Zama

by Dan Armstrong

  He made a terrible face and looked at Troglius who was just as surprised as he was.

  “How long has this been going on, Rullo?”

  “Too long,” he muttered, further embarrassed by my discovery, and again scratching at himself.

  “Since right after Zama,” said Troglius.

  “You didn’t go to the prostitutes, did you?”

  Rullo hung his head.

  I shook my head. “That’s where these things came from. Try not to itch. It only makes it worse.”

  Rullo rolled his eyes like how can I not itch!

  “Let’s see what one looks like under the crystal lens,” said Troglius.

  I had never shown the lens to Rullo and figured this was as good a time as any. I removed the lens from the end of the spyglass, then demonstrated its magnifying power on the back of Rullo’s hand. He was fascinated, but not as much as he would have been had he not been otherwise distracted.

  “Now do the insect,” pressed Troglius.

  I had never looked closely at lice before and didn’t know what to expect, but when I drew a focus on the dead one in my hand, I couldn’t believe what I saw. “Look at this,” I gasped. “It looks like a tiny crab!”

  Troglius took a look and immediately stepped back. “I don’t want any of those on me.”

  Rullo bent over my hand, and with a little instruction on the use of the lens, got a glimpse of the source of his scratching. “By the gods!” he exclaimed. “That thing looks like a scorpion without a tail.” Badly upset, he lifted his tunic and peered into his pubic hair with the lens. “Oh my, there are hundreds and hundreds of them. How can I possibly get rid of them?”

  I looked at Troglius and he looked at me. Neither of us had a clue. “Wash yourself and your loincloth. Do it twice,” I suggested. “I don’t know what else to do.”

  “Pick them off one by one,” ventured Troglius.

  “That would take me the rest of my life!” Rullo looked so distraught I thought he was going cry.

  “It’s not that bad,” I said. “We all know people who have had lice, and they got rid of them somehow. Find someone who’s had them. See what they did.”

  And that was how I left it. Rullo and Troglius returned to their tent unit and I went back to the ship, chuckling to myself at what I imagined had been Rullo’s first experience with a woman.

  CHAPTER 114

  During the voyage from Lilybaeum to Ostia, I escorted my mother to the bow one afternoon and treated her to the use of the spyglass. While she trained the lenses on the Sicilian shoreline, I told her about Moira. I told her that after going to Rome I would come back to Sicily to marry her, and that I hoped that she would come with me and live with us.

  “Have you asked her father yet, Timon?”

  “No, she’s an orphan with two children of her own, but I expect her to say yes.”

  “What about the young Roman woman you told me about? Wasn’t she the perfect girl for you?”

  “I plan to see Sempronia while we’re in Rome.”

  “Will you tell her about your marriage plans?”

  “I’m not sure. I want to see her and make sure I’m making the right decision.”

  “I didn’t think you had a choice. Wouldn’t Sempronia’s mother object?”

  I nodded. “But Scipio has offered to adopt me. I would become a patrician. That would change things.”

  My mother smiled at me. “Then you haven’t really made up your mind.”

  “No, I think I have, but I just want to see Sempronia one more time. Is that wrong?”

  “No, it’s important you’re certain before you ask a woman to marry you. But what of this offer by Scipio? Are you seriously considering it?”

  I bowed my head. “It’s complicated,” I muttered.

  “No, it’s not, Timon. Marry the Sicilian girl. Help her with her children and her farm. I got to know Rome just as you did. I saw nothing in the patrician way of life that I would want. Did you?”

  “I saw lots that I wanted nothing to do with, but the Cornelian name would greatly assist me in life.”

  “You’ll do fine in Syracuse with your own name.” My mother’s smile was in her eyes. “Go see Sempronia. Don’t mention Scipio’s offer. That will only confuse things. But be clear with her about your intentions. And be clear about your own feelings for Moira.”

  I embraced my mother. How I had missed her.

  CHAPTER 115

  Our arrival in Ostia was much like Marcellus’ on his return from Syracuse. The celebration at the docks was greater by far, but the process of removing the plunder from the transports, recording it, and packing it into a baggage train for the trip to Rome was the same. It took us three weeks. During that time, Scipio went into Rome to give his report to the Senate in the Temple of Bellona.

  Scipio had become like a god to the people. They followed him in hordes to the temple that day. Others lined the battlements and cheered from the walls as he circuited the south side of the city with a turma of cavalry, riding his beautiful red roan and wearing his polished armor.

  The Senate welcomed him as a hero, showing none of the hostility that had marked Marcellus’ return. There was no debate whether to give him a triumph or an ovation. He had just achieved the greatest military victory in the three hundred year history of the Roman Republic. He had defeated Hannibal and ended sixteen years of terror in Italy. Scipio received extended praise from every Senator present and unanimous support to hold a triumph. Fabius, however, was not there. He had died during Scipio’s last year in Africa, only months before Hannibal left Italy. That was a shame. Scipio might have enjoyed a few kind words from old warty.

  Although I was busy throughout the unloading of the transports and the preparation of the baggage train, I did manage to take my mother to the Claudian farm. Marcus was in southern Italy, helping eliminate Hannibal’s last remaining garrisons. Thankfully Portia was at the residence in Rome. I was afraid what I might say if I saw her. But Edeco and Meda were there, running the farm and taking care of the household. They were relieved to see my mother, particularly Meda. My mother and the testy house slave had become close friends in the time before her kidnapping. Meda cried at the news about Lucretia.

  Edeco accompanied me to the stable. Balius was in one of the stalls. Although it had been three years, he greeted me like an old friend, rolling up his lips and fluttering them in my face when I stroked his forelock.

  “How is Marcus?” I asked the man who had once been a king.

  “Marcus has done well since his father’s death. He spoke often of you. He wished he were in Africa. Like his father, I think he wanted to meet Hannibal.”

  “I met him.”

  “Truly?”

  “Yes, he impressed me. I wish Marcellus had met him—and I was there to hear them talk. When will Marcus return to Rome?”

  “Soon, Timon. Any day. Certainly within a few weeks. He has a surprise for you.”

  “What could that be? A gladius?”

  Edeco actually laughed. “No, it’s for him to tell you. I think you will be pleased.”

  CHAPTER 116

  Scipio’s triumph took place on the ides of October. Never before or since have I seen such an enthusiastic welcoming for a man. Scipio owned Rome the way Fabius had after the fall of Capua, only more so, because the war was over and the object of derision had finally been defeated.

  The Twenty-third legion assembled at daybreak in a long column on the east bank of the Tiber in Mars Field. One hundred trumpeters led the procession through Porta Carmentalis and into the city. They were followed by decorated floats and painted wagons, overflowing with spoils from Africa, including one hundred and twenty-three thousand pounds of silver. Syphax came next, laden by chains. The deposed Numidian king was the target of rotten fruit and vicious insults hurled at him from every direction. Syphax was trailed by twenty elephants, two-by-two, and a long file of captured soldiers, some noble Carthaginians, some dark Numidians, some wild looking men fro
m the tribes of Spain or Gaul. The entire Roman Senate, wearing their ceremonial robes, followed the prisoners of war. Then came ten flamines, each leading a white, sacrificial ox for the appeasement of Jupiter. Twelve lictors preceded the triumph’s celebrant. Scipio wore a purple toga embroidered in gold and rode in a gold plated chariot drawn by four white horses. His long blond hair, held in place by a gold wreath, was combed back from his face and fell in waves to his shoulders. He held an ivory scepter in one hand and a laurel branch in the other as he bowed and gestured to the crowd on his way to the forum. He may as well have been king for the day. Tens of thousand of citizens cheered for him. They filled the streets, the hills, and the battlements along the walls.

  Last in the procession were the soldiers, led by the officers on horseback, who were trailed by the cavalry, and then the men on foot, proudly carrying their standards, singing bawdy songs, and calling out to friends along the parade route. Music, clouds of incense, and festoons of multi-colored flowers filled out the pageant that turned all of Rome into a grand circus.

  The procession wound into the city through the cattle market where the train of plunder and the soldiers halted. The trumpeters continued on to the forum, followed by the members of the Senate, the flamines, the ten oxen, and Scipio.

  When they reached the forum, Scipio climbed from the chariot and led the procession to the base of the Capitoline Hill and up the winding staircase to the Temple of Jupiter. The citizens and soldiers followed him until the hill overflowed with people and looked like a giant piece of fruit covered with ants.

  Scipio took his place at the temple altar as the crowd filled out before him. Many more were in the forum and the streets below. Others watched from the Palantine and Quirinal Hills. The sound of cheering and jubilation could be heard for miles around, and was probably enlarged upon by the farmers in the fields close enough to hear.

  Licinius the pontifex maximus stepped up to the altar beside Scipio and raised his hands for quiet. It took some time but gradually the excited crowd settled down to a murmuring impatience.

  The ten flamines positioned the oxen in a line across the front of the altar and adjacent to the ceremonial brazier. A Vestal Virgin came forward with a torch lit from the sacred flame and applied it to the kindling in the brazier. As the fire took hold, she sprinkled wine and incense into the flames, causing the fire to spit and spark. Licinius prayed to Jupiter, then nodded to the flamines. One by one, the oxen’s throats were slit, and the animals bled out.

  Four of the flamines turned the first ox on its side. One of them opened the beast’s midsection with a flint knife. Two others held the incision open as Licinius performed the duty of inspecting the entrails. After a hesitating silence, broken several times by shouts of Scipio’s name from the crowd, Licinius stood and raised his blood covered hands in the air and announced that Jupiter had conferred his blessings on Scipio, all of Rome, and the great victory over Carthage. The crowd exploded into another jubilant frenzy of cheers, calls for Scipio, and curses against Hannibal and all Carthaginians.

  Scipio, at the altar throughout the ceremony, allowed the demonstration to go on longer than I would have thought. Finally he lifted his hands for quiet. Silence came almost immediately, broken only by the intermittent shout of the victorious general’s name. The whole city held still, as in a block of amber, in anticipation of what Scipio would say.

  Scipio lifted his eyes to the heavens. “Thank you, Jupiter, for your blessings, and thank you, Mars, for infusing my troops with your spirit and for providing them with the confidence and energy to defeat the most dreaded enemy Rome has ever known.” Several more shouts of Scipio’s name erupted from the huge crowd.

  Scipio faced the audience. “Eight years ago, soon after I arrived in Spain to take my late father’s command, I had a powerful dream, which until this day I have revealed to no one because of its impact on me at the time. I was barely twenty-five years old. My experience was that of a young tribune. I had been at Ticinius and pulled my wounded father from the battlefield. I had been at Cannae to witness the lowest point in the war, but I had yet to focus on anything more than the duties of a junior officer.

  “On arriving in Spain, my ambitions were still modest. I simply sought to carry out my duties to the best of my abilities. Then I had the dream. It was at a time when I was uncertain of myself. I struggled to find the confidence that a man commanding tens of thousands of men must have and must project.

  “In the dream, my father, as a shade, came down from the heavens and spoke to me at length, as though he were still alive, but with the grand vision of the past and future granted to those special few who in death have achieved the highest realms of the spirit world and can confer with the gods as easily as I do with you.

  “My father, seeing clearly into my heart, addressed this hesitancy in me, common to a young officer. He told me that he had seen the future, and that he had seen the end of the war. He told me that I would go to Africa, and that by going there, I would force Hannibal to come there also to confront me. And though Hannibal up to that point in the war had never been defeated, my father said I would emerge victorious, and that my victory would bring an end to the war and earn me great military glory. He told me he had seen me here, before the Temple of Jupiter, saying these words that I am saying right now—and that I remember as clearly as if the dream were last night.

  “I knew then what all Romans know now—and yet, it seemed too remarkable for me to tell anyone at the time. I was a young man, and it would be unbecoming for a junior officer to make such bold predictions.

  “Two years after this dream, which so fills me at this moment that I can see my father’s face looking down from the heavens right now, I dared to present my plan to go to Africa to the Roman Senate, which our eldest statesmen quickly condemned as naive and certain to fail. I presented this idea to the Senate two more times, each time gathering in a few senators with the wisdom of my strategy. Finally, four years ago, at the time of my first consulship, the Senate, somewhat reluctantly, granted me the province of Sicily and permission to raise an army to take to Africa.

  “The going was slow. I spent a year in Sicily, recruiting and training an army. Then another two years in Africa, putting pressure on Carthage, hoping to draw Hannibal back to his homeland. The rest is well-known. Inland from Carthage, two armies of forty thousand men faced off to decide the war, one commanded by the invincible Hannibal, the other by a young Roman. Hannibal is now without an army. Carthage has surrendered, and that young Roman is here before you now, living out a dream that no one in their right mind could have believed but him. Thank you to my troops. Thank you to all Roman citizens. Thank you to the Senate for finally believing in me, and thank you to Quintus Fabius, watching now from above with my father, for forcing me to defend my ideas against the most highly revered military mind Rome has ever known—until two months ago in Zama!”

  Those before him, those below in the forum and in the streets, and those on the hills, many of whom surely could not have heard his words, exploded with the excitement of the moment, releasing sixteen years of fear and frustration, and exulting in the rise of the Roman Republic to the pinnacle of world power.

  Within that sea of jubilation, amid the hugs and cheers of Roman citizens, and the cries for Scipio Africanus—the name bestowed on Scipio after his great victory—I watched and said nothing, thankful simply to be alive, relieved that the war was finally over, and hopeful that one day I might free my mind of the visions of the dead that the war had imprinted in my memory.

  CHAPTER 117

  Scipio’s triumph was followed by three days of revelry. Rome, a nation that seemed addicted to war and city-wide festivals, surpassed all my previous experience for debauchery during those three days. The streets were filled from dawn to dawn with revelers, free drink, and, of course, the usual collection of pickpockets, prostitutes, and vendors hawking religious trinkets—several selling locks of Scipio’s hair at a quantity no one head could sup
port. I’m sure I enjoyed the celebration as much as anyone. The war was over!

  The second night I went to the Community of Miracles. There, atop the Aventine Hill, the festivities were really no different than any other night, and I pushed my way through the throng in search of Quintus Ennius.

  Always loud, invariably drunk—or at least appearing so—Ennius found me first. I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to face just who I was looking for, looking just as he always did, his toga soiled and his hair sticking out like quills on a porcupine.

  “Quintus...” I began before he abruptly interrupted.

  “Homer, my friend! Please address me in the manner Rome’s best poet deserves.”

  “Oh, of course, how could I make such a silly mistake,” I said laughing. I bowed to him as I would had he actually been Homer, then became serious. “All kidding aside.”

  “Absolutely not, Timon, there is no greater wisdom than a properly timed joke.”

  “Or a well-deserved expression of gratitude and appreciation.”

  “What? Are you about to insult me?”

  “Hardly. Whether you know it or not, I did receive your message from Rullo. You could not have done me a greater service.”

  A drunken woman stumbled up to Ennius with one large pendulous breast exposed. She kissed him on the cheek, then staggered off into the rowdy crowd. “My mother,” he said. “On occasion, I’m still in need of nursing.”

  I laughed again but pressed on with my heart-felt message. “I was able to save my mother, Quintus—Homer. She’s here in Rome now, primarily because of the information I got from you. She and I will never forget it.”