SPQR V: Saturnalia

by John Maddox Roberts

  An especially bright flash blinded us both for a second, and I sprang back to get beyond his reach. The rain was beginning to fall in earnest now, and by the light of the next flash I stooped to grab my cloak with my left hand. Fortunately, my caestus left my fingers free enough for the maneuver. Bestia came in as I was bent over and I sprang back awkwardly to get away from his slashing blade, but he punched with his shield and caught me a glancing blow on the side of my head.

  I dropped to the pavement and kicked out, sweeping his feet from under him. He fell with a clatter and I scrambled to my feet, immediately lunging at him as he surged to his knees and jerked his shield up desperately. I went in over it, trying to get his neck above the mail shirt; but his shield pushed the point aside at the last instant and it caught his upper arm instead, just below the short, iron sleeve.

  Meanwhile, his point was coming for my belly again and I swept the blade aside with my cloak, but it bit through the cloth and cut into the back of my forearm. I jumped back, cursing, as he scrambled up and another lightning bolt temporarily blinded us again. I used the reprieve to wiggle the fingers of my left hand and assure myself that the cut hadn’t been a crippling one. Bestia was fast and strong and highly trained and well armed, and I was in deep, deep trouble.

  At the next flash I swirled my cloak at his face to blind him, but he slashed out and his sword point ripped the cloak for almost its entire length. When I dodged his next cut, my soles slipped slightly on the wet pavement. He came for me again and I threw the shredded cloth into his face and ran a few steps until I was off the pavement and standing firmly on rough stone.

  He was right after me and I tried to remember those clever moves I had been taught in the ludus years before. Shield high again, he thrust for my chest. Lacking a shield, it is possible to use the sword defensively, although it is extremely dangerous and only to be employed thus in desperation. I was desperate. Our blades rang together as I knocked his to my left. Immediately I snapped it against his shield, driving it to my right and creating an opening. I drove into it with both hands. My sword caught in his mail shirt and would not penetrate, but my caestus cracked against the cheek plate of his helmet and rocked him. He fell back and I was right on top of him. Too late I saw the leg coming up. The decorated bronze of his greave smashed into my face, and I felt the bone in my long, Metellan nose give way with an audible crunch.

  I staggered back, lights brighter than the lightning sparkling behind my eyelids. Blood gushed onto the breast of my tunic and I fell, feeling the rugged stone of the Capitol against my back. As he got to his feet Bestia was blinded by another bolt, and I shook my head, trying to clear my vision. When I could see, he was standing over me and his sword was behind his right shoulder. The gladius is designed for stabbing but it cuts exceedingly well and now it was coming down in a skull-splitting stroke.

  From blind instinct I threw up my left hand. Better to lose an arm than a head. I felt a shock all the way to my shoulder when the blade connected. It struck the knuckle bar of my caestus. The sharp steel of the edge bit into the softer bronze and held there for an instant.

  In that instant my sword snaked in below his shield and above the greaves. Then I jerked it back in a draw-cut against the inside of his left thigh. I felt the keen edge scrape bone; and when I pulled it free, it was followed by a great gush of blood from the severed artery. It splashed my face and arms and chest before I could scramble back, getting to my feet while Bestia stood there like a sacrificial ox stunned by the hammer.

  Sword and shield fell from his nerveless hands and for the first time I realized that we now stood atop the Tarpeian Rock, only inches from its edge. Nothing can save a man when that artery is cut, and I didn’t want Bestia to die that way. I grabbed his arm and turned him to face the edge of the cliff as a lightning flash lit up the Forum far below.

  “No honorable death for you, Bestia!” I informed him. “This is how we execute traitors!” I placed a boot against his buttocks and pushed. He had enough strength left to scream as he fell.

  Wearily, I turned and walked off the rock of execution. I crossed the rain-swept pavement and stopped at the foot of the stair before the temple and I held my arms wide.

  “Jupiter, Bringer of Rain!” I shouted. “Jupiter, Best and Greatest, hear me! Have I pleased you? I am polluted with blood and cannot enter your temple, but I stand here awaiting your judgment!”

  I waited for a long time, watching the god within the temple, but there was no more lightning, no more thunder. The rain began to fall in earnest. I resheathed my sword and tucked my caestus beneath my belt once more.

  Slowly I descended the winding road down the face of the Capitoline. Long before I reached the dark Forum, Jupiter’s good rain had washed all the blood from me.

  These things happened in the year 695 of the city of Rome, the consulship of Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus and Caius Julius Caesar.

  GLOSSARY

  (Definitions apply to the year 695 of the Republic.)

  Acta Diurna Literally, “daily acts.” An account of the doings of the Senate and other news, painted on white boards and posted in the Forum. It was probably instituted by Julius Caesar during his aedileship and became immensely popular, the newspaper of its day.

  Arms Like everything else in Roman society, weapons were strictly regulated by class. The straight, double-edged sword and dagger of the legions were classed as “honorable.”

  The Gladius was a short, broad, double-edged sword borne by Roman soldiers. It was designed primarily for stabbing.

  The Caestus was a boxing glove, made of leather straps and reinforced by bands, plates, or spikes of bronze. The curved, single-edged sword or knife called a sica was “infamous.” Sicas were used in the arena by Thracian gladiators and were carried by street thugs. One ancient writer says that its curved shape made it convenient to carry sheathed beneath the armpit, showing that gangsters and shoulder-holsters go back a long way.

  Carrying of arms within the pomerium (the ancient city boundary marked out by Romulus) was forbidden, but the law was ignored in troubled times. Slaves were forbidden to carry weapons within the city, but those used as bodyguards could carry staves or clubs. When street fighting or assassination were common, even senators went heavily armed and even Cicero wore armor beneath his toga from time to time.

  Shields were not common in the city except as gladiatorial equipment. The large shield (scutum) of the legions was unwieldy in Rome’s narrow streets but bodyguards might carry the small shield (parma) of the light-armed auxiliary troops. These came in handy when the opposition took to throwing rocks and roof tiles.

  Balnea Roman bathhouses were public and were favored meeting places for all classes. Customs differed with time and locale. In some places there were separate bathhouses for men and women. Pompeii had a bathhouse with a dividing wall between men’s and women’s sides. At some times women used the baths in the mornings, men in the afternoon. At others, mixed bathing was permitted. The balnea of the republican era were far more modest than the tremendous structures of the later empire, but some imposing facilities were built during the last years of the Republic.

  Basilica A meeting place of merchants and for the administration of justice.

  Campus Martius A field outside the old city wall, formerly the assembly area and drill field for the army, named after its altar to Mars. It was where the popular assemblies met during the days of the Republic.

  Circus The Roman racecourse and the stadium that enclosed it. The original, and always the largest, was the Circus Maximus. A later, smaller circus, the Circus Flaminius, lay outside the walls on the Campus Martius.

  Curia The meetinghouse of the Senate, located in the Forum, also applied to a meeting place in general. Hence Curia Hostilia, Curia Pompey, and Curia Julia. By tradition they were prominently located with position to the sky to observe omens.

  Eleusinian Mysteries The most famous mystery cult of the ancient world. Their exact form is unknown because init
iates were forbidden to discuss them or write about them. The initiation ceremony took several days and seems to have involved fasting, a descent into the underworld, and culminated in some sort of demonstration of life after death. Cicero, a rational and sceptical man, was an initiate and called his experience one of the most profound of his life, so it must have been an impressive ritual.

  Eques (pl. equites) Formerly, citizens wealthy enough to supply their own horses and fight in the cavalry, they came to hold their status by meeting a property qualification. They formed the moneyed upper-middle class.

  Families and Names Roman citizens usually had three names. The given name (praenomen) was individual, but there were only about eighteen of them: Marcus, Lucius, etc. Certain praenomens were used only in a single family: Appius was used only by the Claudians, Mamercus only by the Aemilians, and so forth. Only males had praenomens. Daughters were given the feminine form of the father’s name: Aemilia for Aemilius, Julia for Julius, Valeria for Valerius, etc.

  Next came the nomen. This was the name of the clan (gens). All members of a gens traced their descent from a common ancestor, whose name they bore: Julius, Furius, Licinius, Junius, Tullius, to name a few. Patrician names always ended in ius. Plebeian names often had different endings.

  Stirps A subfamily of a gens. The cognomen gave the name of the stirps, i.e., Caius Julius Caesar. Caius of the stirps Caesar of gens Julia.

  Then came the name of the family branch (cognomen). This name was frequently anatomical: Naso (nose), Ahenobarbus (bronzebeard), Sulla (splotchy), Niger (dark), Rufus (red), Caesar (curly), and many others. Some families did not use cognomens. Mark Antony was just Marcus Antonius, no cognomen.

  Other names were honorifics conferred by the Senate for outstanding service or virtue: Germanicus (conqueror of the Germans), Africanus (conqueror of the Africans), Pius (extraordinary filial piety).

  Freed slaves became citizens and took the family name of their master. Thus the vast majority of Romans named, for instance, Cornelius would not be patricians of that name, but the descendants of that family’s freed slaves. There was no stigma attached to slave ancestry.

  Adoption was frequent among noble families. An adopted son took the name of his adoptive father and added the genetive form of his former nomen. Thus when Caius Julius Caesar adopted his great-nephew Caius Octavius, the latter became Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus.

  All these names were used for formal purposes such as official documents and monuments. In practice, nearly every Roman went by a nickname, usually descriptive and rarely complimentary. Usually it was the Latin equivalent of Gimpy, Humpy, Lefty, Squint-eye, Big Ears, Baldy, or something of the sort. Romans were merciless when it came to physical peculiarities.

  Fasces A bundle of rods bound around with an ax projecting from the middle. They symbolized a Roman magistrate’s power of corporal and capital punishment and were carried by the lictors who accompanied the curule magistrates, the Flamen Dialis, and the proconsuls and propraetors who governed provinces.

  Forum An open meeting and market area. The premier forum was the Forum Romanum, located on the low ground surrounded by the Capitoline, Palatine, and Caelian hills. It was surrounded by the most important temples and public buildings. Roman citizens spent much of their day there. The courts met outdoors in the Forum when the weather was good. When it was paved and devoted solely to public business, the Forum Romanum’s market functions were transferred to the Forum Boarium, the cattle market, near the Circus Maximus. Small shops and stalls remained along the northern and southern peripheries, however.

  Freedman A manumitted slave. Formal emancipation conferred full rights of citizenship except for the right to hold office. Informal emancipation conferred freedom without voting rights. In the second or at latest third generation, a freedman’s descendants became full citizens.

  Gracchi, the In the late second century B.C. the brothers Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, although members of the nobility, championed the cause of the urban and rural poor. The Senate regarded them as dangerous radicals. Tiberius was killed by a mob and Gaius forced to commit suicide. Eventually, almost all their reforms were adopted by the Senate and they were revered by the plebeians. Their mother, Cornelia, was always referred to as Mother of the Gracchi and became the model for the Roman mother who raised her sons to serve the public good whatever the cost.

  Haruspex A member of a college of Etruscan professionals who examined the entrails of sacrificial animals for omens.

  Imperium The ancient power of kings to summon and lead armies, to order and forbid and to inflict corporal and capital punishment. Under the Republic, the imperium was divided among the consuls and praetors, but they were subject to appeal and intervention by the tribunes in their civil decisions and were answerable for their acts after leaving office. Only a dictator had unlimited imperium.

  Insula Literally, “island.” A detached house or block of flats let out to poor families.

  Janitor A slave-doorkeeper, so called for Janus, god of gateways.

  Legion They formed the fighting force of the Roman army. Through its soldiers, the Empire was able to control vast stretches of territory and people. They were known for their discipline, training, ability, and military process.

  Lictor Bodyguards, usually freedmen, who accompanied magistrates and the Flamen Dialis, bearing the fasces. They summoned assemblies, attended public sacrifices, and carried out sentences of punishment.

  Ludus (pl. ludi). The official public games, races, theatricals, etc. Also training schools for gladiators, although the gladiatorial exhibitions were not ludi.

  Mollossian Hound These were enormous dogs renowned in antiquity for their ferocity. Probably some sort of mastiff rather than true hounds, they were originally hunting dogs but were bred to fight. They were used to execute felons in the arena, hunt runaway slaves, and by the army to run down fleeing enemies. What they looked like is unknown but they were universally acknowledged to be terrifying.

  Munera Special games, not part of the official calendar, at which gladiators were exhibited. They were originally funeral games and were always dedicated to the dead.

  Mundus An opening into the underworld. There were several located around the Mediterranean. They were used for rituals involving the cthonic deities and to convey messages to the dead.

  Municipia Towns originally with varying degrees of Roman citizenship. A citizen from a municipium was qualified to hold any public office. An example is Cicero, who was not from Rome but from the municipium of Arpinum.

  Novus Homo Literally, “new man.” A man who is the first of his family to hold a curule office in Rome, giving his family the status of nobiles.

  October Horse, the Each year, in mid-October, a horse race was held in honor of Mars. The winning horse was sacrificed and beheaded, then the men of two city districts, the Via Sacra and the Subura, fought over the head, each trying to carry it back to their own district, where it would be displayed and bring the district good fortune for the next year. It was a rite so old that the Romans no longer remembered why they did it.

  Offices A Tribune was a representative of the plebeians with power to introduce laws and to veto actions of the Senate. Only plebeians could hold the office, which carried no imperium. Military tribunes were elected from among the young men of senatorial or equestrian rank to be assistants to generals. Usually it was the first step of a man’s political career.

  A Roman embarked on a political career had to rise through a regular chain of offices. The lowest elective office was quaestor: bookkeeper and paymaster for the treasury, the grain office, and the provincial governors. These men did the scut work of the Empire.

  Next were the aediles. They were more or less city managers who saw to the upkeep of public buildings, streets, sewers, markets, and the like. There were two types: the plebeian aediles, and the curule aediles. The curule aediles could sit in judgment on civil cases involving markets and currency, while the plebeian aediles could only levy fi
nes. Otherwise, their duties were the same. They also put on the public games. The government allowance for these things was laughably small, so they had to pay for them out of their own pockets. It was a horrendously expensive office but it gained the holder popularity like no other, especially if his games were spectacular. Only a popular aedile could hope for election to higher office.

  Third was praetor, an office with real power. Praetors were judges, but they could command armies and after a year in office they could go out to govern provinces, where real wealth could be won, earned, or stolen. In the late Republic there were eight praetors. Senior was the praetor urbanus, who heard civil cases, between citizens of Rome. The praetor peregrinus heard cases involving foreigners. The others presided over criminal courts. After leaving office, the ex-praetors became propraetors and went to govern propraetorian provinces with full imperium.

  The highest office was consul. Supreme office of power during the Roman Republic. Two were elected each year. For four years they fulfilled the political role of royal authority, bringing all other magistrates into the service of the people and the city of Rome. The office carried full imperium. On the expiration of his year in office, the ex-consul was usually assigned a district outside Rome to rule as proconsul. As proconsul, he had the same insignia and the same number of lictors. His power was absolute within his province. The most important commands always went to proconsuls.

  Censors were elected every five years. It was the capstone to a political career but it did not carry imperium and there was no foreign command afterward. Censors conducted the census, purged the senate of unworthy members, and doled out the public contracts.They could forbid certain religious practices or luxuries deemed bad for public morals or generally “un-Roman.” There were two censors, and each could overrule the other. They were usually elected from among the ex-consuls, and the censorship was regarded as the capstone of a political career.