Dinner and conversation done, he went back onto the veranda and walked wearily to the officers' quarters. It was like a room in any Roman barracks: a double line of bunks against two walls of the room, pegs above the beds for slinging armor and other gear, a stand against one wall containing pitchers and basins for washing up. The facility was too small to have a true bath, though it boasted a regulation latrine.
He picked a vacant bunk, kicked off his caligae and threw himself onto the bed. Without the worries of a whole legion on his mind, he found it amazingly easy to sleep.
The next morning he woke an hour before sunrise, as he always did, and for a moment was puzzled not to hear the bustle of a legionary camp coming to life. He rose to sit on the edge of the bunk and pulled on his caligae, drawing their laces tight to the ankles, then walked out of the room and back to the mess area. He breakfasted on a piece of tough bread, dipping it into a cup of warmed wine that was half vinegar.
He took his cloak from the rack by the fire where he had spread it the night before. It was almost dry. He wrapped himself in it against the morning chill. Fall was well advanced. When he went back outside, the eastern horizon was showing a streak of gray and a blustery wind whipped up flurries of dry leaves. He walked to the latrine, thence to the stables, where he rousted a stableman with a few kicks and got his beasts saddled and packed. When he rode out, the eastern horizon was pink.
Nine days later, he sat his tired horse on a bluff above the Danubius River, overlooking the capital city of the empire, Roma Noricum.
Chapter 3
The city lay on the northern bank of the Danubius, surrounded by hills once heavily forested but now carpeted with cultivated fields, vineyards and orchards. Smoke rose from the altars before the great temples of Jupiter, Juno, Venus and Mars, and the lesser temples of Mercury, Quirinus, Janus, Aesculapius and a score of others. Its streets were narrow, lined with two-and three-story houses, most of them still built in the traditional Mediterranean
fashion, despite its unsuitability for the climate.
Near the center of the city, on a piece of high ground well above the river's highest flood stage, stood the Curia, meetinghouse of the Senate. It was an austere structure, a slab-sided rectangle relieved by a Doric facade, looking much like the one in Rome of the Seven Hills except for its roof, which was somewhat higher-pitched to shed the occasional heavy snow.
The Curia overlooked the Forum, a broad, generously proportioned plaza that served as marketplace, meeting site for the Plebeian Assembly and the Popular Assembly. It was also the center of most festivals and the setting for the funerals of the most prominent men. Around its periphery were situated altars to the personified virtues: Discipline, Peace, Valor, Social Concord, Liberty, Piety and a score of others. The whole city was dotted with the shrines of lesser gods as well. These were revered by the common people, who found the state gods too lofty and remote.
The state gods were Jupiter, Juno, Saturn, Mars, Vesta and Venus. Other prominent gods had their own temples and cults: Flora, Ceres, Bona Dea and many others. The small gods had shrines, springs, wells and holy groves, both in the city and in the countryside. There were gods for
sickness and for finding lost objects, gods who were patrons of travelers, merchants, craftsmen and soldiers, gods for particular sites. There were gods for every household and for specific parts of each household. It was difficult for a Roman peasant to believe that a god as all-powerful as Jupiter took much interest in his problem with corn rust. But there was a special god, Robigo, who could be invoked to protect the crops from that scourge. All he asked was the sacrifice of a red dog at his annual festival, the Robigalia.
Marcus rode down the bluff and onto the river plain. Soon he passed the great temple of Mars situated by ancient tradition in a field outside the city. He had no temples or shrines within the walls. The broad field to its north was the Campus Martius, drill field for the legions and meeting place of the Centuriate Assembly. It was devoted solely to military purposes and it was dotted with armories for training weapons and armor, sheds for drilling in inclement weather, obstacle courses, even a full-sized replica of an oppidium wall and ditch for storming practice. Every able-bodied Roman male between the ages of sixteen and fifty was a soldier and was never allowed to forget the fact. Most long-service legionaries were drawn from the peasant class, but the artisans and small merchants of the city had to be ready to take up arms when the cornicen sounded the call to the standards.
On most days he would have seen at least a few units on the field training. Boys began training in centuries at the age of fourteen and there were almost always youth classes drilling on the field. This time he saw none. He wondered whether an augur had seen an omen and declared the day a holiday.
He rode into town through the Via Borealis gate. He was tempted to go immediately home and see his family, but it was only mid-morning, so he thought it best to report to the Curia. The streets were thinly populated and he attracted little attention. Returning soldiers were among the more common sights in the streets of Roma Noricum.
Most of the shops he passed were closed and shuttered. The whitewashed walls were covered with scrawled graffiti and professionally lettered announcements. The former were mostly good wishes or execrations hurled at friends, enemies and political figures. One of the latter announced an upcoming gladiatorial contest. One Publius Castricius was putting on a show of twenty pairs in honor of his late father, the former praetor Sergius Castricius. Marcus didn't know father or son, but he hoped he would be in Roma for the fights. It had been a long time since he'd seen a good munera.
Abruptly, the narrow street widened into the broad expanse of the Forum and Marcus felt that he had truly come home. The wide plaza was on low ground, dominated by the surrounding temples, the Curia and Archive, all of them situated on high ground. The Forum was packed with citizens, shouting and arguing, which was what usually happened when a large number of citizens got together, unless they were hearing a speech or attending a sacrifice. They presented a colorful display, for while some retained the traditional white toga, many more favored the striped and checked cloth produced by the Gauls.
On the speaker's platform below the Curia, several orators were haranguing the crowd at once. Marcus suspected that they were Tribunes of the People. Those politicians were the most frequent rabble-rousers and troublemakers. He wondered what shift of policy had set them off this time, not that it mattered lately. It took only a short span of peace to bring all the old resentments out into the open and boiling.
He left his horses in the Curia's stable and made his way back into the Forum and up the stairs of the Senate house. A lone lictor stood in the doorway, shouldering his fasces-a bundle of rods tied around an axe, symbol of praetorian and consular authority. Marcus held up his senatorial dispatch and the man stepped aside for him to enter.
Within, the uproar was even louder than that in the Forum, if only because of the great crowding. The Curia had been one of the first buildings erected when the exiles founded Roma Noricum. It had been built to house a Senate of no more than three hundred members. In little more than a century, the citizen population had more than tripled, both because the old families were making up for their losses by raising many children, and because of the influx of new families. The highest ranking of the latter, families such as the Norbani, were the descendants of the noble local families that had supported the Romans in their conquest of the Danubius basin and its surrounding territories. In return for this invaluable service they had been awarded full citizenship and the greatest of them had been elevated to Senatorial distinction.