The Seven Hills (3 page)

"Some of the Greek cities had similar arrangements," Zeno observed to Izates.

"Why does that not surprise me?" Izates said.

"Your manumission," Zeno said, "is that common among
Romans?"

"Very. What happened to me is what they call a 'testamen
tary manumission.' That means being freed in a will. Impor
tant Romans will free hundreds of slaves in a will, just to
show off how important they are. But Romans free slaves all the time. In fact, only really stupid and unskilled people stay
slaves for life. And when we're freed, we have almost full citi
zenship rights. We just can't hold public office. But our sons can, as long as they weren't born while we were in service."

"Amazing," Zeno said.

Izates cleared his throat. "Actually, my own people have such a custom. Bond servitude is for only seven years. After that, the slave must be freed unless he chooses to remain in
bondage."

"I'll bet your freed bondservants don't have full citizen rights," Gorgas said.

Izates shrugged. "Few have that anyway."

"Tell me about Roman citizenship," Zeno said.

In this way they passed their journey from Capua to Rome.

The city lay in a bend of the river Tiber. It was
not a great river, and the city itself would not have been impressive had it not been for the frenetic level of activity to be
seen everywhere. On a field northwest of the city walls troops drilled to the snarl of trumpets. The sounds of ham
mer, saw and chisel could be heard in all directions. Outside
the walls large farmhouses were under construction. Slave gangs worked on roads, bridges and aqueducts.

From miles away the travelers could see the roofs of the
temples on the hill called the Capitol. Their fresh gilding gleamed in the sunlight,, and as the men drew nearer they saw that the temples had all been newly painted and their stonework restored. The road was lined with tombs, and these, too, had been carefully restored and planted all around with new trees and shrubs.

"They restored the temples and the tombs first," Zeno
noted. "The Romans were a famously pious people."

"It's not much of a town," Izates said.

"Your Alexandria sets a high standard. In Athens, only the Acropolis is truly beautiful. So it is here. It looks as if they took pains to embellish their public places and let the rest of the city sprawl in all directions with no planning. But look at the walls."

"What about them?"

"They have been restored; you can see the new stonework. But they have made no effort to strengthen
them further. They haven't been raised; there are no new de
fensive towers, no protective ditch dug, nothing."

"An odd oversight for people who can expect a Carthaginian offensive at any moment. The army Hamilcar
sent to Egypt is said to be huge, and it must be on its way to
Italy by now."

"I don't think it was an oversight," Zeno said. "I heard that their capital in Noricum has no wall at all. Like the Spartans, the Romans believed that a wall would breed a cautious, defensive attitude. They preferred to entrust their safety to the perfection of their legions. They've restored this wall because it is ancient and was built by one of their kings before Rome became a republic."

"Like these Romans, the old Spartans were arrogant. Where are the Spartans now? The city is nothing and the men are the hirelings of others because they know no art save soldiering."

"Gorgas," Zeno said, "did you spend much time in Rome
after you came south?"

"Just a few days. They were still dredging out the Forum. It had reverted to the marsh it once was
.
There is a vast drain under there, the Cloaca Maxima. It was built by another old king. They were getting it unplugged when my
master took me down to Tarentum. Half the city was still in
ruins. Old Hannibal's men did a thorough job of wrecking the place and after that the people who moved in grazed their cattle and sheep in the public places."

"Who moved in?" Zeno asked.

"After the Romans were exiled there were still plenty of Italians who had never really reconciled themselves to Ro
man rule: Campanians, Lucanians, Samnites, Etruscans and
so forth. They brought their livestock and cut up the old es
tates into small farms. The big plantations are mainly to the
south of here."

"Where are those people now?" Izates wanted to know.

Gorgas shrugged. "Pushed out. Some have hired on as la
bor. Some will probably be tenant farmers for the big Roman landlords. The Romans don't think the descendants of the people who wouldn't go north with the exile to be worthy of citizenship. There is talk that some will be drafted
into the navy Rome is going to build. That way they may in
time earn at least partial citizenship."

They entered the city through a gate whose stonework
was ancient, but its wooden doors were so new that the timbers still oozed sap and their ironwork was still bright. Traf
fic in and out was brisk, but there were no guards to accost them or demand their business.

"This is the Capena Gate," Gorgas told them.

They passed beneath two. aqueducts that ran parallel to
the city wall and thence into a district of low houses. Within
a few minutes they came to a valley dominated by an im
mense structure from which came the sound of intense hammering. The end they came to was rounded and the rest of it
stretched straight northwest for an unbelievable distance.

"No need to tell us what this is," Zeno said. "This has to be the Great Circus." The histories he had read all men
tioned the Romans' passion for chariot races and the unprecedentedly huge structure they had erected for the purpose.
It was built primarily of wood, and wagonload after wag
onload of lumber stretched in
a.
chain from the nearby river
wharfs. Slaves were busily painting away with brushes the
size of brooms.

"The Romans have a taste for the gaudy and garish," Izates said. "When this monstrosity is finished, it will serve
as a new standard for tastelessness."

"Considering the many oversized monuments of Alexan
dria," Zeno said, "that seems unwarranted."

"I confess that my native city is addicted to grotesque
grandiosity. The successors of Alexander sought to cover their backwoods origins with a surfeit of marble and gild
ing. But at least they had the decency to employ Greek
artists and architects who possessed a modicum of restraint."

Zeno had visited Alexandria more than once and had
been able to detect no sense of restraint in the place, but he let it pass. He was more impressed by the Romans' energy
than by their taste, anyway.

The city was built upon a series of low, rolling hills so
that it was difficult to get much sense of it. No sight line ex
tended more than a few hundred yards, and even that was
rare. It did not help that the streets were for the most part
twisting and narrow. Apparently, the plan for rebuilding
Rome did not include improving its layout. The Romans
seemed determined to restore their city precisely to its state before Hannibal destroyed it.

The travelers made their way up one of the better streets,
stepping aside for wagons of building material and tool-bearing slave gangs the whole way, until they entered a
long, broad public space full of monuments and surrounded
by buildings of considerable dignity. Its northern extremity ended at the base of the highest hill, which was topped by the splendid Temple of Jupiter Best and Greatest.

"This is their agora, obviously," Izates said, looking the place over for signs of vulgarity. "It's rather dignified, really," he said, disappointed.

"This is the Forum," Gorgas said. "I see they've cleared away the last of the swamp and cleaned the pavement.
Those biggest buildings are what the Romans call basilicas. They're law courts, mainly. The little round temple is sacred to Vesta, goddess of the hearth. That one partway up the hill
is Saturn's. The big one to Jupiter you already know and that other big one on the lower peak of the hill is Juno's. The little temples surrounding them I'm not sure about. The Romans have more gods and more temples than you can imagine. They even build temples and altars to the virtues: discipline, concord, peace—"

"Peace?" Izates said dryly. "The Romans esteem peace so
highly that they have erected an altar to it?"

"I think we can assume that it's peace on Roman terms," Zeno said. "This seems to be the center of government and
communal activity. Let's find an inn close by. It will be convenient since this will be where we will be spending most of
our time."

They learned that, except for public areas like the Forum, Rome had no sort of districting. Houses, shops, temples, slums, parks, gardens and the town houses of the rich were jumbled together, often so closely that only one-way foot traffic was possible between them. Thus they had no
trouble finding an inn no more than a few steps from the Fo
rum, and nearby a stable to take care of their donkey.

"One thing to be said for a rebuilt city like this," Izates said, surveying the room they had engaged. "Even the inns are too new to have gotten shabby and acquire vermin."

The room was spacious, freshly painted and even featured
a small balcony with potted plants, overlooking the Via Nova, one of the few streets in Rome wide enough for two-way wheeled traffic.

Zeno walked out onto the balcony, leaned on the handrail and surveyed the street below. "Do you know what is miss
ing?" he said.

"What?" Izates asked. "I mean, what besides culture, beauty and learning?"

"Everywhere we've gone since we arrived in Italy there
have been soldiers. I've seen none since we entered Rome."

"Armed soldiers are forbidden to enter the city," Gorgas informed them. "Even a general in command of troops has to stay outside the city walls. When the Senate must confer with the military, they have to meet in one of the temples outside the walls."

"That is a wise policy," Izates conceded. "I suppose that even the Romans must have good ideas upon occasion."

"I noticed some fairly grand temples standing just with
out the city walls," Zeno said. "Most cities have their finest
temples in prominent places."

"It's another Roman thing," Gorgas said. "Certain of their gods are what the Romans call 'extramural.' That means they have all their temples and shrines outside the walls. Mars is one of them. He's their war god, sort of like Ares, except he's also an agricultural deity. His great festival is called the
Martialis
and it's actually a harvest festival, having nothing to do with battle."

"I can see that Roman religion must be a study that will require its own volume," Zeno said.

"Why bother?" Izates asked.

After a leisurely meal they walked out to see the sights. Just off the northernmost corner of the Forum they came to a rather modest brick building. The only thing fine about it was a handsome marble stair and portico with pillars in the severe Doric style. They might have passed it by without another glance, but Gorgas informed them that this was one of the most important landmarks in Rome.

"It's the Curia, where the Senate meets."

"There!" Zeno said, gesturing toward the unassuming facade. "Does that satisfy you? This is where the Romans have held their most important, most solemn debates. This is where their consuls have been entrusted with the powers of war, where policies of diplomacy and foreign relations have been fashioned, yet it is as plain as a Spartan barracks."

"Not what one would have expected," Izates admitted. "Let's take a closer look."

They walked toward the Curia and as they did Zeno declaimed, "A visitor once described the Roman Senate as an 'assembly of kings.' Their dignity and assurance was famed the world over. It is the quality the Romans called
gravitas,
meaning a great and profound seriousness. I will—" As they drew nearer, his words tapered off.

"That's more like it," Izates said, grinning at the sounds coming from within the Curia. They carried no impression of the solemn debate of an assembly of kings.

It sounded like there was a street brawl going on inside.

"Scipio is a traitor!" shouted a red-faced senator. "He directed the defense of Alexandria when a Roman force was a part of the army besieging the city! He must be recalled and tried for treason!"

Another senator rushed over and shook a fist in the man's face. "That besieging army was led by the king of
Carthage!
Is a Roman a traitor for fighting Carthage? That alliance
was never anything but a sham, anyway! It was done only to
get intelligence of Hamilcar s army and tactics."