Tribune of Rome v-1

by Robert Fabbri

  The family’s ex-legionary guards were now leading the way, beating a path through the crowd with sturdy poles as they inched their way on to the Via Nomentana. Once they had negotiated a passage on to the new road progress became easier as to their left and right the trade wagons and carts, which were not allowed into the city during the day, pulled off the road to wait for the sun to set. Once night had fallen they would continue their journeys to their final destinations, ensuring, with the rumble of their wheels and the cries of their drivers, that peace would never come to the streets and lanes of Rome at any time of the day or night.

  Titus had just secured the services of a litter for Vespasia to transfer into, close to the Porta Collina, when from behind them came the deep boom of a horn and shouting so loud that it could be heard over the surrounding din. Looking back over his shoulder Vespasian could see the dyed-red horsehair-plumed helmets of a turma of cavalry, a troop of thirty men, wading through the crowd.

  ‘We’d better wait for them to pass,’ Titus said. ‘They look to be Praetorian Guard cavalry and they’re not very polite, especially if they’re escorting someone important.’

  They cleared the road as the turma approached, four abreast. Their white, high-stepping stallions, eyes rolling and mouths frothing at the bits, forced their way through the crowd, stopping for no one. Any fool unlucky enough to come too close was beaten aside by their riders with the flats of their swords or the butts of their spears.

  ‘Make way, make way, imperial business, make way,’ their decurion shouted. The trumpeter gave another blast on his horn. The guards’ bronze breastplates and helmets inlaid with silver sparkled in the sunlight; red cloaks edged with gold billowed out behind them; everything about them spoke of the wealth and power of the imperial family that it was their duty to guard. They kept their formation with a rigid discipline, their muscular thighs and calves gripping the sweating flanks of their mounts, steering them in a straight line down the centre of the road. In the middle of the troop travelled an ornately carved wood and ivory litter whose occupants were enclosed by lavish maroon curtains decorated with astrological signs embroidered in gold and silver thread. From each corner protruded a pole that was supported at waist height by three massive Negro slaves marching in step, double time, in such a skilful manner that the litter appeared to glide along without so much as a jolt to disturb its precious cargo. The smoothness with which they carried the litter could only have been learnt by years of practice under the watchful eyes of overseers keen to punish any mistake with a liberal use of the whip.

  Vespasian watched the imperial cortege scythe its way down the Via Nomentana. ‘Who do you think is in that, Father, the Emperor?’

  ‘No, I doubt it. When he’s not in Rome Tiberius spends more and more of his time down south and would never enter the city from this direction. That must be someone in the imperial household with estates up in the hills to the east,’ Titus replied as the litter drew level with them.

  Just then a rabid dog, foam oozing from its jaws, startled by the booming horn and the loud clatter of the horses, leapt out from under a cart close to Vespasian and launched itself at the lead group of Negroes. It sank its teeth into the left thigh of the man nearest the litter. He went down screaming, desperately trying to tear the maddened beast off him. His comrades stopped abruptly, causing their burden to sway from side to side. Guards immediately encircled the immobile litter, spears pointing out towards the onlooking crowd as their decurion raced back to assess the situation. He took one look at the unfortunate slave wrestling with the mad dog and with two quick thrusts of his spear put both out of their misery. He shouted a swift order and the guards re-formed their marching order and the column prepared to move forward.

  Before it did the curtains of the litter opened slightly and a young girl looked out. Vespasian held his breath; he had never seen such beauty. Her thick black hair, which contrasted perfectly with her ivory skin, fell in ringlets that rested on her slender shoulders. Jewels hung from her ears and around her throat. Her lips, full and painted dark pink, sat perfectly between a delicately pointed nose and a firm, proud chin. But it was her eyes, two shining blue stars, that held him transfixed as they rested on his, for a few quickening heartbeats, before she withdrew back inside and the litter began to move forward again.

  A loud snort brought him back to reality.

  ‘Look at that, Father, your youngest son sitting there with his mouth flapping open like some carp just landed in a fisherman’s net,’ Sabinus roared. ‘I think the poor little sod has just caught a shot from Cupid. I’d bet he’d give his right hand to know who she is. Not that it would help much, he’s way below her league.’

  Vespasian reddened as his father joined in the laughter. ‘That, my boy, was the most vacant that I’ve ever seen you look. I don’t suppose you liked her, did you?’ Still chortling, he turned to order their guards to lead off.

  Vespasian was left staring dumbstruck at the dead dog whose jaws were still locked on to the black slave’s corpse. He had been hit by two thunderbolts in the space of as many hours: sudden, instant and inexplicable love for a city that he had only seen from afar and for a girl that he had only glimpsed for an instant. Who was she? But he’d probably never see her again. Gathering himself with difficulty, he turned his horse to follow his family, yet as he passed through the Porta Collina and entered Rome, his heart was still pounding.

  CHAPTER VI

  Once through the gate the Via Nomentana narrowed so that two carts could just pass each other. The makeshift huts and tombs on either side were replaced by three-, four- or even five-storeyed tenements – insulae – that prevented the sun from reaching the street level except for an hour or so around midday. Each building had open-fronted shops on the ground level selling all manner of products. Costermongers squeezed in between pork butchers and leather-goods salesmen; stores selling live poultry next to taverns, barbers, fortune-tellers and purveyors of small statuettes of gods and heroes. Sweating smiths hammered at ironwork on open forges alongside tailors hunched over their stitching and bakers filling shelves with loaves, pastries and sweet buns.

  The cries of the shopkeepers advertising their wares resounded in the air, which was already bursting with the aromas, both sweet and foul, given off by such a variety of human activity. Vespasian was overwhelmed by the throng of people, free, freed and slave, going about their everyday business pushing and shoving each other in an effort to remain on the raised pavements so as not to soil their feet in the mud, made up mainly of human and animal excrement, which covered the road.

  On the outside of the lower buildings, in order to maximise the rentable living space inside, rickety wooden staircases led up to equally precarious balconies that gave access to the rooms on the first and second floors. Women, mainly, populated these upper levels; they scrubbed garments on wooden boards beneath lines of nearly clean washing that fluttered in the breeze. They prepared the evening meal, which would be cooked in the local baker’s oven, whilst gossiping with their neighbours as their children squatted at their feet playing at knucklebones or dice. Brightly painted whores called out their services and fees to the passersby below and made lewd jokes with each other, cackling with unashamed laughter, whilst the elderly and the infirm just sat and stared greedily at the life they could no longer participate in.

  An underclass of thieves, confidence tricksters, charlatans and cheats preyed on the unwary or the dull, weaving their way stealthily through the crowds looking for likely targets and picking them off with a finesse born of a lifetime’s dishonesty. What profit they could not cream off they left to the lowest of the low: the beggars. Blind, diseased, maimed or malformed, they struggled, with a desperation known only to those who have nothing, to elicit some scraps or a small bronze coin from the few who cared enough to even notice them.

  All forms of human existence were here – except the wealthy. They lived up on Rome’s hills in the cleaner air, above the heaving masses that they saw onl
y when they had to pass the squalor on their way through the city to or from their more fragrant country estates.

  The Flavian party made its way along the street that plunged, downhill, straight as an arrow, towards the heart of Rome.

  ‘We need to keep on this street until it divides in two, then we take the right-hand fork,’ Titus called out to their hired guards, who were doing a fine job of easing their passage through the crowds. He turned to look at his younger son. ‘Well, my boy, what do you think?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s a lot bigger than Reate, Father,’ Vespasian replied, grinning. ‘Though in truth I don’t know what to say… it is everything that I was expecting, except magnified by ten. I was prepared for a lot of people, but not this many. I knew that the buildings would be tall, but this tall? How do they stay up?’

  ‘Well, sometimes they don’t,’ Titus replied. ‘The landlords build these insulae as quickly and cheaply as possible, and then cram them with as many tenants as they can. They often collapse, and when they do they just put up another and to Hades with the poor buggers who got crushed to death. There’ll always be people happy to pay rent to live in the city, even in a death trap; it’s that or in the tomb shantytowns outside the walls. At least in the city the poor can take advantage of the free corn dole; the Emperor won’t let his people starve, that would be political suicide. Anyone with any money will tell you that we are only ever an empty granary away from revolution.’ His father smiled at Vespasian. ‘But you don’t have to worry about all that, it’s no concern of ours; let others take care of their own as we do of ours.’

  They came to the fork in the road. At its apex stood a tavern outside of which lounged a group of hard-looking men drinking and playing dice on rough wooden benches. As Titus’ party took the right-hand fork one of the group stood up and approached Titus.

  ‘You’ll be needing protection, sir, if you’re thinking of going down that road,’ he said in a quiet, menacing voice. He had the build and cauliflower ears of a boxer; the scars on his face attested to his profession. He stood squarely in front of Titus and made no attempt to move as Titus tried to push his horse past him.

  ‘I said that you’ll be needing protection on that road. My name is Marcus Salvius Magnus and my crossroads fraternity here can provide you and your party with that reassurance,’ he insisted. ‘A denarius apiece for me and two of my lads will see you safe enough on your way.’

  ‘And from whom do we need protecting, Magnus?’ Titus asked, his voice filling with suppressed rage. ‘You and your murdering bunch of cronies no doubt.’

  ‘There’s no need to be uncivil, sir,’ the boxer replied. ‘I just wouldn’t advise you to proceed without an escort who knows the area. Who knows where to go and not to go, if you take my meaning?’

  Titus struggled to control himself; the last thing he wanted to do was to lose his dignity to a mere thug. ‘Why do we in particular need protection?’ he asked and pointed to a passing group of travellers. ‘What about them, why don’t you offer them your protection?’

  ‘They don’t look like they could afford it, sir. Them that can’t afford it don’t need it, because if you’re too poor to afford protection you’re too poor to rob. Your party on the other hand looks as if it can afford to buy the protection that it therefore quite obviously needs.’ Magnus looked pleased with the logic of the argument.

  ‘Ah, but we have our protection, three armed guards all very capable of looking after themselves and us,’ Titus said, gesturing towards the ex-legionaries who had now dismounted and drawn their daggers.

  ‘And very lovely they look too, sir, but there are only three of them and there are a lot of very bad people down that way, I can assure you of that.’

  ‘I’m sure you can,’ Titus seethed, ‘but what if we decide not to take your very well-meant advice?’

  ‘Then that would be very risky, sir, and somewhat foolish, if I may be so bold.’ Magnus gave a smile that did not reach his eyes. Behind him his comrades had started to get up; the whole situation was getting rapidly out of control.

  ‘Just pay the man, Father,’ Sabinus whispered, realising that they would come off worst if it came to a fight.

  ‘Over my dead body,’ his father replied forcefully.

  ‘Let’s hope that it doesn’t come to that, sir. It’s to prevent that that I’m offering you our services. Tell us where are you heading and we’ll see you safely on your way,’ Magnus insisted. The Flavian guards had now surrounded him, yet he showed no sign of backing down.

  ‘Just what is going on here, Titus?’ Vespasia had got down from her litter and stood next to her husband.

  ‘These thugs wish to-’

  ‘As I said, there is no need to be uncivil,’ Magnus cut across him.

  ‘Uncivil! You disgusting, uncultured ape,’ Vespasia shouted. ‘How dare you delay us? I shall speak to my brother as soon as I see him.’

  ‘Hush, my dear, I’m afraid that won’t help us at the moment.’ Titus looked at Magnus’ cronies, who were now completely blocking both their way forward and their retreat. He realised that fighting was futile and made a mental note to one day extract a painful revenge. ‘We are going to the house of Gaius Vespasius Pollo,’ he spat out, ‘on the Quirinal.’

  ‘What? The ex-praetor? Why didn’t you say so before, my friend? That changes everything. I know him well; there’ll be no charge. A silly misunderstanding; please accept my apologies, sir, madam, and pass on our greetings to the honourable senator.’

  ‘I shall do no such thing, you impertinent little man,’ Vespasia said darkly as she turned and made her way back to her litter.

  ‘Nevertheless it will be our pleasure to escort you and your party to his house, sir. Sextus, Lucio, with me, we shall lead this noble family to their destination.’ With that he walked off down the right-hand fork leaving the rest of the group to follow him.

  ‘What was all that about, Father?’ Vespasian asked Titus as they moved off.

  ‘That, my boy, was part of the most powerful force in Rome after the Emperor and his Praetorians: the crossroads fraternities,’ Titus replied, still bemused by the rapid turn of events. ‘They’re gangs who base themselves at all the major road junctions in the poorer areas of the city and extort money from the local traders, residents and people passing through by selling their protection. If you buy it they won’t rob you, and if you don’t they will. It’s as simple as that.’

  ‘But surely that’s illegal,’ Vespasian said appalled. ‘Why doesn’t the Emperor do something about it?’

  ‘Well, it may sound strange but they are tolerated because they also do a lot of good.’

  ‘What good can a bunch low-life who specialise in demanding money with menaces do?’ Vespasian scoffed.

  ‘Well, for a start, rather ironically, they keep the crime rate down in their areas just by being there. Other thieves caught operating on their patch get pretty rough justice from all accounts. If you think about it it’s in their interest to keep their areas safe so that business will flourish; the more traders, the more money they rake in. On top of that they also look after the crossroads shrines. Your uncle evidently tolerates them at the very least, if not actively encourages them, judging by their reaction to his name just then.’

  ‘You’re making them sound like they’re a good thing, Father, a nice bunch of religious boys with nothing but the community’s best interests at heart and supported by the great and the good.’

  ‘Well, in a way yes, they are,’ Titus said as they turned off the main road and started to make their way up the Quirinal Hill. ‘However, they do have a very nasty habit of pursuing vendettas with rival gangs; and they’re also prone to fighting other factions at the circus who support a different colour team to them.’

  As they climbed the hill the insulae disappeared and were replaced by single-storey houses with no windows to the front, just a doorway. Narrow alleys separated them from each other, so that the effect was like one long wall with lots of doors in
it. There were fewer people on the road up here, and those they did pass wore much finer clothing; even the slaves were well dressed. Already they could detect a difference in the air quality; the light breeze was blowing away the fumes of the city below whose hubbub had now been reduced to a faint murmur.

  They had made a few turns left and right when Magnus stopped outside a yellow-painted house. ‘This is the house of the senator Gaius Vespasius Pollo, good sirs,’ he said, pulling on the bell chain. ‘I’ll leave you here. If there is ever anything that I can do for you, to make up for that unfortunate misunderstanding, please feel free to ask.’

  He made to help a grim-looking Vespasia down from her litter, but she slapped his face. He bowed his apologies to her, wished them all a good day and left with his two companions, leaving his erstwhile charges waiting for the door to open.

  ‘I shall be speaking to my brother about that ghastly man, Titus,’ Vespasia said as she joined her husband. ‘How dare such a low-life threaten people so far above him?’

  ‘I don’t think they care about the social standing of their intended victims, unless it is to judge how much they can extort from them, my dear,’ Titus replied. Vespasia scowled at her husband aware he was mocking her, but was prevented from retorting by the door opening, revealing a man so old and frail that he was almost bent double. He peered at them with moist, bloodshot eyes.

  ‘Who may I say is calling?’ he asked in a reedy voice.

  ‘Titus Flavius Sabinus and his wife Vespasia Polla and his two sons Sabinus and Vespasian,’ Titus replied.