“Well, I don’t go out much, no.”
He laughed again. “Go to the top of the Aventine Hill. Behind the temple of Minerva there’s an alley. It leads into a little community of,” he grinned, “Rome’s finest thieves and con artists. She’s an ugly old woman. She has no shop, just wanders around with her entire inventory hidden beneath her cloak.”
“How will I recognize her?”
“Have another as?”
This was the sort of situation I had hoped to avoid. I was just too naive to be bargaining for poison in the street. I drew a third as from my cloak, but gripped it tightly in my hand and pressed my fist up against my chest. “Tell me how I can recognize her?” I asked again.
“She wears a striped bandana around her head, and she has a pet cat that sits on her shoulder. You can’t miss her. This time of day she’ll be there.”
I gave him the as and limped away, wondering how I would ever climb to the top of the Aventine Hill. I had not gone very far when a rough-looking man pushed up close to me. “I’ve got a room,” he muttered under his breath. “How much?”
I ignored the man and struggled ahead in the muddy street.
He stayed with me as I lurched ahead with my cane trying to get away. “How much?” he asked again.
I could not maintain the pace. I had to stop. I leaned up against the nearest wall. “I’m not for sale,” I said, out of breath, more frightened than angry. “Leave me alone.”
The man stared at me. “Too bad,” he snapped, “I like cripples,” then walked away.
I remained against the wall for a long time wondering if I should return home or dare the climb to the temple of Minerva. The immediate area stunk of human waste. The street might as well have been a long, thin pigsty. And there I was, splattered with the stuff, my ankle killing me, contemplating buying poison to take my life. I decided to find the woman with the cat on her shoulder.
The climb was not so difficult or steep. Most could climb to the top without breaking stride or losing breath. But for me it was torture. I gritted my teeth with every step. At times I felt that I would need to crawl, all the more intensifying my purpose. What value was I?
Upon reaching the crest of the hill, I rested on a bench in front of the temple of Minerva, built to the Goddess of Art and Wisdom. They should have called her Cornelia. The temple was white limestone, built in the traditional style with a red tile, peaked roof and surrounded on all four sides by a portico of fluted columns. The painted statue of the goddess inside was powerful—a lovely young woman posed dramatically in a long flowing gown and wearing a soldier’s helmet. An owl perched on her outstretched left arm. A large serpent stood erect beside her. A shield was at her feet.
I gave my ankle a good rest, then hobbled down the length of the temple looking for the alley I had been told about. I found a narrow and not so obvious passageway between two buildings and followed it into a courtyard surrounded by dilapidated three- and four-story tenement apartments. Much like the Subura neighborhood, the courtyard contained piles of refuse and an excess of loose chickens and dogs, but there were also jugglers and minstrels mixed in with clusters of beggars, all milling around as though it were some kind of festival for the poor. Well-disguised with my crutch and Nadia’s cloak, I meandered through the motley crowd looking for a woman with a cat on her shoulder. It did not take long even with all the activity that was going on. I spotted her standing alone at the edge of a makeshift theater stage where two drunken mimes were failing to draw an audience.
I approached the woman cautiously. She had several knobby growths on her face and looked the part of someone selling herbs in the street, the uncomfortable mix of a homeless woman and a witch. Her hair was dark, streaked with gray and wiry. It stuck out in all directions from her striped bandana like a frizzy halo. She wore a long, multicolored, patchwork cloak with holes at the elbows and a frayed hem. I edged up close to her. The black cat on her shoulder noticed me before she did. “I was told you sell herbs.”
The woman appraised me with small dark eyes. “Who might have said that?”
“A man selling snakes in Subura.”
She assessed me as a mark. “Do you have any money?”
“If you have what I’m looking for.”
She looked around as though the mere mention of money would draw others, then ushered me away to a corner of the courtyard where there weren’t so many people. “What do you need?” she hissed.
“I have a dog that bit my child. The dog is close to me, but I want to be rid of it. Rather than loosing him on the street, I thought I might poison him. Do you have something that will be a quick and painless death?” The cat was watching me the entire time.
“Poison, hmmm?” She stared into my face as though she did not believe a word I had said. A little smile curled at the corners of her mouth. “That will cost you more than a copper or two. Can you manage that?”
“I can pay as much as a denarius.”
Her grin widened. She opened her cloak, forcing the cat to move behind her head. Thirty or more small cloth bundles hung from cords on the inside of her cloak. “Something deadly but not too painful, you say?” Again she peered into my eyes like she was reading my mind. “For your dog?”
I nodded, knowing she did not believe me.
She touched one of the little parcels. “Wolf bane, perhaps?” She touched a second. “Hemlock is a favorite for loved ones.”
“Which would you suggest for the most mercy?”
“Hemlock mixed with honey.” She lifted the cloth bundle and looked inside. “You can have all of this for a denarius. Half of it will make for a very pleasant death.”
I swallowed at the mention of it. “I’ll take it.”
“For her dog,” she said to the cat.
I withdrew the silver denarius from my cloak. “For my dog.”
The old woman took the coin, tried to bend it with her teeth, then handed me the hemlock. “You’re not fooling me. You’re planning to kill your husband aren’t you?”
“No, no,” I muttered, “my dog.” I tucked the cloth bundle into my cloak, glanced up at her, then limped off into the crowd. The ankle hurt more than ever. I had to stop three times on the way back to my house to cope with the pain. When I finally entered the door, I dropped Nadia’s cloak on the floor and hobbled into the atrium before collapsing on a bench beside the pool.
Nadia heard me come in and was at my side almost immediately. “My lady, are you all right?”
I shook my head no. “Please get me some warm water to soak my foot—and a cup of mulsum. I turned my ankle again.”
She did not believe me any more than Aemilianus did. She returned with a bucket of hot water, a linen cloth, and a small cup of mulsum. She unwrapped the cords that bound my ankle while I sipped from the cup. My entire foot had turned purple with the swelling and was twisted so badly it appeared to be attached sideways to my ankle. Nadia lifted my leg at the calf and eased my foot in the water. I was so exhausted I just stretched out on the bench. She dipped the cloth in the water and used it to clean the paint off my face without asking why I was wearing it.
“Thank you, Nadia.”
She looked at me full of questions. Clearly she wanted to know where I had been but was too gracious to ask.
When the water cooled and my cup was empty, I used the crutch to hike up to my bedroom. I hid the bundle of hemlock beneath my straw-filled mattress, then lay down hoping to go to sleep, but even with the mulsum, the throbbing in my ankle would not allow it. I was simply thankful to be off my feet. The trip down the Aventine Hill had been worse than going up. I had fallen twice. Something about having the hemlock seemed comforting. Maybe I would never use it, but at least now I had an option.
CHAPTER 46
During this period of rancor regarding land reform, Aemilianus invited a few of his friends to dinner to discuss Tuditanus’ failure to accept the responsibility of presiding over the land settlement court. After the meal, Aemilianus, Gaius Laeli
us, Spurius Mummius—Quintus Mummius’ older brother—and Quintus Tubero, Aemilianus’ nephew, a man a few years older than Gaius, lounged on couches around the table in the triclinium. The table was cleared of everything but an amphora of chian wine and the men’s drinking cups.
I had eaten alone much earlier. I had Nadia set up my spinning wheel in the atrium. Curious about what the men might say, I sat close enough to the triclinium to see in through the doorway and overhear some of what they talked about.
The men came to no solution for running the settlement court, which seemed to be an impossible task, but with more drinking the conversation turned to unabashed criticism of Tiberius. Gaius Laelius, the grandson of the same Gaius Laelius who had fought with my grandfather in Africa, and who was known for having first suggested land reform twenty years earlier, seemed to be the most offended by Tiberius’ efforts. I had not taken heed of their talk with much interest or anger—I already knew what these men thought about my brother—until I heard Laelius say something that got my blood boiling. “Why, I wonder,” he said to the other men, “have we not erected a statue to Publius Nasica? Should he not get credit for ridding Rome of Tiberius? I mean, isn’t the man a true Roman patriot?”
“Whether proper or not, I don’t think that would be very popular,” said Mummius. “Tiberius’ name still resounds in certain quarters of Rome.”
“What difference does it make what the lower orders think?” said Tubero, an unattractive man with red blotchy skin, greasy black hair, and over-sized ears. He took a swallow from his cup. “Had Publius Nascia not taken the initiative, who knows where Rome would be today. A statue is more than called for. I say it’s demanded.”
Aemilianus, as troubled as anyone by the measures Tiberius had passed as a tribune, had a completely different angle on the subject. “I think too much is made of statues,” he said with a little grin, something rare for him unless he had several cups of wine.
“How so?” asked Laelius. “What’s a better way to remember our ancestors?”
Mummius and Tubero echoed the same sentiments.
Aemilianus, who had stretched out on the couch, sat up, and drawing in close to the table, spoke softly to project the seriousness of what he would say. “Although the memory of great deeds alone is considered ample reward for virtue, one’s divine nature needs a more stable reward than statues fixed in lead or triumphs with withering laurels.”
“To what are you referring, Aemilianus?” asked Laelius.
“Not some unearthly rewards?” queried Tubero.
“I believe he must be,” said Mummius, lifting his cup to take a drink.
Aemilianus’ eyes sparkled and he nodded. “Do you recall Plato’s story about the Pamphylian soldier who appeared to die in battle, then twelve days later, as he was about to be placed on his funeral pyre, sat up fully alive, saying that he had come back from the dead.”
“No, but it seems quite far-fetched,” said Tubero.
“Go on, Aemilianus,” said Laelius. “I recall the story. What’s your point?”
“The man spoke of having spent time in the heavens and offered it as proof of the existence of something beyond life on Earth.”
“A fine story,” said Mummius, “but nothing more.”
“Perhaps that’s all it is,” said Aemilianus, “but I had a dream many years ago that I never told to anyone—because it touched on these ideas of divinity. It was during my time in Africa, shortly after I arrived, when I was a tribune under Manilius and had yet to initiate the siege of Carthage. I made a deliberate effort to find the aged Numidian king Masinissa, then past his eightieth year, who had been such a fond friend of my grandfather’s.” Aemilianus took a sip of wine.
“On seeing me, Masinissa was overcome with emotion, saying, ‘Oh I thank the supreme Sun and the other celestial beings, that before I have departed from this life I can behold in my kingdom, and in my palace, Publius Cornelius Scipio, by whose mere name I feel so thrilled.’
“This opening led to a pleasant evening where I explained to him the issues of our commonwealth, and he talked about the affairs of his kingdom, then went on, as an old man will, about his time with Africanus and the battles they fought together. It was a night I will never forget. The great king died less than a year later and it was the only time I ever saw him.”
“How does that figure into these rewards you mentioned?” asked Laelius.
“That night, after our talk, when we had retired to our chambers, I had the dream I have kept to myself for so long.”
“And how much longer will you keep it from us?” Laelius raised his cup, chuckling. “Get on with it, my friend.”
“As so often happens after a large meal and good talk, the conversation of the night returns in some haphazard way to your dreams.”
“Yes, yes,” said Mummius.
“Africanus, looking just like the bust here in my library, came to me in a dream that night, though I thought I was awake sitting up in bed. Seeing that his appearance frightened me, he spoke comfortingly. ‘Take courage, Aemilianus, be not afraid, and carefully remember what I say to you.’”
The other three men leaned forward to listen as the story drew them in.
“‘The city of Carthage,’ he said, ‘once brought under the Roman yoke by me, is now renewing former wars and cannot live in peace. Although you are only a tribune today, before two years have elapsed, you shall be a consul and complete the overthrow of this city, and obtain by your own merit the surname Africanus, just as I have. And when you have destroyed Carthage, and received the honor of a triumph, and have been made censor, and as an ambassador visited Egypt, Syria, Asia, and Greece, you shall be elected consul again and win a dangerous war with Numantia. Then when you have entered Rome for a second time in your triumphal chariot, you will find the Roman Commonwealth all in a ferment through the intrigues of my great-grandson Tiberius Gracchus.’”
“In other words, Aemilianus,” said Laelius, “this ghost told you twenty years ago all the things that would make your career?”
“Yes.”
“And you never said anything—even as these things happened?” asked Tubero.
“Impossible,” sneered Mummius.
“Let me finish my story before you judge it.” Aemilianus grinned. “‘It will be on this occasion,’ continued Africanus, ‘that you will show your country, all good citizens, the allies, and all the people of Latium, the greatness of your understanding and prudence by calming the uncertain times. When your age shall have accomplished seven times eight revolutions of the sun, and your fatal hours shall be marked by the natural product of these two numbers, then the whole city will take recourse in you alone and will place its hopes in your auspicious name, and the preservation of the state will depend on you. In other words, if you escape the impious machinations of your relatives, you will, in the way of a dictator, establish order and tranquility in the commonwealth.’”
“Oh, so you’re telling us because of all the great things you’ve done,” groaned Laelius, “that you have every confidence you can solve these legal problems?”
Aemilianus shook his head in a playful way. “Don’t wake me from this dream so soon, Laelius. I have more to tell. Africanus is still imparting his advice. Be quiet and listen, so he may continue. ‘Now, in order to encourage you to defend the state with the greatest cheerfulness,’—he said to me—‘be assured that, for all those who have in any way applied themselves to the preservation, defense, and enlargement of their native country, there is a certain place in heaven where they shall enjoy an eternity of happiness. For nothing on Earth is more agreeable to God, the Supreme Governor of the Universe, than the assemblies and societies of men united together by laws and called states. It is from heaven their rulers and preservers came and to there do they return.’”
Scipio took a moment to wet his lips with wine, then went on. “Of all Africanus’ predictions, the suggested perfidy of my own relatives troubled me most. And yet I pushed this aside, an
d collected myself enough to inquire whether my father, Aemilius Paullus, and others whom we look upon as dead were really still living?
“‘Yes,’ Africanus replied, ‘they all enjoy life, and have escaped from the chains of the body as though it were a prison. What you call life on Earth is no more than one form of death. See, here comes your father now!’
“And as soon as I saw him I burst into a flood of tears, but he took me in his arms and embraced me and bade me not to weep. ‘Men are likewise endowed with a soul,’ said Africanus, ‘which is a portion of the eternal fires that you call the stars, and which being round, spherical bodies, animated by divine intelligence, perform their cycles and revolutions with the perfection of the music of the spheres. And he, who does live that life which seeks perfection in the sphere of men, to him entirely is this heaven.’
“The dream ended on this uplifting note, and from that moment on, I saw the universe as something beautiful and admirable and that those whose deeds merit this heaven have the highest recognition of all—and in comparison to this, statues of stone or writing on papyrus is nothing. So I would say, even should there never be a statue to memorialize Publius Nasica—and because of the feelings of the common man, there may never be—it matters not, for there is only one judgment that matters, and it’s made by the gods that inhabit the heavens.”
The other three men sat back, impressed by the story and the seriousness with which Aemilianus had related it, and yet uncertain what to think because they were not already believers in such a place as the infinite heavens. After a short time, Tubero, perhaps because of his youth, asked a question. “And because of a dream, Uncle, you believe in a life after what we call death?”
Aemilianus nodded. “Yes, because after all my years, I have begun to believe that dreams are the imperfect way those who we believe are dead are able to communicate with us.”
“And what of Africanus’ prediction? How many years are you now?” asked Tubero, still incredulous that this great man whom he so admired could make these statements with such conviction.
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