Tiberius seemed distracted. Nothing was going as he envisioned. Diophanes came up close to him. “Hide this in your toga.” He held out a small dagger. “Just in case.”
Tiberius pushed it away. “I want no violence. That’s not the way it should be done.”
“But it might not be your decision. Just be prepared to protect yourself.” Diophanes made him take the dagger and walked away.
The four of them left the library headed to the front of the house. Claudia heard them leaving and rushed from her bedroom and down the stairs in her nightgown. She threw her arms around Tiberius before he could leave. “Don’t go, Tiberius. Something’s going to happen. I know it is.” She began to cry.
Tiberius held her and spoke softly into her ear. “I must go. Don’t make this any harder than it already is. Take care of the children.”
Claudia felt the dagger in his toga. She looked up at him. “You’re carrying a weapon?”
Tiberius turned away from her without a response. When he stepped through the doorway into the street, his sandal caught on the threshold. He stumbled and stubbed his big toe, nearly ripping the toenail off. Tiberius pulled the broken nail free causing the toe to bleed heavily. Claudia came out onto the porch with a cloth to staunch the bleeding. Fifty of Tiberius’ most loyal clients stood by watching. They had stayed the night and were now prepared to escort Tiberius to the top of the Capitoline Hill. Their faces reflected the stress of the moment. All expected a showdown of some kind. They muttered among themselves about the need to get going. Claudia ignored them and knelt beside Tiberius taking hold of his arm. “Don’t you see the gods are trying to tell you something, Tiberius? Look at your foot.” It still bled badly. “The fates are not with you.”
Tiberius bid her to leave him and go inside. Only by giving her the dagger could he get her to release his arm. He saw her glance over her shoulder upon reaching the door. He felt a stab of pain in his chest when the door closed, reminding him of how much he loved his wife and his children.
Blossius, Diophanes, Mummius, and his clients were assembled behind Tiberius. He turned to face them. “Above all we don’t want violence. I know some of you are carrying clubs or other small weapons. Use all restraint. Remember, what we are doing is legal. We expect the same pack of senators to threaten us with criminal charges. We don’t know to what extent they will go to stop the election. If I sense that these men are going to use force, I will raise my right hand to the side of my head.” He demonstrated the gesture. “It means be on guard. But again, use all restraint.”
Although there had yet to be any violence—other than the unexplained death of Decius—during the entire length of Tiberius’ one-year term, the men formed a ring four deep around him, then proceeded to the Capitoline Hill without breaking formation as though Tiberius could be attacked at any moment from any angle.
Just prior to reaching the forum, as they passed down Via Sacra between two four-story tenement buildings, two large ravens pecking at a rat carcass dislodged a roof tile. It slid off the building and landed at Tiberius’ foot, narrowly missing the already damaged toe. All of the men saw it. They stopped there in the street hesitant to move, thinking as Claudia had, the gods were making a statement, and their endeavor was ill-advised.
Blossius, a Greek and a non-believer, stepped in front of the group to face Tiberius and the others. “What are you men thinking? Should Tiberius, the son of Gracchus, the grandson of Scipio Africanus, and the most influential man in Rome, be afraid of the actions of a pair of birds? What shame does that cast upon the man? No, we’ve wasted enough time already. Move on to the Capitol. We have something to accomplish this morning.” He headed off at a fast pace not looking back to see if they would follow. Soon they were all behind him in formation, Tiberius in the center.
The plebeians were assembling into their tribes when Tiberius arrived at the top of the Capitoline Hill surrounded by his clients. His arrival prompted a wave of excitement to pass through the Assembly. The lots had already been drawn to establish the order for voting. The ten tribunes had to do the same to determine who would preside over the Assembly. They gathered on the porch of the temple. A flamen came out of the temple with a ceramic pitcher of water containing the ten lots. Publius Satureius stepped in front of the priest, forcing him to stop, then turned to Tiberius. “What you want to do is illegal. I have spoken with the other tribunes. We don’t want you to go through with it. We will have the election, but your name must be struck from the list of candidates.”
Tiberius knew he might face this kind of resistance. “It’s not your choice,” he said. “It’s for the people to choose. We’re here for them, not us.”
Satureius cursed. “You’re here for yourself, Tiberius. You have used the position of tribune to steadily increase your popularity and influence—and it’s gone to your head. We have supported you in this for the last year, but no longer. A single tribuneship is enough for any man, no matter how many bills he proposes to grease the populace.”
Mummius stepped up close to the two men. He glared at Satureius. “Is there need to vote out a few more tribunes, Tiberius? Apparently some of these men have forgotten who they represent.” He turned to the flamen with the pitcher and the bowl. “Get on with it. Let the fates decide who administers the Assembly.”
Satureius cursed again, then swatted the pitcher out of the hands of the flamen. It fell onto the temple porch and with a splash of water broke into pieces. The round wooden lots bounced down the stairs to the ground with the entire Assembly watching.
“That’s a sacrilege,” shouted one of the tribal elders.
Satureius ignored him. “No, this election is a sacrilege. As far as I’m concerned, this Assembly is over.”
The order of the tribes gave way to pushing and shoving to get closer to what was happening. The vast majority of them favored giving Tiberius a second term. Tiberius’ proposal to shorten the obligatory term in the military had been almost as well received as land reform. Many were chanting his name and demanding that the tribunes get on with the election. Satureius told the other tribunes he would not take part and stomped down the temple stairs. Rubrius Varro followed him, leaving Tiberius and Mummius with the remaining tribunes, none looking too happy to be there.
Mummius scoured the ground and found the lot with his name on it. He looked up at Tiberius. “I believe I was just chosen to preside over the election.”
Tiberius was uncomfortable with what was happening, but the crowd was urging him on. When Mummius announced from the tribunal that the tribes should prepare their ballots, the entire Assembly erupted with loud cheering and more shouts of Tiberius’ name. At this point the other six tribunes left the Assembly, something hardly noticed because of the enthusiasm of the crowd.
On this same morning, the co-consul Mucius Scaevola had convened the Senate in the temple of Fides, situated just below the crown of the Capitoline Hill, not more than two stades from the temple of Jupiter. The senators were well aware of what was being voted on at the People’s Assembly. Publius Nasica, the first to get the floor, opened the meeting with a long harangue against Tiberius, calling him a demagogue intent on using the People’s Assembly to bypass the Senate. “The man is dangerous. He has already broken the law twice and is preparing to do it again as a way to evade punishment. I call for the Senate to stop this man immediately.” The pontifex maximus turned to Mucius Scaevola sitting in his curule chair.
“The time to act is now, Consul. We cannot allow the election to take place. We must physically remove Tiberius from the Assembly before any voting occurs.” He raised his fist in the air and shook it. “The safety of Rome depends on us.”
Scaevola had been disappointed in Tiberius when he had sidestepped the Senate with King Attalus’ will, but he did not hate or fear Tiberius the way some of the other senators did. “Such action is not called for, Senator. No law has been broken. Should Tiberius do something illegal, he can be arrested and taken to trial.”
; Publius Nasica sneered at Scaevola. “And if he is elected to a tribuneship, we must wait another year? No! This man is dangerous. You are ignoring the safety of the commonwealth.”
The eight tribunes who had left the People’s Assembly suddenly rushed into the temple of Fides. Publius Satureius shouted it out. “Tiberius has dissolved the tribunate and taken over the Assembly. We’ve come here for your help.”
Publius Nasica faced his colleagues, almost all large landowners firmly against land reform. “The state of Rome is in danger. Those who have the courage to defend the commonwealth follow me.” He pulled the excess of his toga over his head like a hood and led two hundred senators and the eight tribunes out of the temple, headed to the top of the hill to confront Tiberius. Joining in with the mob were the senators’ slaves who were waiting outside the temple of Fides, already warned by the pontiff that something like this might happen.
Marcus Fulvius Flaccus, the younger brother of the ex-consul Gaius Fulvius Flaccus, and one of the few senators still supporting Tiberius, raced out ahead of Publius Nasica and his comrades, who were stopping along the way to gather staves or anything they could use as a weapon. Fulvius reached the Assembly well ahead of the mob and forced his way through the throng shouting Tiberius’ name, trying to get his attention.
Mummius stood at the tribunal podium. Four tribes had already voted. All had included Tiberius among their nominees. Tiberius was behind the tribunal, uneasily pacing back and forth on the temple porch when Fulvius rushed up the stairs. He told Tiberius what had happened in the Senate and that Publius Nasica was on his way with a group that intended to break up the Assembly. No sooner had he said the words than the angry mob of senators and their attendants crested the hill. Tiberius understood the danger and put his right hand to the side of his head, signaling to his clients to prepare for trouble. Publius Nasica saw the signal and shouted out to his associates that Tiberius was calling for a crown, enraging them even further.
Seeing that the oncoming mob contained so many esteemed senators, the mass of plebeians, unaware of these men’s intentions, parted to let them move through to the front of the Assembly. Publius Nasica rallied the men, now flourishing their clubs and staves, up the temple stairs directly at Tiberius, who was surrounded by his clients. A vicious fight broke out beneath the watchful eyes of Jupiter, sitting stoically on his throne within the temple.
Most of the people at the Assembly simply scattered, but others joined the melee. When his protective ring of clients began to give way, Tiberius pushed through the wall of flailing arms and balled up fists, hoping to gain sanctuary in the temple. But just as he broke free, someone caught hold of his toga and pulled it off him like a sheet. He stumbled and fell down before the temple’s gold-plated doors. Publius Satureius saw him go down. He raced up to his fellow tribune, cursed Tiberius to the gods, then bashed him in the back of the head with a leg broken off a chair. The senator Lucius Rufus claimed the second blow. Others quickly seized the opportunity to vent their anger, striking Tiberius over and over, brutally battering him into a bloody, misshapen corpse, while the rest of the mob assailed Tiberius’ clients and any other plebeians who tried to stop the attack.
When the crowd finally dispersed and the blood-smeared contingent of senators had disappeared down the hill, three hundred men lay dead on the ground or on the temple porch. One of the aediles, Gaius Lucretius, henceforward known as the undertaker, supervised cleaning up the mess, ordering his aides to throw the bodies, including Tiberius’, into the Tiber River.
CHAPTER 35
News of the mass murder spread across Rome like wildfire. Cornelia was at the back of her house in the peristyle picking a bouquet of flowers for the atrium when someone threw a blanket over her head from behind. Someone else pinned her arms to her sides while she was bundled up and carried out the rear of the property. Her screams muffled to nothing by the wool blanket, she was placed with some delicacy in a compartment of some kind, then felt the compartment moving forward. Physcon’s voice broke through her terror. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” He helped her untangle from the blanket. They were sitting opposite each other in a large, luxurious carriage.
“What are you doing?” she snapped in anger. “I don’t want to go to Misenum or anywhere else with you.” Outside the window she could see Physcon’s bodyguards marching beside the carriage.
She started to push the carriage door open, but Physcon caught her by the wrist and looked into her eyes. Although he was, as always, a bit short of breath, his voice was firm. “There’s been a tragedy.”
Cornelia gasped. “Tiberius!”
“He’s been murdered.”
Cornelia burst into tears, then caught herself. “I must see him.”
Physcon shook his head. “It’s too late for that. The city is verging on riot. I’m getting you out of Rome.”
“No, no, I must see my son,” she wailed, “and what of his wife and children?”
Physcon still held her. Again he forced her to look into his face. “You can’t see Tiberius, Cornelia. It’s impossible. His body’s in the river. We’re on our way to his home to get his family. You will talk them into coming with us to Misenum. No one knows about the house on the cape. The turmoil is far from over. Rome will be an ugly place for some time to come. Don’t worry, I’ll bring you back when things quiet down.” He exuded confidence and calm. “There’s a second carriage carrying Fidelia and Coson. Trust me. This is not another marriage proposal. I’m here to save you and your family.”
Cornelia gasped and kind of deflated, finally giving in to the necessity of the moment. She looked out the window again. People were running through the streets waving sticks and shouting. It was clear something awful had happened. She would have to trust Physcon. “We must get Sempronia also,” she exclaimed. “With her husband gone, she’s at risk, too.”
Physcon nodded. “We can get her, but it will have to be quick. We need to get out of the city as soon as possible.”
Cornelia began to sob. Physcon, breathing heavily, slipped over to her side of the carriage and held her. They pulled up in front of Tiberius’ home just as Helios, Tiberius’ slave, ran up to the house bruised and beaten. “Tiberius is dead,” he shouted.
Cornelia climbed from the carriage, and with a shaking voice told the slave that she already knew. She then gathered herself enough to go inside to face her daughter-in-law and do what had to be done.
I remember the trip to Misenum. It took five days. Claudia was hysterical. I felt so badly about my brother I wished it had been me not him who had been murdered. Cornelia rose to the occasion. Yes, she was devastated. Tiberius had meant everything to her. She had been so proud of him and the task he had taken on. She had even encouraged him. So yes, her heart was shattered into tiny pieces. But she could mourn later. Claudia and the children needed her now.
The view along the coast to Misenum was gorgeous, nearly equal in beauty to what we felt in loss. Claudia broke into periods of wailing and pulling at her hair. The children were too young to understand anything but the agony. It made for a very wearing trip.
We had no plan when we arrived at the massive villa on the tip of the Cape of Misenum, but Physcon had taken care of everything. There was a complete staff of house slaves and attendants, including a chef and a kitchen full of food. The villa sprawled across the top of a rocky promontory that extended out into sea and overlooked the Bay of Naples to the south. The vast atrium opened onto an expansive garden populated with rose bushes, apple trees, and olive trees. An arbor covered in grape vines provided shade. A long stone stairway wound down the side of the promontory to the rocky shoreline. It was as lovely a place as I had ever seen.
We decided to stay there until Aemilianus returned from Spain. We all needed it. I believe Cornelia was at her strongest during this time. Though distraught, she endured. Over time, she even seemed to gain a greater strength, the kind acquired by those who have suffered a terrible tragedy—like the loss of their eldest son
.
PART II
AEMILIANUS
“So perished on the Capitol, and while still tribune, Tiberius, the son of that Gracchus who was twice consul, and of Cornelia, daughter of that Scipio who robbed Carthage of her supremacy. He lost his life in consequence of a most excellent design too violently pursued; and this abominable crime, the first that was perpetrated in a public assembly, would also open the door for others to occur.”
-Appian of Alexandria, Civil Wars
CHAPTER 36
The Republic had been changed forever. Never before had political disagreements in Rome resulted in physical violence. The people had lost one of their strongest advocates. Tiberius’ blood at the doors to the temple of Jupiter would leave a permanent stain on the soul of Rome. The split in the populace, which had been evident but mostly submerged before Tiberius’ death, widened and became more divisive. What had begun as an effort to strengthen the military base of the Republic through land reform degenerated into a vicious crime of hate against one of the most gifted, brilliant, and eloquent young nobles in Rome. For several days afterward bands of plebeians roamed the streets shouting slogans and engaging in random acts of vandalism, inspiring only more anger in the city and seemingly justifying the actions of the ruling class.
In the elections that took place that week, Publius Popilius and Publius Rupilius were chosen as the co-consuls. The Senate urged them to quickly conduct an inquiry into the incident. Rather than seek out the cause or the perpetrators of the violence, the consuls, under pressure from those who had carried out the crime, conducted a purge. Anyone associated with Tiberius or his movement was sought out, tried, and in many cases executed. Tiberius’ clients were at the top of the list. Diophanes, the great rhetorician, was one of the victims. Quintus Mummius was placed in a wine cask filled with vipers. Blossius was specifically called to the Senate floor by Publius Nasica. When Popilius asked him about his part in the movement, he replied that he would do anything that Tiberius asked of him.
Cornelia- the First Woman of Rome Page 13