Then there was wiry, fretful Betto. He, unlike Malchus, was democratic in pothering equally over every matter, whether large or small. But he was fierce and loyal, and once, not long after my arrival as a newly-minted slave, he had saved my life. The two friends had joined up with Crassus to help Sulla defeat Marius. They were rarely out of each other’s sight. This, though they were almost constantly in disagreement. Betto was river to Malchus’ riverbed. They gave each other form and direction; one without the other would make the world a little less tolerable.
Romans are always at war with somebody. The one that eventually brought Malchus and Betto into the welcoming arms of Marcus Crassus and my grateful company was known as The War of the Allies. Slaughter, when given a name, sounds so much more palatable, digestible. No bloodstained, breathless participant, I can assure you, ever stopped to consider what sobriquet history might bestow upon the present melee while he was in the thick of it.
This particular conflagration had been smoldering for decades, breaking out just a few years before I was taken from Greece. Most of the Italian states, who for centuries had been Roman allies, were of the opinion that Rome had begun to cheat them out of their share of the spoils of war. It had. Because of a handful of Roman laws, the Italian states surmised that their land was methodically and legally being taken from the innocent multitude and redistributed to the wealthy and avaricious. It was. And after all they had done to assist in the growth of Rome’s power and influence, the Latin allies felt they were deserving, at long last, of Roman citizenship. They were.
And so, being thus thwarted and abused, after a time they went to war against the teat that had fed them and then been discourteously withdrawn. They lost. Before the fighting had ended, in an effort to dilute the rebellious Italians’ grievances, the senate passed a law granting citizenship to all former allies who had not raised arms against Rome. This occurred when Malchus and Betto were in their late teens. With more exuberance than forethought, the two friends who had grown up together on the same Perusian street, celebrated by breaking into a wine shop. Consequently, they were ‘encouraged’ by the local garrison to join its ranks. Due to the ongoing rebellion the hurdles of their both being underage and of Betto’s need for thick-soled sandals to meet the height requirement were amiably removed.
Finding that they liked the life of a soldier well enough, they had joined dominus’ army as it rushed to Sulla’s aid to overthrow the tyrants Marius and Cinna, and had stayed on with him ever since. The only time the two soldiers shed their duty as part of the company that guarded the Crassus household was the year and half they had gone off with him to put down the slave rebellion lead by the gladiator, Spartacus.
There being no other viable option, and here I use ‘viable’ in the literal sense, i.e. capable of remaining alive, I took Malchus’ advice, and now, almost three decades after my capture, I strolled with my companions past estates, expensive shops and other wealthy pedestrians traveling the paving stones of the privileged. Citizens nodded politely to me, shopkeepers gave me a warm greeting as I passed; a fruit seller tossed me a plum and smiled. I was welcomed here and accepted-there goes Alexander, chief slave of Marcus Licinius Crassus. What a lucky fellow! It was a brisk, sunny morning, and I smiled as I put the plum in Malchus’ outstretched hand. It was good to be alive.
No, nothing sinister is about to happen; I truly was as thankful as a virgin chosen for the Vestals to be out and about, amongst friends and entrusted to dispatch a weighty charge. But then, being thankful implies the existence of a repository for this syrupy, effusive gratitude, and since my enslavement had cleansed me of any pretensions of belief in benevolent deities watching over me, I wondered to whom my respects ought to be paid. Unfortunately, the only name I could come up with was Crassus. He was as close to a god as I was likely ever to meet. Father Jupiter, indeed. To be a happy slave in a foreign land is to be as plagued with ironies as Hanno was infested with lice when we found him. One is a constant irritant that distracts your attention, fills you with frustration, nags at your enjoyment of any good thing, and if you have any self esteem at all, is a condition of constant humiliation and shame. And to be lice-ridden is a remarkably similar experience.
Oh. I must correct myself, and I do apologize. Something sinister is about to happen. More than one something, in point of fact.
Our route lay across the forum and then northeast. The first time I had seen its broad plazas framed by temples and civic buildings of brick and stone, my awe had been tempered by my exhaustion and malnutrition. Since then, every time my sandals trod upon its worn black stones, I harkened back to the day I had been dragged past the sight of the beating heart of Rome, thirty years earlier. At the time, my own heart was more beaten than beating, led behind the horse of a magnificent centurion to be presented as a multi-lingual gift from a grateful general, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, to his heroic legate Marcus Licinius Crassus. I think about that centurion from time to time and wonder, had he retired to a farm in Campagna, happy with his harvest of grapes and grandchildren, or had he fallen amongst his comrades on some distant, ruined field, defending the honor and the ever-expanding borders of the Republic? What we foreigners have failed to comprehend over the centuries is that the proud centurion would have found either fate equally satisfying. This is why Rome grows, and the rest of the world shrinks.
Chapter VI
56 BCE Fall, Rome
Year of the consulship of
Cn. Cornelius Lentulus Marcellinus and L. Marcius Philippus
If there was grumbling over my insistence that our mission remain strictly business, I could not hear it, for as we crossed the Nova Via at the southeastern border of the forum, a great tumult was occurring at the other end. The echoes of a man in a toga gesticulating on the rostra rolled down to us, held aloft by distant cheers from the crowd.
“What’s that about?” Betto asked with his usual anxiety.
“Keep moving,” I said. “It is either Clodius Pulcher or Annius Milo, riling up their respective mobs.”
“Are we safe?” Betto asked.
“Clodius feigns championship of the plebs, and Pompey has brought Milo up to oppose him, so either side should be content with men of Crassus.”
Betto said, “So this is a polite throng, is it? They’ll stop to ask us who we support before they club us to death. That’s comforting.”
Malchus said, “Within the hour it won’t be safe to be anywhere near the forum, no matter whose side you’re on.”
“Which is why we must make haste.” The narrow box I gripped felt suddenly heavy.
“What’s all the ruckus about, anyway?” Valens asked. “Clodius hates Milo because Milo is Pompey’s man, Milo hates Clodius because he forced Cicero into exile, and just about everybody but Milo hates Cicero. Politics is easy once you know who hates who.”
Betto, who had picked up the pace once he got sight of the crowd, said, “We need elections. If we had consuls by now, we’d have order. The gods hate anarchy. I hate anarchy-it interferes with my peace of mind.”
“Everything interferes with your peace of mind,” Malchus said.
Moments later, even before we had crossed over to the Sacra Via, three ravens flew overhead, one following the other. “Did you see that?!” Betto cried. “Pray the augurs were looking elsewhere. As bad omens go, that one excels, mark me.”