Gaius’ opening surprised everyone there, including myself. How could these others he mentioned have any bearing on his leaving Sardinia?
“The law requires a citizen to serve ten years in the military. I’m not yet thirty and have already served twelve in regions as far flung as Asia, Spain, Africa, and Gaul. What I have witnessed in those twelve years makes a joke of the charges I currently face.”
Gaius did not possess the same composure his brother had when speaking. He stalked back and forth and gestured with his hands in a way Tiberius never had.
“The censor has leveled a charge of dereliction of duty against me—a charge I consider as dishonorable as murder and an insult to me and my name. I was elected to the position of quaestor two years ago. After serving in that position for one year, I was ordered to serve a second. I fulfilled that duty without hesitation. However, with the campaign in Sardinia still unfinished after two years, Orestes was ordered by the Senate to stay another year. At the same time his legions were recalled to Rome and replaced with fresh troops. I returned with those men who were recalled, as did several other officers—though many did choose to stay. Some might say that I should have stayed in Sardinia out of loyalty to my superior officer. And I would agree except that I had learned the land reform commission was under pressure here in Rome, putting all my late brother’s efforts in jeopardy. Being both a member of that commission and a military officer, I had two responsibilities, one in Rome and one in Sardinia. After two years in Sardinia, twice my elected term, I felt my duties in Rome were more urgent.”
Even from my perspective inside the litter, it was clear that Gaius had caught the attention of his audience. What he was saying was making sense to the collection of plebs and causing nervous tremors in the string of bright white togas along the top edge of the amphitheater.
“So, to verify just how insulting I consider these allegations, I only need to compare my actions to those I have encountered during my twelve years of service—and kept quiet about until today. Duty abroad is widely looked upon by those in power as a way to riches. When I left for Sardinia, I carried a full purse.” He withdrew a leather pouch from the sinus of his toga and held it out. “Now that I am back, it is empty.” He tipped it upside down and shook it. Two bronze asses tinkled across the stone floor of the comitium. “Not so for the praetors of Rome’s foreign provinces. I’ve been there. I’ve seen their sumptuous living accommodations. I’ve seen the exotic meals they serve. I’ve seen the lascivious women and pretty boys who surround these magistrates chosen to represent Rome. These same men took jugs filled with wine to their provinces.” Gaius, whose passion had steadily risen throughout his speech, tore his toga from his shoulder dramatically. “Only to return with those same jugs filled with silver and gold! While our legionnaires return to farms two years gone to seed and not an as to their name. Something somewhere is terribly wrong.”
The plebeian audience loved it and erupted with cheers. Any question of his leaving Sardinia early was chicken feed compared to scandal among Rome’s rich and famous. Laelia turned to me and placed her hand on my thigh affectionately. “This is what I must learn. To draw the audience along as Gaius has done.”
We watched as he brought his speech to a highly emotional conclusion.
“While I was gone, Fulvius Flaccus sought to clear the courts of land reform suits with a bill that offered Roman citizenship to Italians and non-Roman Latins. Four days before the vote Junius Pennus passed an alien expulsion act to cast non-Romans from the city—an obvious move to undermine the citizenship vote and maintain the land reform logjam. That’s why I came back. I had a higher calling—protecting the work of my brother. A man you all saw murdered,” Gaius pointed to the top of the Capitoline Hill and shouted, “at the doors to Jupiter’s temple. What greater insult can there be?”
It was a scene no one had forgotten. Several people in the crowd shouted Tiberius’ name.
“Now you tell me,” continued Gaius, “was it a mistake for me to leave Sardinia? Or would you rather have me here?”
The crowd stood as one and shouted over and over again, “Here in Rome! Here in Rome!” Popilius, a stiff, self-righteous aristocrat, unimpressed by Gaius’ passionate speech, turned to the jury with a frown I could see from two hundred feet away. The vote was quick. A split jury, populated entirely by senators, decided to drop the charges. Afterward scores of plebs came to Gaius and apologized for doubting him.
I had no intention of staying around to talk to Gaius. Laelia knew about my ankle and suggested we go to a bath. I never went to a bathhouse alone, but nothing I did was more relaxing than sitting in the warm water. Going with Laelia, whom I greatly enjoyed, would be like going with Cornelia. I readily agreed.
As my bearers carried the litter past the comitium, I saw clusters of senators forming around the edge of the amphitheater, talking among themselves, all gravely upset by Gaius’ speech. Not only had Gaius stated in public what every aristocrat knew in private—assignments in foreign lands were driven by the allure of riches—but his oratorical ability also appeared to be even greater, and more dangerous, than his brother’s.
We went to the same private bath I had gone to with Cornelia. Laelia surprised me by removing all of her clothing to enter the pool. No one did that. She was quite casual about it and seemed to flaunt that she had not removed her body hair, as almost all upper-class Roman women did.
“The water feels so much nicer without the weight of the clothing,” she said, standing in the bath, sparkling with a thin veneer of water.
While I stretched out from the side of the pool, letting my legs and hips float in the water within the wet folds of my gown, Laelia splashed about without the slightest restraint or modesty. She came up along side of me. She was a beautiful woman with pale, nearly white skin and striking black hair. I found myself gazing at her breasts. They were small and stood out rather than sagged. The nipples were pink and tight, so different than mine I must have stared. Laelia took my hand and pressed it to her breast. “See how smooth the wet skin feels without the encumbrance of cloth?”
My entire body must have blushed. Laelia slipped beneath the water. I watched her push off with her legs and streak under water to the other side of the pool. Her immodesty was something foreign to me. I had spent my entire life hiding my ankle beneath my clothing. I did not expect to change who I was, but I could not help admiring Laelia’s freedom.
CHAPTER 60
Gaius had pledged not to get into politics, but as Carbo had said, he was in already. His experience on the floor of the comitium had also affected him more than he wanted to admit. Afterward Fulvius, fifteen years his senior, had pressed him to reconsider running for the position of tribune. Gaius turned him down again, but not as emphatically.
Three days after the trial he came to my home in the morning, something he rarely if ever did. He was agitated and wanted to talk to me in private. He pushed my wheelchair out to the peristyle. The morning was cold. It had rained during the night and threatened to rain again. We both wore wool cloaks.
“Tiberius came to me in a dream last night,” he said as soon as he was certain no one else could hear him. He knelt down in front of my chair and looked up at me.
“He spoke to me,” he gasped, clearly shaken by the dream. “It was as though he were standing beside my bed. ‘Why do you tarry?’ he asked. ‘There is no escape; one life and one death is appointed to each of us, to spend the one and to meet the other in the service of the people.’” Gaius looked over his shoulder, then back to me. “Can there be any doubt? He was telling me to run for a tribuneship.”
I did not want to say yes, but that was what I thought. I had seen his passion in the comitium. He was headed down the same path that Tiberius had taken. He was chosen for it from birth. But I feared what had happened to Tiberius would also happen to him. “Perhaps,” was my weak answer.
“I’ve been troubling over this since returning from Sardinia. I even thought about it ther
e. When Carbo and Fulvius confronted me with the possibility, I immediately said no. But I didn’t stop thinking about it.” Gaius shook his head in confusion. “And now this dream.”
“Talk to Cornelia. See what she thinks.”
His eyes darted with thought. “No, I must decide for myself.”
“But you asked me?”
“I asked you because you won’t try to force your opinion on me.”
“Mother would be the same.”
“No, there’s no need. Revealing the dream to you has convinced me of its meaning. I will file the necessary papers tomorrow.”
CHAPTER 61
Gaius did as he said. He added his name to the list of candidates for the position of tribune. The election was a month and a half away. During that time the Latin colony of Fregellae, angered by the rejection of Fulvius’ citizenship proposal, forced the Roman magistrates from their city, dropped out of the Latin Federation, and denied all allegiance to Rome.
The Senate reacted by sending two legions under the command of Lucius Opimius to Fregellae to put down the rebellion. Opimius gained entry to the gates through treachery, then burned the city to the ground as an example to other Latin colonies that might have similar plans. In the aftermath of the rebellion, several of the senators placed the blame on Fulvius’ promise of citizenship. They claimed that his proposal was insincere and that he had used it to gain popularity and expand his following. The same accusations were leveled at Gaius, even though he had not been in Italy at the time of Fulvius’ political campaign. All of this was strictly backlash against Gaius. It was common knowledge he was running for the tribunate. The smear of his name and character was already under way.
Even worse, however, was Cornelia’s response when I told her of Gaius’ intentions. She sent Gaius a letter which he later showed to me:
You will say, Gaius, that it is a beautiful thing to take vengeance on our enemies by running for the position of tribune. To no one does this seem either greater or more beautiful than it does to me, but only if it is possible to pursue these aims without harming the state. But seeing as that cannot be done, and that our enemies will not perish for a long time nor will they change, pushing them to do so will do nothing good for our Rome.
I would take a solemn oath, swearing that, except for those who murdered Tiberius, no enemy has foisted so much difficulty and so much distress upon me as you have because of this matter. You should desist immediately to ensure that I might have the least anxiety possible in my old age; and that, whatever you do, you should answer to me rather than your anger; and that you would consider it sacrilegious to do anything of great significance contrary to my feelings, especially as I am someone with only a short portion of my life left. Cannot even that time span, as brief as it is, be of help in keeping you from opposing me and destroying our country? Because, in the final analysis, that’s what you’ll do. When will our family stop behaving insanely? When will we cease insisting on troubles, both suffering and causing them? When will we begin to feel shame about disrupting and disturbing our country? But if you are unable to resist this temptation, seek the office of tribune after I am gone. Then do what you please, when I cannot perceive what you are doing. May Jupiter not for a single instant allow you to continue in these actions nor permit such madness to come into your mind. And if you persist, I fear that, by your own fault, you may incur such trouble for your entire life that at no time would you be able to make yourself happy.
Although I also believed that Gaius should stay out of politics, Cornelia’s tone upset me and revealed how much Tiberius’ death had affected her. She had supported Tiberius, even helped him. Now she almost sounded like Aemilianus. She wanted nothing that might disrupt Rome, even when the issues that Gaius would pursue would be for the benefit of the people, which she had to know.
When I returned the letter to Gaius, there were tears in his eyes. The letter hurt him badly, and as the youngest of Cornelia’s children, the last thing he wanted to do was hurt her.
“But I’m already committed, Sempronia,” he said, wiping the tears from his cheeks. “I must honor the spirit of Tiberius more than the wishes of our mother. Can you find it in yourself to support me in this?”
I was old enough to be his mother. I had carried out many of the duties of a nursemaid when he was an infant. He was dearer to me than Tiberius had been, though such a judgment seems silly in retrospect. But even more touching to me was that he sought my approval when Cornelia refused it. “Gaius, I must admit to some of the same fears that haunt our mother, but I have seen your passion and I know that your motives are mostly pure. Yes, mostly, as Cornelia foresees, revenge is clearly part of it. But only part of it.” I embraced him. “How can I say no? You have my blessing.”
He thanked me, then held me at arm’s length and looked into my eyes. “Can you possibly talk to Mother? I would be afraid to now for the malice it could create between us. Maybe you can make her see that I have no other choice.”
“Tell her about your dream. That will help.”
Gaius nodded absently. “I will certainly have to talk to her at some point. And I will tell her I’m following Tiberius’ wishes. Maybe she will accept this as my destiny—to complete what he began. But you must talk to her first, please. Get some measure of her displeasure beyond this letter. Perhaps it was written in haste, in a moment of anger.”
“Yes, that’s very possible. I’ll talk to her.”
He embraced me this time.
CHAPTER 62
Prior to the election I went to Misenum to see Cornelia and take part in a circle she had organized. Licinia had also read Cornelia’s letter. Worried that she might have lost favor with the great woman, she remained in Rome. Laelia, however, joined me, and we rode south together in my carriage to spend a week in Misenum. It was not a safe trip without an escort so I hired guards to travel with us.
This was the first time I had spent more than an afternoon with Laelia. The trip was five days in good weather. It took us six. The first few days alone in the carriage, Laelia asked me which Greek plays I had read and what I knew about geometry. That was my attraction for her. I had a much broader education. She was hungry for it, and I found it flattering.
The fourth day presented unusually good weather for late fall. The sun was out and there were no clouds at all. We followed Via Appia along the coast, and not far from Fregellae, we skirted a beautiful beach outside the little town of Formiea. Laelia begged me to stop so she could walk along the seashore.
Laelia had already completely charmed me, asking me questions about things no one asked me about, making me feel smart and needed. Of course, I said yes.
The beach was empty for as far as we could see. I traveled with my wheelchair and had Tarus, who drove the carriage, carry it down to the beach so I could sit and take in the sea breeze. Laelia walked along the water’s edge barefoot, daring to get the edge of her tunic wet. When a wave splashed her to the hips, she suddenly shed her clothes and dove into the waves. The water was cold and she did not stay in long. I watched her stalk from the surf onto the beach, her wet hair hanging over her shoulders in thick black ribbons. She picked up her clothing and hiked up the beach to where I was.
She had an athletic body. She was proud of it and walked that way. I had never seen a woman with such confidence in her appearance. She did not put her tunic and stola on right away, but instead wrapped her palla around her shoulders, hardly covering herself at all.
“Don’t be embarrassed, Sempronia,” she said standing beside me. “Just like a tiger is a stunning animal to look at, so is a human.” She laughed gaily. “I must have been a Greek in a previous lifetime,” she joked, then lifted her palla over her head and did a slow turn showing herself off.
“Well, you certainly are beautiful, Laelia.” I lowered my eyes, then glanced to where the carriage was parked. “But the guards have seen you also.”
“They’re too far away to tell if I’m wearing clothes or not. But I can se
e I’m making you uncomfortable.”
Laelia dressed and we returned to the carriage. We sat across from each other. As soon as the movement of the carriage ensured that Tarus could not overhear our conversation, she leaned toward me.
“How was your marriage?” she asked. “Did you enjoy living with Aemilianus?”
Just the mention of his name sent a chill through me. Four years had passed since the murder, and it still felt like it had happened yesterday. I had heard nothing from my accomplice and hoped I never would. “Aemilianus was gone a lot,” I said. “Our time together was limited, but even then tense.” I looked down at my lap. “I couldn’t give him a child.”
“I’m sure that was pressure you didn’t need. I was fortunate to have three of five survive—so far.” She looked out the window at the sea. “But my husband is a dullard and drinks too much. He thinks my study of law is a waste of time.” She shook her head at the insult of it. “I’d just as soon kill him as allow him between my legs—for what little pleasure that might give me.”
I had no idea what to say. Her language was not what I was accustomed to. I must have blushed—even though she expressed what I had already felt and done.
“I’ve embarrassed you again, Sempronia. I’m sorry if I’m too crude. I can mind my mouth.”
“It’s fine, Laelia. Your honesty is refreshing.” I shifted my legs to get the pressure off my ankle.
Laelia reached out to lift my leg. “May I?”
I did not understand her question.
“This might help.” She placed my foot on her lap and removed my supportive boot. “My, this is quite bad.”
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