by Dan Wallace
Blossius arrived, walking purposefully through the door, then stopping suddenly. His regular ruddy complexion browned by the summer sun seemed pale, and his blue eyes looked startled. He surveyed the room until he saw Tiberius sitting and poking at the items on the desk. Blossius hurried over.
“Good morning, Gaius,” Tiberius said, still looking down at the deed in his hand.
“Tiberius,” Blossius said in a clipped tone, “can we go into the back office?”
Tiberius glanced up and put the deed back on the pile. He stood up and led the way back. “Hylas,” he said, “Would you mind …?”
Without a word, Hylas left. Blossius closed the door behind the young man, and turned back to Tiberius, who watched him expectantly.
“Tiberius,” Blossius said, “Sextus Decimus has died.”
Tiberius stared at Blossius, his mind working to gather in what the Cumian had said. He sat down. “Sextus, dead?”
Blossius nodded up and down, his face white.
“How?” Tiberius asked. “How did he die?”
“No one knows. His house slave found him in his bed. He had taken to it yesterday after suddenly falling ill.”
“Did he see a physic? Was he examined?”
“Only after he’d been found this morning. A surgeon confirmed his death. Rumors have it that he was afflicted with some kind of scourge.”
Tiberius arose and walked to the door, turning around and back, his head down as he tried to understand. “Pluto have me! Sextus dead! He couldn’t be, he was strong and healthy. He took care of himself. Gods be good, he was young!”
“I know,” Blossius said, “I know. But it is true. He is gone. The gods have reclaimed him for their own.”
“Mars has taken him,” murmured Tiberius, distracted. “He was a fearless warrior.”
“And, a great ally.”
“A friend,” said Tiberius. “He was a friend. Hades have him, so many times I found him insufferable to be around. His arrogance knew no bounds. But he was a friend, a faithful comrade in battle. Every battle.”
He wept silent tears, and Blossius touched his forearm, his own eyes large with sorrow.
“Does Casca know?” Tiberius asked.
“I don’t know,” said Blossius. “I haven’t told him, only you.”
Tiberius sadly, slowly lowered his chin to his chest. “Summon him, please. I’ll tell him.”
Blossius nodded, and said, “The funeral will be tomorrow, for fear of pestilence. It will be in the southwest necropolis at the noon hour. His family’s home on the Palatine isn’t too far a walk from there.”
Family, Tiberius thought. He never imagined Sextus with a family. The horseman always had seemed bigger than life, too big to have had an ordinary one.
“He was too young to die, too strong,” Tiberius uttered to no one.
In the morning, after a sleepless night, Tiberius donned a toga pulla dyed a deep, blackish-blue color. Philea rubbed ash on his face and hands, and drew a few lines of red down his cheeks to affect open wounds of sorrow rent by his fingernails. Once she had finished, he took himself to the vestibulum and sat on a bench by the atrium pool to await Appius’s arrival.
Claudia had come into his room to say curtly that she was sorry about Sextus’s death. That was all. Perhaps she meant it as another reproach, the fate of a young man immersed in a political cauldron. Even if she hadn’t meant it that way, he reflected morosely, the image had played in his own thoughts. He felt guilty that his grief for Sextus was not all consuming. A tiny part of his mind kept seizing upon the notion that Sextus had died from some fatal flaw or a singular mistake, one he could avoid. The tension, he thought, distracted him from rational thinking. Yet, irrational hope kept rising to the surface.
Appius arrived, his usually bright, round face drawn by long lines of missed sleep. “Crassus will meet us at the market square,” he said in a low tone. Tiberius wondered at his father-in-law’s capability to feel so deeply about so many people.
“Are you ready to go?”
“As ready as possible,” Tiberius answered.
They left the house, and this time Casca fell in step with them, wearing a long, dark mourning tunic. In silence, the men marched down the hill and headed to the marketplace at the foot of the Esquiline. They met Crassus, and walked toward the southwest gate and out to the necropolis where the funeral would take place. When they arrived, the size of the crowd waiting to honor the fallen surprised them. As they approached the altar, the crowd gave away to either side.
A platform had been built in front of the altar, before which a row of wooden benches had been assembled. Saving the front row for the family, Tiberius and the rest of his party lined up in the second row of seats. In the distance, they heard a dirge of pipes, and the loud weeping and lamentations of the mourning family. The slow, deliberate beat of a heavy drum marked the progress of the funeral procession. The drumbeat grew louder as they drew closer. Now, priests could be heard chanting to Cheron to carry Sextus’s lost soul across the Styx to the Elysian Fields.
The mourners came into sight, wailing women rending their clothes, clawing at their faces, and tearing long hairs from their heads. After them came the actors and dancers, wearing the images of the revered Decimi ancestors, dozens of them, impressive even for a prestigious equestrian family. A long line of clients and associates followed, some covering their faces with their hands in a formal pose of bereavement. After them, the parents of Sextus and his younger siblings passed, crying inconsolably, leaning upon each other as they walked by. Behind them stepped the priests, now beseeching Pluto to welcome the warrior entering his realm while imprecating Orcus to allow the young soldier’s spirit to pass by the gates of Tartarus. Many of the incantations were too ancient to decipher.
Two broad-shouldered slaves followed, carrying a roasted pig on a spit, to be sacrificed later to Ceres, with portions of it to be consumed by the bereft. Finally, behind the line of mourners came a chair, jerking up and down and sideways as its bearers negotiated its weight over the street stones. Atop the chair sat Sextus Decimus Paetus, propped up as though he still sat among them, wearing on his brow the Mural Crown he had won as first over the wall at Malia. An exquisite, ocean-blue toga fell in careful folds around his body, his forearms resting on the the chair rails, his fingers grasping carved wooden lion heads at the end of each armrest.
Ah, poor, poor Sextus, thought Tiberius, as the bearers turned the chair to face the mourning. Tiberius gasped, joined by a chorus of others as they saw Sextus’s body straight on in clear sight. A rumble coursed through the crowd when they saw the eques’s face, purple and mottled with black bruises and open, weeping sores. His eyes bulged from the pressure of the fluids, the skin of his arms blotched and bursting.
“Pluto’s curse!” shouted one voice, “Scourge!” “Pestilence!” cried another. “Plague, he died of the plague!” Tiberius heard them stirring behind him, even as the priests raised their hands in an attempt to calm them, trying to restore the decorum of the rites. But the crowd wouldn’t have it. Tiberius twisted around to see them milling about in agitation, some pushing to leave.
“Not plague,” one suddenly shouted out, “poison! They have poisoned Sextus!”
“Murder!” “Assassins!” “They have killed Sextus!”
Tiberius glanced at Appius and Crassus. “They’re going mad,” said Crassus.
“We might want to retire before a riot starts,” said Appius.
Tiberius stared at them both, alarmed. “What if they’re right?” he said. “How could he die so suddenly, so horribly, otherwise?”
Appius looked at him with concern. “Tiberius, things like this happen.”
“Happen? He was in the prime of his life, a demigod among men. How could he die? We just saw him riding a warhorse as though he were a centaur himself.” He swung his head bull like, “No, he couldn’t just die like that, turned into a festering hulk overnight.”
“Tiberius,” Appius said, his
hand upon his forearm. The crowd began to surge toward the stand, furiously screaming at the priests, who now looked terrified. Tiberius pulled his arm away, and said, “Go home, Appius. Crassus, go home. I won’t let them intimidate me, I’ll appeal to the people for justice.”
He searched around until he saw Hylas standing near the end of the benches. He waved him over. “Hylas, run home and tell Mistress Claudia that I want her to put on mourning robes and to dress the children as well. As soon as she can, I want them all to join me here. Go, fly, as fast as you can!”
Appius and Crassus peered at him as though he had gone mad himself. “I cannot sit still for this,” Tiberius said, “I must do something to save us. Go home, now, I’ll come to you later.”
Looking deeply disturbed and unsure, the two men left Tiberius alone. He watched as they disappeared from the cemetery surrounded by a contingent of men, Ajax in the vanguard.
Alone, Tiberius allowed the massed mourners to sweep around him, brushing past the priests to Sextus’s body. They attempted to lift him out of the chair and lay him on a makeshift bier made out of boards and tree branches. But even as they put him down, his body seemed to explode from the pressure, releasing foul-smelling fluids everywhere. Green effluent splashed upon the men closest to the corpse, who drew back in horror. Then, others lit torches and set Sextus’s remains on fire.
Tiberius watched from the benches, which had emptied during the tumult. Poor Sextus’s family had fled from the crowd’s outburst, quickly followed by the priests, actors, and the women hired to mourn. Sextus’s associates and clients had left as well. Tiberius realized that he seemed to be the only official mourner left to grieve for his comrade.
Soon, the vile stench of the cremation began to drive the outraged people away as well. Tiberius sat brooding alone. The shock, the loss seemed almost too much to bear. How had Sextus died? Was his death truly part of a conspiracy? How far would the Optimates go with their mad revenge? And, what could he do now?
“Tiberius.”
He raised his head to the soft tones. Claudia stood next to him, bending gently at the waist, her hand outstretched. A few steps away he saw young Tiberius and Sempronia. Next to them, Philea held hands with tiny Claudia and Gaius. Each of them wore grey tunics and capes.
“Tiberius,” Claudia said gently, again.
He turned back to her and looked deeply into her rich, violet eyes. Tears came to his as he said, “Sextus is no more. The people think he was murdered. I fear that he was.”
“Oh,” she said, sitting next to him. She clasped his hand with both of hers. “I am so sorry, Tiberius.”
He gazed up at her, struck again by her beauty. He put his hand on her round belly and stood up. “We need to go,” he said, “to the markets and the forums.”
Puzzled, Claudia said, “But we’re here. We’re here to honor your friend Sextus.”
Tiberius shook his head violently, “No. Sextus is dead, gone to us. We must do what we can to be sure that nothing like this can happen to us. Let us go.”
He took her by the hand and pulled her up. Still confused, Claudia followed his lead while saying, “You wish to go to the markets? With the children?”
“Yes,” he said.
“But that’s too far for them to go, certainly too far for Gaius and Claudia. It wouldn’t be safe.”
“Casca and his men will watch over us. But we must go and tell the people what we’ve seen, to prevent it happening again before it is too late.”
“Tiberius,” she said as he picked up little Claudia and put her in her mother’s arms. He hoisted Gaius up and started for the city gate, Claudia close behind him carrying their youngest daughter. Philea trailed holding the hands of young Tiberius and Sempronia.
Once through the gate, Tiberius didn’t hesitate, striding purposely toward the Esquiline. Claudia hurried after him, asking him why they were doing this. He entered the marketplace and took himself and his family directly to the forum. Lowering Gaius to the ground, Tiberius stepped up on the marketplace rostrum and shouted out as loud as he could.
“People of Rome, I am your tribune Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus. You know me as the author of the Lex Sempronia Agraria and the executor of Philometer’s bequest to you. I have strived to serve you well and hope to continue so in the future. But evil forces oppose me. Evil men who will do anything to wrest from you what is rightfully yours. I know,” he said fervently, “because I have just come from the funeral of one of ours, Sextus Decimus Paetus, Eques of the Ninth Legion and friend of the people of Rome. In the prime of his life,” Tiberius voice began to quiver, “Sextus was struck down, slain by some putrid malevolence foreign to natural things. Sextus died defending you, the people of Rome, and your rights. I will do the same if I, too, am not struck down as Sextus was.”
Tears began to fall down Tiberius’s cheeks as he spoke in anguish. “There are men,” he said, “who will do anything to stop me. I fear that they will assassinate me,” he cried, “I fear not death, but for the sake of my family.”
He turned and waved down at the children and Claudia, who turned her head down and away.
“They will take me from my loved ones and will stop the work I do on your behalf. I beseech you, Romans,” he said, holding out his folded hands, “I implore you to save me and my family from this dire threat. I am your tribune; allow me to be your tribune until my work is done.”
The people listening below had grown from a small group of ten or so to a crowd of one hundred or more. When he finished, they all clapped and cheered, somewhat restrained by the gravity of his remarks.
Tiberius thanked them and descended. Without a word to Claudia, he lifted Gaius again and led them to the marketplace in the Aventine. When they arrived, he took to the local rostrum and repeated his speech. They, too, reacted with an awkward but warm show of support.
Claudia watched Tiberius standing on the Rostrum, shedding tears as he gestured toward her and the children while denouncing the rich patricians who intended to destroy him, his family, and the Republic. She had never seen him cry before. So, was he sincere in this astonishing baring of the soul? Or, was it the master stroke of a cunning politician who stood at the height of his powers? She was sure that he genuinely grieved for Sextus, but could she believe this public display from the man who had gone eye to eye with the murderous Numantines? She shook her head in wary admiration. He could be so kind and self-effacing one moment, and so fierce the next. She loved him so.
Tiberius marched his tired, complaining children from one marketplace to another throughout the city. At one point, Philea commandeered the youngest, Gaius and Claudia, and took them home. The others trudged on behind their possessed father. Eventually, they made their way to the Roman Forum and the Comitium’s rostrum.
The summer sun still shone high in the sky, but most of the marketplace’s regulars had gone home long ago for dinners. The pols had left, too, and the vendors were closing up shop, chasing away the last of the urchins trying to steal and run. It didn’t matter to Tiberius, who climbed the familiar steps of the Rostrum and began his oration. Soon enough, everyone still present drifted over to listen, even the petty thieves. When he finished, they gave him a rousing, ragged round of applause.
He stepped down and walked over to the first row in the Comitium where Claudia and the children sat, spent.
“I’ll come back tomorrow,” he said, “when there’s sure to be a bigger crowd.”
“Will you be wearing your mourning toga,” Claudia said, “and ashes on your face?” He glared at her, and she stood up and grabbed his hand. “Come, let’s take the children home.”
At home, he ate little. Instead, he kissed little Tiberius and Sempronia, who both had fallen asleep with their mouths full.
Later, Claudia found him in his bed chamber, sitting with his head in his hands, his back racked by his heaving, silent sobbing. She sat next to him and hugged him with one arm around his shoulders. Without lifting up his head, he said, “We wil
l miss Sextus. He was very important to us. Have I ever told you how magnificent he looked seated on Chance? It was inevitable that he would ride that horse, he was born to it.” He sighed, “Oh, I was so jealous of him. Except for a whim of the gods, he would have been better striving for position than me. He certainly could be as arrogant as any senator, that’s for sure,” he laughed roughly.
She squeezed him, “He would have been just another stuffed peacock. Do you really think he would have passed a lex agraria?”
He turned to her, “Don’t misjudge him, he was a loyal ally through and through, a true friend every step of the way. We will miss him, and the support of his fellow equestrians.”
Claudia watched him dive into his own thoughts again. “Do you really think he was poisoned by Nasica and the rest?”
Tiberius frowned, “Oh, I don’t know. He looked ghastly on that chair. If he died of disease, the gods surely punished him in the end.” He paused, thinking again. “But” he said, “if the Optimates did kill him, then they have become even more dangerous. If they did that to Sextus, what won’t they do?”
Claudia hugged him closely, and he half-turned to embrace her.
Chapter 34. Inviolable
Tiberius sat alone in his peristylum before dawn on the day of the tribunal election. Every now and then he could hear the bubbling of the fountain in the pool, and he could smell the sweet fragrances of the flowers in the beds bordering the walls. Still too dark to see, he could picture in his mind their summer beautiful blooms now fading, the lavenders, deep purples, ruby reds, the delicate white laces, and the gaudy, giant orange blossoms. As the sunlight appeared, he could see the silhouettes of the two little trees, cherry and lemon, which accented the small rectangular garden. The tranquility relaxed him, as it always had since he was a small boy. He imagined that it had soothed his father, too, and all of the ancestors who had made this old-style domus their home. The world outside raged with every human activity, conceivable and inconceivable. But here peace presided.