Tribune of the People

by Dan Wallace

  “Tracing the wall, of course.”

  “I see.” She always seemed to be the smartest. Young Tiberius continued his pounding until his father grabbed his wrists and lifted him straight up into the air.

  “How about another kiss? Another kiss and a hug before I go.”

  In spite of himself, the boy started laughing, even as he pleaded, “No! No! No!”

  “Oh, yes, yes, yes,” Tiberius said, burrowing his head into his son’s neck, punctuating each “yes” with a kiss. The boy squirmed, nearly hysterical now, laughing until he couldn’t breathe.

  “I want a kiss, too, Papa,” cried Cornelia Sempronia.

  “Oh, you do, do you? Finished with your measurements?”

  “Yes, yes!” she shrieked.

  “Well, then, very well.” He lowered his son down while the boy said, “No, just me, just me!”

  “No, everyone gets a hug and a kiss whether they like it or not,” Tiberius said, lifting Cornelia Sempronia up with one arm. He nuzzled her neck to screams of delight while young Tiberius tried to push his way between.

  “Po-po go away?” said Gaius at his feet. Tiberius glanced down, then to the doorway just as Claudia strode in carrying Appius in her arms and saying, “What a remarkable din you’re all making, barbarians in the peristylum!”

  “Po-po go?” said Gaius, looking up now at his mother. She leaned down to her knees and said, “Yes, Gaius, I’m afraid it’s time for Papa to go change. He has important tasks he must do.”

  She had filled out during the past three years, still skinny for a proper Roman matron, but looking even more beautiful than ever to Tiberius. Bearing many children does that to a woman, though most of the grand dames of Rome cultivated a burgeoning shape to accent their station in life rather than the fecundity of their flesh. To Tiberius, Claudia now seemed more like a Venus by Praxiteles; he preferred picturing her as the master sculptor’s statue on Knidos rather than Kos. The goddess of love unadorned, not mantled and draped.

  “Are you ready to dress?” she asked him.

  He cocked his head to one side, squinting his eyes in feigned thought. “You could help me dress.”

  She smiled skeptically rather than joyfully. “Oh, no. That’s how I got this one,” she said, tipping her head toward Appius, who took this opportunity to tug at one of her raven black curls. The boy had the same hair, Tiberius noted, and the violet eyes, too. They all took after their mother, little Sempronia and Gaius, too. All except Tiberius, his pale blue eyes clearly marking him as the first-born son. His disposition, though, mirrored that of his impetuous uncle.

  “Hylas can help you,” Claudia said. “I must get these children fed and put them to bed or they will tear the house down.”

  Hylas. Brought to them by Polydius to replace Lysis. Short and stocky, he came from Crete of all places. He looked strong enough to grab a bull’s horns, but too small, thought Tiberius, to clear its head if tossed. He shrugged his shoulders and said to himself we’ll see if he fits in here. Then, he admonished himself as he walked behind the dark Greek into his bed chamber. Even if Hylas proved himself to be the most incompetent servant in the world, he probably had found himself a home for life. That’s how the Gracchi treated everyone in the house. By Orcus’s shades, Lysis had stumbled about no matter what he was told, and they’d kept him. Of course, they had loved Lysis.

  Hylas turned and gestured to the toga on the bed, “Master?”

  Tiberius leaned forward. The toga gleamed from the chalk Hylas had applied to it, almost as blinding as the sun. Tiberius straightened and looked at him with some surprise. “This could not be better. Apollo himself will be jealous.”

  Hylas smiled broadly, and Tiberius thought then that they might get along. “Here, help me into it.”

  When he emerged from the room, Claudia saw him and stepped back. “You look,” she said with a full voice, “magnificent.”

  Tiberius grinned, “Perfect target for a rotten tomato or two, anyway.”

  “No,” she said, “you look the part. You look like a man, a Roman man of stature.”

  “Well, I am, aren’t I?” he laughed, “Unless you’re saying I wasn’t before. That would be disheartening.”

  She laughed with him and he moved in to embrace her. “No, no!” she cried, scurrying away, her hands held high in front of her. “You cannot touch anything before you leave the house. Who knows where the children have been with their sticky paws?”

  “Now, I’m sad,” he said, his lower lip pushed out in exaggerated sorrow.

  “Yes, well, live with it. You’re the one who wants to be a Roman of stature.”

  “Not really,” he said as a tumult was heard at the front door, sending everyone into the vestibulum. He trailed, muttering, “I just want to do some good.”

  Appius Claudius Pulcher marched into the vestibulum in full senatorial regalia, the crimson stripes bordering his toga signifying his status as consular, a former censor, an augur of the Salli, and a most esteemed patriarch of the city. Crassus followed him, resplendent in his own brilliant toga, and behind him followed a half dozen or more other respected members of the Senate, all Populares, of course.

  Appius stepped over to Tiberius, saying as he grabbed his shoulders, “You look stunning.” Tiberius turned to Claudia and said, “How sticky do you think his fingers are?”

  She frowned, and Appius immediately withdrew his hands.

  “Oh, yes, so sorry,” Appius said. “Of course, too, as one of your deductores, I must keep distance from you as if you have the plague.”

  “That far?” Tiberius said.

  “All right, only as far as if you have bad breath.” Everyone laughed and Appius continued, “Really, though, son-in-law, we do not want to break tradition at any point. Nasica and Rufus would climb all over us if we gave them the smallest reason, though reason would seem to be a foreign notion to them. No matter, when we go out that door, we will be there to walk with you. Otherwise, you will be on your own.”

  Having run for aedile ages ago, and more recently riding as quaestor, Tiberius knew well the strictures involved in electioneering. Those campaigns had been fairly easy, he recognized, compared to this one. To be aedile, he only had to spend a little money on some entertainments and a few public feasts. Other than promising to be diligent in safeguarding the city’s water supply and other public facilities, not much had been asked of him as an orator. The same with the quaestorship; he simpy hung on to Mancinus’s toga to win. A good thing, too, he thought, since he could not claim grandiloquent rhetoric as one of his strong suits.

  Running for tribune of the people called for much more than a few free feeds and some boxing matches. It meant real ambitus, promises of money, then spreading it around after the vote. This time, too, he would have to sponsor races in the Circus with bread and wine in the stands. Thank the gods for his mother’s largesse. Still, this was nothing compared to the hurdles he would have on the Rostrum. While he stood there, trying to gather himself to make his case, the ranks would be full of Optimate plants howling catcalls and throwing rotten fruit. He was supposed to maintain his dignitas no matter what. But it would be hard, he recognized. Any reasonable man would think either to run away, or to run after his tormenters. But what could he do? Even if there were no jackals in the crowd, he’d proven himself not much of a crowd pleaser in the past. He found himself comfortable when he spoke plainly and quietly rather than thumping the podium with his fists while roaring exclamations. Tiberius would never admit it to Appius or his mother, but this seemed like an uphill battle to him, and he was tired of fighting.

  Just then, Philea came in with a basket of warm bread followed by Hylas and Polydius with cups of honey and cider. The men descended upon the baskets and trays, intending to shore up their energy for the long walk about the city. Appius used the distraction to draw close to Tiberius.

  “Your man Casca will be with us as well, along with Ajax and a few of their friends. They’ll make sure that no roughnecks in
terfere with your oration.”

  Relief swept over Tiberius, though with some guilt. Money, games, and now strong-arming would be the signature of his tribunal campaign. No different than it had always been, he knew, but not what he had in mind when he decided to enter into public service.

  “All right, are we ready?” Appius asked the men grouped around the baskets.

  Before anyone could answer, his mother Cornelia glided into the hallway. She went straight to Tiberius’s side, grasped an arm and pulled him down to her level to kiss him on each cheek, saying under her breath, “We are proud of you. Honor your father’s spirit.”

  She let him go and returned to her chamber. With a startled expression, he watched her leave. Claudia came to him with the children, keeping them at a slight distance. “Say goodbye to your father, children. Tell him to walk with Fortuna. Bye-bye.”

  She stepped close to him and kissed his lips quickly, “Goodbye, Tribune.”

  He smiled, and Appius laughed, “All right, let’s go!”

  They assembled at the door, and Appius led the way with Crassus, followed by Tiberius and the others. Outside the front door, Tiberius spied Casca leaning on the wall near the gate. The old centurion stood up and gave a wave to someone out of sight in the street. He turned, then, and gave Tiberius a slow nod. Tiberius nodded in return and watched him quickly go through the gate ahead of Appius and the rest. When they reached the street, Casca was nowhere in sight.

  They started down the hill together, Appius looking straight ahead while talking quietly.

  “We’ll head for the Subura first. To win, first and foremost Tiberius must convince the common Roman that he is the man for the job.”

  The others groaned and murmured, knowing that the Subura, with its towering insulae and close proximity to the burial grounds of the Esquiline would exude a stifling stench melded from both human defecation and death.

  “Now, now,” said Appius, “let’s not allow effete sensibilities interfere with our desire and duty to support the Gracchus campaign. After all, in the course of enacting his official policies, he just might be able to do something about the Subura’s wretched stink.”

  The men laughed, and Appius added, “In any case, we need their vote. Afterward, we will head for the Capitoline. That’s something to look forward to.”

  They headed down the narrow alley toward the street, Appius leaning close to Tiberius, whispering, “It’s a shame Scaveola couldn’t join us today. I’m sure he has plenty to do on his own campaign and, considering how many of the Good Men feel about you, it might be better for him to keep his distance until he wins.”

  Tiberius nodded his agreement. Filling Scipio’s sandals as consul would be a tall order for Scaveola. Fortunately, Scipio, his only real threat if he were to run had all but disappeared from the Senate. The hero of Africa now spent most of his time preparing for his campaign against the Numantines. Scaveola knew, of course, that Nasica and the other Optimates would do their best to stop him, but he seemed to have momentum on his side.

  “So, now we know what he did with the outrageous legal fees he’s been extorting from me for years,” Appius murmured. “His campaign war chest must be overflowing.”

  They reached the end of the side street and stepped up onto the hexagonal stones paving the main thoroughfare. Tiberius moved to the front of his entourage, which walked in order four paces behind him. All of them stopped chattering as they focused on the business at hand, marching with great gravity behind their chosen candidate.

  Tiberius scanned the sidewalks for potential voters and saw just a few people. He saw two workmen carrying wood into a small shop for some building project.

  “Salve!” he called out as he approached, reaching up with his right hand. The men appeared a bit startled to have someone who was obviously a well-to-do in a searing white robe hailing them heartily, his hand ready to shake their callused, leathery paws.

  “Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus at your service, hoping to continue serving you as tribune of the people, if I can win your vote.” He pumped their hands up and down in turn, grinning broadly at them. The last man allowed Tiberius to raise and lower his hand, while saying, “We don’t vote. We own no land, Father.”

  “Oh,” said Tiberius. Flustered, he said, “Well, if I am elected Tribune, perhaps I can change that for you. It is my conviction that every Roman should own land that they can call their own and be able to vote.”

  At that, the two workers smiled wide, revealing multiple gaps in their mouth where teeth used to be. They nodded their heads, and bowing, backed away into the shop. Tiberius glanced at Appius and rolled his eyes. Appius shrugged, and Tiberius turned to walk on.

  A woman moved up the opposite sidewalk balancing a water jar on top of her head. The party of men passed her without a word, their eyes searching ahead for men who might be able to vote.

  Before long they reached the bottom of the hill where they turned right toward the Subura. Soon, they walked amid the tall insulae, some of the apartment buildings well above seven stories, many looking like rickety piles of tinder ready for imminent mass funeral fires. In fact, open spaces occasionally interrupted the series of edifices tightly wedged together, their high horizon broken by a past neighboring structure’s immolation or collapse, sometimes both. Before long, another enterprising developer would erect over the ruins another insula of questionable quality to confound the odds of which one would go down next.

  A few hundred feet more put them at the edge of one of the largest marketplaces in the vicus where the ironmongers, the wool merchants, the shoemakers, all of the tradesmen and craftsmen plied their skills and wares. Women hawked their goods as well, and strong-arms worked the fringe, hoping to find some inattentive soul walking close to an alley to be hoisted and heisted.

  Appius exclaimed “We’re here! And, here we go.” Oblivious to the disapproving scowls of his companions for breaking the customary silence, he moved toward a fountain in the middle of the square. There, women filled their water jugs while others beat dirty dregs out of their clothes against the tops of the stone walls, twisting and wringing the cloth, then slapping them against the flat slate tiles. When they noticed Appius approaching, however, they all stopped and gave way without a word.

  Appius stepped up on the wall and raised his hands. Waving his arms to attract attention, he called out to the people in the square.

  “Romans! Romans! Come hear your candidate for tribune!”

  Again, the others in Tiberius’s entourage were aghast at Appius’s violation of traditional protocol. But Appius didn’t seem to care, grinning broadly as Tiberius rose up to replace him on the wall.

  People slowly gathered around, more out of curiosity, it seemed, rather than a burning desire to hear from some egg-white politician. Tiberius cleared his throat, and suddenly realized that he would benefit if he could spit. He swallowed and spoke.

  “Fellow Romans … people of Rome who work … you who are in need.”

  He could see some at the fringe of the small crowd begin to turn their backs to leave. Heat started to crawl up his neck as he realized that he was losing them already.

  “Wait!” he cried out. The men who were leaving stopped and looked back. “Don’t leave me to die up here alone!”

  The people in the front row laughed, and those in the back drew close again.

  “I know you have to make a living,” Tiberius said, “but even the hardest working among you need some kind of entertainment. You can always work, it will be there for you always. But you have no idea of what I might do next!”

  A tomato hit him directly on his breast, splattering. The crowd roared their laughter, almost jeering. Tiberius saw two ripples in the crowd, like sea serpents sliding through water. A man tossing a tomato from one hand to the other suddenly went down, disappearing. Quickly, Tiberius rubbed his fingers across his chest and put them in his mouth.

  “Ah, at least it’s fresh. Toss up some cheese, some oil, and I’ll have all
I need for a good lunch!”

  The listeners laughed, warming to the candidate, not noticing the man being carried away behind them by two brawny men into a narrow alleyway. Tiberius saw him taken away, and started to hurry his speech.

  “I won’t keep you long. I know you do have to work and can’t waste precious time on some egg-white, patrician jackdaw cawing at you. But I am not a patrician. I am a plebeian like you. I am a veteran and I make my living by growing things to eat. You might be a Roman veteran, but if you work in Rome, my guess is that you do not grow your food. Instead, you live in the city, perhaps finding it hard to feed yourself every day, and your family. For your service to Rome, you were promised land to support you through your own industry. So, what happened? Why are you fighting to get by in the city instead of living on your own land, eating your own home-grown food? Where is the land owed to you for fighting for Rome?

  “I am here to ask these questions and to answer them. I believe that every veteran should get the land promised to him. I intend to work to get you that land. That is why I wish to be your tribune.”

  At his pause, a number of people in the small crowd clapped and shouted their approval. Tiberius went on, “Now, if you have no land, you might not be able to vote for me. I don’t care that you cannot vote for me. Rather, I want you to own the land that you deserve, that is my goal. If you believe in me, I will be thankful for your support. Tell your friends who have land of my firm belief in this. Also tell them that I will fight so that no one can take their land ever! Spread the word to other citizens who vote so that we can right the wrong that has cost you your land and your livelihood. I thank you for listening and for your support.”

  As Tiberius moved to step down, the applause seemed to grow, and various men came up to him to pat him on his shoulders. Tiberius nodded, thanking them, and shaking any proffered hand.

  Appius looked at Crassus. “Well, what do you think?”

  Crassus screwed up his mouth, and said, “Not half bad for one who’s not a natural. He did all right. With a little coaching and polish.…”