I was eighteen years old. The first war with Carthage had been dragging on for twenty four years. It was a miracle that we had a fleet at all as at that time our treasury was empty and the state as good as bankrupt. Our fleet existed because of the patriotic donations from its wealthier denizens.
The enemy had borne down on us, with the wind fair behind them, long vertical lines of sails, intent on running for the harbour of Carthaginian held Lilybaeum. As a staff officer I was not expected to fight, but it still takes a strong nerve to stand and watch the enemy approach and not feel the fear in the pit of your stomach. It’s a fear borne from not being in control and of not being able to do anything but wait. Caeso was right. We were going to know of what kind of iron we were made of.
I knew from the first day, as a boy, when my teachers first started to instruct me in the art and skill of fighting and war, that I was no warrior. I lacked the killer instinct that my brother had. I was not confident with the sword or the campaign map. How different I was to my brother Caeso who immediately excelled at everything to do with combat and physical exercise. Perhaps my teachers noticed but I never gave them cause for complaint or ridicule. I never asked to be excluded from the training. Life was easier when I did not complain even though I did not enjoy the labour.
Falto, our fleet commander, despite the unfavourable wind and being out numbered, attacked and in the battle that followed our ships and men proved their quality. There was little time to worry about Caeso. It was only when with the fading light and the remnants of the Carthaginian fleet fleeing westwards that I learned that he had won himself great fame by capturing three enemy ships. They told me that he had been the first man to board them. For this action he was rewarded.
So I suppose I can claim to have taken part in the final battle that decided that first war with Carthage. There are some, now that we are once again at war with our old enemy, who deplore the futility of war and point to the human cost. These voices do not take into account that sometimes war is inevitable, sometimes war is foisted on a man against his will and once engaged, the only strategy that makes sense is to win. Soon afterwards, our year’s service completed, Caeso and I were allowed to return to Rome. Little did we know it at the time but our troubles were just about to start.
After my father’s death I became a lawyer. Our family wealth meant that I was a rich man but I felt compelled to defend those who could not defend themselves, to do right like Ambustus did all those years ago, and in time I made a reputation for myself.
My father was a strict disciplinarian. He used to tell us that the first duty of a Roman was to obey. We were always being reminded of the Roman general who executed his own son for disobedience before a battle. My father’s household was run like an army camp and as boys Caeso and I were beaten for the slightest offence. The man who carried out our punishment was called Janus. He was a slave, a dull stupid brute from the mountains of Liguria. When my father died he was given his freedom.
The only fond memory that I have of my father is when at night he would come to our bedside, when we were still young, and tell us stories about our ancestors. Both I and Caeso loved those stories. They were full of heroics and great deeds of valour and nobility and we would spend all night talking about them. Our ancestors were our heroes and both of us wanted to be like them. In our house we had a library and on one of the walls, hung up in a long line, were the death masks of our ancestors going back fifteen generations. We were not often allowed into that library but when we were, we entered as if in the presence of Jupiter himself. On feast days my father would hire men to re-enact the deeds of our forefathers. The actors would wear the death masks and Caeso and I would sit and watch. We each had our own champion, Caeso chose Hercules, the founder of our family, a half man half god with strength beyond any mortal soul. I chose Marcus Fabius Ambustus, the man who helped reconcile Patrician and Plebeian interests and so allowed our city to avoid civil war.
It gives a boy courage and purpose to know that he lives amongst such illustrious company. Yet it places an expectation on him too and that is a heavy burden to bear. Caeso was forever deriding me for choosing Ambustus but it takes courage to go against your class and peers, risking your reputation, alone and abandoned by ones friends, for the sake of the common good. Caeso never did understand that kind of courage. For him courage could only be shown on the battlefield.
I never knew my mother. Her name was Lydia. Caeso claimed to remember her but I don’t think he did. She died when we were both very young but it is from her that I inherited my love of words and our Latin language. Caeso grew up as a rebel. He was too proud and confident. Whenever he could he would argue and refuse to follow our father’s orders. He was beaten a lot and there was always a bruise or a scar on him but the punishment didn’t work. I don’t think anything could stop him. He was headstrong and fearless. In many ways he was just like my father.
As a boy I did not have my brother’s physical strength and self confidence. But my father’s rules taught me the difference between right and wrong. I learned about what a man could and could not get away with. I became good at speaking. I learned to obey my father and I took my punishment in silence even when I knew that it was not justified and because I never challenged my father’s authority, he began to treat me with less severity than he did Caeso. I think he found it hard to argue with me. So I began to speak up in my brother’s defence. I knew just the right tone to take and what words to use and by my action I saved my brother from many a beating but Caeso was never thankful and he made my task no easier with his behaviour.
Looking back now I know my father did love us. He was just no good at showing it and now I shall admit, that a day does not go by during which I hope to be reconciled with my brother again.
We returned from Sicily in high spirits. Caeso had been rewarded for his bravery in battle and news of his exploits had already travelled on ahead of us. We were expecting to enter the city in triumph. It is odd what things a man remembers. I was with Caeso on the Appian Way as we approached the Capena Gate. He was nineteen and he had just announced to me that he was going to marry his woman. Her name was Flavia. She was a cattle driver’s daughter, a sweet girl with a beautiful smile and jet black hair that always smelled of roses. I had actually known her before Caeso had. In those days when we had reached maturity, my brother and I had started slipping away from the house at night and spending time in the taverns and bars of the Subura. I had a group of friends who did this regularly and she had been part of this group. It was on such a night when Caeso had joined me that he had met Flavia and he’d fallen for her right away.
I told him that our father would never allow him to marry Flavia. She was from a poor family, utterly unsuited to be a wife for a young nobleman. I told him that he could not marry without our father’s consent. Such is the law. It would be impossible for me to speak up for him against my father on such terms. By tradition our father would choose our wives from our own class. I told him to forget about Flavia. Of course he was not happy with me. He was stubborn, and like my father, he had to win at all costs, no matter what damage he did in the process. He said that he didn’t care about our father’s opinion. He said that he and Flavia had sworn an oath of loyalty to each other. He was not going to break that oath to spend the rest of his life married to a wife he didn’t love because it suited his father’s ambitions. If it came to it he was prepared to run away with Flavia and forsake his title and inheritance. He would go north taking Flavia with him and would find some land on the Gallic frontier that needed a brave enough man to farm it. It was after these comments that I started to worry.
I tried to reason with him. Flavia was going to bring him trouble. She was going to ruin his life. I knew he didn’t stand a chance of winning the argument and that the law would decide against him. Caeso would have none of it. His mind was made up and we nearly came to blows there and then on the Appian Way. He accused me of taking my father’s side which was unfair for I had al
ways tried to speak up for him. For all his qualities, my brother was not a sensitive man. He never did care much, or bother, about how other people felt. That was his greatest weakness. It was after this conversation that I suggested he petition Quintus Fabius Maximus. My father was a supporter of Fabius and Fabius was a close family friend. My father would listen to Fabius and I thought it may work.
But Caeso disagreed. He said he didn’t trust Fabius because he was too close to our father. He called Fabius a slow dim witted child stuck in a man’s body. There was a section of the nobility at this time who agreed with this description. It was not an uncommon view. Eventually Caeso swore me to silence on the matter.
Throughout the weeks that followed our return to Rome, Caeso would not change his mind about marrying Flavia. The three of us would often go up into the hills above the city and wander around aimlessly amongst the forests and fields delighting in our freedom. But soon things became awkward and I stopped going. I knew by then that it was useless to try and change Caeso’ mind and his decision hurt me deeply.
***
Publius looked up as Numerius stirred on the couch and muttered in his sleep. Anxiously the young man watched for signs that the malaria had returned but all seemed well for now.
***
On the ides of the March in the second year after our return from war, Caeso came to me and told me that he was marrying Flavia the next day. He wanted me to be his witness. I hadn’t seen her for a while so I asked him why he was in such a rush. She was only fifteen after all and too young to marry in my opinion. I remember the look on his face. We were lying beside the pool, all alone. Our father and Janus had gone to Ostia on business and the slaves had been dismissed for the afternoon. He told me that she was pregnant and would give birth within days. He did not want his son or daughter born as a bastard.
So I made my final appeal knowing it was pointless. I reminded him that our father had the right to put him to death for disobedience and that I thought he may do so when he found out. But this was Caeso I was talking to and he just laughed and said that he was not afraid. He had friends amongst the officers with whom he’d fought with in the war. They would protect him.
He asked me again to be his witness and eventually I agreed.
I heard him shouting that very same evening. It sounded like he was in a fight with someone. In the atrium of our house I came across Janus and my father. They had just locked Caeso into the room where my father kept our money. It’s a strong room ringed by masonry two feet thick. I could hear him hammering on the door. He was shouting every obscenity he knew. My father glared at me without saying a word whilst Janus stood guard at the door. Janus had done well from my brother’s downfall. I could see the delight in his eyes and it angered me. But there was nothing that I could do.
They kept my brother locked up for five days. He was guarded day and night. On the morning of the sixth day a distraught man presented himself at the entrance to our house. My father would not allow him in. But I knew who he was. He was Flavia’s father. The news he brought gutted me. Flavia had given birth to a daughter, a healthy daughter, but she herself had died in childbirth. Her father had come to ask if Caeso would accept the child as his own. My father threatened to have the poor man flogged if he dared show his face here again. Flavia was a sweet girl and I mourned her loss greatly, but she had made a poor choice in Caeso. She deserved better than what fortune gave her.
It was Janus who told my brother the news. He did this from behind the locked door and the manner in which he spoke showed the evil that lurked in his soul. My father knew by now about my brothers plans and he was livid. He stalked the house breaking everything in his path but it was but a small rage compared to that of my brother. I suppose I should have realised what was coming. But none of us suspected at the time what he was capable of.
My father decided that Caeso would be punished. The next day my brother was taken from his prison and given twenty lashes. It was Janus who carried the whip and the punishment was carried out in the garden by the pool in front of all our slaves. It was humiliating to watch. Afterwards my father ordered that Caeso be stripped of all his honorary armour, weapons and awards and that from hence onwards he would serve as a common soldier in the Legions when we were required to go to war again. My brother would serve as a common soldier until he had learned to obey.
Caeso took his punishment like a man. He took it like I knew he would take it. He did not flinch or cry or beg for forgiveness. He was silent throughout the whole ordeal. But when he caught my eye I could only see hatred for me in that look. He hated me from that day onwards for I suppose he thinks that I betrayed him as I was the only one who knew what he was going to do. I do not blame him for it is the truth.
The next morning when I woke I found a bloody knife lying beside me on my bed. I knew immediately who had left it there. Why he did not kill me is something I still don’t really understand. Maybe the madness that came over him had passed. Maybe deep down he did realise that I loved him, that is what I would like to believe, but I don’t know and now I will never know. What however is irrefutable is that I have not seen my brother since that day, 24 years ago. He perished most probably a long time ago in some lonely forgotten corner of the world and maybe that was best for him. I shall meet him again in the afterlife where I shall explain myself to him.
We searched the whole house and then the city but we did not find him. He had vanished and so I went to the Senate and told them what had happened, for my father was a senator then, and they agreed to list Caeso as a fugitive, with a price on his head, for the murder of his father.
Chapter Seven – The gods have deserted us
Numerius stood waiting in the atrium, in the hall of his friend’s house. The atrium was the central room and at his feet a rectangular basin filled with water had been sunk into the beautiful mosaic floor. Opposite him, in a niche in the wall, standing on a ledge, were the statuettes of the various household gods. Above him the atrium was partially open to the sky to allow for rain water to collect in the basin. Surrounding him on all sides were the doorways to different rooms, an office, the kitchen, bedrooms and the dining room and towards the back of the house he knew there was a colonnaded garden, although he had never been invited into that part. The slaves were all busy in the kitchen preparing breakfast and for a moment they were alone.
It was early morning but he could sense it was going to be a hot day. His face looked pale and weary, yet there was alertness in his eyes. At fourty three he was considered an old man in a city where the average life expectancy was thirty years and one in two babies died in infancy. He was slimly built with short greying hair and wore a simple white tunic with a belt from which hung an old army sword. On his feet he was wearing a pair of army sandals that had seen better days.
“Not a word about my condition,” he glanced at Publius who stood waiting beside him carrying a stout stick and a leather satchel.
The young freedman nodded and kept his eyes lowered. It was strange, Publius thought, that he still thought like a slave even though he was a free man. Old routines were hard to break. Should he swagger around like a wealthy patrician or like the rough soldiers he saw in the street? All Publius knew was that he liked to serve his patron. If there ever was a man who combined decency and compassion with the ways and haughteur of an old fashioned aristocrat, then it was his patron. Publius had long ago started to copy Numerius, using the same phrases and even the same poses. It was his way of showing his devotion to the man to whom he owed everything, but it had not stopped his friends in the city from mocking him. His city friends were always urging him to broaden his ideas, telling him that there was more out there than just service. Publius understood them but he didn't care, he knew his own mind and he was happy. Why should he change when he was happy with the life he had chosen to lead?
But now he worried about Numerius. His patrons fever had faded just as the doctor had said it would but the physician had also told him that it
would return and keep returning. Publius kept his eyes on the floor, tracing the fine patterns in the mosaic. That was the nature of the disease the doctor had said. It would return and go away and return again in a few days, like a cat playing with a mouse, before eventually it would cause a major organ to fail and death would follow. There was no cure and it would be a painful death. He’d asked the doctor how much time his patron had left but the physician had shrugged and told him it depended on how strong the patient was but that death would be certain within a few months. Until then his patron would experience periods where he felt much better.
Publius worried what would happen after Numerius died. What would he do without his patron's guidance and support? His life was about to change and the change had come much faster than he had expected. His friends had urged him to try and get himself written into Numerius will. It was possible he would be left something. The man had no sons and only a daughter and he was wealthy, maybe not as wealthy as the man in whose house he now stood, but still…wealthy. However the thought of asking to be included in Numerius' will left a bad taste in Publius' mouth. If it was meant to be the old man would make provisions.
The Shield of Rome Page 5
