The Gates of Rome

‘Most of the Romans could not fight, trapped as they were in the middle of their own close formations. Hannibal’s men killed all day long, tightening the trap until there was no one left alive. It was annihilation on a scale rarely seen before or since. Most battles leave many alive, at least those who run away, but these Romans were surrounded on all sides and had nowhere to flee to.’

The silence stretched for long moments as the two boys fixed the details in their minds and imaginations.

‘Our time is up today, boys. Next week I will show you what the Romans learned from this defeat and others at the hands of Hannibal. Although they were unimaginative here, they brought in a new commander, known for his innovation and daring. He met Hannibal at the battle of Zama fourteen years later and the outcome was very different.’

‘What was his name?’ Marcus asked excitedly.

‘He had more than one. His given name was Publius Scipio, but because of the battles he won against Carthage he was known as Scipio Africanus.’

As Gaius approached his tenth birthday, he was growing into an athletic, well-coordinated lad. He could handle any of the horses, even the difficult ones that required a brutal hand. They seemed to calm at his touch and respond to him. Only one refused to let him remain in the saddle and Gaius had been thrown eleven times when Tubruk sold the beast before the struggle killed one or the other of them.

To some extent, Tubruk controlled the purse of the estate while Gaius’ father was away. He could decide where the profits from grain and livestock would be best spent, using his judgement. It was a great trust and a rare one. It wasn’t up to Tubruk, however, to engage specialist fighters to teach the boys the art of war. That was the decision of the father – as was every other aspect of their upbringing. Under Roman law, Gaius’ father could even have had the boys strangled or sold into slavery if they displeased him. His power in his household was absolute and his goodwill was not to be risked.

Julius returned home for his son’s birthday feast. Tubruk attended him as he bathed away the dust of the journey in the mineral pool. Despite being ten years older than Tubruk, the years sat well on his sun-dark frame as he eased through the water. Steam rose in wisps as a sudden rush of fresh hot water erupted from a pipe into the placid waters of the bath. Tubruk noted the signs of health to himself and was pleased. In silence, he waited for Julius to finish the slow immersion and rest on the submerged marble steps near the inflow pipe, where the water was shallow and warmest.

Julius lay back against the coldness of the pool ledges and raised an eyebrow at Tubruk. ‘Report,’ he said and closed his eyes.

Tubruk stood stiffly and recited the profits and losses of the previous month. He kept his eyes fixed on the far wall and spoke fluently of minute problems and successes without once referring to notes. At last, he came to the end and waited in silence. After a moment, the blue eyes of the only man who’d ever employed him without owning him opened once again and fixed him with a look that had not been melted by the heat of the pool.

‘How is my wife?’

Tubruk kept his face impassive. Was there a point in telling this man that Aurelia had worsened still further? She had been beautiful once, before childbirth had left her close to death for months. Ever since Gaius had come into the world, she had seemed unsteady on her feet, and no longer filled the house with laughter and flowers that she would pick herself out in the far fields.

‘Lucius attends her well, but she is no better … I have had to keep the boys away some days, when the mood has come on her.’

Julius’ face hardened and a heat-fattened vein in his neck started twitching with the load of angry blood.

‘Can the doctors do nothing? They take my aureus pieces without a qualm, but she worsens every time I see her!’

Tubruk pressed his lips together in an expression of regret. Some things must simply be borne, he knew. The whip falls and hurts and you must quietly wait for it to fall no more.

Sometimes she would tear her clothes into rags and sit huddled in a corner until hunger drove her out of her private rooms. Other days, she would be almost the woman he had met and loved when he first came to the estate, but given to long periods of distraction. She would be discussing a crop and suddenly, as if another voice had spoken, she would tilt her head to listen, and you might as well have left the room for all she remembered you.

Another rush of hot water disturbed the slow-dripping silence and Julius sighed like escaping steam.

‘They say the Greeks have much learning in the area of medicine. Hire one of those and dismiss the fools who do her so little good. If any of them claim that only their skills have kept her from being even worse, have him flogged and dumped on the road back to the city. Try a midwife. Women sometimes understand themselves better than we do – they have so many ailments that men do not.’

The blue eyes closed again and it was like a door shutting on an oven. Without the personality, the submerged frame could have been any other Roman. He held himself like a soldier and thin white lines marked the scars of old actions. He was not a man to be crossed and Tubruk knew he had a ferocious reputation in the Senate. He kept his interests small, but guarded those interests fiercely. As a result, the powermongers were not troubled by him and were too lazy to challenge the areas where he was strong. It kept the estate wealthy and they would be able to employ the most expensive foreign doctors that Tubruk could find. Wasted money, he was sure, but what was money for if not to use it when you saw the need?

‘I want to start a vineyard on the southern reaches. The soil there is perfect for a good red.’

They talked over the business of the estate and, again, Tubruk took no notes, nor felt the need after years of reporting and discussing. Two hours after he had entered, Julius smiled at last.

‘You have done well. We prosper and stay strong.’

Tubruk nodded and smiled back. In all the talk, not once had Julius asked after his own health or happiness. They both knew that serious problems would be mentioned and small problems dealt with alone. It was a relationship of trust, not between equals, but between an employer and one whose competence he respected. Tubruk was no longer a slave, but he was a freedman and could never have the total confidence of those born free.

‘There is another matter, a more personal one,’ Julius continued. ‘It is time to train my son in warfare. I have been distracted from my duty as a father to some extent, but there is no greater exercise to a man’s talents than the upbringing of his son. I want to be proud of him and I worry that my absences, which are likely to get worse, will be the breaking of the boy.’

Tubruk nodded, pleased at the words. ‘There are many experts in the city, trainers of boys and the young men of wealthy families.’

‘No. I know of them and some have been recommended to me. I have even inspected the products of this training, visiting city villas to see the young generation. I was not impressed, Tubruk. I saw young men infected with this new philosophical learning, where too much emphasis is placed on improving the mind and not enough on the body and the heart. What good is the ability to play with logic if your fainting soul shrinks away from hardship? No, the fashions in Rome will produce only weaklings, with few exceptions, as I see it. I want Gaius trained by people on whom I can depend – you, Tubruk. I’d trust no other with such a serious task.’

Tubruk rubbed his chin, looking troubled.

‘I cannot teach the skills I learned as a soldier and gladiator, sir. I know what I know, but I don’t know how to pass it on.’

Julius frowned in annoyance, but didn’t press it. Tubruk never spoke lightly.

‘Then spend time making him fit and hard as stone. Have him run and ride for hours each day, over and over until he is fit to represent me. We will find others to teach him how to kill and command men in battle.’

‘What about the other lad, sir?’

‘Marcus? What about him?’

‘Will we train him as well?’

Julius frowned further and he stared off into the past for a few seconds.

‘Yes. I promised his father when he died. His mother was never fit to have the boy, it was her running away that practically killed the old man. She was always too young for him. The last I heard of her, she was little better than a party whore in one of the inner districts, so he stays in my house. He and Gaius are still friends, I take it?’

‘Like twin stalks of corn. They’re always in trouble.’

‘No more. They will learn discipline from now on.’

‘I will see to it that they do.’

Gaius and Marcus listened outside the door. Gaius’ eyes were bright with excitement at what he’d heard. He grinned as he turned to Marcus and dropped the smile as he saw his friend’s pale face and set mouth.

‘What’s wrong, Marc?’

‘He said my mother’s a whore,’ came the hissing reply. Marcus’ eyes glinted dangerously and Gaius choked back his first joking reply.

‘He said he’d heard it – just a rumour. I’m sure she isn’t.’

‘They told me she was dead, like my father. She ran away and left me.’ Marcus stood and his eyes filled with tears. ‘I hope she is a whore. I hope she’s a slave and dying of lung-rot.’ He spun round and ran away, arms and legs flailing in loose misery.

Gaius sighed and rejected the idea of going after him. Marcus would probably go down to the stables and sit in the straw and the shadows for a few hours. If he was followed too soon, there would be angry words and maybe blows. If he was left, it would all have gone with time, the change of mood coming without warning, as his quick thoughts settled elsewhere.

It was his nature and there was no changing it. Gaius pressed his head again to the crack between the door and the frame that allowed him to hear the two men talk of his future.

‘… unchained for the first time, so they say. It should be a mighty spectacle. All of Rome will be there. Not all the gladiators will be indentured slaves – some are freedmen who have been lured back with gold coins. Renius will be there, so the gossips say.’

‘Renius – he must be ancient by now! He was fighting when I was a young man myself,’ Julius muttered in disbelief.

‘Perhaps he needs the money. Some of the men live too richly for their purses, if you understand me. Fame would allow him large debts, but everything has to be paid back in the end.’

‘Perhaps he could be hired to teach Gaius – he used to take pupils, I remember. It has been so long, though. I can’t believe he’ll be fighting again. You will get four tickets then, my interest is definitely aroused. The boys will enjoy a trip into the city proper.’

‘Good – though let us wait until after the lions have finished with ancient Renius before we offer him employment. He should be cheap if he is bleeding a little,’ Tubruk said wryly.

‘Cheaper still if he’s dead. I’d hate to see him go out. He was unstoppable when I was young. I saw him fight in exhibitions against four or five men. One time they even blindfolded him against two. He cut them down in two blows.’

‘I saw him prepare for those matches. The cloth he used allowed in enough light to see the outlines of shapes. That was all the edge he needed. After all, his opponents thought he was blind.’

‘Take a big purse for hiring trainers. The circus will be the place to find them, but I will want your eye for the sound of limb and honour.’

‘I am, as always, your man, sir. I will send a message tonight to collect the tickets on the estate purse. If there is nothing else?’

‘Only my thanks. I know how skilfully you keep this place afloat. While my senatorial colleagues fret at how their wealth is eroded, I can be calm and smile at their discomfort.’ He stood and shook hands in the wrist grip that all legionaries learned.

Tubruk was pleased to note the strength still in the hand. The old bull had a few years in him yet.

Gaius scrambled away from the door and ran down to see Marcus in the stables. Before he had gone more than a little way, he paused and leaned against a cool, white wall. What if he was still angry? No, surely the prospect of circus tickets – with unchained lions no less! – surely this would be enough to burn away his sorrow. With renewed enthusiasm and the sun on his back, he charged down the slopes to the outbuildings of teak and lime plaster that housed the estate’s supply of workhorses and oxen. Somewhere, he heard his mother’s voice calling his name, but he ignored it, as he would a bird’s shrill scream. It was a sound that washed over him and left him untouched.

The two boys found the body of the raven close to where they had first seen it, near the edge of the woods on the estate. It lay in the damp leaves, stiff and dark, and it was Marcus who saw it first, his depression and anger lifting with the find.

‘Zeus,’ he whispered. ‘Tubruk said he was sick.’ He crouched by the track and reached out a hand to stroke the still glossy feathers. Gaius crouched with him. The chill of the woods seemed to get through to both of them at the same time and Gaius shivered slightly.

‘Ravens are bad omens, remember,’ he murmured.

‘Not Zeus. He was just looking for a place to die.’

On an impulse, Marcus picked up the body again, holding it in his hands as he had before. The contrast saddened both of them. All the fight was gone and now the head lay limply, as if held only by skin. The beak hung open and the eyes were shrivelled, hollow pits. Marcus continued to stroke the feathers with his thumb.

‘We should cremate him – give him an honourable funeral,’ said Gaius. ‘I could run back to the kitchens and fetch an oil lamp. We could build a pyre for him and pour some of the oil over it. It would be a good send-off for him.’

Marcus nodded and placed Zeus carefully on the ground.

‘He was a fighter. He deserves something more than just being left to rot. There’s a lot of dry wood around here. I’ll stay to make the pyre.’

‘I’ll be as quick as I can,’ Gaius replied, turning to run. ‘Think of some prayers or something.’

He sprinted back to the estate buildings and Marcus was left alone with the bird. He felt a strange solemnity come upon him, as if he was performing a religious rite. Slowly and carefully, he gathered dry sticks and built them into a square, starting with thicker branches that were long dead and building on layers of twigs and dry leaves. It seemed right not to rush.

The woods were quiet as Gaius returned. He too was walking slowly, shielding the small flame of an oily wick where it protruded from an old kitchen lamp. He found Marcus sitting on the dry path, with the black body of Zeus lying on a neat pile of dead wood.

‘I’ll have to keep the flame going while I pour the oil, so it could flare up quickly. We’d better say the prayers now.’

As the evening darkened, the flickering yellow light of the lamp seemed to grow in strength, lighting their faces as they stood by the small corpse.

‘Jupiter, head of all the gods, let this one fly again in the underworld. He was a fighter and he died free,’ Marcus said, his voice steady and low.

Gaius readied the oil for pouring. He held the wick clear, avoiding the little flame and poured on the oil, drenching the bird and the wood in its slipperiness. Then he touched the flame to the pyre.

For long seconds, nothing happened except for a faint sizzling, but then an answering flame spread and blazed with a sickly light. The boys stood and Gaius placed the lamp on the path. They watched with interest as the feathers caught and burned with a terrible stink. The flames flickered over the body and fat smoked and sputtered in the fire. They waited patiently.

‘We could gather the ashes at the end and bury them, or spread them around in the woods or the stream,’ Gaius whispered.

Marcus nodded in silence.

To help the fire, Gaius poured on the rest of the oil from the lamp, extinguishing its small light. Flames grew again and most of the feathers had been burned away, except for those around the head and beak, which seemed obstinate.

Finally, the last of the oil burned to nothing and the fire sank to glowing embers.

‘I think we’ve cooked him,’ whispered Gaius. ‘The fire wasn’t hot enough.’

Marcus took a long stick and poked at the body, now covered in wood ash but still recognisably the raven. The stick knocked the smoking thing right out of the ashes and Marcus spent a few moments trying to roll it back in without success.

‘This is hopeless. Where’s the dignity in this?’ he said angrily.

‘Look, we can’t do any more. Let’s just cover him in leaves.’

The two boys set about gathering armfuls and soon the scorched raven was hidden from view. They were silent as they walked back to the estate, but the reverent mood was gone.

CHAPTER FOUR

The circus was arranged by Cornelius Sulla, a rising young man in the ranks of Roman society. The king of Mauretania had entertained the young senator while he commanded the Second Alaudae legion in Africa. To please him, King Bocchus sent a hundred lions and twenty of his best spearmen to the capital. With these as a core, Sulla had put together a programme for five days of trials and excitement.

It was to be the largest circus ever arranged in Rome and Cornelius Sulla had his reputation and status assured by the achievement. There were even calls raised in Senate for there to be a more permanent structure to hold the games. The wooden benches bolted and pegged together for great events were unsatisfactory and really too small for the sort of crowds that wanted to see lions from the dark, unknown continent. Plans for a vast circular amphitheatre capable of holding water and staging sea battles were put forward, but the cost was huge and they were vetoed by the people’s tribunes as a matter of course.

Gaius and Marcus trotted behind the two older men. Since Gaius’ mother had become unwell, the boys were rarely allowed into the city proper any more, as she fretted and rocked in misery at the thought of what could happen to her son in the vicious streets. The noise of the crowd was like a blow and their eyes were bright with interest.

Most of the Senate would travel to the games in carriages, pulled or carried by slaves and horses. Gaius’ father scorned this and chose to walk through the crowds. That said, the imposing figure of Tubruk beside him, fully armed as he was, kept the plebeians from shoving too rudely.

The mud of the narrow streets had been churned into a stinking broth by the huge throng and after only a short time their legs were spattered almost to the knees by filth, their sandals covered. Every shop heaved with people as they passed and there was always a crowd ahead and a mob behind pushing them on. Occasionally, Gaius’ father would take side streets when the roads were blocked completely by shopkeepers’ carts carrying their wares around the city. These were packed with the poor, and beggars sat in doorways, blind and maimed, with their hands outstretched. The brick buildings loomed over them, five and six storeys high, and, once, Tubruk put a hand out to hold Marcus back as a bucket of slops was poured out of an open window into the street below.

Gaius’ father looked grim, but walked on without stopping, his sense of direction bringing them through the dark maze back onto the main streets to the circus. The noise of the city intensified as they grew close, with the shouted cries of hot-food sellers competing with the hammering of coppersmiths and bawling, screaming children who hung, snot-nosed, on their mothers’ hips.

On every street corner, jugglers and conjurors, clowns and snake charmers performed for thrown coins. That day, the pickings were slim, despite the huge crowds. Why waste your money on things you could see every day when the amphitheatre was open?

‘Stay close to us,’ Tubruk said, bringing the boys’ attention back from the colours, smells and noise. He laughed at their wide-mouthed expressions. ‘I remember the first time I saw a circus – the Vespia, where I was to fight my first battle, untrained and slow, just a slave with a sword.’

‘You won, though,’ Julius replied, smiling as they walked.

‘My stomach was playing me up, so I was in a terrible mood.’

Both men laughed.

‘I’d hate to face a lion,’ Tubruk continued. ‘I’ve seen a couple on the loose in Africa. They move like horses at the charge when they want to, but with fangs and claws like iron nails.’

‘They have a hundred of the beasts and two shows a day for five days, so we should see ten of them against a selection of fighters. I am looking forward to seeing these black spearmen in action. It will be interesting to see if they can match our javelin throwers for accuracy.’

They walked under the entrance arch and paused at a series of wooden tubs filled with water. For a small coin, they had the mud and smell scrubbed from their legs and sandals. It was good to be clean again. With the help of an attendant, they found the seats reserved for them by one of the estate slaves, who’d travelled in the previous evening to await their arrival. Once they were seated, the slave stood to walk the miles back to the estate. Tubruk passed him another coin to buy food for the journey and the man smiled cheerfully, pleased to be away from the backbreaking labour of the fields for once.

All around them sat the members of the patrician families and their slaves. Although there were only three hundred representatives in the Senate, there must have been close to a thousand others. Rome’s lawmakers had taken the day off for the first battles of the five-day run. The sand was raked smooth in the vast pit; the wooden stands filled with thirty thousand of the classes of Rome. The morning heat built and built into a wall of discomfort, largely ignored by the people.

‘Where are the fighters, Father?’ Gaius asked, searching for signs of lions or cages.

‘They are in that barn building over there. You see where the gates are? There.’

He opened a folded programme, purchased from a slave as they went in.

‘The organiser of the games will welcome us and probably thank Cornelius Sulla. We will all cheer for Sulla’s cleverness in making such a spectacle possible. Then there are four gladiatorial combats, to first blood only. One will follow that is to the death. Renius will give a demonstration of some sort and then the lions will roam “the landscapes of their Africa”, whatever that means. Should be an impressive show.’

‘Have you ever seen a lion?’

‘Once, in the zoo. I have never fought one, though. Tubruk says they are fearsome in battle.’

The amphitheatre fell quiet as the gates opened and a man walked out dressed in a toga so white it almost glowed.

‘He looks like a god,’ Marcus whispered.

Tubruk leaned over to the boy. ‘Don’t forget they bleach the cloth with human urine. There’s a lesson in there somewhere.’

Marcus looked at Tubruk in surprise for a moment, wondering if a joke had been made of some kind. Then he forgot about it as he tried to hear the voice of the man who had strode to the centre of the sand. He had a trained voice, and the bowl of the amphitheatre acted as a perfect reflector. Nonetheless, part of his announcement was lost as people shuffled or whispered to their friends and were shushed.

‘… welcome that is due … African beasts … Cornelius Sulla!’

The last was said in crescendo and the audience cheered dutifully, more enthusiastically than Julius or Tubruk had been expecting. Gaius heard the words of the old gladiator as he leaned in close to his father.

‘He may be a man to watch, this one.’