Wolves of Rome

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  At the tenth hour, Taurus called the two princes to him and a murmur of admiration passed along the rows of spectators as they watched the two handsome young men advancing on their magnificent stallions. Their muscles were gleaming, their hair flaming in the sun.

  They vaulted to the ground with agile, elegant leaps. Taurus took them by the arms and pulled them close. ‘Don’t turn around,’ he said. ‘The emperor’s on his way here.’

  Both boys started.

  ‘What does that mean, Centurion?’ asked Flavus.

  ‘Nothing in itself. He’s heard about these exercises and he wanted to see them for himself. For the two of you it means a great deal. Show him what you can do.’

  ‘And what must we do?’ asked Arminius.

  ‘I have a test in store for you. The toughest. If you feel ready?’

  They stared into his eyes. ‘We’re afraid of nothing and no one,’ replied Flavus.

  ‘You’ll need all your energy and all your courage. You will lead your united squads. You, Arminius, on the right and you, Flavus, on the left. The colour of your horses will make you visible to one another. Neither of you has ever shed blood. That will happen today. It’s inevitable, because you’ll be facing men who’ve known nothing but combat their whole lives and who have survived many a bloody conflict. Their bodies are full of scars, their spirits torn . . . they don’t know what a heart is. A dog from hell sank his fangs into it when they were born. They are, and will be, until death . . . gladiators.

  ‘They too will be mounted on horseback. You two can choose your weapons. If you should fall, get to your feet immediately. Back each other up.’ He stopped for a moment to whisper something in the boys’ ears, then continued in a normal tone of voice: ‘If an adversary falls, kill him immediately or he will kill you. Good luck.’

  Flavus chose the arms that felt best to him and then helped Arminius to put on his battle armour, saying something to his brother under his breath. They shook both hands and Flavus lined up on the left wing with three lines of horsemen behind him, seven across. When he turned right to memorize his brother’s position in the formation he found alongside him the huge Hermundur who had travelled with them from Germania to Italy and who had brought them that cryptic message. He smiled, showing all his teeth under a blond moustache.

  ‘What are you doing here, Hermundur?’

  ‘I’m covering your side, son.’

  The horses were snorting by now and biting at their bits. Arminius assumed the strategic command and passed through the ranks, giving orders in his native language: a great advantage in that situation. The words were referred to Flavus by one of Arminius’s horsemen, who approached him, repeated a few terse phrases and returned to his place in line, while Flavus passed the word on to his own men until everyone in the formation had been advised.

  The emperor had arrived. He was dressed in white and escorted by eight praetorians in full dress uniform, but without lictors, since he was making an unofficial appearance. When the two squads were ready, the lanista proclaimed that one trumpet call would signal the start of combat and another would signal the end. The trumpet blared and the two fronts, the Germanic Auxilia and the gladiators, set off at a gallop towards each other, weapons leading. The last two rows of auxiliary horsemen were advancing at a slightly slower pace, and remained a bit detached from those in front. The field had been sprinkled with enough water to prevent dust from being stirred up.

  When the two opposing fronts found themselves at a distance of fifty paces, Arminius let out a battle cry and his men shouted after him: a syncopated uproar that cut through the air until the moment of collision. Many warriors fell, on both sides, and furious fighting ensued on the ground; Centurion Taurus suspected that many of the gladiators had slipped off their horses so they could exploit their superiority in the type of battle they were accustomed to.

  Before the two front lines had crashed into one another, the last two rows of Germanic auxiliaries – one on Flavus’s side and one on Arminius’s – had set off at a wild gallop towards the flanks of the gladiator formation, circumventing and encircling them, then re-forming frontally to engage their adversaries from behind. The gladiators tried to fight back and found themselves crushed by the onslaught of the Auxilia charge. But they had a surprise of their own in store. From the wings emerged a score of slingers who thinned out the rows of attackers with a hail of shots which the Germanics were able to ward off only in part with their shields. Some were struck right in the forehead and tumbled to the ground, others at knee height, and others still in the shoulder, leg or groin.

  There was no room for charging and even just manoeuvring the horses in the restricted space of the fray was nearly impossible. In the end, what was meant to be a battle on horseback had turned into a myriad of duels on foot, in which the experience of the gladiators was becoming more of a threat to the Germanics. At that point Arminius shouted to his brother, who managed to make his way through the skirmish on his black steed. Flavus dismounted and stood alongside his brother. The two of them advanced with their remaining forces until they got close to the chief of the gladiators, recognizable by his magnificently embossed bronze helmet with its scarlet crest. He spotted them and instantly realized what they were attempting. The clash became even more violent because even the greater experience of the gladiators could not match the inexhaustible vigour of their much younger adversaries. The number of wounded was increasing by the moment. To such an extent that the lanista became worried and raised his eyes towards the podium. The emperor saw this but he turned to his adopted grandson Germanicus, wearing his laticlave toga, as if to turn the decision over to him. Germanicus nodded and the lanista had the trumpet sounded. All weapons were dropped. Friends looked around for fellow friends, each man checked the one beside him. Brother sought out brother – in the thick of fighting, anyone could have disappeared. Arminius and Flavus found each other still side by side, each still holding his horse’s halter.

  It was up to the commander of the Eighteenth, Varinius, to proclaim the verdict and name the winners. He sent a couple of his men to tally the wounded and count the dead, if there were any, in order to have sufficient evidence to judge the two opposing sides. In the end, he felt it was advisable to call the match a draw, although he chose to point out the courage and valour of the two young Germanic commanders: Arminius and Flavus.

  Shortly thereafter one of the praetorians approached Taurus. ‘Caesar wants to meet those two young men before dinner in his house. At dusk. Get them cleaned up, they’re not fit to be seen like that . . . Oh, I was forgetting, Caesar said to give you his compliments. You’ve transformed those barbarians into strong, disciplined soldiers.’

  Taurus asked the praetorian to give Caesar his regards and best wishes for his health as well.

  Once back at the house on the Aventine, Arminius and Flavus bathed and changed, putting on clean tunics, cloaks and boots. They reported to Taurus in his quarters. They were greeted by his two freedmen, Privatus and Thiaminus, carrying basins and linen towels for them to wash and dry their hands. They were the centurion’s faithful assistants, ready at his slightest nod. Thiaminus was an excellent masseur and he took care of his master whenever he returned from a tough day of military duties. Privatus was his secretary. He kept his correspondence, wrote his notes for him and his private diary, which he read to Taurus every night after dinner, before he retired. Taurus had bought Privatus in Africa from a landowner whose shipload of wheat had sunk at sea and who needed to make up for his losses. Thiaminus, on the other hand, he’d obtained from a soldier in the East who’d simply wanted to get rid of him. He had emancipated them both after three years of service, but neither had wanted to leave his house.

  Arminius and Flavus were received with a glass of wine and a couple of boiled eggs with salt.

  ‘Eat something. You’ll be received by Caesar later today, but certainly not for dinner.’

  The two brothers looked each other in the eye, incredulous at w
hat they’d heard.

  ‘Caesar?’ they repeated, one after another.

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ replied the centurion. ‘It’s an enormous privilege that very few people have enjoyed. Even more so because you are foreigners, although you are the sons of an allied chief. He has complimented me on how you’ve been educated and trained.’

  You could see that he was bursting with pride for the commendation he’d received. He gave his pupils precise instructions on how to behave and converse with their host. ‘Don’t sit down unless he asks you to do so: you’ll be able to tell if there are chairs in the room turned towards his table. Otherwise, stand facing him with your backs straight and heads up but without ever looking him in the eye. If he asks you questions, give brief, careful answers. One word less is always better than one more. Think before you open your mouths. He has no time for prattle or boasting, and he can’t stand flattery. Avoid accompanying your words with gestures – that’s what slaves do. Keep your voices low. He can hear well and he doesn’t like people to be loud. If he offers you something to eat, give a bow with your heads to thank him but don’t make any other move. Accept only if he insists by saying something like, “It’s good, have a taste,” or “I’ve grown them myself in my own garden.” I know your father brought you up well and I’m sure you will conduct yourselves properly.’

  Flavus regarded him with admiration; Taurus was the kind of man who always knew what to do and how to do it in any situation. ‘Do you know all this because you’ve heard it said, or because you’ve spent time with him yourself?’ he asked.

  Taurus seemed to think that over for a few moments.

  ‘I was with him at the time of the civil wars,’ he replied. ‘I was much younger than I am now; he was only a boy. No one could have imagined what he would have done. Over the years, we have met up now and then and he’s always assigned me tasks of a certain importance.’

  The sun was beginning to set and its oblique rays entered from the window that opened to the west, lighting up the objects that Taurus had gathered during his life. His armour, obviously. The suit he wore only for the most important occasions. There were many trophies of war: weapons, precious fabrics, jars of glass and of glazed ceramic, ethnic art pieces, images of foreign gods, rolls of papyrus, decorations, and coins from the eastern kingdoms with the effigy of Alexander the Great. Relics of past glory. None of those kingdoms even existed any more. Now the whole world obeyed Rome and Rome obeyed a single man. Two boys, who used to play in the forest of the Cherusci, at the limits of the Empire, were about to meet him.

  ‘You are warriors, and so you’ll go on horseback to his house on the Palatine, but unarmed. I’ll send Privatus with you; he knows the way well.’

  They took their leave and the boys returned to their own quarters to wait for the guide who would take them to their destination.

  WHEN THEY ARRIVED, they could tell they had been expected. A servant took the horses by their reins and led them to the stables. Privatus followed them, chatting as they went along, and then went to sit on a bench in the shade of a fig tree to wait. The door-keeper accompanied the boys to the base of a stone staircase that led to a kind of tower. They saw nothing of what they’d imagined: no alabaster-floored rooms, no brightly coloured mosaics, no carpets or statues. Nothing like that at all. They were approaching an austere setting of rather small dimensions.

  When they were just about ten steps away from the terrace in front of the entrance, the door-keeper turned to them and said, ‘When he receives guests up here it means that he considers it an important meeting and that he doesn’t want to be disturbed unless something very urgent comes up. I have to ask myself who you are to receive such a treatment. I’ve never seen you before. But I’ve seen kings and queens kept waiting for months before he received them . . .’

  As the man was muttering to himself, Arminius spoke to Flavus using their native tongue. ‘Hear that? Do you really think he summoned us here because we fought well? He could have had someone write a note and had it delivered by a servant.’

  ‘No, you’re right, of course,’ replied Flavus. ‘But why, then?’

  ‘There’s something that no one knows but us. There’s no other explanation.’

  ‘So you’re saying that . . . he knows about the Hermundur’s message?’

  ‘He clearly does.’

  ‘Wait, there’s something else . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The Hermundur was next to me during the battle. And at the end of it, he didn’t have a single scratch.’

  They’d arrived at the last step and their hearts were racing, certainly not because of the climb.

  The servant opened the door. Flavus glanced downwards and saw Privatus watching them.

  It was the look of someone who knew, but who wanted to know a lot more.

  The servant motioned for the two young men to enter. There was a moment of hesitation, then Arminius walked in first and Flavus followed. They found themselves in the study of Gaius Julius Caesar Octavian Augustus, consul, pontifex maximus, father of the State, the most powerful man in the world.

  He didn’t look much like the statues that they were used to seeing in public. He was of medium height, slim, with long, thin fingers. He was seated on the folding chair that magistrates used, behind his working desk. Two cases held papyrus scrolls, one made of light-coloured wood and the other of ebony, the first evidently for blank rolls and the second for written ones. Next to the ebony case was a small terracotta statue that represented a god – Apollo, perhaps, thought Arminius – and within reach of his right hand was a Greek red-figure cup heaped with peeled figs and a cup of water with a folded linen napkin for drying one’s hands.

  On a small chair near the table were several wax tablets with a couple of styluses; Caesar must have been interrupted as he was dictating a letter that a scribe would have made a fair copy of using a virgin sheet of papyrus. A chest standing against the right hand wall probably held important documents; a key hanging from Caesar’s belt must have served to keep it locked.

  They greeted their host with a slight bow.

  ‘Please, sit,’ said the emperor. ‘You are welcome in this house.’ His voice was clear, resonant and strong. A voice used to giving orders. Arminius and Flavus both nodded their thanks and sat down.

  The emperor took the cup full of figs and extended it towards them. ‘Fruit?’

  ‘Caesar, we’re not—’ began Arminius, but the emperor insisted.

  ‘They’re good. Just picked. I grow them in my own garden.’

  Taurus had been clear. If he were to say that, they were to accept. First Arminius and then Flavus took a fig and brought them to their mouths; they were delicious. The emperor himself offered them the bowl of water and the napkin for cleaning their fingers. Then he began to speak: ‘I know who you are and where you come from. I know how you got to Rome, where you are living; in fact, I chose your residence and your teachers myself. Taurus in particular. He is an extraordinary man, strong and sincere and a formidable combatant. Today, seeing you fight, I realized that I’d made the right decision in entrusting your training to him. You fought magnificently . . . bravely, but with intelligence. And this will be held in consideration when the time comes to give you an assignment.’

  The two boys remained silent, as Taurus had advised them.

  ‘But the reason for this meeting,’ continued Caesar Augustus, enunciating the words well to make sure they were understood, ‘is another. You were seen, and listened to, as you were conducting a late-night examination of the Ara Pacis. A visit that can be explained, perhaps, with another one: I know that a Hermunduri warrior brought you a message that induced you to return to that place, perhaps to find an explanation for what you were told or asked to do. I’m asking you now: did you find the explanation you were looking for? And what was it?’

  Arminius spoke first: ‘Caesar, we will tell you all we know. What you say is true. We studied the Altar of Peace thoroughly with our tu
tor Diodorus. But we’d already seen it, for the first time and by chance, with Centurion Marcus Caelius. And we returned there after the Hermundur came to us with that message.

  ‘The message was: “Three heads between two bodies. She is at the centre of everything, of life and of death.” It reminded me of an image on that altar that struck me the first time I saw it. We’ve thought about this for a long time and I think we’ve figured it out.’

  The supreme ruler of the State was listening intently but without letting out a whisper of emotion; not a muscle of his face moved and his expression was like that of a statue. The folds of laticlave toga hanging behind him seemed somehow to be a part of his pale figure. You could see that his legs were crossed under his tunic and his slender left hand lay lightly on the solid walnut table, displaying the pale glow of a gold ring with his family seal. Flavus, whose sight had been honed by the gloom of the Germanic forests, could see on it the figure of a warrior holding a child by the hand and bearing an old man on his back.

  ‘Continue,’ said the emperor in a tone of voice raised barely above silence.

  It was Flavus who did so. ‘Diodorus, our tutor of letters and art, has a papyrus scroll that represents the figures carved onto the walls of the marble altar; he taught us to recognize each one. He showed us Germanicus – who is today a young and valiant combatant – as a child, then Agrippa, then Commander Drusus in his military cape and then you, Caesar. And there she was too, one of three heads between two bodies. The middle one, at the centre of everything, of life and of death . . . Your daughter, Caesar.’

  11

  WHEN ARMINIUS AND FLAVUS got back it was almost dark. Privatus rode ahead of them on muleback. Along the way, they’d spoken ceaselessly in their native language, although they knew that if Privatus recognized the sounds of a foreign tongue and reported that to Taurus, they would be in great trouble. The prohibition against the young princes speaking any language but Latin was strictly enforced.