Tribune of the People

by Dan Wallace

  “Numantia,” Cornelia said. “You must go to Numantia. After the dog’s dinner that Pompeius, Servillianus, and Caepio made of their campaigns there, the Roman people are incensed. They want Hispania brought to its knees, and the Senate hears them. Conquer Numantia, and Rome is yours.”

  She referred to the mishaps of the recent governors of Hispania. Servillianus had been thoroughly out-generaled by the tribal leader Viriathus and was forced to sign a peace treaty. Servillianus’ successor Caepio immediately scorned the treaty only to be soundly thrashed in turn himself, though he did manage to arrange to have Viriathus assassinated by his own tribesmen. And Pompeius proved to be so incompetent that the best he could do was make a deal with the various Hispanic tribes, trading peace for a bribe to fill his personal coffers.

  “Mother, dearest, my father triumphed after his conquest of Hispania, and look where we are now. In any case, I can’t conquer Hispania, I’ve never been more than a military tribune. Someone else will have to do it.”

  “Scipio, of course. He’ll be sent to crush the Numantines. And you must be quaestor to Scipio’s legions.”

  Tiberius frowned. “Scipio will not be sent to Hispania. I promise you, he will not get the support.”

  “Oh?” she said, eyes askance. “Appius is stirring up the pot, I suppose. That might not be the wisest course. If Scipio doesn’t go, who will? Without Scipio, reducing Numantia could be a difficult proposition.”

  “Nonsense, Mother, there are plenty of capable military men in the Senate besides Scipio.”

  “Really? As good as Servillianus? As good as Caepio? Certainly not Pompeius again. Perhaps you think your illustrious father-in-law would do the trick.”

  Tiberius fidgeted impatiently. “No, of course not. Appius knows his limitations. But there are others, excellent candidates.”

  Again, Cornelia gazed at him skeptically. “You need to be quaestor in Numantia.” She grimaced, “If Appius thinks he will win out, fine. But visit with Scipio, too. He likes you, he hasn’t forgotten your courage at Carthage.”

  “Mother, that was almost a decade ago.”

  “He hasn’t forgotten. You should not forget him, either.”

  Tiberius rose to his feet. “Mother, it is time to pray.”

  “Indeed,” she said.

  Although situated halfway up the Palatine, the Sempronii Gracchi house presented a modest, traditional appearance among the newer, more imposing residences. A heavy door opened upon a narrow, open-aired vestibulum flanked by four simple columns encircled by flowering vines. At the end, another door led to a larger foyer for receiving visitors and guests. Tiberius’ office and library were off to the left, opposite to the reception and dining room on the right, with the kitchen behind them. The atrium in the center displayed flowers in narrow beds and trellises next to stone benches, and tile paths on either side of a small pond in the middle led to a fountain, a statue of a youth pouring water from a curved pitcher in the Greek style. The bed chambers flanked the atrium, Tiberius’s in front near his office, with Claudia next to him, and the children’s room next to hers. Gaius occupied the bedroom across from Tiberius, Cornelia’s was next to his, and Polydius slept in a corner room closest to the other servants’ quarters, a row of three rooms in the back. It was crowded, and they sometimes talked of moving to a larger home. But the humility taught him long ago by Diophanes prevented them. Because of this, they had been forced to locate the Lararium and the family shrine in the hall connecting the kitchen and the servant’s other workrooms.

  Everyone took their place in front of the Lararium. Tiberius’ brother Gaius passed him, brushing his shoulder hard as he walked by. Tiberius looked back at him sternly, and the youngster, also tall with dark hair, smirked as he took his place. Claudia and the other women gathered to Tiberius’ left side, the servants and other men to his right, the children directly behind him. Cornelia entered the long hallway that served as their sanctuary and moved slowly to his side to sit on a small stool.

  Seeing that all were present, Tiberius turned away and hooded his head with his robe. He raised his arms in supplication as he faced the small shrine, a marble tabletop filled with the figurines of the gods of Rome. He chanted a brief prayer to Vesta, the goddess of the hearth, then to Jupiter Maximus. He prayed to the Lares, the household gods. Then, he stepped to either side of the table and opened the small cabinet doors to reveal the masks of the family ancestors. He opened his father’s last, and as soon as his countenance appeared, Cornelia left her stool and knelt before the waxen image. Slowly, she prostrated herself in front of the first Tiberius Sempronius’s mask, weeping silently as she did every day. Tiberius the younger sighed to himself, stepped back to kneel and bow, praying this time to the goddess Fortuna.

  Chapter 2. The Paullian Baths

  Polydius trailed Tiberius by a few paces, quiet in the wake of his preoccupied master. Behind Polydius came the house slave Lysis, who carried a bag slung over his shoulder containing Tiberius’s gear for the baths. Tiberius absent-mindedly stepped around the refuse and waste in the street, no doubt deep in thought about the upcoming meeting with his father-in-law Appius Claudius Pulcher. He had spent the morning with his business manager, trying to grasp how he could ring out a few more sestertii from a very small holding north of the city. Towering in the background, Polydius shook his head imperceptibly as he listened to his master ply the foreman with question after question. Plant more crops; the land will be worn out and yield nothing after five years. Rotate to pasture; your current yields will be halved. Make up the difference by raising more livestock; you can’t grow enough to feed more animals.

  Polydius knew that there was only one solution to his master’s troubles, more land. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the capital to purchase more land, and he couldn’t generate it because of the tight budget mandated by the modest earnings from the farm. Polydius sighed to himself, Tiberius had been an excellent student, an enthusiastic explorer of the aesthetic of austerity. But now he was a practitioner out of necessity. The only thing that would change this dynamic was the Roman way, war, conquest, tribute. Tiberius needed to go to war, which is why he would meet with Appius today.

  They made their way out of the shadows of the large apartment buildings flanking the narrow street into an open space, the front of a large plaza with a grand facade of brightly colored columns, different hued, marbled walls, with three arched entryways, the middle one a third larger than the flanking two, signifying it as the main entrance to the Paullian Baths. Tribute from the first Macedonian War 30 years ago had funded the impressive building complex, sponsored by one of the consuls at the time, Lucius Amelius Paullus Macedonicus. Paullus’s natural son Scipio Aemilianus also distinguished himself at his father’s side in the war. Thereafter, Scipio Africanus adopted him, making him Tiberius’s cousin, while his ensuing marriage to Sempronia made him his brother-in-law as well. Ah, the tortuous lineage of the Romans, Polydius laughed to himself.

  Of course, Macedonia always had been generous to Rome, he mused ironically. Twenty years later, the new Roman conqueror Quintus Caecilius Metellus triumphed again in Alexander’s native land, which earned him the honorific Macedonicus as well. Not to be outdone by Paullus, Metellus used some of his spoils to fund Rome’s first ever temples constructed entirely out of marble, one for Jupiter and the other for Juno. He decorated them with statues of Alexander’s generals on horse, also procured from Greece.

  The three men headed toward the main entrance, past vendors with sweet cakes and hot meat on sharp sticks, others selling hot water and honey, or wine if preferred. Street prostitutes beckoned from near the grand doorway, kept at a distance by the private guards, who simultaneously accepted regular bribes from high-priced courtesans for access. Tiberius usually headed to the apodyterium to change, and then to the palaestra to train, but this time he sped directly to the hot pool where he knew that his father-in-law would be lounging, no doubt his feet dangling in the hot waters. Lysis took his place
in the changing room to guard Tiberius’ belongings, while Polydius followed the young scion down the passageway toward the caldarium. The walls of the arched hallway displayed cheerful murals of family life, and athletes boxing or throwing the javelin. One wall presented a vivid depiction of a lively boar hunt. As they reached the doorway for the hot baths, Tiberius patted a stone phallus on one of the columns for luck.

  They peered through the rising steam, searching for Appius among the dozen or so men sitting in and around the rectangular pool. “Tiberius,” Polydius said, pointing to a corner where Appius Claudius Pulcher sat wrapped in a white linen sheet, his feet indeed soaking in the soothing water of the pool. Flushed from the heat, Appius naturally was as brown as a nut, his black hair just barely touched by grey. A handsome man in his day, he shaved regularly to show off his fine features, now lined somewhat by the creases of time and experience.

  Tiberius marched over, and Appius slowly raised his eyes and opened his arms. Tiberius stepped into the water to embrace the older man, kissing his cheeks as he said, “Dear Father-in-Law.”

  “Tiberius, my son,” responded Appius, who kissed him heartily in turn. Tiberius then greeted the other men grouped around Appius: the two brothers, Publius Lincinus Crassus Dives Mucianus, lean and craggy with something of a hangdog face, a princeps senatus like Appius who embraced fastidiousness both in fashion and in political deliberations. His older stepbrother Publius Mucius Scaevola impressed in exactly the opposite way, a short, arrogantly handsome and sleekly muscled man who whenever possible enjoyed displaying his physique in short tunics. He also possessed an attraction to money, even though the Crassus family owned one of the great fortunes in Rome.

  Gaius Blossius, the philosopher from Cuma, who had studied with the Stoic Antipater of Tarsus, greeted Tiberius warmly in turn. The only one sporting a beard, its reddish tinge and his pale eyes caused Romans to wonder if Blossius’s family blood hadn’t been tainted somewhere along the line by barbarians from the north. Being fair skinned with black hair, Tiberius was more than familiar with such speculation, though speculation about his origin centered on the Hispancic tribes located in the Alps.

  They all took their seats around the pool, Tiberius sitting in the middle next to Appius, noticing that only Diophanes, the rhetorician exiled from Mitylene, had yet to appear. Polydius assumed a standing position just behind his master.

  “Your arrival is timely, Tiberius,” said Appius. “We were just discussing the situation in Numantia, and how best to address

  Scipio’s obvious ambition.”

  Tiberius nodded.

  “It’s a difficult matter,” Crassus leaned in to say, “since Scipio’s reputation casts the longest shadow in Rome.” The gangly senator’s few remaining strands of hair clung to his skull from perspiration. Still, it was all brown hair, and the hollows in his cranium plainly had little to do with the sharpness of his wit.

  “Yes, but we have resources of our own,” Appius said. A robust man in his day, Appius wore his pedigree with elan, comfortable in the spread of his body from the good life that accompanied age. No one doubted the iron within this man’s soft exterior, or his will to prevail. But the grey of his hair and the laugh lines at his eyes proposed a gentle demeanor, too, a promise of mercy that would temper his power.

  “Now, we expect that blowhard Rufus to set the stage for Scipio, raging on about the Numantine transgressions, the need to subjugate them, and so forth. Thereafter, another stooge will stand up for a resolution, followed by the cry for Scipio. That’s when we must interject our own man’s name.”

  “All well and good,” said Scaevola, “except how will we persuade the others that our man is more of a general than the Hero of Carthage?”

  “We have the Hero right here,” Appius said, slapping Tiberius on the knee.

  “Please, Father-in-Law,” Tiberius said, “I’m hardly a hero. Some would say I left before the job was done.”

  “Before the butchery was done, you mean.”

  “Yes,” said Scaevola, a slight, dark man with dark, corkscrew hair over all of his body, his head capped by an equally dark crown of curls. His fitness belied his profession, explained better by the intensity of his black eyes when he spoke. “But Tiberius is right. He won honor in Africa, but he has never run a campaign.”

  “No, but his father did, successfully, in Numantia. He is his father’s son and should follow in his footsteps to tame today’s rebellious Numantines.”

  “Certainly, we all are in agreement on that,” Crassus said impatiently, “but how do we deflect Scipio from being chosen?”

  Just then Diophanes arrived, gliding in as though he floated rather than walked. Without a word, he sat at the far end of the pool next to Scaevola.

  “Ah, Diophanes,” Appius said, turning to the small man, “you’ve arrived at last. We are discussing the disposition of Numantia. Do you have a stratagem to put forth?”

  Diophanes wore a dark blue robe with an even darker, squared-off border, and simple sandals. His grey-streaked hair had been pulled back hard from his crown and bound at the back of his head like a thick shuck of wheat. Despite the heat of the pool, he seemed cool compared to the others.

  “My words shape thought, not worlds. It seems I’ve come at an inopportune juncture. Thus, I take it, it is time to take my leave.”

  The others chuckled, “Your leave-taking accomplishes nothing except perhaps the departure of the best mind in the room,” Appius said. “But we wouldn’t want you indicted by thoughts of ours that you have not shaped. If you could be so kind and have Tiberius’s man Polydius accompany you?”

  Tiberius frowned, but Polydius nodded and walked with Diophanes back toward the front of the building.

  “So,” said Appius resumed, “how do we stop Scipio from marching to Numantia?

  The men drew closer together to speak in low voices, the steam from the pool obscuring their features as they planned.

  Tiberius found Diophanes and Polydius sitting on a wooden bench that encircled a large, shady elm tree, sipping a fish broth from fired-clay bowls.

  “Your breakfast, or an early midday meal?” Tiberius asked.

  “Nourishment, no matter when,” replied Diophanes without raising his eyes. “Although my beard does seem to be dining better than the rest of my body. And how went the skullduggery?”

  “There is a plan in place.” Tiberius shook his head no at the bowl proffered by Polydius. “And, its execution begins today.”

  Polydius put down his bowl without finishing, and began to rise, but Tiberius stopped him, “No, no, finish, finish! We still have a few hours before the Senate convenes. I’m going back inside to train. I have to do something to keep my mind occupied.”

  Polydius stood up with Diophanes, who said, “I’ll be going home then, Tiberius.”

  “Nonsense. Sit with Polydius, talk to him about Greece. You’ve been there most recently, you can tell him the latest about your homeland. He’ll want to return some day after his manumission.”

  “You are kind,” said Diophanes flatly. “Let the gods will he lives so long.”

  Tiberius frowned. “Of course he will. If he keeps to his duties, it will be sooner rather than later.”

  He turned and went back into the baths.

  In the palaestra, Tiberius found a small army of men exercising in various ways, some tossing the heavy ball, others running short sprints, while others practiced gymnastic maneuvers. The sun shone between the ribs of the grills on the narrow windows at the top of the stone walls, causing a ripple effect on the sandy floor. Where it fell, the sand was warm, though it remained cool in the shadows closest to the walls. As with every part of Paullus’s baths, the palaestra seemed endless in length and size, marveled Tiberius, fit for chariot races. Indeed, at intervals of fifty paces, indented alcoves housed the most exquisite copies of Greece’s most beautiful statues, Jupiter casting his thunderbolts, Mercury spiriting across the sky, Apollo shooting his bow, Diana leaping after an invi
sible hart, Hercules grappling with the horns of the Cretan bull.

  Tiberius handed his tunic to Lysis and began to stretch. As he did so, he heard a commotion from a circle of men a good hundred feet away. Bent over his right leg, he peered at them as they hooted and howled. Gradually, he made out who they were, young and middle-age men of affluence, plebeian and patrician alike, all vying for various positions on the cursus honorum, the highest offices on the path to prestige in Rome. One happened to turn and see him and smiled. Marcus Octavius could smile, Tiberius thought, enough to warm up a mountain stream. Dark-haired and dark-skinned, with a shaggy black beard to boot, it was a wonder they hadn’t nicknamed him Nubius; perhaps his smile forestalled such a jibe.

  He started toward Tiberius, revealing a hitch in his gait as he walked, which made Tiberius frown. In Macedonia, Marcus had caught an arrow in his calf which must have been dirty. The infection shriveled up his leg, causing him to limp. But he never complained, and he refused to allow it to keep him from pursuing the art of combat.

  “Tiberius, come save the day,” he said when he arrived. “Your cousin Nasica is destroying all competition.”

  Tiberius allowed his gaze to drift over to the large circle of men. Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica, consul with Brutus Callicus and Tiberius’s distant cousin through Sempronia’s marriage to Scipo Aemilianus, squared off with another man in the center. A follower of the Hero of Carthage, Nasica was distant in more than one way, thought Tiberius.

  “I’ve just arrived, Octavius. I’ve barely begun to warm up. And, in any case, I’m no wrestler.”

  “But he’s cutting a ruthless swathe through all of the good men of Rome! No one can stand up to him!” laughed Octavius.

  “What about you, Octavius? You’re good for a throw or two.”

  “He’s dropped me on my ass twice already, in less time than it took to tell you. Only you can save our honor, Tiberius Gracchus,” and he began to raise the call, “Gracchus, Gracchus, Tiberius Gracchus!”