Spartacus: Swords and Ashes

by J. M. Clements

  “You speak, Cicero,” Verres was saying, “of a world absent slaves! As ludicrous an idea as a world absent trees. Where would they all go?”

  “Why would they have to go anywhere?” Cicero asked, his palms upraised in an appeal to the crowd. “Why not let them live on?”

  “For the reason that a great number should already be dead!” Verres shouted, as if volume alone made his case for him. “On the battlefields of Numidia and Hispania! In Carthage! As the result of countless crimes thwarted! Thieves arrested! Murderers apprehended!” There were cheers from their audience with the name of each Roman victory, cheers with each success of justice itself in the name of the Republic.

  “Slavery is the lowest state to which a man can fall and yet live,” Verres continued. “It is the moment before death itself, prolonged perhaps for an entire lifetime. But it is better than death itself. Ask the slaves of this house their preference. Death on the battlefields of Thrace and Africa, or food, shelter and purpose here in the bosom of the Republic?”

  “Ah, but it is not their Republic. Their presence here not of their own volition.”

  “Their minds should have dwelt upon that before mounting attack, stealing, or-”

  “Or having the misfortune to dwell on our borders?”

  “You would set them all free?”

  “Not every man is fit to be a Roman. But mere cursory observation within these walls reveals the faces of men and women who have yet become Romans within living memory. But a handful of years have passed since the rest of Italia was allowed into the warmth of Roman arms. Many generations hence we may admit the people of Hispania or Greece.”

  “But you think there is such a possibility?”

  “Of course! And if we may, in time, raise Italians up to glorious rank of Roman, surely slaves can become freemen. Take Tiro, my manservant.”

  “What of him?”

  “He is a slave, lifelong loyal servant of the Cicero family, practically a member.”

  “Would you permit him to marry your daughter?”

  Cicero ignored the ludicrous suggestion.

  “He did not merely hand me clothing in the morning, or hold basin for my ablutions. He carried my books to school and sat alongside me. In his station as a slave, he witnessed the best education that money can buy. He learned to read Latin and Greek, not merely in the classroom but as my living textbook for revisions. The Cicero family has invested thousands of denarii in Tiro. Think of the working hours lost to us while his mother carried him and nursed him. Think of the food and clothing bestowed upon him while he grew to manhood. The Cicero family has invested far more coin in the rearing of its slave than a Capuan merchant might spend on his own children, and Tiro is the better for it.”

  “But is he free?”

  “No, he is not free, although he can claim more freedom than a fisherman hauling nets at dawn, or a litter-bearer straining to carry heavy load that final mile at the day’s end. And at some future time, it may be that the Cicero family will release Tiro from bondage, altogether. But with responsibility.”

  “How can one free a slave with responsibility?” Verres scoffed.

  “By committing such an act when the slave is fit to offer contribution to Roman society, of course. What purpose is there in discarding a slave’s collar if he will become nothing but a beggar? I have no desire to create one more mouth clamoring for the grain dole; one more scream added to the hordes in the arena. Such behaviour is irresponsible. Should Tiro ever be freed, I would desire him to become valued citizen. But we shall see. We are in this position through application of untold generations of our forebears. The day a forgotten great-great-grandfather toiled with extra rigor upon his farm, and had grain surplus for the purchase of more land. No matter what the priesthood may dictate, we are not here solely through the whims of the gods. Venture into the very center of your household, look into that little shrine, and what do you see? A mirror to tell you that you are the axis of your world? No, you see your household gods. You see the symbolic statues and imagines of the uncountable ancestors, your family stretching back into time immemorial.”

  “Such is the protestation of a New Man, not a patrician family,” Verres said, waving his hand dismissively.

  “We were all New Men once. Maybe not in this generation, but some time in the past. We were not sprung, fully formed, from the brow of Jupiter. Only a fool does not honor his father and mother, and theirs before them, and theirs before them.”

  “Where will it end? Do you expect legions led by German generals? Rome ruled by an African?”

  At this, there were some titters from the crowd.

  “Why not?”

  “Ludicrous! Preposterous!”

  “And yet but a generation ago it was thought ‘preposterous’ that men from Capua might be regarded as citizens of Rome itself. If Rome extends its reach to include men of worth in Neapolis-men of Greek descent, incidentally-then why not men of other provinces?”

  “Why not women, too?” a voice shouted.

  “Why not dogs?” a man blurted from the crowd.

  “Why not woodlice?” Verres added, to hearty guffaws.

  “My horse could be consul!” another man shouted from the sidelines, leading to more laughter.

  “What sophistry is this?” Cicero said. “I make a serious, intelligent point, and you seize upon it like Oscan buffoons.”

  “A gladiator may win the rudis,” Batiatus interjected.

  “Quite so!” Cicero said. “As my good friend Batiatus has taught me! A gladiator fights for his life. He may fight with such bravery, and win such victories, that he might be presented with true freedom and permitted to leave the ludus. Why, what is there to stop such a gladiator, or perhaps his freeborn son, enlisting in the Roman army, and rising to rank of centurion or tribune? What is there to stop such a man becoming a farmer with a life of honest toil? And from there, perhaps, the same course of honors that awaits men of patrician families.”

  “Or,” Verres interrupted, “his brutish ways might lead him to fail at farming. His unbridled nature might lead him to desert the army. He, or his hypothetical freeborn son, might turn to criminal acts, becoming robber and brigand. Within a generation your freeborn man might be dead in the street, or choking up our prisons, or reduced once more to slavery.”

  “Of course!” Cicero cried in elation. “You are so right, my friend. We are entirely in agreement.”

  “We are?” Verres asked.

  “We are!” Cicero smiled. “Any New Man stands at a portal of opportunity. Before him lies the uncertain life and prospects of any free individual. Above all there is the opportunity to become a man of virtue. Blessed or despised by the gods, women and wine, prosperity and decline, the chance to reach for greatness.”

  “And behind him?”

  “Behind him lies the mire from which he came. Temptation toward crime and corruption. Perhaps, indeed, he or his descendants will soon fall back once more into the bestial, ignorant world of slaves. But can we not agree that there is at least the chance of rescue? You say that slaves are slaves because they are irredeemable, but not all slaves are so. What of the African king fallen on hard times? What of the noble Roman soldier captured by Pontian pirates?”

  “Death before dishonor!”

  “Thus speaks a man who has never held a sword in battle!”

  “Nor have you!”

  “Roman law recognizes that good Roman citizens may fall upon hard times. Slavery is a state of suspended death, but providence may bring the fortunate soul back from its brink.”

  “That cannot be true!”

  “Ask your scribes, ask your magistrate. Ask them of the status ‘postliminium.’ It exists for those Romans who lose their freedom as prisoners of war, but have it restored to them by the inevitable military victory that is sure to follow wherever an insult is raised against the Republic!”

  Cicero glanced around him at the expectant faces in the lamplight, and saw that all were waiting for h
im to explain. Verres quaffed at a flagon of wine, unused to the prolonged exercise of his voice. His opponent was occupied, and that meant that Cicero could strike. He took a deep breath, and gazed around his audience with wide eyes, inviting attendance, and imagination.

  “My friends! My friends!” Cicero called. “I would ask you to paint a picture in your minds… that even as we duel with words here tonight, Lydian pirates, hundreds of miles from their Asian haunts, steal ashore and raid the house! Oh, how the Romans fight. The women scream and flee, and we menfolk make brave stand with table knives and candlesticks.

  “Brave Verres cries: ‘You shall never take me alive!’ but he is struck from behind and falls into the arms of Morpheus. Asleep. When he awakes, he is bound in chains! He is tied to a bench as a galley slave! What should he do? Should he sit, arms folded, as though halfwitted, unable to fight back as the slave masters whip him for his lack of labors? Or should he grit his teeth and pull on his oar in virtuous confidence, secure in the knowledge that every sweep of the oars surely drives his galley closer to a moment of retribution and revenge?”

  The echoes of Cicero’s voice died away in silence, as he surveyed a hushed, thoughtful crowd. He paused just long enough for his words to sink in.

  “Sure enough,” he continued, “be it days, weeks or even months later, the Lydian pirates’ run of good luck comes to an end. Fortuna smiles upon our Roman hero as marines storm the ship! In the chaos, seizing opportunity, Brave Verres grasps the harsh slavemaster and, with his own chains, strangles him! He takes possession of the keys from the cruel pirate’s belt and unlocks his manacles. Then he turns to the expectant mob of his fellow rowers, and casts the ring of keys into their grateful midst!

  “Brave Verres tells them: ‘Free yourselves!’ And he takes up a sword and runs swiftly onto the deck to give aid to the Roman soldiers as they extract vengeance upon the pirates!”

  The chamber erupted in cheers at Cicero’s story, crushing Verres beneath a flurry of pats on the back in appreciation of his imaginary heroism.

  “WAIT!” Cicero shouted, arms raised, calling the merriment to a sudden quiet. “I ask you now: Is Brave Verres a slave? He has toiled under the lash for many days. In appearance he is indistinguishable from the slaves on either side of him, who pulled on the same oar. And yet we know him to be a virtuous Roman, this man we see before us today. The Roman law of postliminium says that his slavery was but a temporary condition-a misfortune visited upon him, but soon evaded. He can return to Roman life as if he has returned from death itself. But what of the man next to him? What of thousands like him? What of those who toil in the silver mines or scratch letters as scribes or haul rocks as builders? We are all born free! Should all of us not aspire to remain so?”

  There was applause, wild applause.

  “Good Cicero,” Verres laughed. “I still feel you have proved nothing, and spoken of wild ideas, but you can boast of having laid claim to the hearts of the crowd.” He held up two fingers in a parody of gladiatorial submission. “The day is yours!”

  There was enthusiastic and admiring applause, while Cicero bowed graciously.

  “A prize!” Batiatus called. “Give him a prize!”

  “Whatsoever you desire,” Timarchides laughed, slumped half-awake at the base of a statue. “From what little remains in this house.”

  “An audience,” Cicero said immediately.

  “With whom?”

  XIV

  FENESTRAE

  “What, then, Medea?” Spartacus growled through the metal grate that separated their cells. “What would you have me do? My wife is sold into slavery. My labor is beholden to the one man who can bring her back to me. My body fights in the arena for the glory of the Republic I despise. What would you have me do?”

  “Despair,” Medea replied. “Lose hold on those last of your hopes.”

  “If I give up hope, I will have nothing.”

  “Nothing but vengeance. Nothing to lose but your chains.”

  “And my life.”

  “What does your life matter if you have no hope?”

  “I hope for Sura. While she yet lives.”

  “And if she does not?”

  “Do not speak such words.”

  “The gladiator is hurt by words? The gladiator is injured by mere prospects? What if your wife is dead?”

  Spartacus rattled the bars between them, but Medea stood unflinching before him, her nostrils flared with passion.

  “Then I will kill them all,” he said.

  “And for that you will need help.”

  “No help but my arm. No help but my fists.”

  “Thracian, you have more friends that you can imagine. You have seen the Romans and their customs of hospes and hospitality. ‘The friend of my friend is my friend,’ they say.”

  “What of it?”

  “If you seek to destroy Rome, then forget your past antipathies and seek future alliances. Rome’s enemies should be your allies. Look to the pirates of the east. Look to the rebels in Hispania and the allies of Mithridates. Consider the disaffected peoples within Rome’s festering, king-slaying Republic.”

  “I do not seek to destroy Rome.”

  “Oh, but you will. You will.”

  Footsteps approached, accompanied by the sputtering illumination of a torch. Its firelight glimmered upon scraps of the scene-a body in a distant cell, a pair of eyes glowering between the bars. It picked out Spartacus, briefly, in profile, and then he too was back in darkness.

  The light, however, was strongest now upon the front of Medea’s cell. She shielded her eyes as they adjusted to the glare.

  “Open the door,” Cicero commanded.

  “That I cannot do,” Timarchides said.

  “I am a quaestor,” Cicero said. “I speak with voice of the Senate. If I demand that you unlock this portal, you will obey me.”

  “And I am a freedman,” Timarchides responded, hotly. “I am a man whose wrists yet bear the marks of chains he no longer wears, in the house of a murdered master.”

  “That makes no difference.”

  “It does to me, Cicero. She overpowered Verres himself, a Roman gentleman. She fought her way into the main house. She led a revolt that claimed the lives of free citizens.”

  “I do not fear a naked woman.”

  “Then you are a fool, quaestor. Where are your powers of investigation and intellect? You yourself watched her fight lions, naked in the arena. And you would have me let you inside her cage?”

  “What harm does it do you?”

  “Every harm, if I am implicated in your foolish death.”

  “I say to you, Timarchides. I command you.”

  “And I say to you, Cicero, go fuck yourself.”

  His lips pressed together in grim resolve, Timarchides shoved the torch into its wall bracket.

  “Parley with the bitch if you must. But do it through the bars.”

  The two men stared at each other in the flickering torchlight.

  “Very well,” Cicero said eventually. “I shall not fight you.”

  “A wise choice,” Timarchides said. “I have torn out the hearts of greater men.”

  “Leave us, then,” Cicero said. “This is for the ears of no other.”

  Medea glanced at the shadows to the place where Spartacus had been, but he had crept away from the bars so that he was not visible from her cage. She smiled to herself at the petty rebellion. Spartacus listened. Spartacus listened, because a Roman did not want him to.

  “As you wish,” Timarchides said. “Watch your footing on your return. It would sorely grieve me if you tripped and broke your neck.”

  His footsteps receded down the corridor, shuffling drunkenly.

  Cicero peered through the bars at the painted woman of the Getae, unaware that Spartacus watched in secret.

  “I have come for you,” Cicero addressed her.

  “Come and get me, then,” she said, flatly.

  “Pelorus told me of you.”

&
nbsp; “He sent message from the afterlife?”

  “While he yet lived. He wrote to me of a sorceress of the Getae, who had the power of prophecy.”

  “I said I would kill him. That came true.”

  “You have wit,” Cicero observed. “Quick-witted and wise.”

  “And look where it led me,” Medea said. “See my palace and my servants, my bath and my banquets.”

  In the dark, she glimpsed the white of Spartacus’s teeth as he smiled in silence. She willed herself not to look in that direction, lest Cicero realize that they had an audience.

  “I am a quaestor,” Cicero said.

  “I am a condemned woman.”

  “It is my purpose to investigate.”

  “I was apprehended with Roman blood on my hands. I do not think my case is in doubt.”

  “Matters legal and spiritual. I am collecting prophecies.”

  “Here is one for you. You will die with a Roman sword in your neck.”

  “I mean real prophecies. Oracular utterances.”

  “Is that not real enough for you? It will be real enough when the iron bites your flesh.”

  Her hair was brown, tied up in careful whorls, and set with pins of Greek bronze. Her legs were long, her rump pleasingly rounded. Her name was unknown. Verres saw no more, nor desired any greater view. Instead, he reached out and grabbed a handful. Verres snatched the girl by her hair, twisting her head back to stare into her face.

  “You will do,” he said.

  “Dominus!” she breathed in terror. “I have committed no wrong.”

  “None indeed,” he said, dragging her toward the darkened room. “There is nothing wrong with your beauty. Nothing wrong with your firm body. Tell me there is nothing wrong with your cunt.”

  “Dominus?”

  “No matter,” he said, as they neared the bed. “I shall discover for myself presently, and hear you call me dominus with quickened breath-” He threw her onto the bed, which unexpectedly shrieked with surprise.