This book is dedicated with much love to my daughter Molly.
Introductory Note
In the second century BC Rome was still a republic, ruled by wealthy patricians whose families traced their ancestry back to the first years of the city some six hundred years earlier. The republic had been formed when the last king of Rome was ousted in 509 BC, and it was to
The courtyard of the house of Terentius Lucanus on the Esquiline Hill had been designed in the Greek fashion, with a colonnaded peristyle surrounding a garden and a pool in the centre. One end had been built up into a stage for performances and the garden had been partly boarded over to provide seating for a small audience. Fabius had followed Scipio and Julia in from the atrium of the house, and sat down with them among the two dozen or so others who had come to see the play. An hour earlier he had left Scipio and Julia at the entrance to Polybius’ house below the Palatine, and had quickly made his way back through the Forum to find Eudoxia, leading her to a hidden garden he knew on the far side of the Circus Maximus. They had met up again in time for Julia to walk visibly through the Forum on their way to the Esquiline, ensuring that word would pass back to her mother and the Vestals that she had not somehow absconded. On the way they had passed Metellus and a group of his friends, all of them the worse for wear, staggering between the temporary stalls along the Sacred Way that were serving wine without restriction now that the procession was over. Metellus had looked darkly at Scipio, swaying slightly with a wine pitcher in his hand, and had followed them with his friends, shouting and jeering, until he was diverted by a favourite tavern near the Mamertine Prison. Fabius knew that the more drunk Metellus got, the more he would want to claim Julia, as his wife to be, and that there would be nothing Scipio could do to stop him without causing a furore within the gentes. Fabius could only hope that the house of Terentius Lucanus was sufficiently far from the taverns to deter Metellus from making an entrance here, and that he and Scipio could spirit Julia away after the play and return her to the house of the Caesares before Metellus could get his hands on her.
As they sat down, a lithe man with the dark skin of an African saw them from the stage and came bounding over, smiling broadly. ‘Julia, Scipio Aemilianus, Fabius. Welcome, my friends. I’m glad you’ve come. We’re waiting for the arrival of my patron and the owner of this house, Terentius Lucanus, who is making a sacrifice in the Temple of Castor and Pollux, praying, I trust, for the success of my play.’
Scipio looked around. ‘A delightful venue, though small and a good way off the beaten track tonight, I fear.’
Terence sighed. ‘I sent plans to the Senate for the construction of a Greek-style theatre in Rome, but they were rejected by the aedile in charge of public works on the grounds that a theatre with seating would turn Romans into effeminate Greeks.’
Scipio grinned. ‘What did you say?’
‘I said he was right, Roman backsides weren’t yet tough enough for stone seats.’
‘You really know how to please them, Terence. I’m amazed you haven’t been hounded out of Rome by now.’
Terence shook his head glumly. ‘As a playwright, you can’t win. I’d wanted to present works of my own, plays in a gritty, realistic style, suited to Roman taste. But no, those who finance my productions insist on pastiches of well-known Greek plays, because they say that’s what the people want. In fact, it’s what my backers want, not what my fans want. My backers want the old, but my fans want the new. My backers want repeats of the same tired old plays that have brought in pots of denarii in the past, and so, they surmise, will do so again. These people are here today only because they are clients of Terentius and are obliged to him. They’ll be talking to themselves all the way through the play, hardly noticing it. The theatre’s been reduced to a place for meeting friends and exchanging gossip, before going off to the real fun in the taverns.’
Scipio was still carrying the scroll he had had with him on the podium while they watched the procession, and Terence pointed to it. ‘It looks as if you’ve brought something else to entertain you as well. What’s the book?’
‘My father allowed me to take what I liked from the Macedonian Royal Library. It’s a copy of Xenophon’s Cyropaedia, the life of Cyrus the Great of Persia. I thought I might have a chance to discuss it with Polybius during a lull in the proceedings, but that was before I knew I’d be able to spend so much time this evening with Julia.’
‘You read for education, not for pleasure?’
Scipio looked serious. ‘I want to know how to live a good life, Terence. Xenophon was a student of Socrates. But it’s true that my interest in learning lies in its practical application, something Polybius has taught me. Xenophon has a practical take on the problems of war. And Cyrus the Great is someone who intrigues me; in some ways he was the ideal ruler, a benign despot. I want to know what it is that makes people willingly follow some rulers, but not others.’
Julia nudged him, grinning. ‘If you’re planning to become the next Alexander the Great, you can’t learn it; either you have it in you, or you don’t.’
‘That’s true enough. But Alexander could have learned a thing or two about the management of empire. We’re still clearing up his mess.’
‘He had no precedent,’ Terence said. ‘But you do, in him. You must take care that the memory of your achievements does not survive only in fragments, like the falling leaves of autumn, dry and brittle and in danger of crumbling into dust.’
‘You assume there will be a life worthy of recording.’
‘Oh, there will be, Scipio. It doesn’t take the words of an oracle to know that.’
‘Well, Polybius will see to my memory. He’s already completed his Histories of the First and Second Punic Wars, though he’s stalling publication of the second volume until he can visit Zama in North Africa and see the battlefield for himself. It’s not often that a soldier has a close friend who is the greatest historian of the day, a man who shares not only my fascination with military organization but also a practical take on strategy and tactics.’
‘Then let’s hope that when he comes to complete his biography of Scipio Aemilianus he doesn’t stall it like that other volume. Histories left unpublished on the death of an author have a nasty habit of being fiddled by the subject’s enemies, or of disappearing entirely.’
Julia spoke up. ‘I will write a history of Scipio Aemilianus, if Polybius does not. I will follow his life as if I were with him every moment of it, even if from afar.’
Fabius looked at Scipio, and saw a shadow flicker over his face. They all knew that time for him and Julia was running short. Terence leaned over and tapped the scroll. ‘I have heard Polybius speak, in this very house after dinner. Beware of monarchical government, he said. Rome has become great because it threw out its kings three centuries ago.’
‘Are not the consuls kings?’ Scipio exclaimed, his unhappiness fuelling his passion, throwing caution to the wind and not caring who overheard him. ‘And the Pontifex Maximus, and the princeps of the Senate, and the tribunes of the people? Are we not ruled by a committee of kings?’
‘If so, they are elected kings.’
Scipio snorted. ‘Kings elected for only one year, who have no time for great deeds, no time for reform, no time to develop proper administration for the provinces, whose tenure of office is dominated by legal pleading and social obligations, the life I spurned when I went to the academy.’
‘A course that your adoptive grandfather Scipio Africanus chose for you.’
‘I wish I had been old enough to talk to him. I wish he had told me that he saw something in me. I grew up feeling an outsider, looked down upon even by the Scipiones for having no interest in playing the political game, as if I were not up to it.’