While the invaders were still two days south of Roma, envoys had ridden out from the city to meet with Gnaeus. They reminded him of his Roman lineage. They pleaded with him to turn back his army. Gnaeus treated them with scorn, but allowed them to return to Roma with their heads. “The fact that the Romans beg for peace shows they’re certain of defeat,” he said to Titus.
The next day, two more envoys arrived. The dust from their chariot rose high in the still air and could be seen for a long time before they drew near enough to be recognized. Titus drew a sharp breath when he saw the haggard faces of Appius Claudius and Postumius Cominius.
Gnaeus ordered his men to stay back while he rode forward to meet the two senators. Titus accompanied him. While Gnaeus acknowledged the two men’s greeting, Titus stayed to one side, unwilling to look his father-in-law in the eye.
Cominius first assured Gnaeus that his wife and mother were well; despite Gnaeus’s betrayal, no one had taken vengeance on his family, and now no one would dare to do so. “My daughter Claudia and young Titus Potitius are also well,” added Claudius, though Titus still averted his eyes. Speaking for the consuls and the Senate, the two men acknowledged the great wrong that had been done to Gnaeus. They promised the restoration of his citizenship and his place in the Senate, and full immunity from prosecution by the tribunes.
Gnaeus listened respectfully to his two old mentors, then asked, “And what of the tribunes of the plebs, and the aediles? Will they be abolished? Will the Temple of Ceres be pulled to the ground?”
Cominius and Claudius lowered their eyes. Their silence provided the answer.
Gnaeus laughed. “You think to turn back Coriolanus with a few words, yet with all the power of the Senate you cannot even bend the plebs to your will! No empty promises will stop me now. If you truly love Roma, go back and advise your colleagues to surrender the city. I have no wish to spill more blood than is necessary, and my men’s craving for plunder will be easier to control if they take the city without a fight. Whether you resist me or not, by this time tomorrow Roma will belong to me.”
“A bitter homecoming!” said Cominius.
“But a homecoming, nonetheless.”
“And if you take the city—Jupiter forbid!—what will you do then?” asked Claudius.
Gnaeus drew a deep breath. “If they haven’t already killed themselves, certain of my old enemies will receive the retribution they deserve. I think you know who heads the list.”
“The tribune Spurius Icilius,” said Cominius.
“What a pleasure it will be to cast him from the Tarpeian Rock!”
“What of the Senate?” said Claudius.
“Perhaps I will allow it to remain in existence, restored to the role it played under the kings, to give advice and assistance to the royal power. Its less useful members will be purged and replaced by new members of Volscian blood.”
Cominius stifled a cry of despair. Claudius cast a piercing gaze at Titus. “What do you have to say about this, son-in-law?”
Titus stared back, his gaze steady. “When I was a boy, my grandfather taught me the list of kings: Romulus, Numa Pompilius, Tullus Hostilius, Ancus Marcius, Tarquinius the Elder, Servius Tullius. Tarquinius the Proud was to be the last, the very last, cast out and replaced forever by something called a republic. A mockery! A mistake! An experiment that failed! Today is the republic’s final day. Tomorrow, men will shout in the Forum, ‘All hail King Coriolanus!’”
He drew his sword and raised his arm to Gnaeus. His horse rose on its hind legs. “All hail King Coriolanus!” he cried.
The coterie of loyal warriors who had left Roma with Gnaeus, who always rode at the head of the army, heard Titus’s cry and took it up. “All hail King Coriolanus!”
The cry spread through the ranks of the vast army: “All hail King Coriolanus!” Men raised their swords in salute, then beat them upon their shields, creating a frightful din as they shouted, over and over, “All hail King Coriolanus!”
Claudius seemed to wither. Cominius turned the chariot about. A cloud of dust rose behind them as they hurried back to Roma.
At that spot, a few miles south of the city, the army of Coriolanus made camp.
The next morning the army rose at dawn and made ready to march to battle.
As always, Coriolanus rode at the head of the army, with Titus beside him and his mounted Roman warriors immediately behind him. With each step, they drew closer to Roma.
They approached the crest of a low hill. Once they reached it, the hills of Roma would be visible in the distance.
Above the sound of hooves and the rustle created by a vast army on the march, Titus heard another sound, low at first and then louder. It came from beyond the crest of the hill. Something was on the other side, not yet visible, something that made a horrible, wrenching, frightening sound, a sound such as a man might hear on his descent to the realms of Pluto, a sound of utter hopelessness and despair.
Gnaeus heard it, too. He frowned and turned one ear forward. “What is that?” he whispered.
“I don’t know,” said Titus, “but it raises hackles on the back of my neck.” A superstitious fear swept over him. What if the gods loved Roma more than they loved Coriolanus? What if, by betraying Roma, Titus and Gnaeus had sinned against the gods? What sort of unearthly creature of doom might the gods have conjured to meet them on the road to Roma? Or had a vast pit opened in the earth, into which they would all be cast down, never to return? That was what the noise sounded like—the shrieking and moaning of a vast chorus of the dead.
Once they reached the crest of the hill, they would know.
Gripping the reins of his horse, Gnaeus’s knuckles turned white. Titus swallowed hard. He glanced behind him. Even the battle-hardened warriors in the front ranks had blanched, hearing that unnerving noise.
They came to the crest.
Before them, like a gigantic black snake upon the straight road, stretching all the way back to the city gate in the far distance, was a procession of women dressed in mourning. It appeared that all the women in Roma had come forth from the city
The unearthly sound was the collective noise of their lamentation. Some softly wept. Some were wrenched by sobs. Some swayed and moaned. A few shrieked with laughter, like madwomen. Some walked stiffly, as if in a dream, while others thrashed about in a kind of frenzy and swept the road underfoot with their unbound hair.
In contrast to the others, the women at the very front of the procession strode forward with great dignity. They were silent and held their heads high. Among them, by their headbands of twined red and white wool and their cropped hair, Titus recognized the Vestal virgins. Five of them were present, one having been left behind, as always, to tend to the sacred hearth in the Temple of Vesta; at a time of such crisis, it was more vital than ever than the flame should not be extinguished. Ahead of the Vestals were three women who, despite their proud, upright bearing, were dressed in dark, tattered rags, like beggars in mourning. They even went barefoot, but clearly were not accustomed to doing so, for their feet were bleeding. Despite the agony they must have felt, they never stumbled or missed a step.
As he had when the senators approached the previous day, Gnaeus signaled the army to halt while he rode forward with Titus beside him.
“Shame on the Senate!” said Titus. “The city’s envoys failed to stop you, so now they stoop to sending women!”
When Gnaeus made no answer, Titus glanced at him. Instead of a sardonic expression to match his own, the look on his friend’s face was troubled and his eyes glistened. Titus’s heart sank. He felt a premonition of what was to come.
At a signal from the Vestals, the women behind them shambled to a stop. The three woman in rags who led the procession continued to stride forward, and stopped only when the two horsemen were almost upon them. In the center, Titus recognized Veturia, Gnaeus’s mother. She looked much older than when he had last seen her. Though she stood rigidly upright, it appeared that she required some assistance to
do so from the two women flanking her. To her right was Gnaeus’s wife, Volumnia. When Titus saw the third woman, he let out a gasp. He had not seen Claudia since the day he left Roma. Her face was worn with care. She lowered her eyes and would not look at him.
Veturia, on the other hand, fixed her gaze on her son. “Gnaeus!” she cried out.
“Mother!” he whispered.
“Would you loom above your mother, like a master looking down on a slave?”
Gnaeus at once dismounted. Titus did likewise. But when Gnaeus stepped forward, Titus hung back. He clutched the reins, more to support himself than to restrain the horses. He suddenly felt light-headed. It was like the feeling he had experienced on the Tarpeian Rock when he was struck a blow on the head. Everything between that moment and this seemed a dream, and he feared he was about to be rudely awakened. His heart pounded in his chest.
When Gnaeus reached his mother, he raised his arms, but she refused his embrace. He stepped back. “Why do you not embrace me, mother? Why do you stand so stiffly?”
“If I were to lift my elbows free from the support that Volumnia and Claudia give me, I would fall to the ground.”
“I would catch you.”
“Liar!”
“Mother!”
She glared at him. “I always thought, if ever I reached an age when I could not stand upright on my own, that the strong arm of my son would be there for me to lean on. But when I came to need your arm, Gnaeus, it was not there for me. I had to lean on others—to my shame! May the gods cripple me completely if ever I should lean on your arm!”
“Harsh words, Mother!”
“Not half as harsh as the fate you’ve thrust upon me.”
“What I’ve done, I was forced to do. For the sake of my dignity—”
“You cast away your dignity the day you took up arms against Roma. That day, you put a knife against your mother’s breast. Today, you seem determined to thrust that knife into her heart.”
“No, Mother. What I’ve done, I did for you. You always taught me—”
“I never taught my son to be a traitor! If I hear you say such a thing, I’ll pull the sword from your scabbard and fall upon it, rather than draw another breath!”
“Mother, Mother—”
Veturia suddenly pulled her arm from her daughter-in-law’s grasp. With all her strength, she slapped Gnaeus across the face. The crack of the blow was startlingly loud. The horses whinnied and wrenched sharply at their reins, burning Titus’s palms.
Veturia began to fall forward, but the women caught her. Gnaeus was stunned. After a long moment, he signaled for Titus to come to him. He whispered in his ear. “Tell the men I’ve ordered a halt. Set up my tent beside the road. Too many eyes are upon us. I must meet with my mother in private.”
What was said in that tent? What promises or threats were made, what memories or dreams rekindled? None would ever know but Coriolanus and his mother.
Veturia was the first to emerge from the tent. Volumnia and Claudia—who still had never met Titus’s eyes—quickly stepped forward to assist her. Without a word, the three returned to where the Vestals waited. Veturia spoke to the virgins in a low voice, and they in turn made gestures to the women behind them to turn around and return to the city. As the vast procession retreated, the multitude of women neither wept nor were jubilant, but maintained an eerie silence.
Gnaeus remained alone in the tent for a very long time. When he finally emerged, he wore upon his face a look of determination such as Titus had never seen before.
Gnaeus mounted his steed, then summoned his Roman vanguard. The mounted warriors assembled before him. Titus was among them, dreading what he was about to hear.
“There will be no attack on Roma,” said Gnaeus.
The men were dumbfounded.
“When we left Roma, we set out to meet our destiny. Destiny has led us very nearly in a circle. We have come this close to Roma—but we will come no closer. Over the mountains, across the seas, there is a vast world beyond the lands of the Romans and the Volsci. Out there, perhaps, is where our destiny now lies.”
The men looked at one another anxiously, but such was their degree of discipline that not one of them spoke a word of protest.
“We shall now ride back through the Volscian ranks. When we reach the rear of the army, we shall simply keep riding.”
“And the Volsci?” said Titus.
“If they wish to attack Roma, let them.”
“They’ll never do it! You’re their talisman. Only Coriolanus can lead them to victory.”
“Then I suppose they’ll turn back, as well.” Gnaeus snapped his reins and rode forward. The Roman vanguard followed. Titus caught up and rode beside Gnaeus. The Volscian foot soldiers stepped back to make way, gazing up at them in wonder and confusion.
“It’s that woman’s doing!” shouted one of them. “She’s turned her son against us!”
“Coriolanus is deserting us!”
“Impossible!”
“Look for yourself!”
“But why did he lead us here?”
“It’s a trap! Coriolanus lured us to this place, and now the Romans must have a terrible trick in store!”
Consternation spread through the ranks. It seemed to Titus that they rode above a sea of angry faces. The roar of that sea grew louder and louder. Its currents surged this way and that with ever greater violence.
“Turn back, Coriolanus!” cried the Volsci. “Turn back! Lead us! Or else—”
A stone struck Titus’s helmet. The noise reverberated though his skull. Again, he was reminded of the day the cudgel had struck him on the Tarpeian Rock, and Gnaeus had saved his life. More and more, the world around him seemed strange and dreamlike, muted and distant.
More stones pelted his armor. Titus hardly felt them. The Volsci began with stones, but soon enough they drew their swords. The Romans on horseback did likewise. To Titus’s ears, the clash of iron was oddly muffled. A blur of motion followed. It was with some surprise that he saw blood upon his own sword, then felt a burning pain in his side. The world spun about and turned upside down. Titus vaguely knew that he must be tumbling from his horse, but never felt himself hit the ground.
In the days that followed, the Senate of Roma decreed that the day of the city’s salvation from Coriolanus should be a day of thanksgiving, and that special honors should be given to the courageous women of Roma, who had achieved what neither force of arms nor diplomacy could have achieved.
Those decisions were easy. Harder decisions followed.
Considerable acrimony attended the debate regarding the Ara Maxima. Since the dawn of time, the Altar of Hercules had been kept by the families of the Pinarii and the Potitii, the hereditary priests who jointly celebrated the Feast of Hercules. In light of the dishonor brought upon his family by Titus Potitius, should that family be allowed to continue as keepers of the altar, or should they be stripped of their role, and should it be given to another family, or to priests appointed by the state?
Appius Claudius was among those who argued that the state had no right to interfere in a religious arrangement that predated the state itself. Hercules himself had chosen the two families to keep his shrine. No act of the state could undo what a god had willed in a time before memory. This was his public stance. Privately, Claudius told his colleagues that the shame brought upon him by his son-in-law was a torment hardly to be borne; he disowned his daughter and grandchild, and declared that so long as he or any descendent bearing his name held any influence in the state, no man with the name Potitius would ever be elected to high office.
Claudius’s argument carried the Senate. The keeping of the Ara Maxima would remain in family hands, unchanged. But the newly elected consul, Publius Pinarius, protested that his family would no longer carry out its traditional duties alongside the disgraced Potitii. “After too many generations to count, we relinquish our place in the keeping of the altar. Let the Potitii do it all by themselves!”
There
was much talk among the elite of Roma regarding these two ancient patrician families, and the curious twists of fate which had brought Publius Pinarius to the consulship, the pinnacle of his family’s fortunes, even as the Potitii reached their nadir with the disgrace of Titus Potitius.
Years later, a ragged drifter happened to find himself a few miles south of Roma. He was a man with no city or tribe, doomed to perpetually wander, surviving by his wits, which were often befuddled, and dependent on the mercy of strangers; a broken man, without hopes or dreams. He had not passed this way in many years.
He only vaguely realized where he was, but he knew that the small temple beside the road had not been there before. It was of simple design, but handsomely executed and beautifully decorated. A young shepherd was resting on the steps.
“Tell me, boy,” said the vagrant, “what is this temple? To what god is it dedicated?”
The boy looked at the drifter warily at first, then saw that the grizzled stranger was harmless. “Not a god, but a goddess—Fortuna, the first daughter of Jupiter. She decides the ups and downs of life.”
“I seem to recall that there are many temples to Fortuna in Roma,” remarked the drifter, his voice dreamy.
“Yes, but this one is different. They call it the Temple of Fortuna Muliebris, Fortuna of the Women.”
“Why is that?”
“Because the women of Roma paid to build it, if you can believe that. This is the very spot, you see, where the villain Coriolanus was turned back.”
“Is it?” said the drifter, with a quaver in his voice.
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