Roma

by Steven Saylor

“Of course.”

  Kaeso began to cry, weeping unabashedly with joy as he had been unable to weep with sorrow for Hilarion. Indeed, in his relief for Scipio, he all but forgot his grief over Hilarion. Quintus, who had seen terrible things at Cannae and had despaired of ever returning to Roma, had tears streaming down his cheeks as well.

  Together they went to find Maximus.

  On the eve of the Roman Games, the city was gripped by yet another crisis.

  An emissary from Hannibal, a Carthaginian noble named Carthalo, arrived at the city gates. In exchange for a steep ransom, he offered to return a large number of Roman prisoners. A few representatives of the prisoners came with him to plead their cause, for the Romans had a long history of turning their backs on men who had surrendered to the enemy. In spite of the ban, a vast crowd of women gathered in the Forum to plead for the ransom of their husbands, fathers, and sons.

  Behind closed doors, the Senate debated the matter.

  The representatives of the prisoners defended their actions. They had remained on the battlefield at Cannae until the bodies lay thick around them, then had managed to break through the enemy circle and flee to the Roman camp. In the morning, rather than die on the ramparts, they had given themselves up. It was true that they had neither died bravely nor been clever enough to escape. Yet, they argued, was it not better to pay for the return of genuine Roman soldiers than to enlist yet more slaves to defend the city?

  Those who opposed the ransom argued that the captives had surrendered rather than die fighting, and had therefore proven themselves cowards who deserved to be sold into slavery by their captors. Besides, any ransom paid from the public treasury would enrich Hannibal and enable him to hire more mercenaries.

  In the end it was decided that the ransom would not be paid. The prisoners were abandoned to their fate. Most would be sent back to Carthage as slaves. Their relatives would never see them again.

  There was bitter lamentation throughout the city. Maximus dispatched his lictors to maintain order.

  In such an atmosphere, the date arrived for the Roman Games. The invocation to Jupiter on the Capitoline had an edge of desperation. The procession from the Temple of Jupiter to the Circus Maximus was a sad affair; many of the senators and magistrates who normally would have strutted before the people were conspicuously missing. The Feast of Jupiter consisted of little more than the scant daily rations allowed by the dictator for the duration of the crisis.

  The company of Plautus performed The Casket. Their rehearsal for the new play had been rushed and chaotic, and the terrible fate of Hilarion had shattered their morale. The production was a disaster. Plautus’s only consolation was that the comedy’s spectators were even more depressed than its performers. The audience scarcely noticed the tardy entrances, missed cues, and flubbed lines. No one hissed or booed; nor did anyone laugh.

  The athletic competitions were equally lackluster. Many of Roma’s best young runners and boxers had died at Cannae, and the highly trained slaves who ranked fastest among the chariot racers had been called away to military service.

  The citizens who took part in the Roman Games merely went through the motions, performing their patriotic duty to attend an annual celebration that dated back to the days of the kings. They had been rendered insensible by the massacre at Cannae, the scandal of the Vestal virgins, and the wrenching rejection of the captives’ plea for ransom.

  Roma was numb with grief and worry. The future of the city was very much in doubt.

  212 B.C.

  Four years later, the war with Carthage continued to rage, with no end in sight.

  Hannibal never marched on Roma. This curious fact was to become part of the city’s legend, another element of her mystique: At the city’s most vulnerable moment, she was spared an assault that would surely have ended in her destruction. How and why had Roma survived? Fabius Maximus was given credit for seizing the reins when chaos threatened, and Scipio was widely praised for his inspiring example to the younger generation; but most Romans, agreeing with their priests, believed that Jupiter himself had deflected the wrath of Hannibal, allowing the Romans a chance to rally.

  Hannibal and his marauding army remained in Italy. His apparent strategy—to isolate Roma and to undermine her dominance of the peninsula by winning over her allies, either by force or by persuasion—met with only limited success. The Romans steadfastly avoided another direct confrontation with Hannibal, but ruthlessly struck back at the allies who betrayed them. In regrouping their forces, marshaling their resources, and regaining their morale, the Romans proved to be remarkably resilient.

  Meanwhile, the theater of war, already waged in Spain and Sicily and on the sea, expanded to the east. Philip of Macedonia, the heir to Alexander’s homeland, allied himself with Carthage. To counter the threat from Philip, Roma dispatched ambassadors to seek new alliances in Greece and Asia.

  As the struggle between the two cities spread across the whole of the Mediterranean world, from the Pillars of Hercules to the straits of the Hellespont, the Romans adopted an increasingly outward-looking foreign policy. The more visionary men of the Senate dared to indulge in heady dreams of empire far beyond the confines of Italy. Roma was like the legendary phoenix consumed by fire only to rise from its own ashes.

  The turn of events also brought unexpected good fortune to Kaeso. Because of his lameness and his nonexistent political prospects, his parents had despaired of finding him a suitable wife. After the massacre at Cannae, and the resulting shortage of young bachelors, Kaeso’s mother was able to find a perfectly acceptable patrician girl for him to marry.

  Sestia was not beautiful. People said she had a mannish face, but Kaeso found her pleasant enough to look at. Like Kaeso, she had not expected to marry, and was pleased that Fortuna had allowed her to achieve the status of matron. She seemed content to confine her interests to running the household, and demanded no more of Kaeso’s attention than he demanded of hers. She never questioned him about his expenses or business affairs, his abrupt comings and goings, the odd hours he kept, or the exotic perfumes that frequently scented his clothes. Her simple needs and incurious nature suited Kaeso.

  Both accepted, from the outset, that the principal purpose of their marriage was to create a child. They made love on a regular basis, though without much enthusiasm on either’s part. Their workmanlike efforts were rewarded. Within a year after they were married, Sestia gave birth to a daughter.

  When he saw that little Fabia had been born without physical defects, Kaeso was enormously relieved. He had feared that the baby might be a monster, like the children who had preceded him from his own mother’s womb, or at best flawed and ungainly, like himself. But Fabia was perfect in every regard. There and then, after giving thanks to the gods, Kaeso swore never to have another child.

  To settle for a daughter was not the Roman way. Kaeso’s relatives and in-laws suggested that he and Sestia should try again, to see if she could give him a son. But Kaeso, fearing to tempt the Fates, and little drawn to having sex with his wife, remained adamant that he would produce no more children after Fabia. She was now almost three years old.

  Sestia had brought with her a small but useful dowry. With it, Kaeso had been able to buy out the other investors in the theater company of Plautus. Being the sole owner of a comedy troupe would never make him wealthy, and certainly would never earn him the respect of his patrician relatives, but Kaeso delighted in the role of impresario and took an active part in running the company. He consulted with Plautus about the Greek source material for his plays, he haggled with magistrates about budgets and allowances for festivals, and he particularly enjoyed auditioning the young slaves whom Plautus put forth as possible additions to the company.

  The fourth anniversary of Cannae came and went, stirring bitter memories of the massacre and its terrible aftermath, but also a sense of rejuvenation and hope; the unspeakable despair of those days now seemed distant and unreal, like a bad dream. As Sextilis gave way to Septem
ber, Kaeso looked forward to the annual Roman Games with special anticipation, for his dear friend Scipio had been elected curule aedile and was in charge of putting on the festivities.

  By law, Scipio had been too young to stand for the magistracy. But on voting day an adoring crowd raised Scipio on their shoulders and carried him through the city, demanding his election with chants, songs, and deafening cheers. The throng grew so large and unruly that the polling officials were completely overwhelmed. After a hasty conference, they allowed the unprecedented election of a twenty-four-year-old to the office of curule aedile.

  Afterward, with a wink and a laugh, Scipio denied any responsibility for engineering the “spontaneous” near-riot that resulted in his election. “If all Roma wants to make me aedile,” he said, “well, then—I must be old enough!” Surprised or not by his election, he seemed quite ready to take office. On the very day he assumed the aedileship, he announced a detailed plan for putting on the most lavish Roman Games ever produced. “The city needs a celebration,” he declared, “an escape from months and years of constant worry. This year, let the games be not a patriotic duty, but a pure delight!”

  A few grumblers complained that election laws that had served Roma for centuries had been broken to reward an upstart youth, and that Scipio’s bland disavowals of self-promotion proved him to be devious and disingenuous. Well, thought Kaeso, what politician was not? And if anyone deserved to have the rules bent on his behalf, was it not the young hero of the Ticinus and Cannae? Kaeso was in awe of his friend’s relentless drive and ambition, and hardly surprised by his extraordinary popularity. It seemed to Kaeso that no man was more deserving of every man’s love.

  For the theatrical program, naturally enough, Scipio solicited a comedy from Kaeso’s company. After consulting with Plautus, Kaeso suggested The Swaggering Soldier.

  It was a daring gamble. In the aftermath of Cannae, Gracchus had canceled the play, fearing that its portrayal of a vain, lecherous military man would be taken as a distasteful lampoon of Roma’s defeated generals. But now, with the insertion of a few new puns and some hints from the costuming—would a patch over one eye be too obvious?—the character of the Swaggering Soldier might be seen as a parody of the most arrogant military man of all—Hannibal. Until now, the Romans’ dread of the Carthaginian had been too great to indulge in satire, but in the years since Cannae he had shown himself to be indecisive and increasingly fallible. The Romans still loathed and despised Hannibal; were they ready to laugh at him?

  When Scipio came to Kaeso’s house for a copy of the play, Kaeso expected him to take it and read it at his leisure. Instead, Scipio began to read it at once. Kaeso left him alone in his study, and for a while paced nervously in his garden. Then he heard Scipio laugh. For the next hour, the laughter continued with hardly a break. Finally, Scipio stepped into the garden, clutching the scroll in one hand and wiping away a tear of laughter with the other. He flashed a mischievous grin, looking as carefree as a boy who had yet to don his first toga.

  “Hilarious! Charming! An utter delight! The lovers get each other, and the Swaggering Soldier gets his comeuppance—a sound flogging, right there on the stage! ‘Serve all lechers so, and lechery would cease to grow’—indeed! It’s the ideal play for the occasion. By Hercules, I needed to laugh like that—and so do the people of Roma! They’re going to love it, and they’re going to love me for treating them to it!” He tapped Kaeso’s chest with the scroll. “You’re a clever fellow, Kaeso Fabius Dorso.”

  Kaeso lowered his eyes. “Plautus is the clever one.”

  “Of course he is. But without you to finance the company, the playwright would have no stage, and without a stage, all his clever lines would be no more than whispers in the wind. Don’t sell yourself short, Kaeso. You have an eye for talent, just as a good general has an eye for bravery. You’re a valuable fellow to know.” The play had put Scipio in such a facetious mood that he tousled Kaeso’s hair, then gave his backside a playful swat with the scroll.

  Kaeso blushed so furiously that Scipio drew back and blinked at him in wonder, then swatted his backside again and laughed uproariously. Kaeso drew a sharp breath, then he began to laugh, too. He laughed at himself, at the absurdity of the world, at the ridiculous vanity of the Swaggering Soldier. He laughed until his sides ached and tears flowed from his eyes. He had not laughed like that in a very long time.

  The splendor of the Roman Games that year was on a scale such as Roma had never witnessed before. The sacred rites atop the Capitoline exuded an air of buoyancy and optimism; men smiled as they intoned the ancient formulas to dedicate the festivities of the coming days to Jupiter, greatest of gods. The procession to the Circus Maximus became a joyous celebration, led by brightly clad charioteers on horseback, strutting boxers in scanty loincloths, and dancers twirling javelins to the music of flutes, lyres, and tambourines. Mimes in the guise of satyrs scurried in and out of the crowd, pinching bottoms and eliciting screams of laughter from the women and girls. Griffin-headed censers hung from poles were swung about, scenting the air with clouds of incense.

  In the vicinity of the Circus Maximus, the perfume of the censers gave way to the aroma of meat roasting in the open air, the scent of freshly baked bread, the tangy smell of pickled fish, and the delicate odor of salted olives served in oil. No curule aedile had ever fed the citizens of Roma so well, or so copiously. There was so much food on offer, in so many places, that hardly anyone had to stand in line, and everyone could go back as many times as he wished. The Feast of Jupiter would last all day, and continue the next day as well. It was as if every man, for a couple of days, was a rich man, with a belly as full as he could want and his hours filled with leisure, secure in the blessings of Jupiter.

  In the midst of the feasting, a fresh-faced youth with a powerful voice—one of Plautus’s actors-in-training—stood on a box and addressed the crowd. “Citizens! Stop stuffing your faces for an hour and come see The Swaggering Soldier! It’s a new comedy by Plautus—that’s right, the flatfooted playwright from Umbria, the one who makes you laugh until you piss! Come, see the Swaggering Soldier himself, Pyrgopolynices, as he puts the make on his concubine, the ravishing Philocomasium!”

  People in the crowd began to laugh, if only at hearing the boy wrap his tongue around the absurdly convoluted Greek names.

  “Come, citizens, and behold the heartsick Pleusicles, a young man desperately in love, as he does his best to rescue the soldier’s concubine! Come, see the angry old man Periplectomenus…” The boy raised his eyebrows and pressed a forefinger to lips. “And whatever you do, don’t tell Periplectomenus about the secret passageway between his house and the soldier’s, or you’ll spoil the plot! Come, see the wily slaves Palaestrio, Sceledrus, and Lurcio—they always know more than they let on!”

  The boy jumped from the box, produced a pipe, and played a merry tune to lead the spectators into the Circus Maximus.

  Underneath the stage, Kaeso stood not far from the trapdoor—Plautus had thought of a number of ingenious ways to use it during the play—and peered through a peephole to watch the bleachers fill up. Scipio, he noticed, was among the first to arrive, taking his place in the dignitary’s section along with a retinue of friends and colleagues. The day was mild and the sky was clear, with no sign of rain. The feast had put the audience in a happy mood, ready to be entertained. With full bellies and a warm sun, the danger was that they might fall asleep.

  As it turned out, there was no chance of that. Any spectator who nodded off for even an instant would have been awakened by the roars of laughter around him. The players did an outstanding job. During rehearsals, Kaeso had never seen them attack Plautus’s lines with such vigor; the laughter of the audience inspired them to outdo themselves. On that day, as never before, Kaeso saw the living proof of a belief that Plautus, after several cups of wine, had once confided to him: “When does comedy become sublime? When there is a collaboration in equal measures between playwright, players, and spectators, all wor
king together in harmony to delight the gods with the music of human laughter. When men laugh, the gods laugh, and for a brief time this miserable world becomes not merely bearable, but beautiful.”

  The applause at the end of the play was thunderous. The audience hailed the players, especially the actor who portrayed the blustering Pyrgopolynices. Plautus ran onto the stage to take several bows. Then Scipio, laughing and genuinely taken by surprise, was swept off his feet and lifted onto the shoulders of his companions to receive the gratitude of the adoring crowd.

  Kaeso remained under the stage, observing the audience through his peephole. At that moment, he wanted very much to be close to Scipio, but in such a throng even approaching him would be impossible. As he watched, Scipio dispatched a young slave, who dexterously threaded a path through the crush and made his way under the stage.

  The slave found Kaeso and drew a quick breath. “My master, Publius Cornelius Scipio, says to tell you that he wishes he could congratulate you in person, but, with all the day’s events, he must hurry off. However, in three day’s time, when the Games are over and well behind him, he says he would be honored if you would join him for dinner.”

  “Of course,” said Kaeso. “Of course we’ll come. Plautus will be delighted.”

  The slave smiled and shook his head. “My master asks that you come alone. He says he’ll feast the playwright on another night, but once the Games are done, he looks forward to a quiet repast in the company of an old friend.”

  No power on earth could have kept Kaeso from joining Scipio on the appointed night.

  “What a whirlwind! I only wish my father could have been here to see it.” Scipio gazed into his cup and swirled the wine. It seemed to Kaeso that his friend had drunk very little that night. Perhaps Scipio found the success of the Games intoxicating enough.