Capitolinus’ story, as readers will know, is intertwined with that of Marcus Furius and has been in the books since the beginning. His story was always fated to end here in this book. As Rome began to rebuild, Camillus did set up a feast with several days of games, as explained at the opening chapter, to celebrate their success at regaining the city. He asked men who had been on the Capitol Hill to lead these games as a way of showing support for the hardships they had endured during their months of imprisonment. I chose the name Capitol Men as I thought it would clash nicely with the history and Jaegers view that Capitolinus was a Capitol man (his home was on the Capitol Hill and his speeches centred on his role in saving the Capitol, where Jupiter resides). I also attempted to show that, human nature being as it is, those who had riches would be using every opportunity to grow richer from the new Rome, and being a man linked to Camillus, would bring wealth. I also wanted to show Marcus as more of a statesman than he has been in previous books. His role at the centre of Rome must have offered personal opportunities to develop his own position and wealth, and so I’ve added more of that strand to his character as well. I hope it came across? However, I do like a good battle, and so I had to keep him in the thick of the action wherever I could to enable the fulfilment of the prophecy from book one.
On this point Livy agrees that the history, as he saw it, was confusing. He asks the question of his own readers as to how many Volscans and Etruscans there were, as they seemed to be endlessly attacking Roman colonies or allies and had a limitless supply of fresh soldiers. As such, I changed the timelines from Livy quite a bit to ensure that the thread of the story fitted to both the Capitolinus story and that of Camillus as he rebuilt Rome. Our old friend Javenoli now presented me with a problem. As I wrote the early chapters it was obvious to me that Javenoli and Capitolinus were unlikely bed-fellows. Capitolinus appears, from Livy, to be a complex character who spent his own riches on gaining favour from the masses in order to win them to his cause. He also appears to be a lonely figure, obsessed with his own role in saving the Capitol Hill and therefore saving Rome. He also appeared to have no real vision for the future, beyond his role as leader of the city. Javenoli, in my own view, wouldn’t have an interest in sharing power and his scheming would not be limited to Rome. I wrote several chapters where Javenoli and Capitolinus were colluding and bringing about the down-fall of various senators, but it simply didn’t work, and these pages fell to the delete button! So, I made copious changes and started to show the rift between the two men from an earlier stage, knowing that the final clash would have to come at the end of the book, with Javenoli being the architect of Capitolinus’ downfall as much as the man himself. Javenoli would not like giving away his hard-earned money to Capitolinus if there was no profit in it for himself. Istros, the Thracian assassin, was born of the original pages and I kept him in this story as I enjoyed his character and felt he had a lot to add to the story.
The story of Capitolinus followed the timelines recognised by Livy. I created a sub-plot for Brevo as the soldier identified by Livy as being saved from slavery by Capitolinus, which I hope you enjoyed. I did try and bring a sense of the comradery of the centurions into this story, with the new ‘paid’ soldiers being a new career path for many of the richer plebeian men at this time. Brevo brought a whole series of ideas to me, many of which I couldn’t fit into the story, and I couldn’t kill him off at the end as I felt that he would be the embodiment of many of the plebeians who were suffering from the debts imposed on them by the patricians. It was, in some ways, fitting that another patrician (Javenoli) ‘saved’ him at the end when it seemed that all was lost. I hope the fact that this was Javenoli taking control of one of Capitolinus’ greatest acts, was not lost on you.
Senator Cincinnatus lived at the time and played a greater role than I have written, a role for which Javenoli has taken much of the credit in this book. I attempted to show that there was more than one faction at large in Rome and placed him, at times, at loggerheads with Javenoli to spice up the conflicts and make it more interesting. His death also added a little more weight to the indictment of Capitolinus, which when you read Livy (and he admits himself in his text) didn’t appear to have much substance beyond meetings at his house and claims of stolen gallic gold.
Capitolinus did spent vast amounts of his own wealth on procuring a following from the plebeians, to whom he defected. Livy writes of how he had over four hundred men appear at his trial, all of whom had received payments from him. He was imprisoned for inciting violence in the city and slandering the patricians without naming which men had (in his view) stolen gold from the temples. There is no evidence that he stood in the senate and demanded that he be made dictator when the attacks from the Volscans arose, that was my own invention to pit his simplistic views of his god-given strength against the military planning and structured mind of Camillus. It did, though, highlight that, as Livy says, Capitolinus’ own family disowned him in the end (they didn’t whip him before he was thrown from the Tarpeian Rock as I stated, that was also my invention). It also allowed me to link the words written by Livy, where Capitolinus called the senate ‘Camillus’ puppets’. You will have noticed, I hope, that Capitolinus’ wife disappeared from the story quite early on and was never heard of again. The domestic scenes are not covered by Livy and I had written a few chapters where Capitolinus and his wife fell out on various matters, but I decided to edit them out at the end as they added little value. If I was to make them a true theme then I would have had to write several more chapters which included various wives and concubines, which I’m not very good at. I apologise if you wanted more of this from the story.
Marcus continued to wage war, smashing his way through every barrier that came at him. There is mention in Livy of the soldiers being fearful of bad omens, which is linked to Capitolinus and a speech on his god-given strength. The poisoning of the sacrificial animals was an attempt to create a back-drop to this line. The Romans were extremely fearful of the role of the gods in their lives. They bargained with the gods for a better life and paid for it in blood, sweat and tears. I therefore placed Javenoli in the only position that could offer him exactly what he truly wants, power and profit. As the Pontifex Maximus he is a position whereby every decision must be ratified by the gods and he can manipulate this to his exact needs. By poisoning the animals and then asking Marcus to help him interpret the signs of the gods, he is attempting to control Marcus and empower himself. Does it work? It certainly changes both of their views and brings a change to their joint futures which I guess most readers weren’t expecting. The fact that Javenoli is happier now than in any of the other books shows that his position, and his own star as Pompeia identifies, is rising. I felt that the clash between Capitolinus and Javenoli for the love of Jupiter was one which would link very closely to the story of Marcus’ prophecy.
Alongside this I had Capitolinus play on this godly theme from a position of fear, noting how Livy states time and again that Capitolinus acted within the sight of the Temple of Jupiter and used that as a focus for his speeches to the people. He asked the people to judge him as Jupiter would judge him, using their own fear of the deity to control their minds. This central theme of his character runs throughout the book and I hope I did it justice.
The battles were more numerous than I have depicted and, so I focused on those that appeared logical in the timeline. Marcus did split the armies into three and did leave a group outside the city walls which included the older men. I’ve included more of the centurions as leaders of the battle and decision makers, which I believe fits with their new roles as professional soldiers. However, I have continued to show that Marcus is, by his nature, a warrior. Historians will know that Marcus Furius was already in his late thirties or forties when he appeared in written history, so at this time he is likely to be in his fifties. I’ve written him as much younger so that I can enjoy his energy and enthusiasm for battle. But, I have also begun the change towards being a statesman more than
a warrior as that would have been the path that, in reality, he would have taken. The battles are, roughly, as I have written them. The firing of the Volscan camp and use of the smokescreen did happen (though probably not exactly as I wrote), and his men over-ran the enemy before they moved on towards Antium. I added the element of ‘no prisoners’ to emphasise the fact that Marcus’ views of expansion have changed. The battles against the larger armies are also noted, but in truth these are my interpretations of several smaller battles which didn’t fit my story but did happen. As such, I split the legions and then created a scene in which I could engineer the downfall of the enemy and continue to keep pace with the timeline in Rome. The fight at Satricum is based on Livy, with the three gates to the town being under siege by the enemy and the Romans approaching without being seen. However, Brevo’s part in it is my own invention to link his glory back to the story with Capitolinus. Brevo’s story is also a contrast to that of Narcius and Crastinus. Narcius, in particular, has held onto the shirt-tails of Marcus as he has flourished, with his own family growing because of the patronage afforded to him. Whereas Brevo has fallen foul of debts, losing family in the wars and having no patrician patron to guide him. This was a deliberate ploy, and I hope it worked. His situation is exacerbated by the, very human, issue of gambling and the ‘roll of the dice’ is linked to the theme of the gods smiling on some and not on others.
Marcus was away from the city for lengthy periods as wars were constant, and as such I wanted to keep Javenoli and Cincinnatus busy whilst the violence in the streets increased as Capitolinus began to move towards his inevitable end. When Capitolinus was placed in the Carcer his followers walked the streets wailing and crying, they didn’t shave their beards and they didn’t change their clothes for weeks (although we are not clear exactly how long he was imprisoned), many hundreds standing outside the prison and calling for his release on a daily basis. I glossed over this element, but it does show the depth of support that he had gained. Livy states that the patricians were fearful of the numbers of followers who supported Capitolinus and so released him as they heard that a force was going to attempt to free him. Capitolinus appeared to grow more vociferous after this period, the violence in the streets increasing. It was at this point that Brevo (in my story) was arrested for debts and turned himself over to be a slave. Capitolinus came to his rescue and I then switched the story to show that Capitolinus now had the final element he needed to make a play for the crown - a soldier to organise his efforts. Until this point the majority of Livy’s writing suggests that Capitolinus was discussing the poor treatment of the plebs by the patricians and that his arguments, whilst undemocratic, were not that treasonous or violent. But something changed after he came out of prison. I made Brevo the central point for that change. Brevo, with his anger at both the patrician supported centurions and at the gods themselves, would happily follow Capitolinus’ plans and even embellish them a little. However, his own poor decision making and desire to save his own skin inevitably made him fail, as they have done at every turn in his life. Two plebeian tribunes, as named in the story, came to the senate to accuse Capitolinus of desiring to be a king. I played this element down slightly, as I felt that the story didn’t have enough ‘bite’ to truly accuse him. I therefore added Brevo into the mix as a final nail in his coffin, and to link the fall of the man to his saving of both the Capitol and the plebeians; both of which failed him in his hour of need. In this way I was able to also link Javenoli as the overall architect of Capitolinus fall from grace and I had him take over the role in the trial that, in history, Cossus undertook. Livy doesn’t place Marcus at the trial of Capitolinus, nor does he place him on the Capitol at his death, but I needed to do this to give the final words and the link to book one that I had desperately tried to engineer in that initial prophecy and subsequent books.
Capitolinus didn’t have his hand cut off, that was my invention and was symbolic of the end of his god-given power (which you will note Javenoli now possesses!). But he was then taken to the Capitol and thrown from the Tarpeian Rock. I added the element of both a plebeian and patrician to, jointly, throw him as I thought it fitted with Livy’s words. In truth I couldn’t find any evidence of who or how he was thrown from the Rock, so I improvised. The final words spoken by Capitolinus give a spark to the theme of the next book, which I hope will not be two years in the writing. Pompeia was a link to this next book as well, as I needed a foil for Marcus’ son – if you’re read the history you will know that Lucius Furius (junior) appears at this point. As Javenoli’s alignment to Jupiter has contrasted with that of Capitolinus, and his own star risen, Pompeia was the obvious choice to accomplish his own dreams and see a future beyond power and money. A son for Javenoli? You’ll have to wait and see.
I enjoyed writing about Istros and Brevo, both characters seeming very human in what appears to be almost unreal characters who wielded so much power and control. Istros has certainly got one loose end he needs to tie up, but that trainee assassin has another role to play yet, which will fill a few chapters of the next instalment. The next book is likely to be the last in this series (I had always planned on it being so).
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I hope you enjoyed the story. As always, I apologise to those who are true historians and found fault in my timelines, descriptions or named characters. I also apologise to the spirits of those very real people who are used within the story whose lives/ acts I may have changed to make the story work for a modern reader.
Finally, please do leave me some feedback on Amazon or Goodreads as it is very helpful to a part-time writer like myself.
The King of Rome Page 60
