I went to Gaius’ home several times while Cornelia was in Rome. Seeing young children was invariably bittersweet for me. I loved to hold little Gaius, but it always left me feeling inadequate and especially vulnerable to the caustic remarks of my husband.
On one occasion when I was there, after Licinia had been up all night with the baby, she took the opportunity of my visit to take a nap. She went to her bedroom and I held Gaius, while sitting beside Cornelia in the garden—once her garden—which was like visiting an old friend for her, especially on a pleasant afternoon in late spring when all the flowers were beginning to bloom.
I had become lost in my own life. Living with Aemilianus was like being beaten down emotionally a little bit each day. I sought solace by writing in a journal, but my ankle and the steady abuse had me wondering why I was even alive. Out of sheer desperation, I opened up to Cornelia that day. She was well aware of the difficulties I had with Aemilianus, and after his latest public statement about Tiberius’ murder, Cornelia wanted nothing to do with him. And to be sure, Aemilianus wanted nothing to do with her. It was in this atmosphere of mutual distaste for my husband that I finally felt I could reveal the anguish I was feeling.
“Mother,” I said, holding the swaddled infant in my arms, and gaining some unnamable strength from the little package of life. “Why did you nurture me as a child?”
Cornelia knew what this question meant. I had asked her more than once over the years, invariably when my womb seemed to be moving about inside of me. “To have a daughter who can talk openly to me like you are now.” Her smile was forlorn.
“Would you have done so if you’d known I would be barren?”
“Oh, Sempronia, why would I even try to answer such a question?”
I bowed my head to hide my tears. “Since his lost popularity, Aemilianus takes me at random, in any part of the house, with force and no thought of producing children. I’ve become little more than a depository for his anger.”
Cornelia wrapped an arm around my shoulder and laid her head next to mine. “A husband is a woman’s burden, Sempronia. That doesn’t answer your question, but just know that you are not alone. I was fortunate to marry the man I did. I tried to raise Gaius—and Tiberius—to have a deeper understanding of the sacred nature of a lifetime partner. But I never told you about the darker side of matrimony. Maybe that was a mistake on my part. Has he hurt you?”
I looked up at her. “In no serious physical way. But I hate myself—and feel I deserve his abuse.” My tears were flowing now. “Mother, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, forgive my weakness, but why did you do this to me?”
“I thought if I nurtured your mind, Sempronia,” she said as she stroked my hair, “that I was giving you an internal sanctuary. I felt that opening your mind to aesthetic truths would give you strength—and because of your ankle, I feared you might need it.”
“But it hasn’t been enough. In some ways it only deepens my troubles. Maybe if I had never learned to read Greek or understand philosophy, I wouldn’t be so badly frustrated by who I’ve become.”
Tears formed in Cornelia’s eyes.
“Do other women bear it, Mother, because they think so little of themselves?”
“They bear their life in the same way a slave who works in a mine does. Because they believe it’s their fate and that there’s nothing more.”
I looked into the puffy face of the infant in my arms, who at that moment looked more like a funny old man than a child.
“Would you like to come to Misenum to live? Claudia and I have a good life there. You’re welcome any time. I can even send a carriage for you.”
I looked at her. “I don’t know, Mother. I’ll have to think about it. Perhaps Aemilianus will divorce me and I’ll have to.”
“Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.”
I shook my head dejectedly. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
CHAPTER 44
Crassus died in Asia six months after arriving. In one of his many clashes with Aristonicus, he was captured. While riding to his imprisonment with an escort of four soldiers, he used his riding crop to stab one of his guards in the eye. When he tried to ride off, he was chased down and killed. This meant both of Cornelia’s daughters-in-law had lost their fathers in a year’s time.
Marcus Fulvius Flaccus was chosen to replace Crassus on the land reform commission. The three commissioners were now Fulvius, Carbo, and my brother. Gaius had been gone every summer since being elected to the commission, but now with Crassus’ death, he returned to Rome to take a year off from military service to help Fulvius and Carbo with the work.
Despite all that had occurred, the commission had been going about its work for nearly three years. For the most part the process had gone smoothly. The commission had wisely concentrated on the distribution of unclaimed public land. No one’s property had been confiscated, and none of the senators or large landowners had yet to feel the pinch. Under the guidance of Appius and Crassus more than five thousand Roman citizens had been granted thirty-iugerum parcels, with no interference from the Senate. The large sum of money gained through Attalus’ gift to the Roman people—thank you, Physcon—had made it all possible.
However, as more and more unclaimed public land was distributed over the next year, the work of the commission became increasingly difficult. The commission had to address the complication of distributing land that “belonged” to men who had more than the legal limit of five hundred iugera. Rather than going after land owned by influential men in Rome, the commission chose to seek out large landowners in Rome’s allied Latin and Italian states. This involved land that had been requisitioned by Rome at the end of the war with Hannibal. The division of this land had been done hastily and with no consideration for what would happen in the years to come. Over the course of the intervening seventy years, the land was steadily absorbed by wealthy Latin and Italian farm owners whose land was adjacent to unclaimed public property. Some of this land now belonged to families going back nearly three generations. Some of the property had even been sold, sometimes more than once. When the commission began to cut this property into thirty-iugerum parcels for Roman citizens, the difficulty of the task greatly multiplied. Sorting out ownership alone was difficult. If the landowner had no contract for his property, it was taken. Others with contracts were given land of less agricultural value in exchange for land that had been developed with farm buildings or planted with fruit trees. A series of lawsuits sprang up due to unclear property lines and poorly written contracts. The work of the commission got bogged down in the courts, and progress slowed to a crawl.
But it was more than arguments over property lines and previous investments in the land. The leaders of these Italian and Latin city-states, many of whom had property at stake, were as powerful and wealthy as the Roman aristocrats, and they complained to the Roman Senate about the process—not just with individual suits, but with an attack on the entire concept of redistribution and the legality of the commission’s work in general. In an effort to get more influence in Rome, a collection of these aristocrats sought the assistance of Aemilianus, who had made his career building legions from these allied states. Aemilianus, who would have been better served to leave the whole thing alone, had been against land reform from the beginning. Now extremely bitter about how Tiberius’ actions reflected on him, he chose to get involved, more out of spite than legal principle.
When Aemilianus was prompted to address the Senate on behalf of the Italian and Latin allies, he spent an evening with his childhood tutor and long-time friend Polybius, who had recently reached his seventieth year. Aemilianus wanted the history scholar’s advice before he drafted his speech to the Senate.
Polybius had been my tutor and was someone I greatly admired. He acknowledged me that evening when he arrived. We exchanged pleasantries, mostly his teasing me about incidents that had occurred when I was his student. All of it was good-natured and caused me to laugh more than I had in an awfully long time.
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The two men spoke over a dinner of roast pork, fresh bread, and Vela’s excellent vegetable soup. Both men had cups of wine. I had none at the table, but two afterward. Aemilianus opened the conversation with a description of the problem. “I need to be careful with what I say, Polybius. I was recently dogged by Papirius Carbo for my criticism of Tiberius. I let my arrogance get the better of me and said some things that angered the plebeians.”
Polybius’ hair, what little he had, was snow white. He was completely bald on the top with a clean-shaven face. “If you already have a problem with the plebeians, why have you decided to represent the Latins and Italians? You’re only asking for more trouble.”
“They’ve been a sure source of soldiers throughout my career. Troops are easier to raise in the south than in Rome. I feel I owe them something.”
“Still I suggest letting this one go, my friend. Your military career is over. You’ll never need to draft another army.”
“But I’ve already promised to help them. What can I do?”
Polybius looked off as though thinking, then took a sip from his cup of wine. “In some ways, these disputes are similar to those that have existed for years between Roman commercial interests and outside proprietors. Think about it. Contracts for public construction projects all over Italy are let out by the censors to both Roman and non-Roman contractors. Repairs to our harbors are the same. So are the surety contracts for these projects. If there are problems, the contractors or lenders come to the Senate with their complaints. Some of these men are Romans, some are not. In the end, everything comes back to the Senate for adjudication. In all fiscal matters the Senate’s had the final word. This instance should be no different.”
“You think these suits would be best administered by the Senate?”
“Yes. They’re matters of foreign policy and should be considered beyond the authority of the reform commission.”
Aemilianus nodded. “And most should see the sense of that.”
“I would think so. It will take some of the power from the commission. But didn’t the Senate react so strongly to Tiberius because they felt he’d overreached? This is one example of it.”
“Yes, yes, Polybius.” Aemilianus lifted his cup to his friend. “Few are so lucky to have such clear-thinking advisors.”
Polybius reluctantly lifted his cup. “My advice might be helpful, but you’ve ignored my initial comment. You’d be better served letting others handle this.”
“No, it will be fine if I choose my words carefully.”
Aemilianus had long been associated with the popularis faction of the Senate, and had even been considered the plebeians staunchest advocate prior to Tiberius’ rise and fall. When he spoke to the Senate the next day, he wisely decided to stick to detailing his solution to the lawsuits and did not veer off into denigration of his cousin’s land reform bill.
“The land commission was never set up to act as a court,” he began, “especially for legal issues that relate to our allies, who in some cases do not believe they can get a just hearing from the same people who are making the demands. This is a fair grievance. It makes more sense to leave the settlement of these suits to the Senate, which has always adjudicated disputes with our allies and other foreign nations. This way the decisions will have greater standing in the eyes of those pressing suits.” Aemilianus looked at his fellow senators. “I propose the Senate vote on establishing a special court to settle these disputes.”
The co-consuls for the year were Marcus Aquillius and Gaius Sempronius Tuditanus. Aquillius was in Spain on military duty. Tuditanus presided over the meeting.
Aemilianus faced him. “And I suggest that our current consul, Sempronius Tuditanus, act as the supervising judge for this new court.”
Tuditanus spoke in favor of the measure, and the proposal passed easily.
The land commissioners initially welcomed Aemilianus’ proposal as a reasonable idea and as something that would lessen their work load in the long run. Over the next month Tuditanus set up the proposed court and began to adjudicate law suits. But he had not looked at the situation carefully prior to agreeing to the job, and soon understood the size and difficulty of the task he had accepted. Barely five weeks into the work, he threw up his hands in frustration. He drummed up a military campaign in Illyria and left Rome with two legions, more interested in accumulating plunder than untying legal knots that stretched back seventy years into the past.
Rather than solving the problem, the situation became worse. Tuditanus was gone, and the commission no longer had the power to settle disputes. The entire land reform effort stagnated. The commission, which had been distributing property to as many as fifty landless plebeians a week, could only manage to complete a few transactions a month. And in the uproar that followed, Aemilianus became the target of plebeian frustration. They accused him of trying to undermine the land reform bill and further condemned him for taking the side of Rome’s Italian and Latin allies over them.
Three years earlier Aemilianus had ridden into Rome in a gilded chariot, a historic Roman hero. Now he could not go anywhere in public without hearing shouts against his name and his reputation. He was even called a traitor for his allegiance to Rome’s allies. In one such instance, when Tarus was accompanying him for protection, three men attacked Aemilianus. Tarus intervened with all the savagery of a one-time pirate. Aemilianus was never touched, but Tarus received a serious blow to his head that left him slow and listless the rest of his life.
Sadly, the worse things got for my husband, the more he seemed intent on taking it out on me. He began to drink in excess, and then come to my bed, or anywhere I might be, to vent his anger in violent bursts of sexual passion. My already dismal life took yet another downturn.
CHAPTER 45
With Cornelia in Misenum I had no one to talk to. I became increasingly despondent. I began to entertain taking my life. I had little insight how I would do it, but hoped to find some potion that could quickly solve my problems and yet not be so horrible a death. I suppose I was the coward in the family.
One morning I strapped on my supportive sandal and borrowed Nadia’s hooded, raw wool cloak. I added some face paint, something I never wore, and used a cane to venture out into the city unaccompanied, hoping to find some kind of poison. I was not entirely certain where I needed to go but knew I did not want to be recognized. I had no money of my own, so I had rifled Tiberius’ bedroom to obtain a silver denarius, two sesterces, and four asses. I dared not take more fearing he might notice it was missing.
I went to the Subura district to begin my search. It was the poorest part of Rome and not far from my house. I had never been there before, much less alone. Even with the supportive sandal, my ankle became troublesome almost immediately. Without the cane, it would have been impossible.
The streets in Subura were more like muddy alleys, very narrow and filled with trash and chickens and dogs and rats. Any progress I made was a struggle. Bent over the cane, and wearing the hood over my head, I blended in well, and though the language used in the street was coarse, I was mostly left alone. I saw more women selling themselves than I care to mention. Legionnaires whose military service had left them badly crippled or with missing limbs seemed to sit on every doorstep or limp down the street with the same trouble I had.
Little shops, if you could call them that, were tucked in between the poorly built tenement buildings like dark caves. The first one I dared to enter contained two young women sitting on stools. Behind them a third woman was servicing a soldier. I quickly backed out, realizing that I had no idea what I was doing. A little farther down the street I noticed a man selling snakes. He held a long black snake in his hands and let it wind around one arm then the other. He had several others in wooden cages stacked on the ground behind him. When I hesitated for a moment in passing him, his eyes fastened on mine, and he held the black snake out to me. “No better pet than a snake, lady. Got a problem with rodents? This beauty will clean your house out i
n a week. She’s yours for three asses.”
“Are any of your snakes poisonous?” I asked, surprised that I responded to the man at all.
He grinned, making his eyes small. “For a lover you would like to surprise?” He winked, then holding the black snake with one hand, lifted one of the cages so I could look inside. A rather large brown snake was coiled into the cage like a length of braided hair. “You might like this Sicilian viper. One little bite will do. No more horrible death can I imagine—except maybe burning.” He winked at me. “Yours for two sesterces.”
“I’m looking for something a little less dramatic?”
He came up close to me, wagging the black snake in my face. “What have you got in mind? A child or an adult?”
“N-n-neither,” I stammered backing away. “I have dog with a bad temper. It bit my child. I wanted a humane way to get rid of it.”
“My snakes are too dangerous with a child in the house. What you need is some hemlock. With the right dose, the dog will simply go to sleep and never wake up.”
I nodded, recalling the story of Socrates’ death. “Where might I get hemlock?”
“I know a woman who deals in such herbs. For two asses, I’ll tell you where to find her.”
I was not accustomed to dealing with street people. I was almost afraid to show him that I had any money at all, but I fished into my cloak and retrieved two of the four asses I had with me. He snatched them out of my hand before I had a chance to give them to him, then he laughed at me in a hideous way.
“Where’s this woman?” I hesitated, wondering if he would bother to answer.
He squinched one eye and leaned in close to me. “You’re not regularly in these parts are you?”
Cornelia- the First Woman of Rome Page 16