Hamicar and Carthage might still await, but this would never be taken from him. He let the intoxication flow through him as the chant went on and on and he knew what it was to be worshipped.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Senate held silence while Publius Gabinius read out the dispatches. They had arrived that morning, two of them at once and both wreathed in laurel. It was a thing unprecedented in Roman history. First, he read the report of the duumvir Decimus Arrunteius. The senators gasped and broke into spontaneous clapping as he detailed the battle, the enemy ships destroyed, the loot taken. Otherwise, they remained quiet.
The princeps came to a momentous passage: "My marines and sailors behaved with uniform valor and discipline. I cannot commend their behavior too highly. Most of them are men from the towns and countryside of Italy, with only a few citizen legionaries to act as their officers. I believe that our Italian allies have rediscovered their manhood forfeited by their ancestors when ours accepted the Exile."
Gabinius looked around him. Some of the senators looked pleased to hear this; others did not. Hostility against the Italians went deep in this body. Most had agreed that the Italians should do the dangerous but menial work of rowing in the new fleet. Many had protested their bearing arms as marines. While sea service was inferior to that of the legions, it was honorable, and many believed the Italians had forfeited all claim to honor when they knuckled under to Carthage in the days of Hannibal the Great. But there had been no choice. They were embarked upon a war of unprecedented magnitude and every citizen was needed for the legions. If they were to have a fighting navy, the Italians had to be enrolled.
Next, Gabinius brought out the dispatch from Norbanus. This time the senators could not keep quiet. The faction that supported the Norbani cheered lustily, and even the old family adherents who despised them made sounds of approval, lest they seem churlish. The totality of the victory lost nothing in the telling, as young Norbanus detailed his ruse, his night march to the battlefield, his daring direct assault upon the Carthaginian camp and his novel assault plan, culminating in the suicide of Mastanabal and his principle officers, the destruction of his army and the sack of his camp. The loot was described in great detail, along with the information that the eagles and other standards captured at the disaster of the Arnus had been recaptured and were returning to Rome with an honor guard, to be deposited in the Temple of Saturn.
Finished, Gabinius closed the wooden case with a snap. "Senators, I propose that we declare ten days of thanksgiving for these great victories. The gods must be thanked properly."
A new family senator stood. "Ten days? These victories deserve a month of thanksgiving!"
Old Scipio Cyclops stepped forward. He had just returned from a tour of inspection in the South. "I agree with our princeps. These are fine victories and I rejoice that the standards have been taken back. But the main Carthaginian fleet is still afloat. The main Carthaginian army is still intact, under the personal command of Hamilcar. Carthage itself still stands. Let us not celebrate foolishly, when so much is left to be done."
"Sour grapes, Cyclops?" jeered the same new family senator. "You are just jealous because our new family commanders are winning glory while your grandson luxuriates in Alexandria, accomplishing nothing!"
Scipio looked at the man scornfully, his single eye glaring down his long nose. "Which one are you? Oh, yes, I remember. I believe I flogged your grandfather's blue-painted backside at the battle of Five Forks."
The senator went scarlet while half the Senate growled and the other half roared with laughter.
The Consul Hermanicus stood. "Gentlemen! Let's not disgrace these proceedings with partisan bickering. The Roman people expect better from us. I propose that we declare fifteen days of thanksgiving, to commence at once and to conclude with the dedication of the recaptured standards at the Temple of Saturn. I further move that the Italian communities that sent men to serve in the fleet be awarded with the status of socii, with full rights of citizenship to be conferred at the successful conclusion of the war, should their actions continue to prove as valorous as they were in this instance."
There was approval and disapproval. There was more arguing. But in the end the proposals carried. Then Herennius, followed by the rest of the Senate, went out into the Forum, mounted the Rostra and read out the dispatches to the assembled citizens, concluding with the actions declared by the Senate. With so many citizens away with the legions, ratification by the Plebeian Assembly and the Centuriate Assembly was impossible, but the tribunes of the plebs carried the vote by acclamation. The mood that had oppressed the city since the defeat at the Arnus lifted, and the name of Norbanus gained yet new luster.
It gave Gabinius much to think about as they all trooped up the winding Clivus Capitolinus, past the restored Archive, up to the crest of the Capitoline Hill. First the lictors with their fasces, preceding the senior magistrates-the consuls and the praetors-followed by the lesser officials, the priests, then the rest of the Senate, and last of all the great mass of citizens.
As they stood upon the great terrace before the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, Gabinius pondered upon this new phenomenon: the Roman warlord. For that was what they were, he knew. The younger Titus Norbanus with his fanatically loyal soldiers-men loyal to Norbanus himself rather than to Rome. His father, now with the other great military command, leading the new family bloc in the Senate and the assemblies and now sure to woo the Italian communities as they gained limited citizenship rights through military service. There was justice in that, Gabinius knew. It was the bullheaded members of his own peers, the old families, who were so stubbornly prejudiced against the Italians, as if a dispute between great-grandfathers had the same immediacy as the present war with Carthage.
And then there was young Scipio, who had no Roman soldiers at his command, but who was a potent force nonetheless. Gabinius had a great fondness for young Scipio and that whole remarkable, irascible family, but the boy was making his own foreign policy in Egypt and playing some dangerous game with the Princess Selene. And that redoubtable woman was playing manipulative games of her own. Word had long come back to Rome, whispered by his many enemies, of Scipio's dalliance with the Egyptian princess. There were strange stories of statues erected in villages and cities all up and down the Nile-statues of Marcus Scipio adorned with the curling ram's horns of Zeus-Ammon. These were attributes of divine kingship.
Alexander the Great had had just such statues erected to himself, to remind people of his divine and royal status.
A Roman god-king? The idea was unthinkable! What had the boy got himself into? But the position of young Norbanus was far more worrying. As he looked about him, Gabinius could see how the people's faces lit up at mention of Norbanus, how they spoke that name with near reverence. He was acquiring something close to divine regard.