The Death of Marcellus

by Dan Armstrong

  Toward the end of the meal, after the bowl of mulsum had been drained and all had a fair chance to make their points, Marcellus, again having drunk just one cup of wine, responded to his friends and family. “I appreciate all that you’ve said, Asellus. Your passion fills me up. And the same to you, Marcus. You were there in Sicily. You know what it took to bring down Syracuse. The support of both of you is far more important to me than the opinion of the Senate.”

  Marcellus looked down at his cup, now empty, as though considering what he was about to say. “Three days ago,” he began, “when a messenger came to the docks of Ostia to give me news from Rome and confirm the date for my report to the Senate, he also carried a personal letter from Fabius. The letter told me exactly what to expect today, even who would say what, and in the order they would say it.” He made eye contact with Publius, who appeared to already know about the letter. “Even the words of the young tribune, Cato, were orchestrated by Fabius. This man, for all my distaste of his methods, knows how to get things done. He deserves credit, despite my many objections, for his management of the war, and perhaps even more credit for his capacity to calm the populace when things were at their worst.”

  Judging from their faces, Asellus and Marcus were surprised at this admission—as was I.

  “The letter,” continued Marcellus, “also told me I would get an ovation.” He nodded with this admission. “Fabius understood that I deserved a triumph. He made that clear. But he was concerned that if too much were made of me, the jealousy that already exists in the Senate would increase. A third triumph, he said, would make me appear like a god to the people—and that would inspire fear and envy in his patrician colleagues. They would whisper that I would want next to be king.”

  Marcellus looked to Asellus, then Marcus. Both of their faces had gone blank. “Fabius told me to argue my case as hard as I could. He said to shout him down if I wanted. Call Manlius a dotty old fool, he said, but to understand that all of this theater was in my best interest. When it comes time to name a consul in the spring, this minor insult will allow him the political capital he needs to push through something more important. What all of you saw today, as much as it also tasks me, particularly for my men, was the result of a compromise—very much arranged by Publius—that I accepted because it will allow me to have that which matters more to me than praise or celebratory parades—two legions under my command in the spring and a chance to chase down Hannibal.”

  “But Father,” protested Marcus, “why didn’t you mention this last night?” He looked to his father, then Publius.

  Marcellus took a deep breath. “Because I hadn’t made up my mind yet. I hadn’t given Fabius an answer. He had no idea what I would say today until I stood up to address the Senate.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Marcellus told us the next morning that we would wait for the outcome of the People’s Assembly’s vote, which was almost certain to be positive, before returning to Ostia to oversee the final unloading of the transport ships. He expected to hear sometime later that afternoon.

  Since we had some free time, Marcus offered to give me a riding lesson. I was getting more comfortable on horseback, but I was still letting Balius do all the work.

  We rode out to one of the pastures west of the house where Marcus put me through a series of exercises, aimed at giving me more control during my ride. It was challenging, but I made a lot of progress.

  After we had returned to the villa and stabled the horses, we learned that there had been no word yet on the vote. Marcus got us cups of water mixed with apple vinegar, and we sat in the peristyle to pass the time.

  Marcus took a sip from his cup, then looked at me and tilted his head as in question. “Timon, why haven’t you removed your bulla? Have you not reached your seventeenth year?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When you fell in the water the other day, I noticed that you wear a pendant beneath your tunic. It reminded me of the lucky charm all Roman children wear around their necks until they become adults. It’s called a bulla.”

  “Oh, this leather pouch,” I said like it was nothing. I lifted the pouch from beneath my tunic. I pried the small pouch open with my fingers and withdrew the crystal disk, but left the tiny glass bead inside. “Archimedes gave me this crystal the day he died. When your father found me, it may have saved my life.” I held the disk out to him. “You might have seen your father give it back to me that night in Syracuse when I agreed to be your tutor.”

  Marcus took the disk. “Yes, I do remember. What is it?”

  “A magnifying glass. Some call it a burning glass.”

  He looked at me.

  “Take the crystal between your forefinger and thumb. Use it to look at the back of your hand.”

  He did this, not quite sure what to expect.

  “Move it up and down to make the image clearer.”

  “What is this?” he hushed in awe. “I see details in my skin that I’ve never noticed before.” He moved the disk farther from his hand. “It makes my hand grow—huge. What is this?”

  “As you might guess, it’s another lesson in geometry,” I said. “Watch this.”

  I gathered a handful of dry leaves from the garden and placed them in a patch of sunlight on the stone bench where we sat. I used the lens to focus the sunlight on the pile of broken leaves. After a moment the leaves burst into flame and burned out in just a few moments.

  “A fire starter,” exclaimed Marcus. “What a valuable tool.”

  “Yes, I guess it’s my bulla, my lucky charm.”

  Marcus stared at me. “Isn’t that magic?”

  “Do you believe in magic?” I asked.

  “I have just seen it.”

  “So it may appear, but as I said, it’s geometry. We will talk about the science of optics when we have progressed far enough with the geometry.”

  Wouldn’t Marcus have been surprised if I had shown him how the two lenses worked together? And shown him the craters of the moon or the details of a tree one hundred feet away? But I had no intention of that. The compound lenses were the one secret I had promised not to reveal.

  Later that day, Gaius Arrenius, the tribune of the plebs, came out to the farm. He spoke in private with Marcellus. I don’t know what they talked about, but shortly after Gaius left, Marcellus told us that the People’s Assembly had ratified the ordinance and that the ovation would take place in two weeks.

  We rode out that afternoon and were in Ostia by nightfall.

  CHAPTER 7

  A triumph and an ovation were considerably different affairs, both in magnitude and significance. The triumph was a huge military parade that assembled on the east bank of the Tiber in the military exercise grounds known as Mars Field, then marched into the city through Porta Carmentalis, often referred to as the Triumphal Gate. One hundred trumpeters led the parade. They were followed by decorated floats and wagons overflowing with spoils from the celebrated victory—chests of gold and silver, bloody swords and armor. Often a shackled king and his queen or a defeated general, adorned in chains, preceded a long file of captured soldiers. The entire Roman Senate came next, trailed by ten sacrificial oxen with gilded horns for the appeasement of Jupiter. Twelve bodyguards, known as lictors, preceded the victorious general, who rode in an ornamental chariot drawn by four white horses. The celebrant wore a purple toga embroidered in gold and held an ivory scepter and a laurel branch. He may as well have been king for the day.

  Last in the procession were his officers on horseback and his soldiers on foot, singing bawdy songs and joking, or calling out to friends along the parade route. Music, clouds of incense, and festoons of multi-colored flowers filled out the pageant. The triumph began at dawn and could last all day, culminating in an offering to Jupiter at the top of the Capitoline Hill and a huge city-wide feast.

  An ovation followed the same route but was much less spectacular. Twenty flute players led a smaller procession that included one sacrificial lamb. The senators did not
take part, and instead of riding in a chariot, the celebrated general walked into the city, wearing a white toga and a wreath of myrtle. He wasn’t accompanied by his troops, and the spoils, if there were any, were carted into the city afterward. Marcellus’ ovation was the first opportunity for a military celebration since the beginning of the war, and there was good reason for him to feel slighted.

  Marcellus wanted his men properly received at home. He had intended to parade them into the city with fabulous Greek artwork rather than blood smeared battle tokens. He was not a man who sought attention, but he did feel particularly proud of what he had accomplished in Syracuse, and sorely wanted to impress the populace with its significance, hoping to gain their support for his next and more ambitious campaign.

  It took two weeks to complete the unpacking of the transports and to prepare the plunder for the trip to Rome. I didn’t think the convoy would be ready in time for Marcellus’ ovation, but as things played out, I’m sure Marcellus knew exactly what he was doing.

  Our caravan of booty was prepared as if for show. Archimedes’ war machines—four catapults, one claw, several pieces from a mirror array, and ten ballistae—were mounted on the wagons so that they could be seen as we marched the fifteen miles to Rome. The statues and the paintings were not simply stacked in carts for greatest efficiency, but placed upright so that each could be viewed during the trip. Eight captured elephants, a scale model of the city of Syracuse, and the two foreign heroes from the siege, Sosis of Syracuse and Moericus of Spain, riding on horseback with the cavalry, were part of the procession that stretched down the road for many miles.

  Early in the two-day trip, long before we reached Rome, people took notice of our heavily laden column and began to follow behind. The numbers grew with each mile traveled. As we got closer to the city, I noticed that there were tombs along the side of the road. Burials were not permitted within the city walls, so the roads that led to Rome were lined with graves. By the time we passed the Alban Hills, word of our coming had spread into the city proper.

  Our destination was Mars Field where the spoils would be deposited beside the Temple of Apollo and guarded by Marcellus’ soldiers. If the Senate had hoped to dim Marcellus’ victory torch by dismissing his success in Syracuse with an ovation, they had failed. The attention they had generated by pursuing a poor decision in a public review, followed by an assembly vote, ignited rather than dimmed the populace’s interest. As we reached the east side of the Pons Flumentanus, the outpouring of citizens to watch our crossing of the Tiber was so great that it might as well have been a triumph.

  Marcellus, riding his beautiful white charger and wearing a scarlet cape, led the procession over the bridge accompanied by his officers. While the crowd screamed for their hero, he made no special demonstration upon his arrival at Mars Field, allowing the spectacular nature of his plunder to create all the fanfare necessary. There were no sacrificial animals, no parade of senators, no accompanying music. The spontaneous greeting of the citizens was enough in itself.

  Marcellus’ ovation took place the following morning. The arrival of the caravan the preceding day seemed the perfect preliminary for what would be a grander entrance than anyone could have predicted, except, perhaps, Marcellus.

  The crowds were out again, and in this instance, because of the starkness of the parade—twenty flute players, two flamines in saffron togas leading the sacrificial lamb, and Marcellus some distance behind—the populace could direct all of its attention on this solitary man as he walked across the south edge of Mars Field, past the recently constructed Circus Flaminius, to the Porta Carmentalis.

  Marcus and I joined the crowd that followed Marcellus into Rome. The thrill of the ovation and the enthusiastic bystanders made for a memorable way to enter the city, but Rome then was much different than the Rome I know these forty years later. In many ways, Marcellus’ huge bounty of sculpture and artwork would prompt Rome’s gradual transformation from a relatively primitive city of wooden buildings and Etruscan style temples to the modern city that it is now. The Greek statues and fountains, the column rounds and cut limestone did, in fact, represent a giant step in the Hellenization of Rome, against which young Cato had spoken so vehemently.

  Marcellus walked slowly, head held high, periodically waving to individuals in the throng of onlookers. His route passed between the Capitoline Hill on his left and the Palatine Hill on his right, two of the seven hills crowded within the massive walls that defined the city of Rome. He proceeded north through the cattle market to the Roman Forum where an even larger crowd was waiting.

  The mass of cheering citizens parted to allow the small procession to proceed. The flute players turned west and began to make their way up a set of winding stairs, past the Temple of Concord, to the top of the Capitoline Hill and the Temple of Jupiter, the oldest and most revered temple in Rome.

  Some of the revelers, including Marcus and I, trailed up the stairs behind the procession, but most of the crowd remained in the forum. Many others watched from the top of the Palatine Hill or farther off on the Quirinal Hill.

  The stone stairs were steep and it took some time for Marcellus to reach the altar in front of the Temple of Jupiter. While the crowd filled out before him, he covered his head with a portion of his toga in respect to Jupiter, the Roman equivalent to the Greek Zeus. Although the shape of the temple resembled that of a Greek temple, in no way did it compare in size or refinement to the Temple of Zeus I had seen outside Syracuse. Still, the temple was large and as impressive as any in Rome.

  The columns were stone, but the walls were constructed of wood and covered with mud bricks and stucco to give the appearance of stone. The pediment and entablature were embellished with a pictorial relief of painted terracotta. Some fifty feet above the entrance, a small terracotta statue of Jupiter in a chariot drawn by four horses added a nice detail to the peak of the red-tile roof.

  This temple, built in the first year of the Roman Republic—two hundred and ninety-eight years before Marcellus’ ovation, was dedicated to one god, Jupiter, and two goddesses, Minerva and Juno, and was known as the Capitoline Triad. The building had three cellas, each containing a terracotta statue of the god or goddess it commemorated. In the center was Jupiter, the God of Light and King of the Gods. His statue held a lightning bolt in its right hand and wore a toga, painted purple with gold embroidering. To Jupiter’s right was Minerva, Goddess of Art and Wisdom. Her statue included an owl perched on her shoulder. To Jupiter’s left was his sister, Juno, Goddess of Childbirth, protector of the state, Queen of the Gods, and mother of Mars.

  The two flamines led the lamb, decorated with red ribbons woven into its fleece, to the altar. As the celebrant of the ceremony, Marcellus would perform the sacrifice. The ceremonial flint knife, an amphora of wine, and a cup of mola had been placed on the altar by one of the Vestal Virgins who had been waiting inside the temple. As Marcellus stood up to the altar, the raucous crowd quieted.

  Marcus whispered to me, “You know how much my father dislikes these religious rituals.”

  I nodded. I had witnessed an icy confrontation between Marcellus and a Roman priest while in Syracuse.

  “He will do this exactly as tradition demands,” said Marcus, “with absolutely no belief in what he’s doing.”

  And that was what we saw. While the flamines steadied the lamb, Marcellus sprinkled the mola down the animal’s back, dribbled some wine from the amphora over its forehead, then ran the flint knife lightly over the lamb’s spine. With this completed, he looked out at his audience, then lifted his eyes and spoke to the heavens. “Great God Jupiter, I have come here today to offer you this lamb and to ask for your approval of the ovation that we now celebrate. Lamb, do you welcome this sacrifice to Jupiter?”

  As I had seen before at the Temple of Bellona, one of the flamines used the lead to make the lamb nod its acceptance.

  The crowd remained quiet, watching every detail as though Marcellus were in fact conferring with the King of
the Gods. Perched on the hill, looking east over the rest of the city, I could see the six other hills in the distance, all dotted with small temples and commemorative columns celebrating Rome’s pantheon of gods. In this setting, even I, a non-believer, felt the drama of the scene.

  With the flamines holding the bleating animal to the ground, Marcellus got down on one knee and drew the ragged flint blade across the lamb’s neck. After it had bled out, Marcellus dragged the knife up through the lamb’s midsection. He used his hands to open the incision, then reached into the exposed entrails to fish out the most important organs. One by one, he placed the liver, the kidneys, the gall bladder, the lungs, and the heart on the altar.

  Random shouts of praise for Marcellus broke the otherwise solemn moment as the celebrant evaluated the organs. At last, he uncovered his head and lifted the entire collection of organs in the air. With blood dripping from his hands and running down his arms to his elbows, he turned to his audience of tens of thousands. “Every organ is perfect,” he announced. “Jupiter has given his approval for this ovation. The gods are with us all.”

  The crowd went into a frenzy. From my perspective on the hill, it seemed that all of Rome was there, unified and cheering. It felt as though the event celebrated more than just Marcellus and his ovation. Rome’s emotions had been pent-up through seven long years of bad news, all stemming from the war. Tragedy upon tragedy on the battlefield pressed down hard on the Roman people. And here it was, an opportunity finally to honor a victory.

  To me, the ceremony appeared to be little more than a pagan festival. The killing of a beast to satisfy a lifeless statue, and then presuming to read some response from that statue based on the shape of the animal’s internal organs seemed nonsense at best. And still in the heat of the moment, I too was carried away. The cheering people, the spectacle of the bloody sacrifice, the dwelling presence of the massive temple, Jupiter staring out from within, the impact of the celebration confounded, nay defied, the logic of a nonbeliever. The spirit of Rome had been refound, and, quite possibly, marked the turning point in a war that would go on another nine years.