Tribune of the People

by Dan Wallace

  “Two hundred dead, another 300 wounded,” reported Casca. “Of the wounded, a hundred are mobile and can return to the walls. The others look like they might be joining their brothers across the River.”

  Tiberius blew out a heavy breath. “And the enemy?”

  Casca curled up his mouth, shrugging, “Maybe 500. It’s hard to say, they take as many of their dead with them as they can. Still, we dragged a good number of them out of the fortress and away from the wall.”

  Tiberius nodded. “You collected pila and bolts?”

  “We did. Titius’s baby ballistae worked well. They must have been a big surprise to the barbarians.”

  “All right. After you have everything situated, have Shafat, Didius, and the optios meet at my quarters.”

  Casca saluted and walked off. Tiberius turned to Sextus. “Do you think you can get through to Mancinus’s camp tonight?”

  His black hair falling over his brow, the handsome horse soldier smirked, “Without a doubt.”

  Tiberius nodded, “Very well, but you better go down the back way and skirt the Numantine lines.”

  Sextus frowned. “That’ll take a lot longer.”

  “But it’s surer. I need you to get through and back before dawn.”

  “That’s a lot to do in very little time,” Sextus said.

  “Then, you better start now. Mercury speed you, Eques.”

  “Let us hope so,” Sextus grimaced, “since no horse could make it down that precipice.”

  “You’re long-legged,” Tiberius cheered him, “be your own horse.”

  As Sextus turned to leave, a legionary approached Tiberius. He handed him his helmet, which had been bent by the arrow’s impact. Tiberius pulled on the shaft, but it wouldn’t give. He took out his dagger and worked on prying it loose. The arrow suddenly popped free. Tiberius tossed it aside and resheathed his knife. He tried to pull the helmet on, but it had been disfigured slightly so that it didn’t sit comfortably on his head. He took it off and examined it.

  “It seems I won’t have my father-in-law’s fancy present for Mancinus’s triumph, Casca.”

  Casca said, “I’ll find you a good, plain legionary’s cap to wear.”

  “A soldier’s piss pot? I doubt that would flatter me very much, Centurion.”

  “You looked as good today as any Roman mule, Tribune.”

  Surprised, Tiberius glanced up. But his centurion primus had turned and walked away.

  Before the coals from the Roman funeral fires had cooled, the Numantines attacked again, this time on foot with ladders. First light had yet to come, so the battle began in the dark. The Roman sentries were vigilant, however, and spied the crouching, darting figures before they made the walls. Archers fired several measured flights of darts at the front that proved effective at first, from the shouts and screams of surprise they heard on the walls. The following rounds were less so, most likely hitting raised shields and covered ladders.

  The legion followed with pila, knowing that it didn’t matter if they struck flesh. Every legionary understood that every barbed head of a pila bent through a shield would impede the marauders’ mobility, making them easier to strike. And Tiberius ordered up scores of torches on high posts that cast light into the area immediately in front of the walls.

  The Numantines had committed thousands upon thousands of troops to the assault. Once the torches went up, they abandoned stealth and charged straight ahead like demons from Hades. Behind them, archers on horseback fired waves of arrows at the walls to keep the defenders’s heads down. Their ladders thumped against the wall in a matter of minutes, and they surged up to the top of the logs to meet short, Roman blades thrust at their heads or into their sides, some slicing their arms. The long spinas of the Numantines were unwieldy in these close quarters, and the Romans killed throngs of them as soon as they reached the top of their ladders. They threw them down dead or screaming onto the next warriors trying to clamber up the ladders. Legionaries manned the walls shoulder to shoulder, slashing and stabbing at the legs and underbellies of the Numantines suspended on their ladders. There were too many, however, and soon they were spilling over the wall in the gaps where legionaries had fallen away.

  Tiberius smashed with his shield, then stabbed beneath, aiming for the crotch. If he missed, he pulled back and went over top for the eyes. He struck one man in the chest, wrenched free his sword, and stabbed him under the chin. Blood sprayed from his punctured carotid, and Tiberius pushed him back off of the ladder, pulling his sword free as the dying man fell.

  Tiberius turned and signaled to a cornicen by his side to sound a withdrawal. The horn blasted over the clashing din of the battle, and slowly the Romans left the walls, fighting backwards to the second wall. Tiberius called to Shafat, who ordered his men to throw pila directly at the front wall, knocking down the Numantines as they reached the top. Arrows and wasps flew after the pila, killing more Numantines as they exposed themselves.

  The fighting between the two walls turned into truncated cuts and stabs, as the close quarters forced men in the opposing lines together, shoulder to shoulder, screaming and shouting as they thrust and slashed. Slowly, the Roman line fell back, until they were but two feet from the second wall. As the optio pipe whistles sounded, Tiberius stepped back, replaced by a hoary triarii who immediately chopped down two Numantines in front of him.

  Tiberius looked to both sides, then nodded to the cornicen, who sounded his horn loud and high, like a stag raging in the night. Upon that signal, Didius’s corps hurdled off of the wall above the Numantines, their short swords swinging. At the same time, Shafat led men from the left while Casca charged with his men from the right. They slaughtered the Numantines in the alley between the walls, then climbed back onto the fortresses front ramparts and swept the Numantines off from both sides. Tiberius joined his line again and raged at his men to cut down the enemy interlopers, widow their women, orphan their children.

  Tiberius rested sitting on a stump. The slaughter was over, but the toll had been great. Casca reported another 300 casualties, this time most of them dead. The Numantines now had lost at least 1,000 warriors in their three tries at the wall, and likely had to tend to as many wounded as well. But did that matter? The Numantines could throw thousands more at them until all of the Ninth fell, one by one.

  Sacerdus Quarto Minor had fallen, trampled down in the second attack. This saddened Tiberius. His prediction about the son of the old centurion primus had come true. Yet, Tiberius wondered how could he dwell on the loss of this one soldier recruited from the pedites when all of them faced the same fate? How could he mourn when mourning of his own death could be at hand? Appius would be helpless at his loss, his mother would feel another sharp shaft sting her in the heart after having lost her beloved husband and nine children. Polydius and Philea would be sorrowful for his sweet little Tiberius and Cornelia, confused at the loss of Pater, never to see him anymore again. And Claudia, how she would grieve, keening a silent lament so as not to upset the others. But her loss.

  “Tribune.”

  Tiberius slowly raised his eyes. “Sextus, you return.”

  The tall eques nodded his head.

  “And, what of Mancinus?”

  The young knight paused. “Mancinus will not move. He cannot move. They are out of food and fever is running throughout the camp. Morale is low. A coordinated attack will not be possible.”

  “Possible,” Tiberius said automatically, harking back to Blossius’ teachings. “Anything is possible, but this, improbable. All right, refresh yourself. We all must rest while we can.”

  Sextus left. And, before he knew it, Tiberius fell asleep, still sitting on the stump.

  Chapter 17. The God of Dreams

  Tiberius’s features tightened into an expression well-known to her. He spoke with the authority of being right: Never forget that we are plebeian, that is our virtue and our strength. We are no different than other common men, no better than any common man.

  Corn
elia rolled onto her side. Drowsing on her bed just before sunlight, it was easy to lose track of her place in time. Half awake, she could easily find herself once again back when she was the young wife of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus Major, conqueror of Numantia, proconsular and likely to be elected consul again, the father of her children who sternly reminded them of their proud heritage as plebeians.

  Of course, he had been mistaken about being common, no matter what he said to little Gaius, who gazed up at him in begrudging, open-faced awe. Tiberius was special, unique. He was a great man of Rome, and a great man at home. War did not destroy his compassion or his passion, she laughed to herself, flipping again to her back to look up at the blue sky creeping into the room. Where are you little Gaius, where did you go?

  The spring sunshine fell victim to a passing cloud, and she could hear Gaius’s father again:

  “Get out of bed, sorceress,” he said. “Attend to your wifely duties.”

  He picked her up and she giggled crying out faux fear like a little girl herself. The children rushed in, Decima, Marca, Aulus, and the rest, all wearing horrified faces.

  She laughed out loud, “Your father is a beastly lion, look how he mauls me!”

  They all shrieked as Tiberius dropped her back on the bed, bared his teeth and growled at them, chasing them from the room. Publius stood in the doorway with a smirk, too big for this sort of horseplay. He turned and left.

  “Why don’t you stay, today, Tiberius?” she asked.

  “I’m to address the Senate on the state of affairs in Hispania. You know those old women, they have to be assured that their interests are protected without a scintilla of trouble. Clearly, none of them have ever been to Hispania.”

  She’d seen him first in the Forum, already a famed warrior, and she so young, so young. He owned a stunning shock of hair, as black as obsidian, almost shining when reflecting the sun’s rays. His eyes, laughing blue crystals, bounced in time to the glory of his smile, made more vivid by the burnished tan seemingly all over his body. She felt a flush, seeing his stout arms bursting out of his plain, olive tunic, cinched at his waist to emphasize his broad shoulders. His legs seemed like those of a tumbler, so muscular and hairy! She hid behind her mother like a toddler, not a thirteen-year-old girl soon to be matched, soon a matron.

  Why was she acting this way? He was old, not much younger than her father, but old!

  Her mother grasped her hand and wheeled her out to meet this laughing, godlike man. “He will be consul,” her mother whispered, “for his many victories in battle. An amazing hero, rarer than rare for a plebeian. Salve, Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus,” she said when he approached.

  Introduced, when he saw her, he lost his endless smile for an instant― “Why, what a little sprite you are, the gods must be fighting daily over those eyes. How many emeralds were crushed to dust to fill your eyes with the most beautiful colors of the meadow? Any husband of yours will kiss those eyes twice every morning and twice at sunset, cherishing the priceless treasures of the family.”

  She glowered and he looked again, and said, “But it is you who animates those precious gems, your spirit is the catch! How ever will you find a match for her?” he said to her brother-in-law Publius, who beamed as did her mother.

  You, she said to herself, you, you, you will be my husband, kiss my eyes, and my lips every night and every day. You will treasure me above all things, and I will treasure you all my life; may the gods on Olympus hear me and make us one.

  From that day on, she ran off to the Forum to see the new consul, propriety and personal slaves be damned. Leaning casually on the Rostrum above the beaks of the sunken Carthaginian ships adorning the Comitium, he spoke to an adoring public about the issues of the time, land, food, games. And he saw her. When his turn was done, replaced by an august senator, he took his seat in the back, but gestured to an aide, one of his veterans, no doubt. Soon, she was surrounded by burly men with knives on their hips instead of short swords, men who lingered ten feet away from her, but whose presence discouraged any and all common idlers from approaching a well-bred girl standing alone in the Forum. The speeches done, he disappeared. Disappointed, she went home, her new guards shadowing her at a respectful but effective distance.

  She came again and again, and every time the veterans skirted her in a protective parameter. Gracchus spoke, often looking directly at her, while never coming to meet her. Finally, after weeks of this close distance between them, she grew angry. When the senators finished spouting their palliatives to soothe the mob, she marched straight to the Rostrum steps. Surprised, her silent guards hurried to catch up to the quick-striding girl. At the steps, she halted, her hands on her tiny hips, and waited for the consul to descend. He came down and stopped, halfway.

  “Why don’t you come to me?” she said sternly. “Don’t you care about me? Don’t you want to marry me?”

  Taken aback, he settled himself and stepped down. Grasping her by the elbow, he escorted her away from the Rostrum and said quietly, “I do, but it will never happen.”

  “Why? Because you’re too old?”

  And he laughed in such a way as to make her swoon on the spot, she, who never swooned. “Ask permission from your brother-in-law,” he teased.

  “I will,” she said, “and if he says yes, will you marry me? Will you?”

  “Sure,” he said easily, “but he won’t say yes.”

  She huffed, “You don’t know. You don’t know me and my brother-in-law.”

  “Still, he won’t allow it.”

  Why? Why do you say that?

  He shrugged, “You come from an illustrious family. I’m a plebeian.”

  “He’s a plebeian!” her brother-in-law shouted, pacing throughout the house.

  “I love him!” she yelled. “He is to be mine! The gods ordain it!”

  “Praise the gods, sister, you don’t believe in the gods! You are a realist, and realists know that you don’t marry a plebeian.”

  “He’s consul!”

  “A plebeian!”

  “He’s mine! He will be mine forever!”

  “A plebeian!”

  “He’s my plebeian. My consul-of-all-Rome plebeian. More than that, he is a god himself, the god of my dreams. I will marry him, brother-in-law, I want to marry him and have a dozen plebeian demigods with him! Think of the bloodline! Our children―your blood―will dominate Rome! We will fill every cranny with our capable, lovable children. No one will challenge us!”

  “You are mad, mad with lust! What makes you think he wants to marry a harpy-in-the-making such as you?”

  A little smile crossed her mouth, the one that had melted her father’s heart a thousand times before. Seeing that her brother saw her smile, she watched him shrink before her eyes.

  “You already asked him,” Publius said. “He’s already agreed.”

  She laughed, “Only if I could persuade you, brother-in-law. And, I have, haven’t I? Haven’t I?”

  He sat down on the nearest bench, shaking his head, “He’ll marry you, sister, and still think he’s the only one with a phallus in his house. He’ll be wrong.”

  She stopped laughing. Solemnly, she said, “No, Publius, I will be a good Roman wife. I just needed to find the right man. And he is the right man to make me a proper Roman matron.”

  Her brother-in-law simply shook his head.

  Later, Publius came into her room and had her sit quietly. He said to her in gentle terms, “Sister-in-law, I have made the match for you. Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus has agreed to marry you.”

  She threw her arms around his neck and buried her head in his shoulder. He cleared his throat, “There is a stipulation.”

  She pulled back, suspicion in her eyes.

  “He wishes to marry you in three years’ time.”

  She laughed now as she remembered how Publius had pulled his head down into his toga after she yelled at him. If he could have, he would have flattened his ears for fear of her boxing them. Well, an exaggerat
ion. His avocation was to make her happy. How funny life is, my devotion became the same for Tiberius. Poor Publius.

  She drowsed and was running again down the Palatine to the Forum, her guards and attendants racing to keep up. But Tiberius was not in the Forum. Then, she ordered her guards to rent a chair and carry her up the Caelian Hill to his home. Not waiting for the head bodyguard to put the chair down, she leaped from it and dashed to the front door. Pounding on the thick, wooden planks, she cried out, “Tiberius, let me in! Let me in to be your wife! Open this door!”

  The door opened to reveal a somewhat surprised but mostly bemused Gracchus standing only in a tunic and sandals. “My dear Mistress Cornelia,” he said, “What brings you up to the heights of the Caelian? The view, perhaps?”

  “You told my brother-in-law you won’t marry me!” she shouted. “Why? Why did you do that?”

  She thought about how his smile had faded, which sent a bolt from Jupiter through her heart. Too far, she’d wondered?

  “Dear Cornelia,” he said, “I will be happy to marry you when you become a woman, which from the look of you will happen as I forecast, in three years.”

  “I am a woman now! Many of my friends have married younger. I want to marry you now!”

  “Oh, yes,” he said, “I can see you running a consul’s house, staging a grand dinner, sitting in your chair, engaging the King of Numidia in spirited repartee, your feet dangling above the floor.”

  Her fear turned to fury as fast as Mercury flew. She jumped at him and beat his chest, “Don’t mock me, I am a woman in full, and I love you. I love you to death and forever!”

  He gently grabbed her wrists and brought them to her waist. “And I love you. Let us make a pact that we will love each other to death and forever, but in three years’ time. You will see things differently, then. You will be different, I hope. That’s as long as I can wait, anyway.”

  He kissed her on the cheek, maneuvered her outside, and softly closed the door.

  She had cried all the way home, laughing now as she remembered. Cried, cried, cried, for three full years. After every formal occasion, the betrothal dinner, the courtship calls, every time she saw him, she would be ecstatically happy, and when he left, brutally depressed. And, she would cry.