Roma.The novel of ancient Rome r-1

by Steven Saylor

  After eating, they rested. A few old friends and colleagues stopped to say hello, and Lucius was delighted to introduce his grandson. The talk turned to foreign imports, the cost of slaves, the advantages and disadvantages of transport by land or by sea, and who had been awarded contracts for various construction projects in the city. “As you can see, my boy,” remarked Lucius, “these days, more business is done here in the baths than in the Forum.”

  In the old days, of course, all the talk would have been about politics and war. Nowadays, war was an activity on the distant frontier that might or might not affect trade, and politics-true politics, as their forefathers had understood the word, with everyone freely arguing and shouting to make themselves heard-no longer existed. One might speculate about intrigues within the imperial family, or conjecture about the relative influence wielded by members of the emperor’s immediate circle-but only in whispers.

  Exercised, bathed, and fed, the two retired to the dressing room. Young Lucius slipped into the tunic he had worn earlier, but his grandfather, assisted by the slave who had shaved him, put on his toga. While the boy watched, he pontificated on the proper wearing of the toga.

  “A man isn’t simply wrapped in his toga,” he explained. “He carries it, as he carries himself, with a show of dignity and pride. Shoulders back, head up. And the drapes should fall just so. Too few folds, and you look as if someone threw a sheet over you. Too many folds, and you look as if you’re carrying a bundle of laundry to the fuller.”

  The boy’s laughter delighted Lucius. It meant that his grandson was paying attention. He was watching, listening, learning.

  The slave handed his master a shiny trinket on a golden chain. Lucius slipped the necklace over his head and tucked it beneath his toga.

  “What’s that, Grandfather? An amulet of some sort?”

  “Not just any amulet, my boy. It’s very old, and very important, and today is the very last day I shall ever wear it. But we’ll talk of it later. For now, I want to show you a bit of the city. There are some places I should like you to see through my eyes.”

  “Shall I summon the litter?” asked the slave.

  “Actually, I think not. The hot plunge has so loosened my knees that I think I might be up for a bit of walking. But you must be patient, young Lucius, and not run ahead of me.”

  “I shall stay by your side, Grandfather.”

  Lucius nodded. How polite the boy was, always respectful and well-mannered. He was studious, as well, and very clean and neat. The boy was a product of his times. The world had become a much more orderly, peaceful, settled place than it was in the old days of the civil wars. His ancestors would be proud of young Lucius. They would be proud of the harmonious world that their descendents, through much bloodshed and toil, had finally achieved.

  As they headed out from the baths, a flash of excitement crossed young Lucius’s face, then he bit his lower lip nervously.

  “What is it, my boy?”

  “I was thinking, Grandfather, as long as we’re taking a walk, and we’re so close-but father says it’s something you don’t like to talk about. Only, he says you were actually there, when it happened…”

  “Ah, yes. I think I know what you’re trying to say. Yes, that will be our first stop. But I have to warn you, there’s nothing to see.”

  “Nothing?”

  “As you shall observe.”

  They strolled to the Theater of Pompeius. Lucius took the steps slowly, but not on account of his knees. As they reached the top, he could feel his heart pounding in his chest. His skin prickled and his breath grew short. Even after all these years, he felt a sense of dread as they drew near to the spot.

  They came to a brick wall. “It was here,” he said. “This is the place where the Divine Julius, your great-great-granduncle, met the end of his mortal life.”

  The boy frowned. “I thought it happened in some sort of assembly hall, at the foot of Pompeius’s statue.”

  “Yes. The entrance to the hall was here, and the place where Caesar fell was perhaps fifty paces from this spot. But the hall has been sealed. Some years ago the emperor decreed-or rather, the Senate voted, at the emperor’s behest-that this place should be declared an accursed site, never to be seen or set foot upon. The statue of Pompeius was removed and placed elsewhere in the theater complex. The entrance to the hall was walled up, like a tomb. The Ides of Martius was declared a day of infamy, and it was forbidden that the Senate should ever again meet on that date. As I told you, there’s nothing to see.”

  “But it’s true, Grandfather, that you were here? That you saw it happen?”

  “Yes. I saw the assassins strike. I saw Caesar fall. I heard his final words to the infamous Brutus. Antonius was here, too, though he arrived after I did. They purposely detained him outside, partly to prevent him from shielding Caesar, but also, I think, because they didn’t wish to kill him. The assassins did possess a certain sense of honor. They truly believed that what they were doing was for the good of Roma.”

  “But how can that be? They were bloodthirsty killers.”

  “Yes, they were that, as well.”

  The boy frowned. “And Antonius; I thought he was-”

  “But let us speak no more of this,” said Lucius. “There’s so much more I want to show you.”

  They walked toward the older parts of the city. In the Forum Boarium, Lucius showed the boy the Ara Maxima, and informed him of the role once played by the Pinarii in maintaining the cult of Hercules. Long ago, that religious role had been abandoned by the family, but it marked the first appearance of the Pinarii in history, and so was never to be forgotten. They had shared the duty with another family, but the Potitii were long extinct, as were a number of the original patrician families, whose names now existed only in annals and inscriptions.

  They ascended the Palatine, walking slowly up the ancient Stairs of Cacus, which took them by a recess in the stone reputed to have been the very cave where the monster once dwelled. They paused beneath the shade of the fig tree said to be a descendent of the legendary ruminalis, beneath which Acca Larentia had suckled the infants Romulus and Remus. They visited the Hut of Romulus, which even the boy could see was too new to be the actual hut where the founder had lived; the civic landmark had been rebuilt many times over the centuries.

  They descended to the Forum, which in recent years had become even more crowded with monuments and temples.

  “Once upon a time, all of this was a lake, or so they say,” remarked Lucius. “Hard to believe, isn’t it? The first temples were made of wood.”

  “Everything I can see is made of marble,” said the boy.

  Lucius nodded. “The emperor’s proud boast: ‘I found Roma a city of bricks, but I shall leave it a city of marble.’ During his reign, a great many buildings have been restored, refurbished, even rebuilt from the foundations up. The quaint shrines have been dusted, the ancient glories have been burnished; everything has been made bigger and more beautiful than before. The emperor has given us peace and prosperity. The emperor has made Roma the most resplendent of all the cities that ever existed, the undisputed center of the world.”

  They came to a statue of the emperor, one of many in the city. This one depicted him as a young warrior, handsome and virile and armed for battle. The inscription referred to his great victory at Philippi, in Macedonia, when he was only twenty-one years old: “I sent into exile the murderers of my father, and when they made war on the Republic, I defeated them in battle.” It seemed to Lucius that the statue flattered his cousin. Octavius had never been quite that handsome, and he certainly had not been that muscular and broad-shouldered.

  The boy gazed up at the statue with a less critical eye. “Father tells me that you were at Philippi, too, Grandfather, when the assassins Brutus and Cassius were brought to justice. He says you fought right alongside the emperor.”

  Lucius raised an eyebrow. “Not exactly.” Octavius, as he recalled, had been sick in bed for most of the battle,
except for the time he spent hiding in a marsh after his camp was overrun by Brutus. “I myself inflicted no bloodshed at Philippi. I was in charge of supply lines for the legions led by Marcus Antonius.”

  “Antonius?” The boy frowned. “But he was the emperor’s enemy, wasn’t he? He became the willing slave of the Egyptian whore!”

  Lucius winced. “That happened later, much later. At Philippi, Octavius and Antonius-”

  “Octavius?”

  “I misspoke. Octavius was the name that the emperor received at birth. Later, of course, he was adopted by the Divine Julius, and was called Caesar from that time forward. Later he took the majestic title of Augustus, and so we call him Caesar Augustus. But I digress. As I was saying, at Philippi, the emperor and Marcus Antonius were allies. They fought together to avenge the Divine Julius. Cassius and Brutus were defeated, and they killed themselves. But Philippi was only the beginning. Some sixty senators took part in the conspiracy against Caesar; within a few years, every one of them was dead. Some died by shipwreck, some in battle; some took their own lives, using the same dagger with which they had stabbed Caesar. Even some who had not plotted against Caesar were dead, like Cicero; he made an enemy of Antonius, and he lost his head and his hands for it.”

  “His hands?”

  “Cicero made vile speeches against Antonius, so when Antonius ordered him killed, he commanded that Cicero’s hands should be cut off along with his head, for having written such offensive words. There is no denying that Antonius had a vindictive nature.”

  “Was that why the emperor killed Antonius, because he murdered Cicero?”

  “No.” Lucius sighed. The truth was so very complicated, especially when large parts of it were not to be spoken aloud. “The two of them remained friends-well, allies-for a number of years. Then Antonius threw in his lot with Cleopatra, and some thought that Antonius and Cleopatra would rule Egypt and the East, and the emperor would rule Roma and the West. But-so philosophers tell us-just as the heavens are one under the rule of Jupiter, so the earth naturally desires to be united under one emperor. Antonius’s dreams came to ruin.”

  “Because of the Egyptian whore?”

  Again Lucius winced. “Come with me, young man. There’s something else I want you to see.”

  They made their way to the Julian Forum. Left unfinished by Caesar, the arcades for courtrooms and offices had been completed by the emperor. Still dominating the open square was the magnificent statue of Caesar sitting atop a charger. How much more at home in his armor the Divine Julius looked than did his successor, thought Lucius.

  The square was crowded with men going to and fro, talking to one another and carrying documents. Under the emperor, the legal codes had grown more complicated than ever, and lawyers were kept even busier than they had been under the Republic, settling private disputes, adjudicating bankruptcies, and negotiating contracts.

  Lucius and the boy walked past the splashing fountain and into the Temple of Venus. Lucius still considered it the most beautiful interior in all of Roma, unsurpassed even by the emperor’s most lavish projects. Here were the famous paintings of Ajax and Medea by Timomachus; here were the cabinets containing the fabulous jewels and gemstones that Caesar had collected in his travels.

  Holding the boy’s hand, Lucius strode before the two statues at the far end of the sanctuary. The Venus of Arcesilaus remained unsurpassed. And beside the Venus, despite the misfortunes that had befallen the flesh-and-blood original, stood the gilded statue of Queen Cleopatra, last of the long line of the Ptolemies who had ruled Egypt since the time of Alexander the Great. Some had thought that the emperor would remove the statue, but here it remained, where Julius Caesar himself had installed it.

  “Despite what you may have heard, she was not a whore,” said Lucius quietly. “As far as I know, she slept with only two men in her entire life: the Divine Julius and Marcus Antonius. To both she gave children. The emperor in his wisdom saw fit to execute Caesarion, but he spared her children by Antonius.”

  “But everyone says that she-”

  “What everyone says is not always the truth. It served the emperor’s purposes to call her a whore and a seducer, but she was far more than that. She considered herself a goddess. For better or for worse, she behaved like one.”

  The boy frowned. “And when she lured Antonius to join her, you sided with the emperor to fight against them?”

  “No. Not in the beginning. At the start of the war between them, I fought for Antonius.”

  “For Antonius? With Cleopatra? Against the emperor?” The boy was incredulous.

  “Antonius was my friend. He was my protector when I was very young, in the perilous days after Caesar was murdered. He had always been loyal to Caesar; I felt obliged to be loyal to him. So I served under him at Philippi, and I remained in his service afterward, even when another civil war broke out and the emperor declared him the enemy of Roma. Antonius posted me to the city of Cyrene, to watch his west flank. Do you know where Cyrene is?”

  The boy frowned. “Not exactly.”

  “It’s on the Libyan coast, west of Alexandria, which was Cleopatra’s capital. If she and Antonius had won, my boy, Alexandria-not Roma-would have become the capital of the world. Roma might have become nothing more than a provincial backwater.”

  “Impossible!”

  “Yes, you’re right. I once heard the Divine Julius himself declare that the gods chose Roma to rule the world; how could I forget? But back in those heady days, when I was young and Antonius and Cleopatra were riding the serpent’s tail, anything seemed possible. Anything!” He sighed. “At any event, there I was in Cyrene. I was to be Antonius’s watchdog should his enemies attempt to sail toward Egypt hugging the Libyan coastline. In the meantime, while I watched and waited and drilled my soldiers, I minted coins for Antonius to pay his debts. War is expensive! That reminds me, I have a silver denarius for you, one of the coins I minted for Antonius.” Lucius reached into his toga. “They’re rather rare these days. Many of them were melted down and recast with the image of the emperor.”

  The boy accepted the heavy coin and gazed at it with great interest. “I recognize Victory, bare-breasted in profile with her wings behind her and carrying a wreath…but there’s something else I can’t make out…”

  “A palm frond,” says Lucius. “Palms grow wild along the Nile.”

  The boy turned the coin over. “But who is this fellow, with the flowing beard?”

  “None other than the king of gods, Jupiter.”

  “But he has ram’s horns!”

  “That’s because this is Jupiter Ammon, his Egyptian manifestation, who is called Zeus Ammon by the Alexandrians, who speak Greek. Alexander the Great worshiped Zeus Ammon. So did his general Ptolemy, who inherited Egypt. It was Ptolemy who founded the dynasty that ruled Egypt for almost three hundred years, until the royal house ended with Cleopatra.”

  “And…she was not a whore?” The boy remained dubious.

  “Her enemies in Roma alleged that she was, while she lived. Everyone seems to believe so now, long after she’s dead. But Caesar didn’t think so. Nor did Antonius. Cleopatra considered herself the manifestation of the goddess Isis. A woman tends to take procreation rather seriously when she thinks that carnal union might result in a god or goddess springing out of her womb!”

  “Whatever she was, she lost everything, didn’t she, and she took down Antonius along with her?”

  Lucius nodded. “Antonius and Cleopatra gathered a great navy and sailed off to Greece, to meet the Emperor in battle. I stayed behind in Cyrene, and waited for news. The sea battle took place at Actium. The navy of the emperor, under the command of Marcus Agrippa, destroyed the navy of Antonius and Cleopatra. It was all over then, and everyone knew it. Antonius sent me a desperate message, saying he was coming to collect my troops.”

  “And then what happened?”

  Lucius’s face grew dark. “I killed the messengers. I sent word to Antonius that he would not be welco
me in Cyrene. I finally came to my senses, you see. I saw that the gods had sided with the emperor, that they had sided with him all along, and only an ungodly man would continue to stand against him.”

  The boy nodded gravely, as at the outcome of a moral tale, satisfied that his grandfather had at last seen reason. But the look on Lucius’s face was grim.

  “Antonius and Cleopatra retreated to Alexandria, to await the end. Some say they spent those final months indulging in every possible vice, squeezing life for the last vestiges of pleasure. Perhaps that tale is only another slander against them, but to me it has the ring of truth. How those two loved to drink and carouse! Cleopatra also set about testing various poisons on her slaves, to determine which caused the least painful death. When the emperor and his legions arrived in Egypt, and all hope was gone, Antonius fell on his sword. But Cleopatra…”

  “Yes, Grandfather? What happened to Cleopatra?” The boy studied his grandfather’s face. His eyes grew wide. “Were you there, Grandfather? Were you there in Alexandria when…?”

  “Yes, I was there. Octavius-the emperor-insisted that I accompany him. He was determined to take Cleopatra alive. He wanted to bring her back to Roma and parade her in his triumph. But the queen had other plans.”

  How much should he tell the boy? Certainly not all of the story. He had never told that to anyone…

  Antonius was dead. Cleopatra’s army had vanished, like smoke on the wind. Occupied by Octavius’s forces, the city of Alexandria held its breath. The queen remained in the royal palace, holed up with two handmaidens in a sealed chamber that could be entered only by climbing a rope through a trapdoor from below. She could not flee, but nor could she be taken by force.