Roma

by Steven Saylor

  Some time earlier he had finished reading all the documents loaned to him by his cousin Quintus. He had been meaning to return them, but in the rush of getting ready for the wedding had neglected to do so. He reached for them now. He found himself rereading certain of the documents, occasionally nodding and humming.

  After a while he set the documents aside, extinguished the lamp, and slept for another hour, as men do when they have made an irrevocable decision and are at peace with the gods and themselves.

  When Titus Potitius next came to call, it was ostensibly to pay his respects to the newlyweds. Kaeso received the visitor in his new home without a trace of rancor. He even spoke warmly to him, and apologized for his earlier harsh words, then introduced him to his new bride.

  To Potitius, it seemed that a night of marital bliss had done wonders to correct Kaeso’s attitude. And why not? As he saw it, there was no need for Kaeso to be unfriendly. Having convinced himself that selling the family’s rights to the Ara Maxima was acceptable, Potitius had further convinced himself that his request for assistance from Kaeso was entirely reasonable. They were kinsmen, after all. Kaeso had plenty of money, and Potitius was in dire straits. The gods smiled on generosity. There was no reason the transaction should be unpleasant. Indeed, Kaeso should be proud to help an elder kinsman in need.

  With his head full of such rationalizations, and his guard down, Potitius thought nothing of it when the bride offered him a portion of the traditional dish of beans left over from the wedding feast, and he did not notice that it was Kaeso who actually put the bowl in his hands. He was hungry, and the beans were delicious. Kaeso discreetly slipped him a small bag of coins, then hurried him out the door. Potitius took no offense at being dismissed so quickly. It was only natural that the groom was eager to be alone with his bride.

  Patting the money bag that hung from his waist, humming a happy tune, Potitius crossed the Aventine, heading for his house on the less fashionable south side of the hill. Walking in front of the Temple of Juno Regina, he saw that one of the sacred geese had escaped its enclosure and was strutting across the porch, craning its neck this way and that. Potitius smiled, then felt a sudden tingling in his throat. His mouth was very dry; he should have asked for something to drink to wash down the beans.

  Abruptly, a flame seemed to run down his throat all the way to his bowels. The sensation was so intense and so peculiar that he knew something was seriously wrong. He had reached that advanced age when a man might die at any moment, suddenly and without apparent cause. Was that happening now? Had the gods at last chosen to end the story of his life?

  Without knowing how he got there, he found himself lying flat on his back on the ground in front of the temple, hardly able to move. A crowd gathered around him. People stooped over and peered down at him. Their expressions were not encouraging. Men shook their heads. A woman covered her face and began to weep.

  “Cold,” he managed to say. “Can’t seem…to move.”

  As if to contradict him, his arms and legs began to twitch, a little at first, and then so violently that people drew back in fright. The alarmed goose honked and flapped its wings.

  Potitius realized what had happened. He hardly thought of it as murder, but rather as yet another misfortune to befall the Potitii. How the gods must hate his family! It never occurred to him to accuse Kaeso with his dying breath; to admit his extortion would only blacken his own name and further humiliate the family. His convulsions ceased, along with his breathing.

  Titus, reigning paterfamilias of the Potitii, died swiftly and in silence.

  Two lictors sent by the curule aedile arrived to look after the body until a family member could claim it. The lictor who took an inventory of the dead man’s possessions recognized Potitius and expressed surprise that the old fellow should be carrying such a substantial amount of money on his person. “The Potitii are always crying poverty, but look at all these coins!”

  “Maybe it’s what left of that settlement the censor gave him for selling the rights to the Ara Maxima,” said his companion. “No good could come of such sacrilege.”

  “No good’s already come to this poor fellow!”

  To Kaeso’s eye, Titus Potitius, the son of the deceased paterfamilias, looked only slightly younger than his father.

  “So you see,” said Potitius, “as far as I was able to figure out, you must have been one of the last people to see him alive. Papa told one of the slaves he would be stopping here on his way home, but he didn’t say why. It’s a bit of puzzle how he came to have so much money on him. No one has a clue as to where he got that bag of coins.”

  The two of them sat in the tiny garden of Kaeso’s new house. There was no innuendo or suspicion in Potitius’s voice; he sounded like a bereaved son who simply wanted to learn all he could about his father’s final hours. Still, Kaeso felt a flutter of anxiety in his chest. He chose his words carefully and spoke in what he hoped was a suitably commiserating tone of voice.

  “It’s true, your father paid us a brief visit that day. He and I had met briefly once before, at the house of Appius Claudius. It was very considerate of him to come by and congratulate us on our nuptials.”

  “Such a nice old fellow,” remarked Galeria, who sat nearby with her spindle and distaff, spinning wool with the assistance of her slave girl. Galeria had many old-fashioned virtues, but keeping silent was not one of them, and the house was too small for Kaeso to conduct a conversation out of her hearing. “He seemed very fond of you, Kaeso.”

  Potitius smiled. “I can see why Papa might have taken a liking to you. You probably reminded him of cousin Marcus.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, the resemblance is quite striking. And Papa was very sentimental. And…he wasn’t above imposing on people. He didn’t…” Potitius lowered his eyes. “He didn’t by any chance ask you for money, did he? I’m afraid Papa had a bad habit of asking for loans, even from people he barely knew.”

  “Of course not!”

  Potitius sighed. “Ah, well, I had to ask. I’m still tracking down his unpaid debts. Where he acquired that bag of coins may remain a mystery.”

  Kaeso nodded sympathetically. Clearly, the younger Titus Potitius knew nothing of his father’s scheme to extort money from him. And yet, the man’s fretting over the bag of coins, and his remark about Kaeso’s resemblance to a kinsman, made Kaeso uneasy.

  Kaeso took a deep breath. The flutter in his chest subsided. As had occurred in the early hours of his wedding day, a resolution came to him, and with it a sense of peace.

  He looked earnestly at Potitius. “Like my dear friend Appius Claudius, I’m moved by your family’s plight. That one of Roma’s most ancient families should have dwindled so greatly in numbers and fallen into such poverty should be a cause for concern to all the city’s patricians. We of the old families squabble too much among ourselves, when we should be looking out for one another. I’m only a young man, and I have very little influence—”

  “You underestimate yourself, Kaeso. You have the ear of both Quintus Fabius and Appius Claudius. Not many men in Roma can say that.”

  “I suppose that’s true. And I should like to do what I can to help the Potitii.”

  “I would be very grateful for any assistance you can give us.” Potitius sighed. “The duties of paterfamilias weigh heavily upon me!”

  “Perhaps I can help to relieve that burden, if only a little. Upon my recommendation, my cousin Quintus might be able to secure positions for some for your kinsman, and so might the censor. You and I should meet again, Titus, over a bit of food and wine.”

  “I would be honored,” said Potitius. “My house is hardly worthy to receive you, but if you and your wife would accept an invitation to dinner…”

  And so Kaeso began to insinuate himself into the household, and into the trust, of the new paterfamilias of the Potitii.

  311 B.C.

  The new fountain at the terminus of the aqueduct was not merely the largest fountain in al
l of Roma, but a splendid work of art. The shallow, elevated pool into which the water would spill was a circle fifteen feet in diameter. In the center, from the mouths of three river sprites magnificently carved from stone, water would continuously jet into the pool.

  Many of the city’s most distinguished citizens had gathered to witness the inauguration of the fountain. Chief among them was Appius Claudius, smiling broadly and looking resplendent in his purple censor’s toga. Quintus Fabius was also there, exhibiting his perpetual scowl. He had agreed to attend only begrudgingly, and Kaeso felt obligated to stand next to him.

  The auspices had been taken; the augur had spotted several river-fowl wheeling over the nearby Tiber, a sure sign of the gods’ favor. There was a lull in the festivities while the engineers made ready to open the valves. Quintus began to grumble.

  “So this is your friend Claudius’s excuse for hanging on as censor, well past his legal term—a fountain!”

  Kaeso pursed his lips. “Claudius argued that his work on the aqueduct and the road is too important to be interrupted. He asked to continue as censor. The Senate agreed.”

  “Only because Claudius has packed the Senate with his minions! He’s as devious and headstrong as his ancestors and just as dangerous. For his own selfish ends, he’s caused a political crisis in the city.” Quintus shook his head. “These so-called grand projects of his are merely a diversion while he continues to press for the implementation of his radical voting schemes. He won’t rest until he’s made the Roman republic into a Greek democracy ruled by a demagogue like himself—a disaster that will never happen as long as I have a breath in my body.”

  “Please, cousin! We’re here to celebrate a feat of Roman engineering, not to argue politics. Surely the aqueduct is something we can all be proud of.”

  Quintus grunted in reply. His frown abruptly softened. “How is the little one?”

  Kaeso smiled. Galeria had become pregnant very soon after their wedding, and had recently given birth to a son. Kaeso knew that Quintus would be pleased, but he had been surprised at how avidly his cousin doted on the baby.

  “Little Kaeso is in good health. He loves the gourd rattle you gave him, and all the other toys.”

  Quintus nodded. “Good! He’s very bright and alert, that one. With those lungs of his, he’ll make a powerful orator someday.”

  “He can certainly make himself heard,” agreed Kaeso.

  Claudius mounted a platform and raised his hands to quiet the crowd. “Citizens! We are almost ready to fill the fountain. But first, if you will indulge me, I should like to say a few words about how this marvelous feat of engineering was achieved.” He proceeded to discourse on the importance of water to the growing city, recalled the flash of insight that had inspired him to commence planning the aqueduct, and recounted a few anecdotes about the construction. His speech, delivered from memory, was full of puns and clever turns of phrase. Even Quintus grunted an involuntary laugh at some of his witticisms.

  “There are many, many men who must be thanked for their contributions to this great enterprise,” said Claudius. “Lest I forget a single one of them, I have written them down.” Claudius proceeded to read the names. Kaeso was flattered that he was mentioned early in the long list.

  As Claudius continued to read, Quintus whispered to Kaeso, “Why is he squinting so?”

  Kaeso frowned. Quintus had touched upon a matter of growing concern to him: the censor’s eyesight. Quite abruptly, Claudius’s vision had begun to deteriorate, to such a degree that he practically had to press his nose against his beloved Greek scrolls to read them. The list he was now reading had been written in large letters, yet still he had to narrow his eyes to make out the names.

  Quintus saw the worry on Kaeso’s face. “The rumor is true, then? Appius Claudius is going blind?”

  “Of course not!” said Kaeso. “He’s merely strained his eyes from working so hard.”

  Quintus raised an eyebrow. “You know what people are saying, don’t you?”

  “People are fools!” whispered Kaeso. He had indeed heard the vicious rumor being put about by Claudius’s enemies. They said the censor, who so loved the pleasures of reading and writing, was being punished with blindness by the gods, for having allowed the transfer of religious duties at the Ara Maxima from the Potitius family to temple slaves. “Whatever you may think of his politics, cousin, Appius Claudius is a pious man who honors the gods. If his eyesight is failing, it’s not because the gods are punishing him.”

  “And yet, the gods punished those other unlikely friends of yours, the Potitii, did they not? And most severely!”

  Kaeso drew a sharp breath, but did not answer. In his dealings with the Potitii over the last year, Kaeso had been acting in his own self-interest, to obliterate the secret of his origins and to safeguard the future of his offspring. But might the gods have taken a part, making him the instrument of their wrath against an impious family ripe for destruction?

  “Do you doubt that the terrible end of the Potitii was the result of divine judgment?” said Quintus, pressing him. “What other explanation could there be for such an extraordinary sequence of deaths? In a matter of months, every male in the family grew sick and died. Not a single Potitius is left to pass on the name. One of Roma’s oldest families has become extinct!”

  “Some said they died of plague,” said Kaeso.

  “A plague attacking only one family, and only the males?”

  “That was what the Potitii themselves believed.”

  “Yes, and in their desperation they convinced the Senate to appoint a special dictator to drive a nail into the wooden tablet outside Minerva’s sanctuary, to ward off pestilence. It did no good. At least they had the comfort of a steadfast friend—you, Kaeso. Others turned their backs on the Potitii, fearful of being contaminated by their bad fortune. But you, having just befriended them, remained loyal to the very end. You never stopped visiting the sick and comforting the survivors.” Quintus nodded sagely. “Once, long ago, we Fabii were almost extinguished, as you well know. But that was honorably, in battle, and the gods saw fit to spare one of our number to carry on the line. History shall reflect very differently upon the fate of the wretched Potitii. Be proud of the name you have passed on to your son, Kaeso!”

  “The name means more to me than life itself, cousin.”

  Appius Claudius finished reading the list. Amid applause, he raised his hand to order the opening of the valves. “Let flow the aqueduct!”

  From the mouths of the three river sprites issued a great rush of air, as if they groaned. The gurgling sound reminded Kaeso of the death rattles of his victims.

  What a great deal of ingenuity and cleverness and sheer hard work had been demanded of him, to win the trust of the Potitii and make sure they never suspected him! From Appius Claudius he had learned the arts of charm; from his cousin Quintus he had learned everything there was to know about poisons. Once it began, his quest to eradicate the Potitii had become all-consuming. Each new success was more exhilarating than the one before. Kaeso had almost regretted killing the last of his victims, but when it was done, he felt an indescribable sense of relief. His secret was safe. No man would ever tell Kaeso’s son the shameful truth of their origins.

  The groaning of the river sprites grew louder. The noise was so uncanny that the crowd drew back and gasped. Then water began to jet from all three mouths at once. It was a spectacular sight. Foaming and splashing, the torrents began to fill the pool.

  Claudius shouted above the roar. “Citizens, I give you water! Fresh, pure water all the way from the springs of Gabii!”

  The crowd broke into rapturous applause. “Hail Appius Claudius!” men cried. “Hail the maker of the aqueduct!”

  279 B.C.

  Before the Senate, the aged Appius Claudius, now called Appius Claudius Caecus—“the Blind”—was delivering the greatest speech of his life. More than two hundred years later, the orator Cicero would declare this speech to be one of most sublim
e exercises in the Latin language, and Appius Claudius Caecus would be revered as the Father of Latin Prose.

  The occasion was a debate on Roma’s resistance to the Greek adventurer King Pyrrhus, the greatest menace to confront the Romans since the Gauls. Just as his kinsman Alexander the Great fifty years before had conquered the East with lightning speed, so Pyrrhus thought he could invade Italy and make quick work of subjugating its “barbarians”—the term being a Greek epithet for any race that did not speak Greek.

  Thus far, the Romans had confounded Pyrrhus’s plans. The invader continued to win battles, but these costly triumphs stretched his supply lines, weakened the morale of his overburdened officers, and wore away the numbers of his fighting men.

  “If there are many more such ‘Pyrrhic victories,’” declared Appius Claudius Caecus, “King Pyrrhus may soon discover, to his dismay, that he has won one battle too many!” The chamber resounded with laughter. The unflagging wit and relentless optimism of the blind senator were much appreciated amid the gloomy debates of recent years.

  “Some of you are calling for peace with Pyrrhus,” said Claudius. “You want an end to the spilling of Roman blood and the blood of our allies and subjects. You are ready to offer concessions. You will allow Pyrrhus to gain the permanent foothold he seeks on Italian soil, hoping he will be content with a little kingdom here and put aside his dream of a Western empire to rival Alexander’s empire in the East. I tell you, Pyrrhus will never settle for that! He will never stop scheming to rob us of everything. He will not be satisfied until he has made us his slaves.

  “You all know that I am a man who treasures Greek learning and the beauties of Greek literature and art. But I will never have a Greek rule over me, and I will never obey any law that is not chiseled in Latin! The future of Italy belongs to us—to the people and Senate of Roma. It does not belong to any Greek, and not to any king. We must continue the struggle against Pyrrhus, no matter the cost, until we drive him out of Italy entirely. When the last Greek ship bears away the last remnants of his exhausted army, Italy shall be ours, and Roma shall be free to fulfill the destiny the gods have decreed for us!”