Across the Waters of Time- Pliny Remembered

by Ken Parejko

  It was scary. While Vespasian’s thoughts were of his country, Agrippina's were only of her path to power. And as she weeded out her competitors she' do everything she could to come between Vespasian and Claudius. I realized how dangerous Vespasian’s position was: if the dominant ethos in the circles of power was raw personal ambition, with no room for real patriots, then surely Rome was lost already.

  I watched him stride resolutely across the parade field and disappear into a tent. Horace, who had a country villa built among Vespasian’s native people, described the Sabines as a proud and independent tribe who while living hardscrabble lives in a wild mountainous landscape maintained the highest of moral standards.

  Now, while the best of the empire were persona non gratis, the worst Rome had conceived had again settled into the very center of power.

  As I turned and headed off to join my men, I shuddered.

  That night I dreamt.

  I rode, like the wind, across the Campus Martius, once again young, taking part in the lusus Troiae, training for the cavalry, the complex formations, wheeling, attacking, feinting, retreating, reforming, not unlike those I’d commanded today.

  My dream was of my first days on horseback, the pounding of the horses' hoofs, the shouts of the other boys, the fresh smell of the torn-up grass, the horses and their manure, the precise and dangerous game of the lusus Troiae.

  All is going well. I feel a deep sense of accomplishment, of satisfaction, of being part of something good and bigger than myself which yet depends on me.

  Then something has gone wrong, up front. I rise on my stirrups to see. Agrippina is riding straight into and across the exercise, leaving behind her a trail of chaos. As she nears, my horse bolts, throwing me.

  I’m watching now, observing from above, as I fall under the horse's hoofs, and my body is brutally kicked and stomped, and the other riders gather around to see.

  Chapter 6

  At the Pliny villa at Novum Comum

  June 21, Solsticia, 51 C.E.

  To be an error, and to be cast out,

  is part of God’s design.

  William Blake

  I was tired, Lightning was tired, Lucius was beyond tired, and still we weren’t home.

  Home, I thought, too tired these past nights to sleep, too tired to write. And today was past half-gone.

  We’d passed through village after village scattered at short distances along the road north. The morning had been lovely, the chorus of bird-songs, the cool air running its fingers along our faces, the green of the fields, olive trees and forest patches soft in our eyes. But the day had dragged on, and what had been lovely became commonplace, the air and light no longer cool, the destination precedent over the journey.

  Evening was nearly on us when we reached the lake. I dismounted and brought Lightning down for a drink. She neighed gratefully. I dropped her reins and stepped into the cool, clear water. I scanned up the shoreline. In the distance I could just see Novum Comum spilled down to the water’s edge. Beyond it, invisible in the haze, was home.

  I lifted a handful of water to my lips. It was sweet, and tasted of my childhood.

  A crew of farmhands on their way home from the wheat harvest, their scythes and rakes on their shoulders, came noisily up the road. They quieted when they saw me. Who was this soldier standing knee-deep in the lake, staring dumbly out over the waters, while around him the swallows dove and chittered as they had so long ago? Lightning quit her noisy slurping long enough to look them over. I turned from them to hide the tears which had to my astonishment sprung forth like artesian springs from the ground of my eyes. Once the men had passed I brought handfuls of water to my face, rinsing the salt of my body into the sweetness of the ancient lake. Home, I thought. Three years of soldiering behind me. No interest in a career in the army. I came home to rest and decide what was next. And of course Plinia’s wedding.

  Refreshed now, the last few miles went quickly. As we rounded the bend I could see my parents waiting at the estate’s entrance. I dismounted and hugged mother, then father.

  “We thought you would be late, for the wedding,” my mother said.

  “No,” I said. In my saddle-bags I carried all the letters she’d written me the past three years.

  “Gaius,” my father said.

  “Father.”

  We stood a moment looking one another over, searching for what had changed, but more important, what had not. Father stepped up to Lucius. “Welcome,” he said, putting his hand on Lucius’ shoulder. “It’s good to see you again. Gaius said in his letters, you took good care of him.”

  Lucius smiled. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Well then, you must be hungry. Come in.” Mother took me by the arm and turned gently toward the house. Lucius, with the help of household servants, started to unload the horses and carry our things inside.

  I stopped to touch the ancestral manes on the tabelum inside the atrium. A portrait of my father’s father -- who I could barely remember, dead now nearly twenty years -- hung on the wall, and beneath it a plaque, carved in white marble, of his accomplishments: Citizen, benefactor, town councilman, paterfamilia. This was my grandfather’s house, passed down to my father, and eventually to me, as only son. The “P” in Pliny might equally stand for Prudentia, for there was a common line of economy and prudence in the Pliny gens. I imagined father’s portrait beside grandfather’s, then perhaps mine.

  Home.

  I noted on the tabelum, beside the statues of the lares and the small bust of grandfather a copy of my javelin manual.

  Mother was right. I was hungry. Famished, actually, and the homemade cheeses and fresh bread, the olives pickled right there on the farm she put in front of me all tasted fresh and flavorful. I’d had more than enough of moldy army food.

  There was plenty to talk about. We sat around the kitchen table, just the three of us. I asked about the harvest. Father began a long complaint about how hard it was any more to find reliable workers. I told him about the harvest-machine we’d seen on Fredericus’ estate. Father listened closely but skeptically. If it worked as well as the Gauls claimed, surely we Romans would have invented it long ago, he said.

  It was good to be home. I asked about my sister. “She’s over at the Fabatus’,” mother answered. The Fabatus were neighbors. “Calpurnia will be brides-maid, you know.” I remembered Plinia’s best friend, a short girl, quiet but strong. “We were all at the temple last night,” mother went on, “for Plinia’s purification. She was afraid you’d not get here in time.”

  “Yes, I’m sorry,” I apologized, chewing and savoring the bread. “Four days ago, high in the mountains, Lightning slipped on a stone. I had to decide, to leave her behind or give her ankle a few days’ rest. I just couldn’t bear giving her up. I walked her down to the nearest inn. We waited two days so she could heal. I took time to explore the alpine meadows – they’re beautiful this time of year, mother. I wish I could take you there. They were a sea of flowers, most I’d never seen before.”

  And so we chatted, reclined in the dining room, til Plinia came home. She’d really grown into a mature young woman. She wrapped me in a warm hug. “What a man you are!” she beamed. Yes, we'd both grown up. When they'd last seen me I was a new officer, green and naive. But now I'd come home battle-tested, confident, my javelin manual published and my German history almost done.

  Mother returned to spinning in the back room, leaving Plinia and I alone. We stood by the table in a moment of embarrassed silence. I picked an olive from the bowl, sucked its flesh from around the pit.

  So, it's Marcus, then?” I said, at last.

  “Yes,” she smiled.

  Marcus Caecilius Cilo. As well him as any other. Better than some.

  “So the time has come for Little Sparrow to make her own nest.”

  I'd named her that, when she was only three years old, an intense, energetic little girl. I'd loved her from the moment I first saw her wrinkled bawling face. Those were happy times when
we played together, in our rooms, running around the peristyle, or out in the back yard. Sometimes I'd only pretend to be playing while secretly watching her, full of gratitude for having a sister. She would focus so intently on her toy, whatever it was, as though the rest of the world did not exist. Then suddenly, without warning, something would overtake her and she'd jump up, waving her arms, twittering in her own little bird-like language, and run into the house, or up the hill, or into her nurse's lap, like a sparrow flushed from a dust-bath.

  “Come,” she said, taking my hand. I followed her into the spare room, the one we'd played in years before, where she'd set out her dowry and the wedding finery.

  She opened a delicately-carved wooden case, held up two big pearl earrings, set in gold. She pretended to hang them on her ears. I smiled. She set them back into the case and extracted a turquoise brooch, set with an ivory cameo of Cybele. She held the brooch in one hand while she lifted a long necklace of pearls with the other.

  “They're beautiful,” I assured her.

  On another table was a low stack of clothes, all finely made, on top a matronly stola, then robes and mantles. All these gifts were the material insignia of Caeclius' commitment to the marriage. The groom came from one of the better local families. In the matrimonial agreement he'd promised to provide my father a hundred thousand sesterces, in three payments over the next year. Plinia's hand had not come cheaply. I wondered what she thought of that.

  She was leaving the family; in a way, I was losing her. The old days, as days do, had passed. We had our own lives to live. I was happy for her, and wanted her to know that. I was glad she was being married sine manu. Father would retain control of her, rather than her husband's family. Though she would move into the Caecilius household, she remained legally in our family. If she wasn't treated well she could be brought back to the refuge of her home, no questions asked.

  “He's nice, really,” she said, as though reading my thoughts. She held the stola up, the long garment for married women, ran it along her cheek. “We'll get along fine,” though there was a hint of uncertainty in her voice.

  “Yes,” I reassured her. I knew the Caecilius family. A small bust of Marcus' grandfather shared the entrance to Comum's little temple to the Genius of Rome and Augustus with a bust of our own grandfather; both families had donated to its construction. And both of our families still donated to the municipal fund for impoverished children.

  “You'll live with his parents?”

  “For now.” We sat beside the table piled with wedding clothes. “Marcus wants to stay here, at Comum. He hopes to get a job with the town council. After all, he was quartermaster in the military. Daddy's been asking around for him. Do you think you could help?”

  “Oh, I don't think he needs my help.”

  Plinia really did seem older now, planning for her husband's future. “Do you know any Rhaetian?” she asked, timidly.

  “Well, a little, yes, learned when I passed through. Why?”

  “Marcus has this plan, for trading with the Rhaetians. They come down from the hills to Colicum with their boats full of all kinds of goods -- baskets, tools, jewelry, bronze lamps, statues. They ferry it here to Comum and sell it for next to nothing. Marcus says, if he knew their language, he’d establish himself as a kind of middle-man, and ship their crafts all the way to Rome, where prices would be better. Most of this,” she picked up the jewelry box, “is Rhaetian.”

  “Yes, well they do good work don’t they?” I didn’t know enough Rhaetian to be of any real help, but I’d do what I could. I remembered an evening in Augusta Raurica, chatting with a centurion who'd taken on a Rhaetian common-law wife, and spoke the language fluently. Perhaps Caecilius could spend a few weeks in Raurica, where Rhaetian was widely spoken. “I’ll have a talk with Caecilius,” I said. “Are you nervous?” I took her hand in my own. “You seem very happy.”

  “I’m happy, and I’m nervous,” she admitted. Our eyes met. We were very close, for brother and sister.

  “If I can help, in any way, let me know.”

  “I will,” she promised, leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “But now I have to go. Who would have guessed a wedding would be so much trouble?”

  I waited til she'd left then walked over to a window and looked out onto a lovely sunset over the lake. I was happy for her. And we shared something else, now. We were both at a point in our lives when our future, like a sprawling vista, lay open before us and we were allowed the luxury of dreaming it in wonderful ways. I had survived the northern wilderness, and had come home. All was well with the world.

  The wedding ceremony began at our place. Plinia stood bravely beside the family lares, dressed in a simple white tunic of homespun muslin, tied at the waist with a woolen girdle. Father stood on one side of her, Caecilius the other. Her wedding veil and her shoes were of brilliant orange, the color of fire. From now on the most important thing for her was to keep her own hearth fires burning. At the top of her head, tied into the scarf, was a sprig of marjoram, which we call amaracus, the herb of love. Her hair, which for fourteen years until this morning had been simply gathered and tied in back, was now parted into six locks, each tied with a ribbon and fastened at the top of her head in a kind of cone, an ancient style worn only by priestesses and women on their wedding day. It was one of the first things done to her that morning, fixing her hair, which for good luck had been parted with an iron spearhead -- though father hadn’t gone so far as to buy what was supposed to be the luckiest tool of all, a spearhead which had killed a gladiator. I found myself with conflicted feelings. Plinia’s new hair-style highlighted the natural beauty of her face, but seemed to me out of place on the little girl I’d played with for so many years. And I wondered if, like so many women these days, she’d take to wearing her hair in the latest fashion out of Rome, where it was now Agrippina who set the styles of hairdo and dresses. I shivered to think of Little Sparrow imitating Agrippina.

  Nervously she swung the spindle hanging from her right hand back and forth, the spindle she would use from now on to spin for her husband’s family. With her left hand she clung tightly to a small clay statue of Pallas Athena, mentor of weaving.

  She set the spindle and statue down as mother handed her a box containing her childhood treasures: dolls, tiny doll-clothes, and several little figurines, the talismen and amulets which had protected her as a child. And according to the ritual mother handed her the dresses she’d worn until today, to pass on to someone else. From now on Plinia would be called stolata, for the dress she would put on in the morning, a modest dress for a married woman, a simple kimono-like tunic with side sleeves, a high slit for her neck, its bottom a wide band reaching down to her feet.

  Plinia accepted her childhood dresses hesitantly, as though not ready to give them up. But give them up she must. She placed her toys and dresses on the table beside her, next to the household manes. Quietly, her voice breaking, bare loudly enough to be heard, she offered her childhood to her ancestors. This day she would grow up. Beside the ancestral manes were two larger statues, there just for today's ceremonies, which father had purchased in town thirty years before, for my birth. These statues were the brothers Picumnus and Pilumnus, invited into the house at births and marriages. I remembered them being brought out during mother’s labor when delivering first Aulus, the unspeakable one, then Plinia. And I remembered stopping as a child to peer at them, their grinning faces seeming to look right through this world to another, happier place.

  The green one was Picumnus, demi-god of crops and matrimony. Pilumnus, patron of little children, was gaudier, splashed with green, blue and red. There was no one around that morning long ago, so I’d reached out and touched Pilumnus. I was astonished, and not a little frightened, at the primitive power the statue gave off. Even now it still spoke to me, seduced my attention away from the marriage. The two little guys really did appear to be overseeing the ceremony, blessing it with their enigmatic smiles. I’d earned something of a reputation in
the capitol as an art critic, where the work of the world’s best painters and sculptors could be found. This is a different aesthetic, I realized, than that of Phidias or Praxiteles. It is the aesthetic not of beauty, but of enchantment.

  I blinked, the smiling statues resumed their mundane place among the family gods, and my mind returned to the ceremony just in time to hear Plinia’s words officially sealing the marriage: “Ubi tu Gaius, ego Gaia.”

  “Always you are Gaius, and I am Gaia.”

  Hidden beneath the simple surface of “You are the husband, I the wife, your clan is my clan,” was a dark labyrinth of domination and authority. Plinia had reason to be anxious. She was stepping out of a position of very little power within her birth-family, into a position of even less in another family entirely. Her voice wavered as she pronounced the words. I shared with her a strange mix of joy and fear. It seemed to me those were the same emotions hiding in Picumnus’ smile, an amalgam of joy and fear, appropriate to weddings and births. I glanced again at the little figures, and seemed to see the same attitude in both brothers, Picumnus and Pilumnus. Now I saw what I’d never noticed before: they were exactly the same sculpture, only painted differently. Of course, they were twins, marvels of nature themselves. I smiled to myself at this discovery, as though I’d cheated them of some of their power.

  Calpurnia, Plinia’s brides-maid, stepped forward. Wearing a simple white dress and a crown of woven grain, she reached out and took Plinia’s hand. Their eyes met. Gently she lifted Marcus’ right hand and placed Plinia’s into his.

  The priest stepped forward and unrolled the wedding contract, the tabulae nuptiales. The wedding was about to take an official turn. As full Roman citizens, Plinia being older than twelve and Marcus older than fourteen, the state granted them the right to be married. Though Plinia, the priest declared, would go to live in Marcus’ house, she remained under the potesta, the authority, of her father. Most important, she retained certain rights to her own property. A complex paragraph followed which described the dowry -- listing one by one the jewelry I’d admired the night before, the clothing, the monies paid and promised. Then the disposition of the dowry was described, should the two separate. In that case the contract stipulated that Plinia -- or rather, her father -- would keep the dowry while some of the bride-cost would be returned to the Caecilius family, depending on the circumstances of the divorce.