A fool, you mean—like you, thought Lucius. But he bit his tongue and said nothing.
129 B.C.
Lucius Pinarius took the letter from his mother’s trembling hand. It was written in Greek, on parchment of the highest quality. Lucius read slowly, paying careful attention to every word.
From Blossius to Menenia, greetings and deepest affections:
What a comfort your letters are to me, like salve on a wound!
Any day that a messenger arrives with a missive from you is a day of celebration for me.
I am glad to hear that you and Lucius are both in good health. I am glad that your son’s business prospers. There must be much money to be made as a state contractor, especially in the building trade.
Thank you for sending news of Cornelia. That she remains in mourning, three years after the death of Tiberius, is, in my opinion, entirely fitting. The nature of her son’s death, the desecration of his body, and the outrageous aftermath all justify a longer period of mourning than is customarily considered seemly.
But Tiberius’s brother, you say, no longer wears black. Well,
Gaius is a young man and must get on with his life. I have mixed feelings about his apparent decision to withdraw completely from political life, and to devote himself (like Lucius) entirely to money-making. In some ways, Gaius’s potential as a leader actually surpassed that of his brother. What a waste, that he should forgo the Course of Honor! But after seeing what was done to Tiberius, who can blame him for pursuing a different destiny?
I wonder, though, whether Gaius will not eventually find himself drawn back to public life. The lure of politics is so strong in his blood!
As for my career, I am proud to report that King Aristonicus takes me deeper into his confidence every day. Yes, I proudly call him King, though the Romans refuse to recognize his status and brand him a rebel. The will of the late King Attalus was rendered null and void when General Aristonicus claimed the throne of Pergamum by both force of arms and moral authority. How peeved the Roman senators must be, to see their dreams of laying hands on the treasury of Pergamum dashed; their greed for that treasure was one of their reasons for murdering Tiberius.
King Aristonicus is a remarkable man. I have every confidence that, with my counsel, he will attain the Stoic ideal of a just king. We speak often of the new capitol he dreams of founding—we will call it Heliopolis, City of the Sun—in which all men of all classes, including slaves, shall be free.
Aristonicus is also a military genius, thank the gods! He will boldly defend his claim to the throne of Pergamum against Roman arms. When he is seen to prevail, there is hope that other leaders across Asia and Greece will rise up and break the grip of Roma and its corrupt republic. The only hope for the rest of the world is to resist Roma’s domination at every turn.
But here I am, rattling on about politics! Forgive me, my love. Without you beside me, I have little else to think about. My life is out of balance; the part of me that is most essentially alive—a corporeal man capable of love, desire, tears, and laughter—is shriveled and withered, like a once sturdy vine ripped from the rich, moist earth. How I miss you! Your words, your face, the music of your voice, the warmth of your body! Perhaps, someday—in Heliopolis?—we shall be together again. But that time is not yet, alas!
As always, I urge you to destroy this letter immediately after you read it. Resist any temptation to save my letters for sentimental reasons. Burn them! I do the same with every letter I receive from you, though afterward my tears fall among the ashes. This is for your safety, not mine. We have seen, to our sorrow, just how ruthless the enemies of virtue have become, and how they can turn the words of the virtuous against them.
All my love to you….
Lucius lowered the parchment with a shudder. He was not sure which offended him most—the Stoic’s snide, backhanded compliment on Lucius’s money-making pursuits, his typically self-satisfied fawning over the upstart Aristonicus, or his salacious metaphors regarding himself and Menenia. A sturdy vine ripped from the rich, moist earth, indeed!
“Promise me, Mother, that you’ve done exactly as he’s instructed you—that you’ve destroyed every letter he’s ever sent you.”
Menenia looked up at him with tears in her eyes. She drew her eyebrows together. She shrugged with one shoulder.
“By Hercules and Hades! You didn’t burn them, did you? You’ve kept them.”
“Not all! Only a few,” whispered Menenia. “Only the most…personal. There was nothing in any of the letters I’ve saved that could possibly—”
“Any letter from Blossius is dangerous, mother. Don’t you understand? We must destroy anything that establishes a continuing link between him and us since he left Roma, and especially since he joined with Aristonicus. The content doesn’t matter—although this latest letter could hardly be more damning! Where are the letters you saved? Fetch them! Now! Do it yourself—don’t send a slave. Bring them here at once. I’ll stoke the fire in the brazier.”
Left alone in the garden for a moment, Lucius bowed his head and allowed his arms to drop to his side. His knees turned to water; for a moment, he thought he might collapse. For his mother’s sake, he had put on a mask, showing only anger, concealing the panic that had been welling up inside him ever since he crossed the Forum that morning and heard the news from Pergamum.
Aristonicus the Pretender had been captured. His forces were annihilated. The kingdom of the late Attalus and its immense treasury had been secured at last by Roman arms. The Roman commander Marcus Perperna was already boasting of the triumph he would enjoy when he would parade Aristonicus naked through Roma, publicly whip him till he begged to die, then strangle him in the dank prison cell of the Tullianum.
Hearing the news, Lucius rushed home, brusquely told his mother that Aristonicus was defeated, and demanded to see any scraps of correspondence from Blossius. He had not told her the news about Blossius. So far, either because she was too shocked or too frightened to ask, his mother had not inquired. How Lucius dreaded the moment!
Menenia returned with a few pieces of parchment. From their much-handled condition, Lucius could see that she had reread them countless times. Sighing, he took the letters from her.
“You’re certain these are all the letters, every one?”
“Yes, Lucius.”
“We must pray to the gods that Blossius did as he told you, and burned every one of your letters to him as well.” One by one, Lucius laid the letters upon the flames. He and his mother watched them ignite and then crumple into ashes.
“All his letters…all his words…gone,” Menenia whispered. She braced herself. “And Blossius?”
“Blossius is dead, mother. He did the wise thing, the dignified thing. If they had captured him…” Lucius quailed at uttering the words aloud: torture, humiliation, lingering death. He cleared his throat. “Rather than face capture, he killed himself. He died like a Roman.”
“He died like a Stoic.” Menenia closed her eyes. The heat given off by the burning letters—the last vestige of Blossius’s existence on earth—warmed the tears on her cheeks.
Lucius gazed at his mother. Whatever he had thought of Blossius, he was moved by her grief. As on the day Blossius left, Lucius felt no sense of vindication, only deep shame and sorrow.
124 B.C.
“When I was a boy,” said Gaius Gracchus, smiling at his listeners, “my old tutor Blossius made me read every line of Euripides. Dear old Blossius! Not much of Euripides has stayed with me, I’m sorry to say, except a few lines from his play The Bacchae:
The gods have many guises.
The gods bring crises to climax
while man surmises.
The end anticipated
has not been consummated.
But god has found a way
for what no man expected.
So ends the play.
Well, my dear friends, ‘the play’ is far from over. It’s just beginning! But already, the gods have found a
way ‘for what no man expected.’ Nine years ago, when my brother Tiberius died, who among us could possibly have foreseen this day?”
Gaius paused to allow these words to sink in. Silently, he counted to ten. The deliberate, well-timed pause was an orator’s technique that Tiberius had taught him: You go too fast, little brother. Stop now and then, especially after you’ve said something clever or thoughtful. Catch a breath—count to ten—allow your listeners to think and feel for a moment…
Gaius was not in the Forum, haranguing a motley crowd of citizens, but in the lamplit garden of his mother’s house on the Palatine, addressing an intimate gathering of his most ardent supporters. This was a victory celebration. Gaius Gracchus, who had sworn off politics forever after his brother’s death, had just been elected tribune of the plebs, following in Tiberius’s footsteps.
“Well, maybe my mother could have foreseen it.” Gaius nodded to Cornelia, who reclined on a couch nearby. “Not a day of my childhood passed when I was not exhorted to live up to the example of my grandfather. And yet, it’s my mother’s example that most inspires me, that sets the greatest challenge for me. Was there ever a mortal of either sex who possessed such fortitude and courage? All of you, join me in saluting her—Cornelia, daughter of Africanus, wife of Tiberius Gracchus who was twice consul and whose statue stands in the Forum, mother of Tiberius the people’s martyr!”
Cornelia smiled, so graciously that an observer might have thought she had never heard such words before. In fact, she had appeared alongside Gaius countless times during the campaign, all over Roma and up and down the countryside, playing the proud mother and beaming recipient of her son’s extravagant tributes. Gaius’s supporters adored Cornelia; they adored Gaius for adoring her.
In the final days of the campaign, the crowds who came to hear Gaius had increased beyond all expectations. Even Tiberius at the peak of his popularity had never mustered such multitudes. When election day arrived, such a throng poured into Roma to vote that the inns could not accommodate them. Men slept in trees, by the roadside, and on rooftops.
One result of the Gracchan massacre had been a relocation of the voting area. Elections were no longer held atop the cramped Capitoline, but on the Field of Mars outside the city walls, where there was plenty of room for the tribes to assemble. Structures resembling sheepfolds were built so that voters could pass through, one at a time, to cast their votes. But even these new accommodations proved inadequate for the number of voters who turned out to support Gaius. More than once, the crush had threatened to erupt in a riot, but in the end the voting was concluded without bloodshed. Gaius had emerged a clear victor with a mandate to carry out a platform of reforms even more radical than those of his brother.
After saluting Cornelia, Gaius turned his gaze to another who sat nearby. “And let us not forget my dear friend Lucius Pinarius. Not even he foresaw my return to politics. Yet, when I decided to run for tribune, this man devoted himself and his considerable fortune completely to my campaign. Lucius represents a powerful new force in this city: the class of men we call Equestrians, after our forefather’s tradition of rewarding their finest warriors with a charger at public expense. These days, men are admitted to the Equestrian ranks by the censor, and their distinction is not horsemanship or valor, but the accumulation of wealth; they are men of means who have chosen to forgo the Course of Honor, and so they form an elite class distinct from the Senate. So fine a businessman is Lucius Pinarius that I swear commerce must be in his blood, just as politics is in mine. The Equestrians of Roma, who work hard and risk their fortunes to make this a more prosperous city, are the future. The idle senators who consume more wealth than they create—and who look down their noses at the rest of us—represent the dead past.
“Lucius is a builder, responsible for construction projects throughout the city. He has a devoted wife and a young son, and all the worldly success a man could wish for. We’ve been business partners for many years, Lucius and I. We know each other so well that we—”
“Finish each other’s sentences?” quipped Lucius.
“Indeed! And yet, when I decided to make the run for tribune, no one was more surprised than Lucius. And no one was more surprised than I when Lucius took the headlong plunge into politics right beside me—or behind me, I should say, since he prefers to play the role of mover and shaker behind the scenes. Salute him with me, all of you—Lucius Pinarius, distinguished Equestrian, friend, financial supporter, trusted confidante!”
Unlike Cornelia, Lucius was unused to being praised in public. He was now over forty, but he blushed like a boy.
All the world knew Gaius’s story: the trauma of Tiberius’s murder, the withdrawal from the public arena, the eventual—now triumphant—return to politics. But no one knew Lucius’s story except Lucius himself. He alone knew the tangled emotions that had led him to this night. The shame of his inaction before and after Tiberius’s murder had never ceased to gnaw at him. His career had provided a lucrative distraction; family life had brought many rewards; his status as an Equestrian had given him great satisfaction. But all these accomplishments had done nothing to assuage his sense of failure. He had found redemption only by following Gaius’s lead, throwing caution to the wind, and thumbing his nose at the reactionary forces that had destroyed his mother’s happiness and his own sense of self-worth.
“Beside Lucius sits his mother, the virtuous Menenia. Beside her is my lovely wife, Licinia,” said Gaius. “I thank both of you for sitting up with my mother on all those nights when I was late getting home after buying a round of wine for the voters.”
His wife coyly cocked her head. “But Gaius, beloved, did you have to buy a round every night, for every voter, in every tavern in Roma?”
This elicited genial laughter from the guests, and calls for more wine.
“My friends, I could spend the whole night publicly acknowledging each one of you, and thanking every voter by name, but this is a victory party, and you are going to hear a victory speech! You’ve heard all my pledges already, I know, but here’s the difference: Before, you heard them from a mere candidate; now you’re hearing them from a newly elected tribune of the plebs!”
Gaius waited for the thunderous ovation to die down. “First, regarding the military, I propose that the state pay to clothe its soldiers, instead of requiring them to do so at their own expense. I further propose that no one under the age of seventeen should be required to serve. Most important, new colonies must be established to provide fresh homesteads for our veterans. Brave men aimlessly wander the streets, men who gave years of service and risked life and limb for the promise of a better life. That promise must be fulfilled!
“For the common good, I propose that the state should set the price of grain. I’m not saying that people should be given free grain, as my opponents assert, but grain at a reasonable price, stabilized by subsidies from the treasury and the building of granaries in the city to stockpile a surplus. If the state cannot make food affordable for a working citizen and his family, then what is the state good for?
“I propose a massive program of road-building, overseen by qualified Equestrians and employing able-bodied citizens, not slaves. The treasury is bloated from foreign conquests; why let that money sit idle when we can put it in the hands of the workers and get new, better roads in return?
“There must also be reform in the courts. Since time immemorial, senators alone have held the right to sit in judgment over the rest of the citizenry. They run the civil and the criminal courts. They even judge themselves; when a provincial governor is charged with extortion, his fellow senators determine his innocence or guilt. To the pool of three hundred senators eligible to serve as judges, I propose adding three hundred Equestrians. The court system will receive a badly needed shake-up, and perhaps we will begin to see true accountability!
“This, my friends, sums up the program that was overwhelmingly endorsed by the voters today. We shall win over the poorer citizens with the grain subsidy,
state employment, and new colonies. We shall win over the wealthy Equestrians with lucrative public contracts and new judicial privileges. Pity the poor senators—they shall have nothing left but their dignity!”
The guests warmly applauded. Someone shouted, “What about land reform?”
Gaius grimaced, then forced a brittle smile. “Yes, what about land reform? Well, over the last nine years, much of the necessary redistribution of land has already been carried out. Ironic, isn’t it? My brother Tiberius saw the overwhelming need for land reform. He bravely spoke for it, pressed for it—and for doing so, he was murdered. Then his murderers realized that reform was inevitable—either that, or a revolution—and the next thing you know, the cynical vipers were paying lip-service to Tiberius’s goals, watering down his legislation and slapping their own names on it, then patting themselves on the back and congratulating one another for saving the Republic!”
Gaius’s voice had risen to a shrill pitch. A servant standing behind him raised a pipe to his lips and blew a low note. The tension in the room was replaced by laughter and scattered applause. Gaius visibly relaxed. He smiled, turned about, and put his arm around the short, balding pipe player.
“You all know Licinius; he’s one of my wife’s freedmen. Licinius helps me practice an orator’s trick my brother taught me. Whenever I start to get a little out of hand—too emotional, too heated—Licinius blows a note on his pipe, and I rein myself in. He has me well trained, don’t you think?”
Gaius gave the man a kiss on his bald pate. The guests crowed with laughter.
“Well, then, back to my speech. We come to the capstone, the most ambitious project of all: to extend full citizenship to all of Roma’s allies throughout Italy. For years, we’ve witnessed abuses by Roman magistrates against the subject people of Italy, who pay taxes and fight in the legions alongside us, but without the privileges of full citizenship. Give them that gift, and Roma will acquire a massive influx of loyal new citizens—and those new voters will remember the tribune who gained their rights for them. With such a power base, that tribune could guide Roma to her highest destiny.”
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