About four miles out, row after row of small brick and stone structures lined the road. Some were built like ornate, miniature temples, some like villas but all were practically windowless and secured by metal gates. Lucius had never visited Rome and neither he nor Otto knew what they were. Under the portico of a grand building with marble columns either side of the entry gate, lounged a ragged figure. He wore a nondescript tunic and a wide-brimmed straw hat. His naked feet were blackened with the grime of the gutters. The cloak flung down beside him was such a patchwork of various materials it was impossible to guess its original colour. Lucius pulled up his horse.
“Greetings”, he said.
The man looked up. “And greetings to you, prince.”
“Can you tell me who lives in these strange houses?”
“I could your excellency if I did not suffer from a serious illness. I can’t recall anything unless I have a flask of wine. It’s the only thing that lubricates my memory,” he said with a toothless grin.
Lucius threw him a coin which he caught adroitly and hid in the folds of his filthy tunic.
“Ah, it’s beginning to come back to me. No-one lives in any of ‘em.”
“Little reward for my offering, friend,” Lucius told him.
“It’s the truth. They’re all empty, unless you count shades, ghosts and spirits. All you will find in ‘em is shelves holding the ashes of the dead. They’re the family tombs of the rich.” He cackled, coughed and hawked up a gob of phlegm which he spat into the dust at the edge of the road. “Rich or poor, we all end the same, lord; a few handfuls of ashes in a jar.”
They crossed the Tiber busy with cargo boats bending their oars as they strained upstream to the wharves or flying back down under one small, triangular sail. Their hearts beating with anticipation, they arrived at one of the entry points to Rome itself. They passed under the portico of a gatehouse. Otto nudged Lucius and pointed at one of the heavy gates, half off its hinges and propped against the wall. An unshaven centurion in tarnished armour strolled across to them.
“Papers,” he barked, snapping his fingers.
Lucius handed them over. As soon as he saw the imperial seals, he came to attention, saluted and handed them reverently back.
“Pass, sir. Can I offer you any assistance?
“Yes, centurion,” Lucius said, “please tell me the way to the Praetorian barracks on the Palatine.”
“Strangers to the city, sir?” he asked.
“We are.”
“Then I’ll do better than that.” He gestured to one of his men. “Oi, you lazy fat bastard, see these gentlemen to where they want to go. Then come straight back, no mucking about; I’ve got my eye on you.”
The portly soldier seemed completely unperturbed by his officer’s attitude. He smiled up at Lucius and saluted.
“This way, follow me, sir.”
He walked beside them as they left the shade of the gateway arch and out into the sunlight slanting down onto the streets. The heat was reflected from wall to wall, contained by the buildings with no breath of a breeze to move the stagnant air. It hit them like a physical blow. The stink of Rome flowed over and around them. A stench composed of the sweat of nearly a million people, animal dung, human faeces, vats of urine on every corner waiting collection by the laundries, rotting refuse and over all the odour of stale food and woodsmoke from the kitchens. Their eyes began to water but their affable guide was oblivious. He began to give them a guided tour.
“That’s the Temple of Saturn over there to your left, gents. Straight on for the Forum and the lawcourts….”
All the time, they were wading through a sea of people. Slaves with their owner’s brand burned onto their arms or faces dawdled along on errands if they dared or scurried, fearful of a beating if they took too long. Ill-favoured men and slatternly women hung around in wineshop and canteen doors, on the look-out for a careless or feeble-looking citizen to rob or proposition. Boys strolled behind their tutors pulling faces or throwing pebbles at upper windows. Respectable gentlemen wrapped in their heavy wool togas gasped red-faced as they hurried to appointments. Curtained litters carried by six slaves, naked to the waist and glistening with sweat, trotted behind muscular bullyboys shouting for everyone to clear the way and being ignored for the most part.
“On your right is the Aventine and down in the valley is the Circus Maximus. You’ll have to have a day at the races, sirs,” their guided chattered on. They turned yet another corner. “There’s the Palatine dead ahead and there’s the barracks.”
“Are you a Praetorian Guard?” Otto asked.
The fat soldier laughed. “Gods above and below, what a thought! I’m in the Urban Cohort. We keep the peace and catch the bad boys, sometimes.”
Lucius handed him down a few coins to buy some wine. He thanked them profusely and walked away without a backward glance.
The Praetorian Barracks were housed in a rectangular building which possessed neither carved stonework nor external windows. It was entered under an arch beyond which lay a large courtyard. They were stopped by a very different sort of centurion from the first one. His armour and boots were immaculate. He was polite but neutral, neither hostile nor friendly. He examined their papers and handed them back with a salute to Lucius.
“If you would dismount and wait here a few moments tribune, I shall have one of my men request the presence of Tribune Plancus.
It was cooler in the shade of the arch while they waited. The centurion did not speak. Otto looked around with interest. There were four-storey buildings on the three sides of the courtyard he could see from his viewpoint. Each upper floor had a full-length balcony ending in external stone stairs at each end. The ground floors were colonnaded on two sides; the other one appeared to contain storerooms and stables. A figure in a blindingly white toga came towards them, his perfume proceeding him. He wore gilded leather boots and his chestnut brown hair was carefully dressed in ringlets. He was taller than Lucius and in his late twenties.
“Good morning chaps, I take it you are Tribune Longius?” Lucius nodded. “Good-o, well, if you would care to trot along with me….”
“The horses?” Lucius interrupted.
“Imperial courier mounts, sir?” the centurion asked.
“Yes.”
“Leave them to us; they will be stabled here during your stay,”
“There, all arranged then. Carry on centurion,” their new acquaintance said and stood in between them. “I’m Cassius Plancus by the way but I expect you worked that out for yourselves, ha ha! If you wouldn’t be too offended, would you care to take a bath soon as poss? Bit whiffy, old chap, bit horsey. We have excellent accommodation for visiting officers. Your servant can find himself a bed in the storerooms, quite comfy…”
Lucius stopped dead and turned to Plancus.
“You haven’t read our summons to Rome, have you?”
Plancus waved him away airily. “Oh, the officer of the watch does all that sort of thing.”
“Tribune Plancus, if you had taken the trouble to examine our papers, you would see that my companion is not a servant. He is the German nobleman we call Otto Longius. Our legate was unhorsed during a battle. Otto stood over him to defend him. Single-handed, he killed three attackers bent on murdering our commanding officer while he lay helpless. The Emperor wished to meet him. No servant’s quarters, I think.”
“I say! Well done you. Three of them? Still he is an extremely large chap, isn’t he? How dreadful it must be on the border; all that cold and wet and horrible people with spears and axes,” Plancus shuddered, led them over to the left side of the square and opened a door under the ground floor colonnade with a flourish. “There you are, bit Spartan but guaranteed no snow and only the local barbarians. Will you be happy to share, under the circumstances?” Lucius said they would. “Righty-ho, off to the baths then…”
“We have no clean clothes to change into,” Otto said. “We were going to buy some…”
“My goodness,
you speak our language! Who would have thought it? Don’t worry, we’ll fit you up and then perhaps we can all go together to find you something better.”
Plancus came into the baths with them. Sitting on leather cushions on a marble bench, naked other than for towels around their waists, he and Lucius watched Otto being shaved. His re-grown Suevian Knot was unbound and his blond hair fell across one shoulder almost to his waist.
“May I pose a question, Tribune Longius? Plancus asked.
“Oh course, and please, I’m Lucius….”
“Boxer!” shouted Otto with a hearty laugh.”
Lucius blushed. “It’s what they call me in the legion; because of my nose... I fell off a horse as a boy…”.
“Then I shall call you Boxer too; I’m Cassius by the way. My question is, why doesn’t Otto grow his hair long all over or at least on the other side to hide that frightful scar?”
“The half shaven head is a mark of his people and he’s only just got the scar. He was wounded saving our legate.”
“And what about you,” Cassius asked, “who tried to saw you in half?” he asked pointing at the diagonal scar across Lucius’ chest and upper belly.
“Attempted robbery at home in Luca; thankfully, Otto was on hand to come to the rescue.”
“He makes rather a habit of it, don’t he? We must make sure he’s with us if we pop out. Well, you’ve shown me yours so I’ll show you mine.” He pulled his towel off. A broad white scar ran from the point of his left hip bone up to his navel which had been sliced through on one side. “A Syrian did that to me and I hadn’t even been introduced to the chap.”
Lucius looked at him straight in the eyes open-mouthed before looking away. Cassius laughed uproariously.
“Ah Boxer, you took me for some spoiled son of a wealthy family whose father had arranged a commission in the Praetorian Guard for him! Nearly right; I am the hope and pride of a noble family but the commission came after a stint in Syria. We were jumped by the appalling locals. What do you call the chap who carries the eagle?”
“The aquilifer,” Lucius informed him knowing full-well Cassius was aware of the answer to his own question.
“That’ll be him. Anyway, he was dead so I picked it up and shouted for the legion to rally on me and we fought our way out. A pair of very aggressive Syrians wanted my eagle; one of them got his knife up under my armour and tried to open my belly. As you can see, I lived to tell the tale but sadly my legate had no Otto to come to his aid.”
“You were transferred to the Praetorians as a reward?”
“Yes, my family are delighted and show me off every time they hold a party. I was given a silver spear as well. You can take a look at it some time.”
“If Otto was a citizen and a legionary, he would have been awarded a civic crown for what he did but as he is neither….”
“Oh, don’t worry on his account, Boxer. Augustus is a bit on the austere side but he knows when to be generous to someone who is truly deserving, trust me.”
He found them white togas matching his own to wear.
“A tunic would have done,” Lucius told him but Cassius shook his head.
“The Emperor doesn’t want us to appear dressed like soldiers in front of the citizens unless it’s absolutely necessary. Anyway, old thing, everyone will think you are a Praetorian as well and give Otto the benefit of the doubt...It has its advantages,” he added with a chuckle.
They walked out of the barracks at a leisurely pace towards the forum in the centre of the street to avoid the filth in the gutters. The throng melted away in front of them with wary glances. They entered a dim arcade. There were open booths on both sides, some single, some double-fronted stretching back into interiors filled with fabrics, off-the-peg clothes, boots and belts. Cassius led them to his preferred tailor. They were ushered in by the owner and soon measured for new tunics. Lucius wanted a blue one with silver embroidery on the neck and cuffs but Cassius warned him off.
“You shouldn’t wear something like that when you have your audience with the Emperor. He does not approve of displays of luxury.”
The tailor pricked up his ears at the words. He became even more obsequious and practically bent himself double bowing and scraping. Eventually they ordered two each. Lucius kept to his favoured dark blue while Otto preferred green.
“It will take an hour, noble sirs, for hemming and letting the shoulders out for the larger gentleman,” the tailor said nervously, hoping that it was not too long to wait.
It was the same at the bootmakers. Servile attention and grovelling apologies for the time it would take to make a pair of boots for Otto, again one hour. Cassius did not approve of their choice of blue and green suede respectively.
“Boring,” he told them showing off his own in their golden splendour.
They wandered over to a tavern on the opposite corner. It was quite crowded when they walked in. They sat down in front of a flask of wine and a plate of snacks. Gradually the bar began to empty. There was no rush for the door but men finished their wine, stood up and quietly left the premises. The barman watched the exodus with resignation. Soon Otto, Lucius and Plancus had the place to themselves. After more than an hour of informative conversation with Plancus answering their questions about the city and its inhabitants, Otto and Lucius stood up with him to leave. Lucius went to pay for their wine and food but the barman waived him away.
They were charged a ridiculously small price at the tailor’s and nothing at the bootmaker’s. In fact, he became anxious when Otto tried to insist and looked like he was about to burst into tears.
All three of them stood in the street outside while Otto complained that he did not understand.
“You are Praetorians today, as far as the citizenry is concerned and Praetorians are never charged the going rate for anything. I told you there were advantages,” the laughing Cassius told him.
Otto was outraged. “This is not right. These are poor men working to make their livings. I am not a thief. It is unjust.”
“My dear old Otto, please don’t upset yourself. They’ll make it up by charging their civilian customers a little more.”
“Still not right,” Otto muttered and sulked all the way back to the barracks.
The bathhouse slave had overheard the conversation between Lucius and Plancus and repeated it to his friend in the cookhouse. He had recounted it to a valet who in turn told the story to his master. The whole barracks knew that Otto was a hero by the time they returned. The stony-faced centurion of the watch smiled and nodded as they went in.
After dinner, Lucius asked Cassius when he and Otto would be seeing the Emperor.
“Tomorrow, next week, next year, who knows? You have been summoned to Rome for an audience with Augustus. Here you will stay until he decides to see you. In the meantime, might as well enjoy yourself, eh? Let’s hope he doesn’t forget you’re here, Boxer old boy,” Cassius replied.
Lucius’ heart sank.
After breakfast the next morning, Otto disappeared for an hour and refused to tell anyone where he had been. Cassius began to tease him, mentioning girls and brothels but he saw Lucius frantically shaking his head and gesturing for him to stop. He took the hint. They spent the rest of the day taking in the sights. Otto vanished again the following morning but neither Lucius nor Cassius mentioned it. The third morning, he did not reappear until midday. He was covered in a film of white dust and looked very happy. Cassius showed as much anger as his languid manner allowed.
“I say, it’s not on, it’s really too much. You do realize I am responsible to the Emperor for the pair of you? Anything could have happened. A stroll after breakfast is one thing but you were gone half the day. I must say, it’s not on.”
Otto smiled contentedly; his eyes were looking on another scene.
“I passed a fence,” he said, “and I could hear the clinking of metal behind it so I went around to the gate and looked in. There was a tall block of stone propped up with baulks of timber in the m
iddle of a yard. It was so white it dazzled my eyes to look at it at first. An old man was standing on a scaffold with a hammer and chisel cutting pieces from it; tiny flakes that buzzed through the air like bees. Some fell at my feet. As I looked more closely, I saw he was turning the stone into the form of a man. I walked around to the other side and you could see a shoulder and part of a chest and a hip. It was as if there was someone imprisoned in the ice and he was chipping him free. It was wonderful. The man saw me and told me to go away but I said that I had never seen anyone carve stone before. I told him that my people carved wood but had no knowledge of this art. He came down and explained that like wood, stone also has a grain and will split if struck incorrectly. Then his two servants came back. One had been sent to have some tools sharpened and the other had fetched bread and wine. We ate together and talked and the old man said I could stay and watch if I liked. They had another block of the special stone; it is called marble, on its side waiting for two friends to come and help lift it upright. I said I would do it for them but they laughed and the old man said it was dangerous but then it was my turn to laugh. They levered it up a little so I could get my hands underneath and I heaved it onto its end like they wanted. To thank me, they gave me this.” He took a rod of marble two inches long out of his tunic and showed it to them. It had been carved into the shape of a human finger complete with fine lines in the skin and a perfect nail. “Is it not a strange and beautiful thing? The old man told me it is of no value, just a broken piece but what detail, what skill!”
Knight of Rome Part I Page 30