“We are both caged by Rome.”
“It is a matter of perspective, Thracian. Why are the Getae your enemies?”
“You plundered our villages. You stole from us.”
“Did I steal more from you than the Romans you now so loyally serve…?”
“Batiatus has given me his word. My wife shall be returned to me.”
“And then? How many times must you risk death to buy back your freedom? How many to buy back hers?”
“Winning in the arena is a simpler matter.”
“The cost of your board, the cost of your training. The cost of the acquisition of your wife. How many years do you think you will fight for the House of Batiatus before you gain your freedom?”
“Nevertheless, I shall gain it. Batiatus has-”
“Given his word, so I hear. Have you had much luck with the word of Romans in the past?”
Spartacus brooded silently. Medea laughed to herself.
“I thought not. The Syrian merchants are sure to delight when the Thracians come to town. You fall prey to thieves and then labor willingly to buy back what should already be yours. The Getae are not your enemy, Thracian. The Getae could never hope to hurt you as much as you seem to have hurt yourself.”
“I can buy my freedom.”
“You can. Although your master can also choose to withhold it.”
“He would not.”
“He already does! Your freedom may be granted by a mere wave of the hand. A whim. Why not you? Batiatus could free you this very moment if he truly desired it.”
“You speak, Cicero,” Verres was saying, “of a world absent slaves! As ludicrous an idea as a world absent trees. Where would they all go?”
“Why would they have to go anywhere?” Cicero asked, his palms upraised in an appeal to the crowd. “Why not let them live on?”
“For the reason that a great number should already be dead!” Verres shouted, as if volume alone made his case for him. “On the battlefields of Numidia and Hispania! In Carthage! As the result of countless crimes thwarted! Thieves arrested! Murderers apprehended!” There were cheers from their audience with the name of each Roman victory, cheers with each success of justice itself in the name of the Republic.
“Slavery is the lowest state to which a man can fall and yet live,” Verres continued. “It is the moment before death itself, prolonged perhaps for an entire lifetime. But it is better than death itself. Ask the slaves of this house their preference. Death on the battlefields of Thrace and Africa, or food, shelter and purpose here in the bosom of the Republic?”
“Ah, but it is not their Republic. Their presence here not of their own volition.”
“Their minds should have dwelt upon that before mounting attack, stealing, or-”
“Or having the misfortune to dwell on our borders?”
“You would set them all free?”
“Not every man is fit to be a Roman. But mere cursory observation within these walls reveals the faces of men and women who have yet become Romans within living memory. But a handful of years have passed since the rest of Italia was allowed into the warmth of Roman arms. Many generations hence we may admit the people of Hispania or Greece.”
“But you think there is such a possibility?”
“Of course! And if we may, in time, raise Italians up to glorious rank of Roman, surely slaves can become freemen. Take Tiro, my manservant.”
“What of him?”
“He is a slave, lifelong loyal servant of the Cicero family, practically a member.”
“Would you permit him to marry your daughter?”
Cicero ignored the ludicrous suggestion.
“He did not merely hand me clothing in the morning, or hold basin for my ablutions. He carried my books to school and sat alongside me. In his station as a slave, he witnessed the best education that money can buy. He learned to read Latin and Greek, not merely in the classroom but as my living textbook for revisions. The Cicero family has invested thousands of denarii in Tiro. Think of the working hours lost to us while his mother carried him and nursed him. Think of the food and clothing bestowed upon him while he grew to manhood. The Cicero family has invested far more coin in the rearing of its slave than a Capuan merchant might spend on his own children, and Tiro is the better for it.”
“But is he free?”
“No, he is not free, although he can claim more freedom than a fisherman hauling nets at dawn, or a litter-bearer straining to carry heavy load that final mile at the day’s end. And at some future time, it may be that the Cicero family will release Tiro from bondage, altogether. But with responsibility.”
“How can one free a slave with responsibility?” Verres scoffed.
“By committing such an act when the slave is fit to offer contribution to Roman society, of course. What purpose is there in discarding a slave’s collar if he will become nothing but a beggar? I have no desire to create one more mouth clamoring for the grain dole; one more scream added to the hordes in the arena. Such behaviour is irresponsible. Should Tiro ever be freed, I would desire him to become valued citizen. But we shall see. We are in this position through application of untold generations of our forebears. The day a forgotten great-great-grandfather toiled with extra rigor upon his farm, and had grain surplus for the purchase of more land. No matter what the priesthood may dictate, we are not here solely through the whims of the gods. Venture into the very center of your household, look into that little shrine, and what do you see? A mirror to tell you that you are the axis of your world? No, you see your household gods. You see the symbolic statues and imagines of the uncountable ancestors, your family stretching back into time immemorial.”
“Such is the protestation of a New Man, not a patrician family,” Verres said, waving his hand dismissively.
“We were all New Men once. Maybe not in this generation, but some time in the past. We were not sprung, fully formed, from the brow of Jupiter. Only a fool does not honor his father and mother, and theirs before them, and theirs before them.”
“Where will it end? Do you expect legions led by German generals? Rome ruled by an African?”
At this, there were some titters from the crowd.
“Why not?”
“Ludicrous! Preposterous!”
“And yet but a generation ago it was thought ‘preposterous’ that men from Capua might be regarded as citizens of Rome itself. If Rome extends its reach to include men of worth in Neapolis-men of Greek descent, incidentally-then why not men of other provinces?”
“Why not women, too?” a voice shouted.
“Why not dogs?” a man blurted from the crowd.
“Why not woodlice?” Verres added, to hearty guffaws.
“My horse could be consul!” another man shouted from the sidelines, leading to more laughter.
“What sophistry is this?” Cicero said. “I make a serious, intelligent point, and you seize upon it like Oscan buffoons.”
“A gladiator may win the rudis,” Batiatus interjected.
“Quite so!” Cicero said. “As my good friend Batiatus has taught me! A gladiator fights for his life. He may fight with such bravery, and win such victories, that he might be presented with true freedom and permitted to leave the ludus. Why, what is there to stop such a gladiator, or perhaps his freeborn son, enlisting in the Roman army, and rising to rank of centurion or tribune? What is there to stop such a man becoming a farmer with a life of honest toil? And from there, perhaps, the same course of honors that awaits men of patrician families.”
“Or,” Verres interrupted, “his brutish ways might lead him to fail at farming. His unbridled nature might lead him to desert the army. He, or his hypothetical freeborn son, might turn to criminal acts, becoming robber and brigand. Within a generation your freeborn man might be dead in the street, or choking up our prisons, or reduced once more to slavery.”