There were very few slaves in the house, but it was always crowded. The daughters-in-law did most of the work, and they had plenty of visitors; their children ran about everywhere, and young men loitered in corners to catch a glimpse of the unmarried girls. Anyone who had nothing better to do was expected to join in the cooking and cleaning, and anyone who felt hungry was welcome to a share in the unpunctual meal when at long last it reached the table.
But this evening Publius had cleared a small room at the back, which happened to be a spare bedroom. Outside the closed door sat a young grandson whittling shavings of kindling-wood and ready to use his knife to repel intruders. Within the bedroom Publius squatted on the floor with half a dozen eminent Sabine Senators and an enormous bowl of wine.
‘We haven’t a really first-class candidate,’ he said mournfully, ‘so we must make do with Pompeius Velesius, who is at least a good Sabine. He is not of the royal line, I grant you; but there are Kings among his ancestors if you go back far enough.
The great thing in his favour is that he’s the right age. The Senate don’t want an elderly King; after a few years they would have to make another choice. This second reign is crucial. The new King can’t be expected to have the luck of Romulus; we must keep the city together without special help from Mars. Above all, we can’t afford one election after another, each leaving bad blood among the disappointed Senators and divisions among the spearmen. So there you are. We need a young man. Of course he must be a young Sabine. Pompeius Velesius is the best we can do.’
‘They tell me he fights well in the ranks,’ put in another Senator, ‘but he has never commanded men in battle. As far as I know he has never done anything out of the ordinary. He is not of the royal kin. Why should Latins and Luceres accept the rule of such an undistinguished young man?’
‘Because he is the Sabine candidate. I admit there is no stronger reason,’ answered Publius. ‘But just occasionally we Sabines ought to get our own way in the affairs of the city. We came here led by a King of our own. After Tatius was murdered we ought to have chosen another King, but Romulus overpersuaded us. There was some talk that Rome would be ruled by Latin and Sabine Kings in turn, though as far as I know it was never laid down in a formal agreement. All the same, it seems fair enough. Romulus was a Latin; now it’s our turn. Some of my friends have suggested that I should be the Sabine candidate, but I don’t want the honour. I am too old. We want a good long Sabine reign, to balance the thirty-seven years of King Romulus.’
‘The Latins are putting forward Proculus, who is even older than you,’ another Senator pointed out.
‘Yes, but he has something no Sabine can offer. He fought for Romulus in the old days at Alba, and saw the foundation of the city.’
‘I still wish we could find a more eminent candidate,’ someone muttered.
‘We can’t, if we are all to support him. In the ordinary affairs of life we don’t remember all the time that we are Sabines who must stick together against these Latins. Every one of us who matters has made enemies among his own people; perhaps enemies is too strong a word, but we have had our disagreements. Velesius hasn’t an enemy in the world. If the Latins vote against him it will be solely because they refuse to be ruled by a Sabine.’
‘Why not let them make Proculus King, and get them to promise that when he has died of old age Velesius will succeed him unopposed?’
‘I thought of that, but it won’t do. If Proculus succeeds that means two Latin Kings in a row. After that it will be taken for granted that the third King must be a Latin.’
‘Then it’s Velesius against Proculus, and we must keep our ranks united,’ said the oldest Senator. ‘Is there any danger that a third candidate will come forward?’
‘No, or at least it’s very unlikely. I was a little afraid that Perperna might try to collect support from the superstitious. He might claim that only a trueborn Rasenna can win the favour of the gods. But the death of his wife has spoiled his chance; he is now regarded as unlucky. It will be Sabines against Latins, with the Luceres holding the balance. I don’t think those mongrels will vote as a unit. They have no candidate of their own, and they will divide between us. In the Senate Velesius may get a small majority on the very first vote.’
‘And that will be no good at all,’ said another Senator firmly. ‘I want Rome to continue as a great city, and if the King represents only half the citizens it won’t. We can’t expect Proculus and his kin to vote for a Sabine at the outset; but unless the Senate gives us a very big majority, at least two to one, it would be a waste of time to ask the assembly to ratify the decision. Furthermore, if we let the people see that the Senate is bitterly divided, that will be the end of our authority. I want to keep my authority as a Senator even more than I want to be ruled by a Sabine King.’
‘Very well,’ answered Publius. ‘In that case we must not be hurried. We shall go to the meeting of the Senate united in support of Velesius. The Latins will at any rate begin by putting forward Proculus. Then we keep on meeting again and again until the Latins begin to weaken. In the interval Rome will be adequately governed by each Senator in turn. Is that agreed?’
No one had put into words the chief strength of the Sabine case: that every Senator knew the truth about the disappearance of King Romulus, and knew therefore that Proculus was a time-server and a liar. Quirinus the god, indeed – his divinity the outcome of an unpremeditated but brutal murder! A man who said that and stuck to it on oath, with his hand on the sacred things of Samothrace, must be quite unscrupulous.… Unless indeed he was telling the truth after all, for no man understands the queer ways of heaven. Certainly Romulus had been murdered; it was just possible that all the same he was now a god. That possibility must have occurred also to the Latin Senators, or they would not now support the shifty nonentity who proclaimed it.
The scrimmage for the head of the October Horse had been a half-hearted and slack affair, so closely supervised by anxious Senators that even the most ardent young spearman dared not let himself go. This was the second time that the festival had been held under the presidency of the daily King of the Sacrifices; month slipped into month before you could notice it, but this annual ceremony brought home to all the citizens that it was now a year and a half since they had been ruled by a genuine King. Old Marcus Aemilius was grumbling about it to his friend Macro the Greek. Whenever there was an interesting religious ceremony he always called at the storehouse of sacred things to pick up young Macro. The poor fellow was so afraid of the gods that he could be enticed out of that lucky place only to attend a religious function. But when he got there he would study the ritual, and make the most interesting comparisons with similar rites he had seen in the course of his travels.
‘That was supposed to be a wrestling match between two teams of strong young men,’ said Marcus with a sigh. ‘In the old days there would have been black eyes in plenty, and perhaps a few broken heads. Today they were so afraid of hurting one another that the contest was more like a sacred dance. The Senators won’t let them do anything that might start a bloodfeud. I suppose that is prudent, with public affairs as they are. But you don’t please Mars just by running and leaping. He wants hard knocks.’
‘They struggle for the luck of the harvest, I suppose? said Macro. ‘In Cumae it was the last sheaf of barley, as it is in most places; but then of course you can’t hold it in October. Why do you use the head of a horse, here in Rome?’
‘It’s not harvest. In October, how could it be –? Perhaps it’s just luck in general, perhaps it’s luck in war. There’s a long story behind it, about chariots and the Sabine Women.’ He told the long story at full length.
‘I see,’ Macro agreed at last. ‘But either they should give it up or else do it properly. A slipshod rite only angers the gods. Do you yourself think that if a Sabine blacked a Latin eye Rome would dissolve into civil war?’
‘It’s possible. Those stupid Sabines are being incredibly obstinate. No one wants that absurd puppy Vel
esius, who has never done anything to make his name famous; but they won’t vote for our Julius Proculus, who has everything in his favour. Perhaps you don’t know that all the Julii are descended from grandfather Aeneas, and so from the goddess Venus? Proculus has also been honoured by a vision of our new god, the only time he has appeared to a mortal man. Then, if you disregard the supernatural, Proculus has been here since the foundation of the city. As one of the oldest Senators he was deep in the counsels of King Romulus.’
‘But do you really fear a civil war? I ask because my patron thinks highly of your opinion, and if you think the city is in danger I shall pass on your warning.’
‘Not perhaps civil war. We are all too bored for that, bored by a silly dispute that has lasted for more than a year and may last for a generation. But if we don’t fight we may go away. The Sabines are always threatening to go back to their dismal mountains if they don’t get their own way in everything. Of course they won’t go, now that they are accustomed to civilised living. But the Latins might return to Alba, which has been a fine city for centuries and would be glad to have them. You can tell Perperna as much. We will go away rather than be ruled by an uncouth Sabine hillman.’
‘On the other hand, why not leave things as they are? The Senator of the day cannot bully us, and we enjoy greater freedom than if we were ruled by the best King in the world.’
‘King Romulus made these men Senators, and so we defer to them. But soon we must find another King, if only to fill vacancies in the Senate. More than a score of Senators have died in the last year. Where shall we find their successors? Someone suggested that the Senate itself might choose new members to fill its ranks; but that would be the end of our freedom. You can tell Perperna that the Latins will give up and leave Rome if it seems that the Senate intends to rule for ever.’
The days were beginning to lengthen, and at the equinox they would celebrate the fortieth birthday of Rome. That is, if Rome were still inhabited, for the unlucky city remained without a King. Once or twice the spearmen had mustered at the frontier, to prove to greedy foreigners that they were still a mighty army; but as yet no foe had attacked them, for it seemed safer to wait until this gathering of land-pirates had fallen apart by its own discord. At home, each tribe judged disputes between its own members, so that there was not much work to occupy the ruling Senator during his single day of office. No one bothered to plan for the future, no one repaired the defences. The city was in a very bad way.
One evening Perperna sought out his client Macro at the storehouse of sacred things. He found the Greek sitting below the door, watching the sunset with a cheerful smile on his face.
‘I’m glad to see you happy,’ he began. ‘Evidently the Old Women are not chasing you. Can you sleep at night?
‘I’ve got it worked out, patron. In daylight I am safe anywhere in the city, and at night I am safe in this storehouse. I don’t dream any more. The lady Prima is glad to let me sleep here. She has to look after the fire in the King’s hut, and there is no one else to perform the rites. The Senator of the day only sacrifices. There are no priests in Rome, unless I am a priest.’
‘Why not? If the Old Women are after you that makes you as sacred as any man in Rome. There has never been a true priest here. You will do as well as the next man. But now I want you to run errands, and I shall name the reward I offer for your services.’
‘Thank you, my lord, but there’s nothing I want at present,’ said Macro cheekily. As caretaker of the storehouse of sacred things he lived an independent life, watching the world from the outside. No one else wanted his uncanny job, and he had forgotten his earlier ambitions.
‘At least there is something you lack,’ Perperna went on, refusing to notice the snub. ‘You lack a wife. Next year my youngest daughter will be marriageable, and the young man who was betrothed to her died yesterday. Will you make a match of it?’
‘You offer me the most precious thing in this city, patron. Who do you want me to murder? Of course I will do anything you ask of me. But can I marry while I lie under a curse?’
‘When we have a King he will free you from the curse. These things grow weaker with time, and the work you do here every day should help you. When the next King has been chosen he will cleanse all your guilt, you will marry my daughter, and I shall teach you to be a true priest, a builder of bridges between human earth and the underworld. So now I want you to help me in the choice of a King. You must go first to the Sabine leaders. Tell them you come from me, and explain my plan.’
‘It’s the only way out,’ said Publius Tatius to the leaders of the Sabine Senators. ‘We have to begin by making a very great concession; but the Latins do the same. We abandon Velesius, they abandon Proculus.’
‘So far we have the better of the deal,’ a colleague observed. ‘We chose Velesius because we wanted a Sabine; but the Latins really want Proculus, for himself.’
‘Perhaps they feel that they ought to be ruled by a liar, a toady so given to flattery that he flatters even the dead,’ said Publius with a sneer. ‘If they had been quicker to give up their absurd candidate we could have settled the question long ago. Now this is what perperna advises, and he promises that if we back him we shall have the votes of all the Luceres. What we want really is a Sabine King, isn’t it? Not King Pompeius Velesius in particular? Very well then. We go to the Latin leaders and ask them to take an oath. We promise that we shall agree to be ruled by the King of their choice, provided they choose a Sabine. How will that do?’
‘Suppose they agreed, and then choose someone on his deathbed? Old Horatius, for example, who won’t last a month?’
‘Then we do the same to them when the second King dies. I’m glad you made the point. I shall see that they are aware of it. But in actual fact it isn’t likely. Even Latins have more sense than to do a thing like that when the whole future of our city is at stake. No, don’t you see? If they must choose a Sabine they will naturally choose one of the leading Senators. That’s the very thing we can’t do by ourselves, because frankly we are too jealous of one another. If we leave the choice to the Latins we get a Sabine King, which is what we must have; in addition we get a capable Sabine King, whom we cannot choose by ourselves. Probably it will be one of us, here in this room. Now do you all agree?’ ‘I’ve just had a splendid idea,’ said young Aemilius, bubbling with enthusiasm. ‘If you follow my plan we shall dish those pompous Sabines.’
Aemilius, by birth one of the leading Latin Senators, could not be left out of any important discussion. But he was known to be a scatterbrained young man, and as a rule his ingenious plans were disregarded.
‘Look,’ he went on, ‘do you all remember the exact words of our promise? We swore that we would choose a Sabine for King of Rome, and Publius Tatius made us see that the deal would be off unless we chose a reputable and healthy Sabine. But we never said anything about choosing a Sabine who is now a Roman citizen. We can send explorers into the Sabine hills, and pick out the hairiest, roughest, most uncouth of the Sabine chieftains; someone who has never seen a wheel or a roof-tile. There is nothing in the oath against it, and it will be a splendid score over those worthy Sabine Senators.’
Everyone was listening to him. This was wonderful; he was really taking part in the government of his city, as was the due of the chief of the Aemilian clan. But now the elderly and prosy Proculus had risen to his feet with a menacing cough, obviously prepared to address his colleagues at great length.
‘Our young friend has made a valuable contribution,’ he said ponderously. ‘I had been hoping that someone would point out the loophole in the oath we swore, for it makes my proposal sound less extraordinary. I have in mind a Sabine who would make an excellent King of Rome, though he has never set foot in our city. I confess that this is not my idea. Perperna the Etruscan heard of the man and suggested his name to me. But when I mention it you will remember him. Do you recall the country Sabine who married the daughter of King Tatius?’
There was a g
asp of excitement. Some of the younger men could not remember the wedding, which had taken place all of twenty years ago; but it was known to all that the daughter of King Tatius, to Latin ideas his heiress, had married a Sabine chieftain somewhere in the backwoods.
Proculus continued slowly: ‘The man is of good Sabine family. He will never be chief of his clan, because he has three brothers older than himself. In any case his father is still alive, though too old to lead his men in battle and more or less in retirement. The father is called Pompilius, because he is chief of the Pompilian clan; I don’t know his first name. This younger son of his is known as Numa.’
‘But if he married the daughter of King Tatius why have the Sabines ignored his claim to the kingship of Rome?’ asked an elderly Latin.
‘Because they don’t feel as strongly as we do about the rights of a daughter’s husband. With them descent counts only in the male line. Anyway it so happens that Tatia is dead, and she left no sons; though I believe there is a daughter.’
‘Well, it’s a good idea in itself, and a splendid snub for our Sabine Senators,’ said young Aemilius. ‘But does anyone know anything about this Numa as a man?’
‘I know only what Perperna has told me. Of course we must check that before we go any farther,’ answered Proculus. ‘I gather that he’s not much of a warrior. His hobby is serving the gods, and finding out how to appease them. I suppose that’s why Perperna favours him. You know how Perperna always complains that in Rome we don’t pay enough attention to religious affairs.’
‘Perperna is not a lucky man,’ Aemilius objected. ‘I can remind you in the privacy of this conference that it was chiefly by his urging that the reign of King Romulus was ended so abruptly. That should have brought him bad luck, and it did. There was something very fishy about that sudden death of his wife. No one had heard she was ill. It’s just possible her husband murdered her.’
Founding Fathers Page 29