Dusk casts its angular shadows through Carthage’s towered landscape. A weary Hannibal marches back to his town house, happy with the day’s results. The citizens of Carthage approved term limits and public elections for the judges. Now we will become a true democracy, like Athens.
He steps inside his vestibule and drapes his purple toga over a wall hook. Wearing only a gray tunic and sandals, the old general strolls into his atrium, rubbing the back of his neck. Baal be praised, I’m getting too old for this!
Hannibal finds an armored Carthaginian soldier waiting for him, flanked by two of his house guards. The man rises and puts his right fist over his heart.
“Greetings, Hannibal Barca. My name is Terentius, Centurion of Rome’s First Legion. Forgive the disguise—I had to escape notice to make it this far.” Terentius hands Scipio’s message to Hannibal. “This is from a friend.”
Hannibal unrolls the papyrus. He scans the note and looks up.
“Who sent you?” Hannibal asks. He crumples the message and pitches it into a burning fire pit.
“Apologies, General,” Terentius replies. “I am not to mention his name. But I think you know who it is.” The messenger shifts his feet, feeling awkward. “He is a man you met at Zama.”
Hannibal fixes his eye on the muscular old centurion. “Sit, please. I will bring refreshment.” The centurion nods curtly. He sits upright on the heavily padded couch, his Carthaginian helmet cradled in his arm.
Hannibal claps his hands twice. Two slaves appear as if by magic, lugging trays laden with wine and food. For a while, the old soldiers dine in silence. Terentius raises his goblet.
“To those who defend their country, whatever that country may be,” Terentius says. Hannibal raises his cup, nods, and drinks deeply.
“Zama, that was quite a battle,” Hannibal says. “Were you there?”
“I was on the right flank.” Terentius takes another sip. “You and your Libyans had us beaten, for a while.”
“But in the end, I did not,” Hannibal says, his eyes distant. “Your goddess Fortuna, she was a Roman that day.”
Terentius nods. “I was at Cannae, too. I barely escaped alive.” He gulps from his chalice. “So many fine men gone. What would the world be like if they had lived?”
Hannibal looks up. “What else can you tell me, Terentius? Surely there is more.”
Terentius is silent, choosing his words. “They are coming for you,” he replies. “Three delegates from Rome will meet with your Council. They will accuse you of plotting against the Republic.”
The centurion sighs. “I think the Council’s judges will give you up. Your Roman ‘friend’ thinks they are the ones who paid to get them here. With some help from the Latin Party.”
Hannibal smirks. “I am not unaware of the machinations in Rome. Your Senator Flaccus would make a fine Carthaginian judge. He has their touch for treachery.”
Terentius lays his cup down. “Apologies. I must be going. I have to sail under cover of night.”
That is a wise idea, Hannibal thinks. He grips Terentius’ forearm. “We were on opposite sides, but we have a similar heart.”
“Fare well, Hannibal Barca.” Terentius spins on his heel and marches out.
Hannibal listens to the clacking footsteps fading down the hall. Is he right? Am I to be led in chains back to Rome? I’ll test his words tomorrow, before the Romans arrive. Hannibal claps his hands twice. His trusted aide appears from a side room.
“You heard everything, Jarubo?” Hannibal says. The gaunt old man nods. “They mean you ill,” he quavers. “You have to prepare.”
“Just so,” Hannibal replies. “Fetch our horses, we are going for a little ride into the country.”
The next day Hannibal meets with the Senate’s taxation committee, staffed by six senior judges.[clxix] Once again, he tells them that the people do not need to be taxed more to pay for the yearly tribute, that it can be paid by purging the corruption within the Council of a Hundred and Four.
For once, the committee does not recoil in anger, calmly receiving Hannibal’s accusations. Hannibal watches each judge’s face as he speaks. He notices that the judge known as Fish leans over and says something to his compatriot. The two chuckle, malevolently eyeing him. Now I know, Hannibal decides.
Hannibal lingers in the Senate for the rest of the day, fulfilling his duties as one of Carthage’s two ruling magistrates. The Senate meeting concludes in the late afternoon. Hannibal strolls to a nearby wine bar with two Senators who live near him. They wine and dine until dusk, laughing and chatting.
Hannibal enters his manse and hurries to his bedroom. He pitches off his ceremonial toga and slips on a plain gray tunic. He throws a thick satchel over his shoulder and belts on a nondescript sword, his movements quick and decisive.
Hannibal knots a leather purse onto his belt. He reaches into the purse and pulls out an ivory figurine of his father Hamilcar. I am glad you did not live to see what Carthage has become. He strokes the figure’s head with his thumb, staring into its stern bearded face. I fret for Carthage more than for me.[clxx]
Jarubo appears in the doorway. He watches Hannibal change. “This is it? You are leaving?”
“There is nothing for me here but chains and a cross,” Hannibal replies. He embraces the gaunt old man, kissing him on both cheeks. “I have left some signed papers in the study. Give them to Sirom Barca. You and the rest of the household will not have to worry about anything for the rest of your life.”
Hannibal trots through the mansion’s rear kitchen and out into the walled back garden. Pushing open the garden door, he vaults onto the horse he had placed there earlier in the day.
Hannibal backs the horse into the middle of the broad alleyway and trots out onto the main avenue. He pauses for a minute, taking in Carthage’s gleaming towers. His eyes fill with tears. Forgive me. I have to leave you to save you.
“Yeaah!” he yells, digging his heels into his horse’s side. Like a thief in the night, Carthage’s greatest man flees Carthage, heading for his unmarked ship.
ROME. “That little pig,” Amelia fumes. “I’ll kill him myself!”
“You kill Cato, you’ll just make a hero of him,” Scipio says. “We’ve just lost one election to the Latin Party. Do you want to make it a decade’s worth?”
She smacks her fist onto her palm. “He’s not going to get away with this. Women sacrificed their wealth to fund the war. We want our privileges restored.”
Scipio bites his lower lip. “I will advocate its repeal in the next Senate meeting, but I fear it will make no difference. Too many of them are afraid of offending Cato and Flaccus. They are the consuls now, carissima.”
“Well, we are not afraid,” Amelia replies. “I’ll talk to some of my friends. They are tired of being told what they can’t wear, and what they can’t own.”
“And then what?” Scipio asks. His face contorts in mock horror. “You aren’t going to deny men sex, as the Grecian women did in the Lysistrata?”[clxxi]
Amelia makes a face at him. “Your brains are in your subligaculum. No, we’ll march on the Senate!” She glances at Scipio. “That’s what your mother Pomponia would do.”
“How can I help?” Scipio asks.
“Recruit those two tribunes who proposed its repeal. We can get them to speak out against Cato and his ilk. While you do that, I’ll get my propaganda crew together.”
“I will see Marcus Fundianus and Marcus Valerius today,” Scipio replies. “They will be agreeable to your proposition. But the other two Tribunes of the Plebs are in the Latin Party’s pockets.”
“That is disappointing,” Amelia states, “But I can deal with them.”
Three days later, pennants fly from a multitude of apartments and town houses throughout Rome, nailed there under cover of night. Some say Repeal the Lex Oppia! Others declare the people should Honor Women’s Sacrifices. The pennants fly from every street near the Forum.
Cato trots into Rome, journeying from his Sabi
na farm. He scowls at the brightly colored pennants flapping over his head. This is the work of Amelia and her lot: women whose husbands can’t control them. He trots over to the city militia’s blockhouse.
Cato jumps off his horse before the beast stops moving, barging into the headquarters. “Take down all those scurrilous banners,” the consul bellows to the captain of the guard. “Get every man out there, now!”
While the city militia tear down the pennants, Amelia meets with forty women from Rome’s most powerful patrician and plebian clans. The Scipio atrium is filled with members of the Julii, Fabii, and dozens of others, all determined to repeal the Lex Oppia.
Prima temporarily forsakes her role as Amelia’s bodyguard. She attends as a member of the Julii, one of Rome’s oldest families. Clad in a luxurious green robe that masks her combat scars, she looks every inch the patrician matron—a matron with two daggers cinched about her naked stomach.
After hours of debate, a vote is taken. Prima counts the black and white marbles thrown into the voting urn. “It is agreed. When the Senate meets three days from now, we make our voices known.”
She smiles brightly. “Or perhaps we should do as the women of Lemnos did—just kill all the men.” [clxxii] Some women laugh nervously. A few cheer.
As the women conclude their meeting, Cato convenes with Flaccus in a side chamber of the Senate. “I have heard the Scipio bitch is gathering a crowd of women,” Cato growls. “A dozen or two are going to march on the Forum, and squawk about that Lex Oppia.”
Flaccus takes the news calmly, but inside he rejoices. She’ll be in a big crowd. I’ll use the one who did Pomponia. The Sicilian never fails.
On the morning of the third day, they come. They come from the patrician manses, and they come from the rickety mud insulae that fill Rome’s back streets. They come from outlying towns and distant farms.[clxxiii] They come wearing sweat-stained farm tunics and snow white togas. They come with babies in their arms and canes in their hands.
Many wear the many-colored clothing forbidden by the Lex Oppia, their illegal gold necklaces dangling beneath their uplifted chins. They walk, march, and limp in together, holding hands and singing songs to Victoria, goddess of victory. Resolute and willing, the women of Rome press on together.
The protesters mass near the Campus Martius, the starting point of Rome’s triumphant parades. Amelia takes out a battered war trumpet and blows one lingering blast, initiating the march to the Forum. Hundreds tread forward, filling the streets of Rome.
Amelia and Prima walk in the vanguard, their calloused fists clenched in determination. With every side street and alleyway the group passes, their numbers swell with those joining them. By the time they approach the Forum’s outlying temples, Cato’s ‘dozens’ are a thousand, and still they grow.
“Onward!” Amelia shouts. “Get to them before they get inside!” Filling the avenues and side streets, the women of Rome stream into the Forum square. Scores of women march up the steps to the Senate chambers, intent on accomplishing the assignment Amelia gave them.
The senators soon enter the Forum square, heading for their morning meeting in the Curia Hostilia. They gape at the sea of women around them, women who watch them ascend the Senate steps.
When the senators arrive at the Curia’s top step they find their entry blocked by a wall of protesters, their arms crossed and their faces set. Confused, the senators herd together at the landing on top of the steps, looking down at the crowd massing below them.
“Repeal the Lex Oppia!” a woman shouts.
“We want our dignity back!” shouts another.
“You are a consul—do something!” a senator bawls at Flaccus.
Cato and Flaccus walk to the speaking rostra that overlooks the crowd, glowering down at the protesters.
“The women of Rome are against us,” a portly old senator wails next to them. “The city is in revolt!”
“Hmph!” Cato says. “It is because we have not kept them under control individually that we are now threatened by them collectively.”[clxxiv]
He clambers up the rostra steps and looks back at his colleagues. “These women need to get back into their houses!”
Cato leans over the rostra, glowering at the thousand of matrons as if they were poorly-behaved children. “What sort of behavior is this?” he says, frowning down at the angry women. “Couldn’t you have made the very same request of your husbands and stayed at home? Or are you more alluring in the streets than at the home, more attractive to other women’s husbands?”[clxxv]
The jeers that erupt shock the pigeons from their Forum roosts. A turnip flies by Cato’s head, smacking into the chest of a young senator behind him. An overripe pomegranate flies into the front of the rostra and splatters chunks into Cato’s squinting face, bringing peals of laughter.
Cato wipes off his face, flicking the seeds at the crowd. He leans down and waggles a forefinger at the women. “Cease this infantile demonstration!”
“You know where to put that finger,” one shouts, bringing more laughter.
Livid, Cato turns to his fellow senators. “If we allow women to carry this point, what will they next attempt?” He frowns at three Hellenic senators near him. “The very moment they begin to be your equals, they will be your superiors!” [clxxvi]
Cato faces the crowd. “Return to your homes! Your behavior is not only unseemly, it is unprecedented!”
The women’s shouts wash over his next words. They jab their thumbs down at him. “He’s had it!” they shout, mimicking the call for a gladiator to kill his opponent.
Lucius Valerius steps in front of Cato. The Tribune of the Plebs rises his arms for silence.
“Get out of my way,” Cato barks, “I am not done here!” He shoves Valerius away, prompting more catcalls from the crowd.
“Let Lucius Valerius speak!” shouts Amelia, holding her arms up to encourage the crowd. Prima echoes her call, and hundreds of women join in.
“I have the floor!” Cato shouts, but his words are drowned in a sea of voices. “Valerius, Valerius,” they call.
Flaccus sidles up to Cato and leans next to his ear. “For the gods’ sake, let him speak. Trust me, we will settle this issue another way.”
Lucius Valerius eases in front of a scowling Cato. He spreads his hands entreatingly. The crowd quiets.
“Cato thinks your actions unprecedented, women of Rome. As if that were cause enough for you not to do it.” He looks back at Cato, a smile on his leathery face. “But are they unprecedented? Let’s look at the history of Rome.”
Fundianus hands a thick scroll to Valerius. Holding it up for the crowd to see, he unrolls it and runs his finger along the words. “Let’s see, what does our history say?” He unrolls more of the scroll. “Ah, here it is!”
Valerius theatrically clears his throat. “At the very beginning of our history, when our capitol had been taken by the Sabines, the fighting was halted by the matrons. They rushed between the two battle lines and implored the combatants to cease.” Hundreds of women shout their agreement.
“Then again, after the expulsion of the kings, Rome’s women turned back the Gauls when they would have destroyed this city.” Thousands of women thrust up their fists, shouting.
“And when Rome had actually been captured by the Gauls, where did the money come from to ransom the city? From the women of Rome!” He rolls up the scroll and brandishes it as if it were a sword. “And now, in this most recent war, when money was scarce, the women supplied our bankrupt treasury with their own stores of money.” [clxxvii]
Valerius pitches the scroll away. “The Lex Oppia was passed in times of war, when money was low to support our troops. Now it is peacetime, and our coffers swell with plunder from Gaul and Macedonia.”
Valerius looks back at Cato, who stonily returns his stare. “I beg you, women of Rome. Let the senators inside and conduct their business. They cannot stop the will of the people. I will call the People’s Assembly tomorrow, to vote upon the rep
eal of the Lex Oppia. Together, we will restore what is rightfully yours, and repeal this odious law!”
Lucius Valerius steps from the rostra amid thunderous applause. He clasps hands with Fundianus and the two raise them high above their heads. Amelia waves to the women on top of the steps. They move from the Senate doors.
The Senators file gloomily into the chambers. Cato is the last to leave the landing, staring malevolently at the dissolving crowd. They need a stick taken to them,
Flaccus tugs at Cato’s forearm. “Come on, we have more pressing matters than this.”
“What could be more pressing than the moral decay of Rome?” Cato says. “Women politicking in the streets, disobeying their husbands, flouting their lawlessness. This stops now!”
“Do not be overwrought,” Flaccus replies cheerily. “If the Assembly votes to repeal the law, the Bruti brothers will veto them. As Tribunes of the Plebs, they have that right.”
“That is welcome news, but how can you be sure they will do that?”
“Oh, I convinced them,” Flaccus replies, as if sharing some private joke. “I may not be the orator you are, but I can be very persuasive.”
As the rally dissipates, Amelia and Prima march back toward the Scipio manse, arguing about what to do next. They push their way through the jammed side streets, sliding past the many women who have paused to conduct their day’s shopping.
Amelia rambles on excitedly about the size of the crowd and the chance to marshal them to elect Scipio as consul next year. Prima grasps her hand and smiles, sharing her enthusiasm.
A gray hooded figure approaches them, a stooped figure that has followed them at a distance since they entered the Avenue of Merchants. The man limps along, shuffling and obeisant, but his tattered cloak cannot disguise his wide shoulders and muscular calves. Nor can the hood dim the predatory blue eyes that blaze from inside it, eyes fixed upon Amelia’s back.
The Sicilian pushes between two portly matrons, edging nearer to Amelia. He slides a wooden-handled bone needle from his right sleeve, being careful not to shake the cork from its tip.
He sees what he has been waiting for. Amelia’s companion drops her coin purse, scattering a half-dozen denarii onto the paving slabs. “Ah, curse me!” he hears her exclaim, as she bends over to collect her monies.
Scipio Rules Page 40
