Of Merchants & Heros (31 page)

Menexenos ignored him, and, naked now, prepared to leap.

‘Wait!’ I cried. ‘Menexenos, look!’

Hearing my voice he turned. Just behind the stern, in the swirling water, Pasithea’s head broke surface. She was swimming strongly, her hair flowing out around her like a spreading lily.

We ran aft and threw out a line, and stretched out our arms to her. She reached us, and with an agility I had not thought her capable of she leapt up the side and over the bulwark.

‘Hold fast!’ shouted the captain as another missile flashed through the air.

This time the bolt from the catapult fell further off. The warship was at full battle-stations now, its black-and-white striped oars striking the water in unison, the crew and soldiers at fighting positions on the deck.

But now I saw the sense in the captain’s steering us onto the rocks. The steady beat of the drum on the trireme’s deck slowed. It faltered. Then it broke off.

I heard urgent shouted orders. The banks of oars paused in their motion, hesitated, and then planted themselves in the water, breaking the ship in its progress.

The crewman beside me broke into laughter. From the helm the captain said, ‘They won’t risk these shallows, and by the time they work out another route we’ll be gone.’ And then, turning to Pasithea with a broad grin on his face, ‘You swim like an oyster-boy, madam.’

She laughed. ‘Little wonder. It was they who taught me. I used to dive off these rocks when the other girls were preening themselves in front of their mirrors, dreaming of marriage.’

‘Well,’ said the captain, nodding and regarding her with new respect, ‘then you are a woman of many skills indeed.’

She smiled and answered, ‘You are not the first man to tell me that.’

Then she pulled out a comb from her dripping robe, and began to arrange her hair.

TEN

THAT AUTUMN I SAILED
for Italy, for the Senate had summoned me to Rome.

Pomponius, with a great deal of solemnity and portentous self- consequence, had relayed the message that I was to brief the senators on Philip and Abydos. On a fresh, clear autumn morning, when the high-city shone like a chryselephantine jewel against an immense blue sky, and the painted hulls of the little fishing skiffs bobbed in the shining water, I boarded a fast Rhodian cutter bound for Brundisium.

I had written ahead from Athens, to tell Caecilius I was coming; but no reply had reached me, and there was none waiting when I reached Brundisium.

I pressed on by the official transport that was waiting, and when at length I arrived at Rome I took a room at an inn on the slopes of the Aventine, in a busy street of shops and taverns. I sent off a note to Titus, to say I had arrived, then ate at one of the taverns, and spent the rest of the day looking round the Forum and the other public places, for this was my first visit to the city my father had so disliked.

After Athens, Rome seemed austere and colourless. I had supposed I should feel at home: instead I felt like a foreigner. I had lived in Greek Tarentum, and then in Greece itself. I had grown used to seeing traders and visitors from every city and race that dwelt about the Middle Sea, each with his own language and dress and custom. Compared with this, Rome seemed like an army barracks, a place without trade and without beauty. Even the food in the tavern was dull, served by an innkeeper whose manner seemed to say: this is what I have cooked today; take it or leave it, it’s all the same to me.

I returned from my explorations to a note from Titus, saying he would send a slave next morning to fetch me.

His house lay a short distance beyond the city walls, close to the Tiber, on the edge of a grassy marsh where cattle grazed.

It was a low, spreading, red-roofed place set on its own beside an oak wood, surrounded by a high wall. It looked more like some old rural farmstead than a town house, and no doubt that was what it once had been, before the city had begun to spread.

I wondered, as I walked beside the slave he had sent to fetch me, how much Titus had changed. Pomponius, who followed every nuance in the political life of Rome like a gambler with his eyes on the dice-table, had said he was now a political force to be reckoned with, and might soon be consul. I knew myself that this had been his hope; but I had not realized he had advanced so fast.

Before I left Athens, Pomponius had spent a good deal of time assuring me he had always been a supporter and great admirer of Titus, whatever false impression I might have drawn from his hasty and humorous words in the past. He hoped I would not forget to mention his name; indeed it would be a kindness if I could remember to make a point of it. I smiled to myself. After having lived so long with my stepfather, I knew sycophancy when I saw it. But still, I thought, as the grazing cows absently swung their heads and eyed me without interest, and I eyed them back, power changes men, and so does success. I hoped Titus would still be the friend I remembered.

But I need not have worried. As soon as the servant announced me he hurried across the room and greeted me with genuine warmth, and sent the servant off to fetch a flask of the best wine in the house.

He was dressed more soberly than I remembered him, in the purple-bordered toga of a Roman senator. His light-brown beard, which had been fair and wispy in Tarentum, was darker and denser now; and he had taken more care with his hair. But his eyes were the same: blue as a springtime sky, full of vitality and dreams.

The servant returned, and while he was busy setting out the refreshments Titus asked how I was finding Rome.

‘I think,’ I said, ‘I must be seeing it with Greek eyes.’

At this he laughed. ‘Dull and provincial, you mean? Well you have seen what you have seen, and one cannot unlearn knowledge. But philosophers and artists are starting to come, more each year; and one day, when enough Romans have seen beyond the confines of their narrow world, they will begin to make changes. A man must first perceive what he lacks, and form a vision of what he wants to make himself. For now, they know only the rough rustic Italian villages, against which Rome is a sparkling cosmopolis.’

He went on to tell me of his political affairs. The land commission had been a success, and this had helped his reputation greatly. The consular elections were coming, and he had been persuaded by a number of Rome’s leading men to stand, in spite of his young age.

‘Will you win?’ I asked.

He dipped his finger in the wine-cup and made the sign on the table the Greeks make against bad luck. ‘I have opponents still. But after what has happened in Greece, they are fewer than they were.’

He paused and looked at me. ‘And here, Marcus, is where you can help.’

I laughed. ‘But what do I know of Rome?’

‘You know what happened at Abydos, and you can tell the senators for me. They know it from dispatches, of course; but they have not heard it from one who was there, who saw it all. Tell them the truth, nothing more or less.’

‘Well the truth is bad enough,’ I said, remembering.

We talked for a while of Philip and of Greece, and all that had happened since last we met. In the midst of this a servant tapped on the door and came in with a note on a piece of folded sealed papyrus.

‘Forgive me,’ said Titus, taking the paper and breaking the seal. I turned away, leaving him to read in private, and glanced idly around the room.

There was a large oaken sideboard by the window, solid old- fashioned work, the kind of thing we had at home in Praeneste. Upon it stood a few vessels of polished bronze – a casket with a lock, a table-lamp, a tray with a stand worked into the shape of stag’s feet.

Beside it, light and delicate next to the solid old bronzework, was a Greek wine-cup, white on black, perfectly made, with smooth shining sides and a leaping Tarentine dolphin painted inside.

It was a beautiful piece, but it made me think immediately of Lucius. Titus had not mentioned him. But when the servant had finished and gone off once more, I asked him how his brother was – making sure to avert my eyes from the wine-cup.

‘Oh, Lucius is well enough,’ he said, assuming a bright expression.

‘He was chosen for the aedileship last year, and—’ He broke off and glanced at me. ‘Well, I shall not pretend, Marcus, not to you. He has not changed as much as I had hoped . . . Yet he is family, for all that, and I must help him where I can.’

Next morning, back at the inn, I was woken early by the noises from the street, which seemed never to cease except in the deepest hours of the night.

I rose with the first glimmer of dawn. I bought a raisin-cake at a food stall, and taking it with me went to sit alone on the steps of the Rostra in the Forum.

The leaden cloud of yesterday had lifted. Crimson streaks shafted across a dappled sky. As I chewed on my breakfast, I gathered my thoughts for the day to come, like a man preparing for battle.

I had gone to bed early, determined to be as fresh and alert as I could for this day; but in the end, with the din from the street, and my own thoughts, I had slept badly, turning over and over in my mind what I should say to the Senate. As the night-hours passed, each version I ran through in my head seemed worse than the last, until even the simplest words seemed wrong, and I felt myself falling into a vortex of doubt and indecision. Eventually, in the silent early hours, I had drifted into sleep, and dreamed bad dreams of Abydos.

Rome is a city built on seven hills. That day, the Senate was holding its meeting in the temple of Good Faith, one of the temples on the hill known as the Capitol, which rises steeply up behind the Forum.

I finished my breakfast and made my way there.

The temple was on one side of the open ground on the summit.

After the buildings of Athens, it seemed squat and plain – old, weathered red brick, faced here and there with grey stone, and, on the eaves, little crude statues in painted terracotta. A drab-looking priest was busy sweeping the open area beneath the porch.

I was much too early for the Senate meeting. But that was as I had intended. After my failed interview with Philip, which had upset me greatly, I wanted no surprises.

For a while I wandered about among the shrines and altars and statues, pausing to look at the piled-up victory trophies – a clutter of old shields weathered almost to nothing; ancient spears, swords turned to rust and verdigris, rough-cut votive figures: all of them mementoes of battles long forgotten and heroes turned to dust.

I stood on the steps of the shrine of mighty Jupiter, and gazed up at the image of the god, frowning and all-powerful, rigid and austere, like the city he watched over.

Soon the sky lightened to a cloud-studded blue and, seeing the senators begin to arrive, I made my way to the porch of the temple, and looked in at the open bronze doors.

The chamber was cold with the morning chill. Sunlight lanced down from tiny high window-slits, casting thin bars of brightness across the wooden benches. At the far end, beneath a wood-pillared baldachin, the statue of the goddess stood on a plinth of black granite. Before her, twigs of fragrant juniper smouldered in an open censer.

The senators were taking their places. They were old men mostly, lean and grave-faced, like veteran warriors or country squires.

At first their age, and their grim unsmiling solemnity, made me uneasy. But then I thought of the Athenian Demos, who in their ignorance were swayed by the honeyed words of every clever speaker who wished to bend them to his will. Better, I thought to myself, to be governed by these stern, serious old men, who knew of battle first- hand, and could weigh up an argument without emotion. They were here, I thought, to deliberate on peace or war; on life or death. It was no place for levity.

Just then Titus arrived with a group of younger senators. He greeted me briefly. I suppose he saw the uneasiness in my face, for he said, ‘Don’t worry. Tell it as it was. They are decent men, even the ones who don’t agree with me, and they know truth when they hear it.’ And then, with a quick smile, ‘—And thank you, Marcus. There is no one I had rather address the Senate today than you.’

Then he went off to take his place; and I waited to be called, and looked out at the far-off Alban hills. Here and there, feathers of smoke were rising. It was the end of the harvest, and the farmers would be burning the old wood from the vineyards. The sight of it made me think of home. I would go there, when my business in Rome was done. But now the usher spoke my name, and I turned and followed him into the chamber, and focused all my mind on the task before me.

My words came out well, for all my night-time fears. I told myself later that it was the shades of the people of Abydos, coming to my aid, and I made a silent promise to offer something to Mars the Avenger, since it seemed this was his business most of all.

The senators heard me out in silence. Afterwards, there was some discussion and questions. Much of it I had heard before, from Titus.

I recall one old senator who objected, and Titus answered him saying, ‘How much longer will you delay? Must we wait till Philip lands in Italy, like Hannibal and Pyrrhos?’

The old senator dismissed his comments with a wave of his arm, as if he had heard it too often before.