeared across his face. It had gotten into his nose, ears and hair and under his finger nails and it made him cough. His throat was parched. For two days now he had ridden without hardly any rest. He desperately yearned for a wash and for a proper bed on which to sleep. Now he finally mounted the steps up to the senate house, taking two stairs at a time, oblivious to the spectacle that he made.

  “Despatch from the consul Varro!” he cried in a loud voice.

  He reached the senate door just as a cluster of senators rushed out to meet him.

  “Despatch from the consul,” Titus panted holding out the tightly wrapped scroll with a straight arm.

  “You have come from Cannae?” one of the senators exclaimed.

  Titus nodded.

  “Then Varro lives!” another cried.

  The group of senators parted to allow another man through. This senator was old and the others seemed to treat him some respect.

  “I will take that son,” the man said, “My name is Quintus Fabius Maximus. I will see that it is read to the Senate.”

  Titus dipped his head in acknowledgment. When he looked up again the gaggle of senators were already streaming back into the house and he was left alone. His task accomplished he washed his face in a public fountain and drank till his stomach was full. Then with renewed vigour and mounting excitement he hurried through the forum and turned left into the Argiletum, the street of the booksellers, which in turn led into the heart of the Subura. Some men
avoided the Subura like they did the plague but for Titus it was home and he knew the people, the customs and every twist and bend of the neighbourhood. As he pushed his way deeper into the maze of narrow alleys, the grin on his face grew wider and wider and then suddenly he was there. He tilted his neck to look up at the crumbling tenement block that was home. In the front room on the ground floor someone was working, hammering on a piece of metal. The dull metallic ringing noise was suddenly interrupted by a yelp of pain and a string of oaths. Titus sighed with relief as he recognised the voice.

  He stepped through the leather curtain that hung across the doorway and immediately felt the heat from the small furnace. In a corner beside the furnace, a fat sweating man, stripped to the waist was labouring over a work bench on which lay a white hot piece of metal. The man looked up quickly as Titus entered.

  “Well if it isn’t young Titus, returned from the wars!” the fat man exclaimed and there was no mistaking the genuine surprise and delight in his voice. A big smile appeared on the man’s face.

  “You look well Frontinus,” Titus beamed.

  Frontinus laid down his tools. He looked around fifty with chubby drooping cheeks and a dash of thinning hair that still clung on around his ears and the back of head. Sweat and dark soot stains covered his big fat hairy chest. He laughed and a moment later Titus was embraced by a mountain of sweaty, wobbly flesh.

  “We thought you were dead,” Frontinus said as he let go of Titus, “the news has been terrible, everyone knows someone who was killed.”

  Titus shrugged and smiled. “Well I survived and now I am here,” he said.

  “Have you come back for your old job?” Frontinus laughed and slapped Titus on the back nearly knocking the young man off his feet.

  “Working for you,” Titus grinned, “You taught me too well. I would rather set up my own business and give you a run for your money.”

  Frontinus’ eyes twinkled in delight. “Ha!” he snorted, “A year in the army and he’s already got an attitude. But seriously, the job is yours if you want it. I could do with the help. Business is crazy. Everyone is demanding weapons. I am working day and night. The neighbours have started to complain about the noise…”

  Titus was glancing towards the stairs that led to the higher floors in the tower block and Frontinus’ voice rambled to a halt.

  “Is my mother here?” Titus asked.

  “Of course,” Frontinus’ face grew serious, “Stupid me, talking about myself again. You had better go and see her. She has been worried sick about you all week.”

  Titus nodded but as he was about to ascend the stairs Frontinus caught him by the arm. “Titus”, he said with a sudden tightness in his voice, “She is up there and so are the jugs of wine. She is drinking herself to death. You had better have a word with her. She doesn’t take any notice of me and she’s behind on the rent. Milo has been patient with her but it won’t last, you know what he is like.”

  “Right,” Titus said as the smile faded from his face.

  ***

  His mother did not stop crying for half an hour. The two of them sat at the wooden table in the one room apartment. Titus was silent, his hands folded together on the table. The room was sparsely decorated, a couple of sleeping mats, the old table, two chairs, the urn containing his father’s ashes and a few clothes. On the wall, in a little alcove, was a small statue of Venus. He stared at the pottery on the floor. All the jugs were empty but the stale smell of wine still lingered. He was home.

  “You have been drinking again mother,” he said at last.

  She lifted her head, her hair was dishevelled and her hollow cheeks were streaked with tears.

  “I am so glad you have come home,” she whimpered, “Promise me that you will not leave again. I don’t know what I will do without you.”

  Titus looked away, “I am still with the army,” he replied, “I must follow orders. I have sworn an oath of duty to the officers.”

  His mother’s eyes lit up. “And what about your family,” she cried, “Don’t you have a duty to us also? Or do you not care? Do you like seeing me beg from Milo every time I need something?”

  “That’s not fair,” he replied unable to look her in the face. He reached down into his tunic pocket and placed a small bag of coins on the table. “It’s all that I have got,” he muttered. “But you must promise me that the drinking will end.”

  He was rewarded by a sharp slap in the face. His mother’s eyes blazed.

  “How dare you tell me what to do?” she cried, “I raised you and looked after you and your sister. You are the man in this family now. It is your duty to put bread on the table! If you can’t do that, what kind of a man are you!”

  Titus felt his cheek burn and it was not all from the slap.

  “Where is Aelia?” he replied trying desperately to change the subject.

  His mother seemed to regain her composure. She swept her hair behind her head and wiped her eyes.

  “Your sister is out,” she replied firmly, “she doesn’t tell me where she goes or whom she sees. The child is impossible.”

  “They have told me that women are forbidden from going out,” Titus said.

  His mother shrugged and scooped up the bag of coins. “You know what she is like, thirteen summers and she thinks she knows everything. She disguises herself as a boy.”

  “Where does she go?” Titus said with growing alarm.

  “I don’t know,” his mother replied wearily, “Maybe she has become a prostitute; she never seems to be hungry.”

  Titus leaned back in his chair in dismay. It was his mother’s turn to avert her gaze. Then she stood up and came around the table and placed her arms around her son’s neck.

  “I am glad you are here,” she muttered.

  ***

  Frontinus scooped the water from the bowl using both hands and splashed it over his face. Then he reached for a rag and wiped his neck, arched his back and allowed himself a long contented sigh.

  “How long can you stay?” he asked glancing at Titus who stood leaning against the wall fidgeting with his fingers. Above the table in the workshop a single oil lamp cast a dim reddish light around the room.

  “I am at the disposal of the Senate,” Titus replied, “I must report to them at dawn. They will tell me then if they have another despatch for me. My mother doesn’t want me to go but I have orders.”

  “I know. Not much time eh,” Frontinus sighed. “Terrible business, war,” Frontinus shook his head, “I was at Telamon when we slaughtered the Gauls. That was a bloody day. It is strange how fortune governs men. Some men die in battle, some live, some lose a leg or an arm, some become famous and some like I,” he raised his eyebrows, “are lucky to grow rich. Yeah Fortune must love my fat arse but tomorrow I shall go to the Temple of Diane and donate some money to the members of the college of blacksmiths who have suffered loss in this war. That is right and proper.”

  “Come and have a look at this?” Titus said with sudden eagerness in his voice. He had sat down and was staring at a tightly rolled scroll that he had placed onto the table.

  Frontinus drifted across the room and frowned.

  “What have you got there?”

  Titus looked up triumphantly. “It’s a letter. See the seal mark in wax? That belongs to Scipio of the Cornelii. I saved his life during the battle and he gave me this as a reward.”

  “You saved a Patrician’s life at Cannae?” Frontinus looked impressed.

  “I did,” Titus nodded solemnly, “and in return he has promised to have someone give me an education.”

  The triumphant tone in Titus’ voice made Frontinus smile. He picked up the scroll and examined it carefully, rolling it between his fingers.

  “Gives a name and an address here,” he said slowly, “one Numerius Fabius Vibulani. Whose he then?”

  Titus shrugged. “I suppose he is the man whom I am supposed to give the letter to. Maybe he will teach me.”

  Titus looked up at Frontinus with su
dden excitement. “You can read, can’t you? Shall we open the letter and see what it says?”

  Frontinus studied the scroll for a second longer and then placed it back onto the table and shook his head.

  “No, it is sealed for a purpose. Only the man to whom it is intended should have the privilege of opening it up.”

  Titus nodded disappointed, “I shall have to wait of course until the war is over, that is what Scipio told me, but I can wait.”

  Frontinus placed a hand on Titus’ shoulder and sighed. “I know how much this means to you,” he said kindly, “but the war may last for a long time yet. Prepare yourself that Titus.”

  Titus nodded, touching the letter with gentle reverence, “I know but this is the only chance that I will probably ever get. A learned man is treated with respect. An educated man has opportunities. I will finally have the means to look after my family and buy them proper clothes and food.” Titus looked up at Frontinus and there was a sudden passion in his eyes and voice. “I will be able to walk down the street and men will be able to say, there goes Titus, a man who has done well for himself and his family.”