Antiochus rises from his seat. “You are giving the Romans a hearing?” he says, his brow furrowed. Hannibal nods approvingly, anticipating what Thoas will say.
“The Roman delegates requested an audience with the Aetolian League. That meeting will bring magistrates from all over my country. That gives me the opportunity to unite them to your cause.”
Your own cause, Hannibal thinks. “May fortune smile on your enterprise,” he says.
“Go then, and bring me more men,” Antiochus says, waving Thoas toward the doors.
“I will see to it immediately.” Thoas marches from the meeting room.
Hannibal turns to Antiochus. “This Thoas could be a powerful ally, but he is as sly as a fox. He bears watching.”
Antiochus snorts. “Right now, I am more worried about the Roman bear than an Aetolian fox.”
THERMOS, AETOLIA, NORTHERN GREECE. “That stupid slave of mine wrapped my underwear too tight, I can hardly breathe,” Titus fumes. “He does this again, I’ll sell him to the Sicilians!”
Senator Titus Julius wriggles his ample bottom back and forth across his saddle blanket. I itch worse than a Libyan dog! When we get to Thermos I’m going to buy me a clean subligaculum.
Rome’s lead envoy glances at his three fellows. Look at them, slumped in their saddles. Old Benedictus, he’s about ready to fall off his horse! Well, they’d better get ready for an argument. The Aetolians are not going to welcome us with kisses.
Titus Julius summons a cheery tone to his voice. “This is it, my friends. We’ve done Athens, Chalcis, and Thessaly. This is the last stop before we talk to Antiochus.”
“I don’t know why we are bothering with him,” Senator Gaius snipes. “You heard Scipio. The bastard’s going to storm across Greece, soon as we go home!”
Julius rolls his eyes. “You Hellenics! You act like Scipio is the oracle of Delphi! We do it because the Senate commissioned us to talk to him, in hopes we can strike a treaty, a cessation of hostilities.”
“A cessation of hostilities?” blurts Benedictus. “The Syrian has already invaded Thrace. And what do we do about it? We send troops way down to Sicily, on the rumor that he’s going to invade it.[lxxix] That’s Hannibal spreading those rumors, as sure as my cock rises in the morning!”
“He must be talking about his rooster,” snipes senator Gaius, prompting weary laughter.
Benedictus waggles a bony finger at his fellows. “You can laugh, but all we’re doing is giving the Syrian more time to gather allies. If Philip of Macedonia joins him, we might as well fortify the Italian coastline, because they’re coming across the sea for us!”
“I think Antiochus has already got to the Aetolians,” interjects young Battista, “King Thoas has been visiting him.”
“And we are visiting him, too,” retorts Gaius. “So who’s to say who the enemy is?”
The party trots on. An hour later, Julius points to his right. “Look over there, on the other side of that hillock. You can see the top of Thermos’ white walls. We’re almost there!”
“Thank the gods,” Gaius mutters. “I haven’t had a bath in three days.”
“We are well aware of that,” Benedictus replies.
Late that afternoon, the refreshed envoys negotiate the fifty steps to the landing of Thermos’ magnificent Temple of Apollo. They are accompanied by a score of personal guards, retired veterans of Scipio’s sixth legion. The Roman delegates pause under the thirty foot-statue of Apollo, waiting for the guards to lead them in.
The guards pull open the towering brass doors, and the four envoys enter the temple’s central hall. Twenty Aetolian League magistrates stand along the marble-columned walls inside the chambers, rulers who have come from the regions of Thessaly, Dolopia, and Acarnania. The magistrates stand motionless as statues, their faces grim.
Julius glances at the blood-stained marble altar at the far side of the temple. We’re in the sacrificial chambers. Very appropriate.
Thoas, the chief magistrate of Aetolia, stands in the center of the house-sized chamber, resplendent in a black toga bordered with silver lacework. He spreads his angular, bony arms, his gold teeth gleaming from his bristly brown beard.
“Welcome, Senators,” Thoas declares tonelessly. “We are pleased that you have come to see us.”
“We came to talk about a treaty between us, preparatory to us making one with Antiochus,” declares Gaius.
Thoas spreads his hands. “I fear that discussion is a bit premature, Senator. We have a number of grievances to air, matters that you must first resolve.”
Julius blinks in surprise. “If you have a grievance against Rome, it were better you came to Rome and complained to the Senate, instead of promoting war between us and Antiochus.”[lxxx]
“Do you hear this?” Thoas tells the attendees. “He’s ordering us to go to Rome! He wants us to beg for scraps from the senators’ table!”
A half dozen rulers shout out their protests, men Thoas has prompted beforehand. Thoas walks across the line of magistrates, nodding his head.
“I hear you, my fellow rulers. Such a proposal is demeaning. You have heard what Cato and his Latin Party think of us: they say we Greeks are weak.” Several rulers hiss their agreement.
Thoas’ eyes shine, knowing he has the crowd in his hand. “The Latin Party swears they will keep Rome from becoming like Greece! Do you think those men will be sympathetic to our plight?”
Julius shakes his head. “You know that Scipio Africanus has always been a friend to Rome. And General Flamininus liberated Greece just a year ago. As our amici and allies, you should go talk with them. We can renew our loyalties to each other.”
“Listen to him, telling us what we should do!” Thoas says. His eyes grow fierce. “I have heard enough! Let me issue a decree that we want King Antiochus to come to Greece, and settle this dispute. He will set us free from the dictates of Rome!”[lxxxi] The Aetolians roar out their agreement, thrusting their fists over their heads.
Julius stands silently, eyes closed, listening to defeat wash over him. When the tumult has quieted, he looks to several magistrates that he has known for years. They avoid his eyes.
This matter was decided before we came here. Julius decides. This Thoas will not rest until he’s marching into Rome.
“I would like a copy of this decree about Antiochus. I will take it back to the Senate,” Julius says. “Perhaps we can still find a way out of war.”
Thoas glances over at Democritus, his chief magistrate. Democritus leaps to his feet.” I am the one who will formulate the decree, Senator.”
The senator nods in his direction. “Might I have it before we leave tomorrow?”
Democritus rolls his eyes skyward. “I am very busy right now, so I cannot give you the decree before you leave. But I promise I will deliver it to you personally—when our army is camped on the banks of the Tiber, right outside your gates!”[lxxxii]
The magistrates laugh uproariously, snapping their fingers and flapping their togas. Titus Julius bows his head. There’s no reasoning with them now. He huddles with his three fellow delegates, talking softly so as not to be overheard.
“We might as well abandon the visit to Antiochus,” he murmurs to his companions. “War is coming. We have to prepare our ships and legions.”
Julius breaks from the group and walks back to face the magistrates. He smoothes his toga and raises his chin, staring imperiously at them.
“We are done,” he declares. “We leave you to the fate you have chosen before we came here.”
The Roman delegation shuffles from the chamber, ignoring the hoots and whistles that follow them. Thoas watches them go, his eyes aglow with delight.
Democritus sidles up to Thoas. “That’s it. They’re going back to Rome. Their Senate will be furious at our insolence. What do we do next?”
“We wait. Antiochus is coming. And when he does, we will start this war in earnest.”
SCIPIO MANSE, ROME, 192 BCE. Scipio unrolls the butter-s
oft goatskin scroll. He rubs his hand across it, flattening it across the bronze table in his sunny atrium. He runs his finger along a black ink drawing of a large, columned, rectangular building.
“What do you think of it, Glabrio?” Scipio says. “It would be the size of two large mansions. The walls would be lined with nooks holding scrolls of the world’s finest writers, people such as Aristotle, Plato, Euripides, and Sappho. There’d be a big table in the middle of the floor, where people could request a scroll from one of our tutors. The patron could make his mark and take the scroll to a reading table.” He grins. “Of course, we’d have tutors to help people read them.”
The severe-looking young man scratches his blond curls. “And you call this a what?
“I call it a ‘library,’ Glabrio.” Scipio says. “Athens has one, and there is a magnificent one in Alexandria. Why, even the cursed Syrians have several of them! It’s time Rome grew up and built one of their own.” Scipio rolls up the drawing. “And it’s time Rome had you as consul.”
Glabrio’s brown eyes start from his face. “Me?”
“It’s your time,” says Scipio. “But you have to decide now. The delegates to Greece have failed, and the Senate has finally woke up to Antiochus’ threat—to what I’ve been telling them for a year! We are having the elections early this year, to send out an army as soon as possible.”
The blond-haired young man blinks nervously. “Are you sure the patricians will allow a novus homo to be elected consul, even if I run as the people’s choice?
Scipio pats him on the back, chuckling. “My fellow patricians do not readily embrace someone who is the first in his family to become a senator, but they will if I back you. I have that much influence left!”
“Why me? There are older senators who have not had the chance. There’s Caeso, Augustus, Vitus, a dozen others.”
“You are educated, ethical, decisive, and popular,” Scipio says. “We need your kind of man to lead us against the Syrians.”
“I’d take an army against the Army of a Hundred Nations?”
“Yes, If you draw the lot for Greece.” He puts his arm around Glabrio’s broad shoulder. “You are ready. Remember when you served under me as my tribune? I recall how you led your men on that flanking attack at Zama. You did not waver, even while Hannibal’s elephants rampaged around you.”
“Even if I am elected, I may not draw the lot for Greece.”
Scipio nods. “True enough. My cousin Nasica is running for the patrician consul.[lxxxiii] He has distinguished himself almost as much as you have. Either way we will be in good hands for this war. As long as a Latin isn’t elected.”
“I know we need to repel the Syrian threat, but I may better serve Rome if I fought as a legate, directing one of its legions.”
Scipio’s voice grows stern. “Now look. I have brought you along for years, educating you in Hellenic philosophy. As my protégé,[lxxxiv] you will now become the people’s candidate for Rome. The matter is settled.”
“But I’d have to sponsor games and feasts, and pay some bribes,” Glabrio mutters. “My family is newly rich. We do not have that kind of money yet.”
“Do not worry about the money, I will provide you with a thousand denarii,” Scipio replies. He picks at a fingernail. “But there is one condition.”
Glabrio’s mouth tightens. “Which is?”
“You appoint my brother Lucius as a legate in of one of your legions.”
Glabrio’s eyes dart about. He takes on the look of a trapped man. “I could not put him in charge of my men,” he says, his jaw set. “I owe that much to them.”
Scipio sighs. And I don’t blame you. He begins to nod his assent, then he pauses. You promised Mother you’d help him. He needs this post if he is to be consul some day. Scipio’s minds races for a solution.
“What if I give you Marcus Aemilius as your legion’s First Tribune? He fought over there for a year, and knows the terrain better than anybody.”
Glabrio shrugs noncommittally. “I know of him. He led his men through the mountains on a sneak attack upon Philip.”
“That was him. He won the battle of the Aos River for Flamininus! He will direct Lucius’ legion. My brother will be commander in name only.”
“Lucius might interfere.” His eyes stare challengingly into Scipio’s. “Or run.”
Scipio flushes. Be calm. Lucius needs this. “I will talk with him. I promise he will not interfere with you—or with Marcus.” He raises two fingers. “And I will give you two thousand denarii for your campaign. Amelia and Prima will provide you with the necessary propaganda. You will win.”
Glabrio sighs, shaking his head. “I don’t know. It’s just that he hasn’t done anything without you, Scipio.[lxxxv] We all know that.”
Scipio steps closer to Glabrio’s face. “I have made you, Marcus Acilius Glabrio. I can just as easily break you.”
Glabrio turns his head from Scipio’s gaze. He stands silent. “When can I have the money?” He finally asks.
“Within five days. You will have to start campaigning immediately. Amelia has already made the banners.”
“You must have been very sure I would accept.” Glabrio says bitterly.
Scipio shrugs. “You are a novus homo. As a new man, you have fought your way from humble upbringings to the top rungs of power. Why would you jump off now?”
He slaps Glabrio on the back. “Be not so morose, future consul. You have learned a valuable lesson about negotiations: dangle a carrot, but carry a stick! Come on, let me show you the banners.”
The two walk past the atrium’s fishpond, heading toward the manse’s tablinum. Amelia and Prima stand in the office room doorway, their arms laden with paint pots and bright blue banners.
A thought flashes into Scipio’s head. You promised your father that you’d protect Rome. What would he say about placing Lucius as a legate?
“Shut up,” Scipio says aloud. He smiles, embarrassed. “Talking to myself.”
Glabrio gapes at him. Charon take me, I am taking orders from a moon-head.
The veteran warrior’s eyes grow steely. You think you can push me around? If I get the Greece campaign, I will have a big surprise for you, First Man of Rome.
LAMIA, WESTERN GREECE,[lxxxvi] 192 BCE. “This kykeon needs more goat cheese,” Thelonika declares.
Nestor, his fellow sentry, shakes his pewter spoon at Thelonika. “I’d add more honey, to it, too. But we have to take whatever the cooks give us for breakfast. You ask for something extra, they’ll spit in it!”
The two watchmen lean out over the stone-walled parapet, moodily swallowing their barley porridge. Bored to distraction, they fling rocks off the tower, watching them splash into the glistening blue Aegean.
The two spy a group of frolicking dolphins. “I bet you ten sestertii I can get closer than you can!” says Nestor.
Nestor and Thelonika spend a half hour pitching stones at the bounding animals, arguing over who has gotten the closest. The dolphins cavort farther out to sea. The sentries resume staring into a featureless expanse.
Thelonika’s head jerks up. “Look, there’s a herd of sperm whales out there! See the dark bumps on the horizon? Gods take me, they’re as large as a quinquereme!”
“I care not,” Nestor replies. “I haven’t hunted whales years. Their meat is good, but it’s just too dangerous!”
“Does everything have to be about killing and food with you?” says Thelonika.
“Of course not. Sexual congress is most important—after I’ve killed something to eat! Now, you see that group of whales out there, I’d…Wait, those aren’t whales. See the masts? Those are ships!”
Thelonika, leans out from the parapet, staring until his eyes water. “Zeus’ cock, there’s a bunch of them! They’re all across the sea!”
“Sound the alarm!” cries Nestor. “We’re being invaded!” He grabs the curved bronze horn and blows a deep, lingering note. The warning is repeated below them, resounding through the Greek for
tress. The sea wall is soon lined with soldiers and citizens, watching the flotilla approach.
“There’s at least forty big warships out there, and twice as many smaller ones!” Thelonika blurts. “And hundreds of transports. It’s an army!”
“Ah gods, I bet it’s the Achean League, come to destroy us for siding with Syria.” He slaps a hands to his cheek. “Why am I standing here? I’ve got to get my family out of town!”
A gruff voice erupts behind them. “Stay where you are and be quiet!” A barrel-bodied dwarf barges between Thelonika and Nestor. “Let me take a look out there.”
“Apologies, noble Phaeneas,” Nestor says, drawing back two steps. A guard places a short ladder against the wall. The regional magistrate clambers up the ladder and peers out. A grin splits his face. “It’s not an invasion, you mule-heads. That’s Antiochus’ fleet out there!”
The Aetolian glowers at Nestor and Thelonika. “Look at the insignia on the sail, dog-wits! Does that look like a Greek centaur to you? That’s an anchor, the symbol of Syria.[lxxxvii] They are coming to free us from Rome. Just as King Thoas said they would.”
I didn’t know we were prisoners, Thelonika thinks. “As you say, Magistrate.”
Phaeneas jumps off the ladder and hurries toward the steps. “We’ve got to prepare a reception for our liberators! We’ll need dozens of squids and goats. I want to give them a feast for the ages!”
Two days later, Antiochus stands before a bevy of Aetolian officers and politicians, gathered at a dozen banquet tables in the city’s dining hall. He stands at the head of an oak table fashioned like whale’s head, resplendent in his gold-bordered black robe.
“I thank you for your enthusiastic welcome,” the king says, beaming at his audience. “As you have heard from the reports, I have come with ten thousand infantry, five hundred cavalry, and six of my finest elephants.[lxxxviii] My army is small, but this is just an advance force, to establish a beachhead in Greece. I promise you, as soon as the winter weather subsides, I will fill the whole of Greece with men and armaments, and line the coast with my ships!”[lxxxix]
“That is just what I am worried about,” a Thessalian general says to his lieutenant. He frowns at his ecstatic colleagues. “Am I the only one who is suspicious of a Syrian conqueror coming to ‘liberate’ us? Am I insane, or them?”
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