Scipio was in the early stages of putting together a plan for raising troops when I found him that morning. He was in a large tent on the east side of the exercise field, sitting before a desk covered with scrolls and writing equipment. The consul looked up as a centurion opened the flap to the tent to announce me. I noticed the strong fragrance of burning frankincense as soon as I entered, something very unusual in a military tent.
Though clearly deep into his work, Scipio immediately stood. Seven years my elder, he greeted me warmly and with little formality. “Timon, just what I need. A competent scribe who’s adept with numbers. I’m so grateful you have accepted my request to go to Sicily. My friend Nero recommended you with the highest praise. And he’s not particularly quick with a good word for anyone.” He smiled easily, as though we had known each other for some time. “We have quite a bit of work to do before going to Sicily—and even more before we depart for Africa. I’m sure you’re up to it.”
“Thank you for your kind words, Consul. I’m honored to be of service.”
“As I said yesterday, I’m primarily interested in your capacity as a mapmaker. I have already begun a search for maps of the African coast and have been sorely disappointed. The maps are both sketchy and inconsistent. What one map shows is contradicted by another. I will give you all that I have found for your perusal, but I imagine that the real work won’t begin until we get there.”
I nodded.
“Until then, you will work with a team of scribes as we assemble and enlist volunteers. At the same time we must acquire the materials to build thirty new warships, transport that material to Ostia, and then supervise construction. Right now most of my problems are logistical. I need men with good minds more than anything else.”
“Yes, sir.”
With every word he said, I was measuring the man, probably just as he was me. He may have wanted accurate maps, but I had something more to give him. I was not carrying the spyglass that day, but once I had a fair chance to appraise Scipio, who Marcus had warned was far more complex than his charm suggested, I would decide if he were the right man to show it to.
Scipio surprised me by asking me about my life. His interest seemed sincere, but I also understood it was a way for him to gain my trust. I told him all that was appropriate, beginning with my kidnapping in Croton. His line of questioning gradually moved from issues of casual interest to the most important things on his mind. When I recounted my time with Marcellus, he peppered me with questions about tracking Hannibal and how it had happened that Marcellus was ambushed. Then he asked me about the warning I had given to Nero. “What else can you tell me about that?”
This caught me off-guard. I had hoped that Nero would not tell anyone about my part in the intrigue, as it could only lead back to my mother. For the first time in the interview, I had to test the edge of my new superior. “Yes, sir, I was the messenger. That’s all I can say.”
Scipio tilted his head. “But how did you come by that information? You must know how important it was?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Many months have passed since Hasdrubal’s defeat. Surely you can reveal something of your sources by now? Do you know a spy embedded in Hannibal’s army?”
Again this was something I had told Nero. I wasn’t pleased. “I’m sorry, sir. Despite the time that has passed, there’s nothing more to say.”
Scipio smiled as though he might let the matter go. “Of course, I understand the need to protect those involved. A leak could compromise further information or that source’s life. But you will be working very closely with me the next year or so,” he said fixing his eyes on mine. “I must have the highest trust in you, and you me. Secrets get in the way.”
“Yes, sir. I understand that.”
He nodded pleasantly but continued to press me. “As you must know, I’m fully aware of the Roman spy networks. The name of Quintus Ennius is not unfamiliar to me.”
“Yes, sir.”
Scipio stalked across the tent and back, clearly irritated by my reluctance to reveal anything more. “Are you part of the Roman network, Timon? There’s no reason you couldn’t reveal that to me—unless of course you were spying on me to report back to the Senate?”
Although this confrontation had already become uncomfortable, I had no idea how far Scipio would go. “I’m not a member of any network, sir. And I’m certainly not an internal agent for the Senate. I’m a mapmaker intent on helping you win the war. Only once have I been privy to information of importance to Roman military matters. My source on that occasion demanded silence about his identity for his own safety. There may be a time in the future when I can reveal that identity without endangering the agent, but please allow me that. When the time comes, I will tell you all you want to know. Then, I believe, you will understand why I have maintained my silence now.”
Scipio sat at his desk and stared downward for an extended moment. He tapped the surface of the desk with his forefinger, clearly annoyed, then looked up at me. “Fine.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Scipio was not pleased. No one said no to him. He changed the subject and briefed me on the work he wanted done that day.
CHAPTER 31
The next two weeks were filled with paperwork. I was one of four scribes making lists of the things that we needed, where those items could be procured, and what they would cost. I saw Scipio each day, but only briefly and never with an extended conversation. I did have some time to myself, and for the most part I spent that out at the farm with my mother.
One evening, after a meal in the triclinium, I showed my mother Archimedes’ terrella that Marcellus had brought back with him from Syracuse. It sat on a table in the corner of the atrium. I told her it replicated Aristarchus’ model of the universe, which placed the Sun at the center, while the other planets, including the Earth, revolved around it. I filled the ceramic tank beside it with water and demonstrated the way the little water wheel could propel the smaller brass globes around the larger one. Of course she found it fascinating, and listened with interest when I told her how the terrella had initiated my first real conversation with Archimedes.
We sat down on a bench beneath the colonnade. A light rain was falling, and as we watched the circular wavelets spread out across the surface of the pool, I told her about Sempronia.
“I want to see her before I leave for Sicily,” I confessed after telling her everything, including the politics around Sempronia’s being selected to be a Vestal Virgin and the events that took place at Paculla’s readings. “I’m likely to be turned away if I go to her home,” I said. “Would I be a fool to try anyway?”
“You have only been her tutor, Timon,” she said. “She’s patrician, a different class than you, and her mother has already made her position clear on that. I suggest you forget this woman.” The sparkle had returned to my mother’s eyes, but there was still a dim yellow cast to her skin.
“But she loves the numbers and the geometry. I’ll never find another woman with both her beauty and her subtlety of mind.”
She looked at me sadly. “I think you’ve already made up your mind. I see heartbreak ahead.”
“But what if no one will marry her? What if the Vestal Virgin incident means no aristocrat will touch her? Wouldn’t that make an ordinary man like myself eligible?”
“Does it matter how I answer these questions, Timon?” She wagged her head and chuckled. “It’s clear what you will do. I appreciate that you have asked me for an opinion, but no mother should expect her son to follow all of her advice. Do what you must.”
And of course I did. One afternoon, when I had completed my work earlier than expected, I decided, against all my better judgment, to visit Sempronia. As evidenced by the fact that I had told my mother about her, I clearly felt deeply about this young woman and wanted to try explaining myself to her one more time before I left for Sicily.
Instead of going to the front door, I went down the alley and entered the property from the ba
ck. I stayed out of sight, watching from behind the slaves’ quarters, hoping to see Sempronia alone in the garden.
It had rained that morning, but the sun had come out at midday. The smell of wet earth hung in the air. Everything in the garden that wasn’t a flower was bright green. And flowers were everywhere, scores of fragrant roses, of all colors. Dora came out shortly after I arrived to collect a bouquet for the house. Not long afterward Sempronia appeared with a bowl of bird feed for the parrot. She wore a stark white stola with a pale saffron scarf covering her hair and shoulders. She glided up to the bird cage like some kind of ethereal being. I heard her greet Ajax in a little child’s voice, as though he were fully capable of conversation.
“How are you today, Ajax?”
“Very well, thank you,” the bird answered.
“Are you hungry?”
“Always.”.
As Sempronia sprinkled feed into the cage, I crept across the yard to get a little closer.
“Thank you,” said the bird as it hopped from its perch to the floor of the cage to peck at the broken kernels of wheat. After a moment, the bird sat up and spoke again. “How are you today?”
“Thank you for asking, Ajax,” Sempronia said politely, then in a voice I could barely hear, added, “a little lonely.”
I was close enough to whisper, “So am I.”
“Timon,” squawked the bird.
Startled by my sudden appearance, Sempronia quickly covered the cage before Ajax could squawk again, then turned on me. “You shouldn’t be here.” But I could see it in her eyes, she was glad I was. “I thought you went to Croton?”
“I’ve just returned, but I’ll soon be leaving with the army for Sicily. I could be there a long time.” I advanced a little closer. I could smell that she had sprinkled herself with rose water. “I wanted to see you before I left.” Sempronia glanced over her shoulder toward the house, clearly anxious that someone might see me. “And I can’t bear your being angry at me.”
“For claiming you—you had intercourse with my mother!”
“But you didn’t allow me to explain why it happened.”
She glared at me. “How could that matter?”
I withdrew the spyglass from the sleeve of my toga. “Let me show you something.” I held the device out to her. “It will change how you see everything—even this issue with me and your mother.”
Sempronia eyed the spyglass before taking it in her hands. “This is why you’re here?”
“Yes. I believe you and I have made an important connection through geometry, and I don’t want to lose that. This device might even convince you to return to the tutoring.”
“I doubt that will ever happen,” she snapped, but I could see that she was intrigued by the spyglass.
“Remember the two lenses I tried to show you before I left for Croton? They’re mounted at the ends of this device to make them easier to use.” I pointed to the Temple of Minerva at the top of the Aventine Hill. “Tell me what’s inscribed on the pediment.”
Sempronia looked off to the temple. “That’s impossible. I can hardly see the pediment, much less read the inscription.”
“Try the device. Hold the small end to your eye and point the wide end at the temple.”
She looked confused.
“It’s easy. Just lift it to your eye. You’ll be surprised.”
Sempronia took a quick glance back toward the house, then lifted the spyglass to her eye and pointed it at the top of the Aventine Hill.
“Now twist the tubes, one inside the other, to make the device longer or shorter. It will increase the clarity of what you’re seeing—and it will be upside down.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just do it.”
It took her a moment to get a feel for it, but the tubes made the lenses so much easier to use she hardly needed any instruction. “There it is,” she gasped. “I don’t believe it. Oh no, I’ve lost it.” She twisted the tubes a bit more, one way then the other.
“Oh my! How can this be? I can see the inscription. It’s upside down and backwards, but I think I can figure it out, yes—courage, wisdom, strength!” She lowered the spyglass and looked up at the Aventine Hill without the spyglass, then at me. “This is miraculous!” she exclaimed, looking at both ends of the spyglass, then lifting it to her eye again. “This is truly miraculous.”
“Look at the moon.” The moon sat just above the horizon in the west, a white ghost against a pale blue sky.
Sempronia aimed the spyglass at the moon. After a moment, she lowered the device, even more amazed than before, and looked at me. “What are these—these lenses? How do they work? And why is the image upside down?”
“It’s all in the geometry. The lenses demonstrate an application of geometric principles called optics. It was something Archimedes was working on in the last years of his life. He gave me the lenses, but then I lost them. That’s when I went to the women’s group. I thought their teacher, Paculla Annia, could help me find them with her magic. What happened between your mother and me was part of a ritual linked to Paculla’s effort to locate the lenses. It happened in the dark. I didn’t even know it was your mother at the time. But finding the lenses was more important than any mark against my reputation. I was willing to do anything to find them. Can you see why?”
Sempronia stared at me. “My mother denied it, Timon.”
“But she told you that I exposed myself to the group. Exploring sexuality is part of what that women’s group does. It is!”
“Stop! This is disgusting. I don’t want to hear any more about it.”
“I was desperate, Sempronia. I wanted these lenses back. At the time I thought the rituals were nonsense, but I went through with it anyway.”
“Then the priestess told you where the lenses were?”
“Not exactly, but I did find them. Only recently did I put them in the tubes. You’re only the second person I’ve shown—but you can never tell anyone.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re that important. Because they’re proof of the value of applied mathematics and suggest things so powerful that they will change the world completely.”
“Then why have you shown them to me?”
I bowed my head then looked up at her. “I wanted you to know why I did what I did. That’s why I came here today. I didn’t want to lose you as a friend. I felt it was that important.”
Sempronia shook her head sadly, then lifted the spyglass to her eye and aimed it at the top of the Caelius Hill. “This device is very powerful,” she said, scanning the distance. “And amazing. I can’t deny it.”
“You should see the moon at night. And the stars.”
She lowered the spyglass. Her hands shook with excitement as she returned it to me. She stared into my eyes, as serious as I had ever seen her, weighing the moral value of the lenses against the trespass against her mother.
“I’ll be taking this spyglass with me when I go to Sicily. Publius Scipio has taken me on as a mapmaker. It’s a position of honor and offers good pay. Our ultimate destination is Africa. That’s where Scipio needs the maps. It’s very exciting, and this device will make it all easier and my maps more accurate. Sempronia, can you find it in your heart to forgive me?”
Now she bowed her head. When she looked up, our eyes met. “My mother stills hopes to find a patrician husband for me, but the episode with the Vestal Virgins has proven to be a problem. Apparently I am not a virgin.” She looked at the ground as though just saying the words hurt. “Perhaps when you return from Africa, when the war is over, and Scipio is victorious, and you have great piles of booty,” she chuckled, “then we might talk again. You have shown me much that confuses me today. I need a little time.” She reached out and held my hand briefly, then let go.
“That’s all I really wanted, Sempronia. When I come visit you again, perhaps two or three years from now, I will be riding in a golden carriage and I’ll use the front door.”
Sempronia laughe
d. A voice from inside the house shouted, “Sempronia! Who are you talking to?”
“Ajax,” Sempronia called back, now giggling.
“I’ll be back,” I whispered, then scampered to the back of the property and out into the alley.
CHAPTER 32
Publius Scipio would rise to mythic heights in his career as a Roman military officer. He would be cited for his nobility, his courage, his ingenuity, and his field tactics. Rarely mentioned are his organization skills. In forty-five days, starting from scratch, he assembled a volunteer army and doubled the size of his fleet. His success in Spain and his youth attracted donations of all variety. The city of Caere gave him grain for his troops. Populonium brought him iron, Tarquinii sailcloth, Volaterrae timber, Arretium three thousand shields, three thousand helmets, and five thousand pikes, plus equal numbers of shovels, axes, and sickles. Perusia, Clusium, and Ruselle provided storage buildings for his accumulation of grain. Volunteer soldiers came from everywhere—Nursia, Reate, Amiternum, and all across the Sabine territory. But it was more than the volunteers and donations. It was Scipio’s attention to detail that made him a superior military officer. By the end of April, seven thousand volunteer troops, thirty brand new warships, and all the provisions the campaign would need were in Ostia, ready to go.
I spent almost all of my time in Ostia during the weeks before our departure. I did manage to get one day free during the last week. I went to the Claudian farm to see my mother. She had recovered from the poisoning, but she would never regain her full vitality and color.
It was midmorning and warm for the first of May. We walked through the olive orchard for quite some time before I got to the point of my visit. “I won’t see you again, Mother, until the campaign is over. I’m not sure when that will be. It’s possible we could return from Sicily during the winter, but once we go to Africa there’s no telling. It could be years.”
My mother looked at me with sadness in her eyes. “I knew it would be a long campaign the moment you told me of Scipio’s offer. I think a mother would normally cry when her son goes off to war, but this war has gone on for so long, it just seems to be what life has become, and we’ve learned to accept it.”
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